Volume 22 | Number 7186 | 2 RiyalsThursday 8 June 2017 | 13 Ramadan 1438 www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

Cabinet praises people for standing with leadership

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani led well-wishers to welcome the Emir of Kuwait H H Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, upon his arrival, at Hamad International Airport, on a fraternal short visit to the State of Qatar. The Deputy Emir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani and H H Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Personal Representative of the Emir, and a number of Their Excellencies Ministers were also present at the airport to welcome the Emir of Kuwait.

Emir holds telephone talks with US PresidentEMIR H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani held yesterday a tel-ephone conversation with President Donald Trump of the friendly United States of America. They discussed the latest developments in the region, especially with regard to the Gulf crisis.

President Trump affirmed Washington's readiness to partici-pate in efforts to resolve the crisis in order to maintain the region's security and stability. For his part the Emir expressed his appreci-ation for President Trump's position and his keenness to resolve the Gulf crisis.

Emir holds meeting with Kuwait Emir

Emir of Kuwait H H Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah visits Doha following his visit to Riyadh and Dubaiin an effort to mediate the Gulf diplomatic spat.

The Peninsula

Prime Minister and Interior Minis-ter H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani chaired the cabinet's regular weekly meeting held yesterday at its Emiri Diwan

premises. After the meeting, Deputy Prime Minis-

ter and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs HE Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mah-moud said, at the beginning of the meeting, the ministerial committee formed by the Council of Ministers at its extraordinary meeting on Monday presented a report on the implementation of the plan developed to ensure normal life in Qatar, reported QNA.

The Cabinet was reassured on the progress of the plan, and commended the efforts of government agencies, the aware-ness of citizens and residents as well as their understanding of the motives of the mali-cious media campaign against Qatar and the unjustified measures taken by some neigh-bouring countries.

The Council of Ministers praised the peo-ple's standing and unity behind the leadership. After that, the cabinet reviewed topics on the agenda and approved a draft law on the emblem of the State.

The draft law stipulated that the shape, design, colors and sizes of the emblem of the State shall be according to the said specifi-cations in the annex enclosed with this law. The emblem of the Emir shall be according to the said specifications in the annex enclosed with this law.

The emblem shall be used in the official papers and seals of the State and in publi-cations relating to the bodies of the State and public bodies and institutions.

The use of the emblem for commercial and industrial purposes, paintings, adver-tisements and other unofficial uses is prohibited.

The Cabinet gave also approval for a draft agreement on the cancellation of visa require-ments for holders of diplomatic and special passports between the governments of Qatar and the Republic of Serbia.

The Council of Ministers took appropri-ate decisions on the first periodic report prepared by the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics on national develop-ment strategies, executive plans of government agencies, implementation chal-lenges and proposed solutions. The Council took the decision on the memo of the Minis-ter of Administrative Development, Labor and Social Affairs on the outcomes of the 105th ordinary session of the Executive Council of the Arab Administrative Development Organ-ization and the 54th Ordinary Session of the Organization's General Assembly (Casa-blanca- May 2017). It also took decision on a letter by the Minister of Public Health on a draft law on regulating the marketing of breast milk substitutes and the two ministe-rial decisions implementing its provisions.

The Council also took decision on a let-ter by the Ministry of Transport and Communications on a draft decision by the Minister of Transport and Communications to form a temporary committee for inspec-tion and evaluation.

Reporters Without Borders and RSF (Media rights group) condemned closure of Al Jazeera media network’s office in Riyadh, while Al Arabiya and Sky News propaganda against Qatar is allowed to air.

Huge public support for Qatar through social media for its moderate reactions. Mauritanians gathered in front of the Qatar embassy in Nouakchott to support Qatar and against the government's decision to cut ties.

Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways announced that travellers holding Qatari passports are not allowed to travel or transit through the United Arab Emirates and expatriates with Qatari resident permit are not eligible for visa.

Ankara

QNA

Turkish parliament yester-day approved a draft law on cooperation between

Turkey and Qatar on the train-ing of gendarmerie forces between the two countries. The ratification was based on a secu-rity cooperation agreement that was signed on Dec. 25, 2001 between the Ministry of Interior in both countries as well as a cooperation protocol on the training of gendarmerie forces between the two countries, which was signed on December 2, 2015.

The protocol in question aims to define principles and a frame-work of cooperation between the Turkish gendarmerie leadership and Qatari Internal Security Force in addition to planning and

executing training activities and coordination between the two sides regarding missions and responsibilities.

The protocol stipulates that cooperation fields shall include visiting units, headquarters and institutions; mutual education and training that both sides will provide in schools and training centers and units; training in the field of internal security, com-bating trafficking and organized

crime, intervention in commu-nity events, military police exercises, and dedicating mobile training teams; training on tasks assigned to units, headquarters and institutions of both sides; mutual courses at schools and education centers and units on both sides; mutual cooperation in relation to equipment and development of training-assistance materials; technical cooperation and exchange of information and expertise in issues of common concern; offering consultation services for the aim of transfer-ring information and expertise in technical, logistic and train-ing matters; and sending military personnel from the Turkish general command to receive training courses at the military training and education institutions.

EMIR H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani held a meeting with the Emir of Kuwait H H Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, in Doha yesterday. The Emir of Kuwait briefed HH the Emir on his efforts in trying to resolve the crisis in relations between the State of Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Kingdom of Bahrain, in order to restore the normal relations and the unity of the GCC countries.

For his part, the Emir expressed his thanks and appreciation for the sincere efforts of the Emir of Kuwait to resolve the Gulf crisis. The meet-ing was attended by the Deputy Emir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani, H H Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Personal Representa-tive of the Emir, as well as a number of Their Excellencies Ministers. The meeting was also attended by mem-bers of the official delegation accompanying the Emir of Kuwait.

Philippines lifts moratorium on workersTHE PHILIPPINES' Depart-ment of Labor and Employment has announced the lifting of the temporary moratorium on the deploy-ment of Filipino workers in the State of Qatar.

In a statement issued and circulated by the Phil-ippine embassy in Doha, the department said the lifting of the moratorium covers all workers who applied for Overseas Employment Cer-t i f icate (OEC) from concerned authorities, returning workers, and new workers who are already issued OEC.

The embassy called on Filipino expats to remain calm as there is no reason to be concerned about their safety and security in the State of Qatar.

Turkish parliament ratifies law on training of gendarmerie forces with Qatar

Turkey's parliament has approved a bill, first drafted in May, as a legislation allowing its troops to be deployed to Turkish military base in Qatar.

Investigation team confirms hacking of QNA website

Anyone showing sympathy towards Qatar, or objects to the position of the UAE, regarding the decision of besieging Qatar face a jail term of up to 15 years and a fine of at least 500,000 dirhams ($136,000).

Saudi Foreign Minister's statement that 'Qatar must sever ties with Hamas' is a shock for Palestinian people and the Arab andIslamic nations, says Hamas.

More countries are calling for dialogue as a step to resolve the crisis. Qatar expresses its willingness for dialogue.

MAIN PAGE

THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017HOME

Emir hosts Iftar banquet for heads of diplomatic missions

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani hosted an Iftar banquet at Al Wajbah Palace yesterday in honour of Their Excellencies Heads of Diplomatic Missions accredited to Qatar, Their Excellencies Ambassadors of the State of Qatar abroad and senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the occasion of the holy Month of Ramadan. The function was attended by H H Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Personal Representative of the Emir, and a number of Their Excellences sons of H H the Father Emir.

Ankara

Anatolia

Qatar's liquefied natural gas (LNG) and oil exports will not be affected unless the crisis between Qatar and some Gulf states escalates to pre-war lev-

els, Luiz Pinto, a joint visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center and Qatar Univer-sity told Anatolia yesterday.

Pinto said that the rift would mostly affect Saudi and United Arab Emirates (UAE) exports and re-exports to Qatar, including food and basic goods.

"The persistence of the conflict and Qatar's capacity to use alternative routes and find new suppliers will be key to define the magnitude of the possible short-ages and the inflationary impacts of the crisis," Pinto explained.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Yemen and Egypt announced Monday they were cutting off all diplomatic relations with Qatar, citing national security concerns. West African nation Mauritania joined them on Tuesday and Jordan said it would downgrade diplomatic relations with Qatar. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain further blocked Qatar from their airspace

and requested that all Qatari diplomats leave within 48 hours.

"Unless the situation escalates to pre-war levels, I don't think Qatar's LNG and oil exports are going to be affected - beyond small LNG shipments to Egypt and the region. Tankers and LNG vessels still have access to Iranian and Omani waters," Pinto highlighted. Even in the very unlikely event that Oman joins the embargo, Qatari shipments would still be able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz via the Ira-nian sector, he said.

Pinto added that it is likely that Qatar would still have access to the Suez Canal allowing exports to Europe and that it

would be able to keep on supplying gas to the UAE via the Dolphin pipeline, which connects Qatar's giant North Field with the UAE and Oman. "I believe these two 'choke points' [Suez and Dolphin] are very important indicators of the temperature of the conflict," he asserted.

Pinto argued that, in the event of very extreme circumstances where Egypt and Qatar are formally at war, ships could be banned from sailing in the Suez Canal.

In such a war scenario and given that Qatar provides over 25 percent of the UAE's natural gas consumption, Qatar could also cut off natural gas exports through the Dolphin pipeline and create a severe prob-lem for the UAE, Pinto said.

"Abu Dhabi would not be able to fully replace the Dolphin gas - not enough LNG import capacity is in place. The UAE would probably have to rely on very expensive extraordinary measures such as using upstream solutions to temporarily boost gas output, burning diesel in power plants or even rationing power for certain industries and sec-tors," he said. He concluded that powerful extra-regional stakeholders - mostly Asian countries and international oil companies - would play hard to avoid such a scenario.

QNA

Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrah-man Al Thani said that the

recent measures taken against the State of Qatar were surprising, stressing that what happened was collective punishment from three countries in the region that tried to put Qatar and its people under a blockade.

In an interview televised by the BBC on Tuesday, H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani wondered why the countries in question believed that Qatar was siding with Iran. His Excellency added that all parties involved want a positive relation with Iran and would not want to escalate against any side, but rather resolve disputes through dialogue in line with the principles adopted by GCC leaders.

Responding to a question on tweets posted by U.S. President Donald Trump on countries sev-ering ties with the State of Qatar,

HE the Foreign Minister said that president Trump met with HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and discussed allegations of funding terrorism by countries in the region, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

His Excellency noted that pres-ident Trump repeated that remark several times during the meeting. "And we told him very clearly if there is any allegation we can sit on the table and we can sort it out."

His Excellency added that they assured the U.S. president that the allegations were based on media reports. The intelligence commu-nity, government-to-government relations all know very well about the relation between Qatar and the cooperation between Qatar and the US.

His Excellency added that there was not a single piece of evidence that the State of Qatar was support-ing radical Islamists, adding that official government bodies in the U.S. praised the State of Qatar for its counter-terrorism efforts.

Gulf crisis not to affect Qatar'sLNG and oil exports: Expert

Tunisian President calls for settlement through dialogueTUNIS: Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi has stressed his country's keenness that GCC states overcome their differences through dialogue and understanding in the wake of cut-ting ties by a number of these states with Qatar. Addressing the recent developments on the Gulf front with Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui, Essebsi underlined the need to work to reach solutions for the outstanding issues so as to preserve the security of GCC states in par-ticular and national Arab security in general.

In previous statements, the foreign minister had expressed hope that the crisis would be settled, noting that his country wouldn't like any divisions.

Foreign Minister: Measures taken against Qatar were surprising

Top Emirati diplomat says leaked emails were true.

UAE prevents a Qatari mother to accompany her baby as he holds an Emirate passport.

"The persistence of the conflict and Qatar's capacity to use alternative routes and find new suppliers will be key to define the magnitude of the possible shortages and the inflationary impacts of the crisis," Pinto explained.

Propaganda by some media groups has failed to garner GCC people’s support against Qatar.

Page 8

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Woqod EGM approves key amendments

BUSINESS | 17 SPORT | 24

Volume 22 | Number 7186 | 2 RiyalsThursday 8 June 2017 | 13 Ramadan 1438 www.thepeninsulaqatar.com

3rd Best News Website in the Middle East

RAMADAN TIMINGToday’s Iftar 6:26pmTomorrow’s Imsak 3:04am

THE STATE of Qatar has con-demned and denounced the two attacks which took place in Iranian capital Tehran and left many people killed and injured. In a statement today, the Foreign Ministry expressed Qatar's firm stance against violence and its rejec-tion of criminal acts.

The statement expressed Qatar's condolences to the government and people of Iran and to the families of the victims, wishing the injured a speedy recovery.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a pair of stunning attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 40.

Tehran Police Chief Gen. Hossein Sajedinia announced yesterday night that five sus-pects had been detained for interrogation, according to a report in the semi-official Isna news agency. Sajedinia did not offer any further details.

→ See also page 5

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani met yesterday with Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Qatar, Ajay Sharma. They reviewed bilateral relations and ways to enhance them.

PM meets Britain's envoyQA brings back people stranded in Saudi ArabiaThe Peninsula

Qa t a r A i r w a y s announced yester-day that all three flights organised by the airline last night

to bring passengers from Saudi Arabia to Qatar have success-fully reached Doha.

All passengers arrived safely home in Qatar via Muscat yes-terday. The flights, chartered on Oman Air, departed King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah at 16:00, 22:00 and 23:00 local (KSA) time on Tues-day and landed in Muscat.

A connecting Qatar Air-ways flight then transported the passengers from Muscat onward to Doha.

The airline organised an additional flight with Kuwait Airways yesterday to transport remaining passengers in Saudi to Doha via Kuwait. The flight was scheduled to depart at 19:15 local (KSA) time yesterday.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker said: “Qatar Airways has worked tirelessly to ensure that all pas-sengers were brought home safely to Doha within 24 hours

of the flight cancellations. We have provided additional crew on the ground to ensure that all passengers are being cared for. Our global operations are con-tinuing to run smoothly and remain unaffected.”

The airline said it is sup-porting its staff affected by the situation in KSA, the UAE, the Kingdom of Bahrain and Egypt.

All passengers booked on affected flights will be provided with alternative options, including the option of a full refund on any unused tickets and free rebooking to the near-est alternative Qatar Airways network destination.

Doha

QNA

The Ministry of the Interior has announced the pre-liminary results of ongoing

investigations into the crime of piracy on the website of the Qatar News Agency (QNA) and its accounts on social network-ing websites.

The Ministry said the inves-tigation team confirmed that the piracy process had used high techniques and innovative methods by exploiting an elec-tronic gap on the website of the

Qatar News Agency. The inves-tigation team was able to identify the sources through which the crime of piracy was committed and that process of sorting out and analysis to determine the electronic evi-dence are now underway in order to ensure the judicial prosecution of the perpetrators of the crime. The team con-firmed that the hacked file was installed last April, which was later exploited in the publica-tion of the fabricated news on 24/5/2017, at 12:13 am.

The Ministry of the Interior

affirmed that in the light of the transparency and clarity of the State of Qatar to indicate those responsible for this subversive action, all the results of the inves-tigation will be presented through a press conference of the Minis-try of Interior immediately after the team have completed the entire investigation. The Ministry expressed its thanks and appre-ciation for the fruitful cooperation of the Federal Bureau of Investi-gation (FBI) and the British National Commission for Com-bating Crime (NCA) for their cooperation.

Investigation team identifies sources of QNA website hacking: Ministry

Qatar condemns attacks in Tehran

Passengers booked on affected flights will be provided with alternative options, including the option of a full refund on any unused tickets and free rebooking to the nearest alternative Qatar Airways network destination.

02 THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017HOME

Aster Hospital gets nod to open from Ministry of Public HealthThe Peninsula

The first hospital of Aster DM Health-care in Qatar has received final approval from Ministry of Public

Health to start operations. The 50-bed Aster Hospital is situated

near the Old Airport intersection facing D-Ring Road. The hospital has Operation Theatres, Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Neo-natal Intensive Care Units (NICU), Gastroenterology Unit and Day Surgery.

It has spacious private rooms, con-sultation rooms, and 24-hour lab and pharmacy. The hospital is equipped with an advanced MRI unit. The hospital

structure was completed in a record time of 18 months.

Aster Hospital is a general hospital, which will have orthopedics, gastroen-terology, urology, obstetrics and gynecology, dental and maxillofacial, gen-eral surgery along with general medicine, ENT, paediatrics and neonatology.

Dr Sameer Moopan, Chief Executive Officer of Aster DM Healthcare- Qatar said, “We are pleased to open our dream, the first Aster Hospital in Qatar. Our aim is to be a comprehensive medical service provider with primary and secondary care to our customers. I invite everyone to take a tour of the hospital facility.”

Minimoon to be visible over Doha tomorrow from 6.16pmThe Peninsula

According to astronom-ical calculations, the Moon will reach the

full phase tomorrow at 4:10 pm Doha time, and pass through Apogee point at 1:21 am.

The full moon this month will be a Minimoon or 'Pygmy full Moon', and the full phase will occur near Apogee point (outermost point) on its orbit around Earth, according to astronomers.

Residents of Qatar and the Arab region can see the 'Pygmy full moon' with naked eye after it rises over the Doha sky at 6:16pm.

When a full Moon occurs around Apogee, it's called a 'Micromoon', or 'Minimoon' or 'Apogee Moon'. When a full Moon occurs around Perigee, it's called a Supermoon.

Because a Minimoon (Micromoon) is further away, it looks approximately 14% smaller than a normal full moon. In addition, the illumi-nated area appears 30% smaller, so it might look a lit-tle less bright.

A Micromoon (Pygmy Full moon) phenomenon takes place when a full Moon coin-cides with Apogee (the point in the Moon's orbit farthest from Earth), and it is the opposite of the Supermoon.

A Supermoon occurs when a full Moon coincides with Perigee (the point in the Moon's orbit nearest from Earth).

The Supermoon phenom-ena took place in November 2016.

QC Iftar meals to benefit 56,000 on Gaza StripThe Peninsula

Since the beginning of Ramadan, Qatar Char-ity (QC) has continued to implement Ram-adan Iftar and food

basket projects. The benefici-aries of the two projects during the holy month have been 98,700 people, including orphans, the disabled, poor families and other needy groups.

QC’s Office distributed 8,030, out of 12,258, family breakfast meals till the sixth of Ramadan as part of its fast- breaking project (one family meal is meant for four people). More than 56,000 people, including orphans, poor fami-lies and the handicapped, are

expected to benefit from Iftar meals by distributing this food to the marginalised areas in the Gaza Strip, as well as group Iftar for orphans in partnership with Wajd programme launched by Welfare Association and funded by Qatar Development Fund.

The project was imple-mented with the participation of 37 local institutions distrib-uted throughout the five governorates of the Gaza Strip. Besides, it included the deliv-ery of these meals to about 5,273 families sponsored by QC’s Office in Gaza, in addition to 1,800 families who are not sponsored.

During a group fast-break-ing dinner, including recreational activities and the distribution of gifts, the

sponsored children’s mothers expressed their delight at the activities that strengthen the social ties between the families of orphans. The poor families who are not sponsored expressed their gratitude for efforts exerted by QC in supporting the Pales-tinian people and providing fresh

meals to poor families as well as to other needy groups.

The beneficiaries confirmed the need to continue these efforts to improve the Palestinians’ liv-ing circumstances as they have been under siege for eleven con-secutive years.

Moreover, QC’s Office in the

Gaza Strip continues to imple-ment the food basket project in support of Gaza during the holy month of Ramadan for the year 2017-1438H.

It is expected to benefit 6,100 families, equivalent to 42,700 people from all over the Gaza Strip.

Qatar Charity's food aid on the Gaza Strip is expected to benefit tens of thousands.

The 50-bed Aster Hospital is situated near the Old Airport intersection facing D-Ring Road.

03THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017 HOME

Minister of State for Defence Affairs H E Dr Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah and a number of senior officials of the Qatari Armed Forces receiving the Qatar Armed Forces' Duty Troops from Najran who arrived in Doha yesterday after participating in military operations as part of the Arab coalition forces. The forces in Najran defended the land of Saudi Arabia from any act of aggression. They also contributed to the protection of the southern borders of Saudi Arabia. The troops offered many sacrifices as dozens were martyred and injured in their call of duty for protecting the region and supporting the right of the Yemeni people to a democratic life. The coalition's forces managed as a result of these efforts to free Yemen's temporary capital Aden. They then liberated the remaining governorates of the South to become under the control of the legitimate government, along with the strategic Al Mandeb Strait.

Minister of State for Defence Affairs receives Qatari Armed Forces' Duty Troops from Najran

Qatar backs global efforts to fight terrorismGeneva

QNA

The State of Qatar has stressed its support for international efforts aimed at encounter-ing terrorism and

violent extremism. Qatar also reiterated its

belief that the terrorism of extremist groups is not different from that practised by regimes that use killing, destruction, dis-placement and starvation as a weapon against people, consid-ering that it is a key part of international military coalition against ISIS group.

This came in Qatar's state-ment delivered by Permanent

Representative of Qatar to the UN in Geneva, H E Ali Khalfan Al Mansouri before an interac-tive dialogue with High Commissioner for Human Rights on his updated informa-tion within item 2 of the 35th Session of the Human Rights Council.

Qatar condemned strongly the violations and crimes com-mitted by the Syrian regime and its allies by using various types of weapons, even internation-ally prohibited weapons and targeting civilian facilities, espe-cially medical and educational ones systematically and deliberately.

Qatar also condemned the chemical attack on the town of

Khan Shaykhun, calling for immediate and effective action to protect the Syrian people and hold accountable all those responsible for the violations and crimes committed in Syria.

Ali Khalfan Al Mansouri said what was mentioned by the High Commissioner in his statement on the circumstances experi-enced by the Jews during a certain period of history cannot be placed with the same degree of suffering and tragedy that the Palestinian people are currently experiencing because of Israel's gross violations and horrific crimes committed by the occu-pying power, which ignore all relevant international conven-tions and resolutions.

The Peninsula

Ooredoo volunteers yesterday visited Hamad General Hospital’s Children Ward, to bring gifts and spread joy among young patients

during the Holy Month of Ramadan. The initiative, which saw the volunteers play

and interact with the children and their parents, as well as distribute a special Ramadan gift, was part of the company’s 2017 Ramadan CSR cam-paign ‘Hand-In-Hand’.

Ooredoo’s delegation of volunteers were received by a team of nurses and senior staff from Hamad General Hospital’s Children Ward.

Praising the professionalism and dedication of Hamad General Hospital employees, Manar Khalifa Al Muraikhi, Director PR and Corporate Communications, Ooredoo Qatar, said: “Making sure that those who are sick and in need are cared for 24/7 is a hard task, but the doctors, nurses and

staff at HMC Children’s Ward do a great job. We wanted to help them ensure the children enjoyed the true spirit of Ramadan, which is about joy, reflection and giving, and we hope we helped do this today.”

Qatar also condemned the chemical attack on the town of Khan Shaykhun, calling for immediate and effective action to protect the Syrian people and hold accountable all those responsible for the violations and crimes committed in Syria.

Ooredoo’s delegation of volunteers and HMC officials at Hamad General Hospital’s Children Ward.

Ooredoo volunteers visit kids at Hamad General Hospital

Ooredoo volunteers meet a patient at Hamad General Hospital’s Children Ward.

65 students honoured for memorising Holy QuranThe Peninsula

The Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs has hon-oured 65 students

–citizens and expatriates - who memorised the entire Holy Quran last year.

The awards ceremony was held at Sheikh Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud Islamic Cultural Center. A total of 174 students from the centres for learning and memorising Holy Quran run by the Ministry were picked for the awards. The awardees include 65 students who com-pleted the memorisation of Holy Quran last year, another eight

students who participated in an international Holy Quran mem-orisation competition and 101 students who passed the first course and entered the second phase in keeping with the cur-riculum followed by the Holy Quran learning and memoris-ing unit of the Religious Call and Guidance Department of the Ministry.

“The centres for learning and memorising Holy Quran are receiving more students leading to the opening of more centres and classes in mosques,” said Mohamad bin Hamad Al Kuwari, Head of the Religious Call and Guidance Department.

04 THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017HOME

Alfardan Automobiles reopens BMW Al Sadd showroom The Peninsula

Alfardan Automobiles, the official BMW Group importer in Qatar, has

announced the reopening of its Al Sadd showroom, situated in the heart of Doha downtown.

Driven by the growing demand for premium and lux-urious vehicles, the facility will feature the latest and widest selection of BMW and MINI models, giving Qatar-based cus-tomers an unparalleled opportunity to experience the brand.

Speaking at the official launch, Ihab Allam, General Manager of Alfardan Automo-biles, commented: “We are delighted to announce the reo-pening of our Al Sadd showroom, which is the first Alfardan Automobiles show-room to adopt the BMW Future Retail strategy. As our first showroom, we are also proud of what we have managed to accomplish through it. Since 1996, Alfardan Automobiles has gained a robust share of the pre-mium segment in Qatar, and we are confident that our success

story will continue with BMW Group as it has done over the past 20 years.”

The BMW Future Retail Strategy has been globally rolled out across all importers to ensure all BMW customers are getting the same experience, regardless of their location. The new 1,800 square metre show-room includes a section for BMW models, BMW i, BMW Pre-mium Selection, MINI models and the latest BMW lifestyle accessories section. The team consists of a total of 45 highly

trained staff, including a prod-uct genius. As part of the Future Retail Strategy, product geniuses will be part of the selling proc-ess and help answer questions, or demonstrate features, to customers.

The ceremony of the new Al Sadd Showroom highlighted the 20th anniversary of the show-room, as well as the partnership between Alfardan Automobiles and BMW Group – both starting in 1996. The showroom is now open to the public and is stocked with all the latest models.

Omar Al Fardan, President and CEO of Al Fardan Group and Hassan Al Fardan, Chairman of Al Fardan Group and United Development Company with other officials during the reopening of BMW Al Sadd showroom. Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula

The new Al Sadd showroom. Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula

Quality to increase imports of food & consumer goodsThe Peninsula

Quality Group has decided to increase the direct import of food and consumer goods, from different

regions of Asia, Europe and the Far East.

The move is to import dif-ferent variety of fruits, vegetable, cereals, raw food, meat, egg, chicken, meat and other consumer goods from dif-ferent countries and also to assure the smooth and uninter-rupted supply of products through the retail outlets in the country.

"We have a plan to increase our food imports especially in

fresh food like vegetables, fruits, sea food and poultry products from the producers in Asia, Europe and the Far East coun-tries," Shamsudheen Olakara, Chairman of the Group said in a statement.

"The market situation in Qatar is normal and prices are fluctuating within the stable limit. We can assure our cus-tomers the smooth and

uninterrupted supply of most food items for a two-three months period with our present self-sufficient stock," he said.

"Qatar Foods, Quality Fruits & Vegetables, Middle East Importers, Quality Foods & Services, our wholesale divi-sions are also ready to serve the people with sufficient products for the coming months through increased direct import," Olakara added.

The import of food and other necessities to Qatar, will progress as usual. All stringent measures to ensure the safety of imported fruits, vegetables and other food items are also being taken, he said in the statement.

Quality Retail Group to ensure more direct imports from Asia, Europe and the Far East.

Inspections being conducted at food outlets.

Shamal Municipality conducts inspections on food outletsThe Peninsula

The Health Monitoring Section at Al Shamal Municipality conducted inspection visits on food outlets to make sure that outlets are

complying with health regulations.The campaign focuses on eateries which pro-

vide and prepare Iftar to be sure about its safety, and the campaign came in the framework to tighten monitoring on food outlets during Ramadan. The inspectors provided tips to workers at food outlets about the need to apply health regulations and to offer the appropriate conditions for food safety regarding maintaining appropriate temperature. The aim is to increase health safety levels among workers and also to detect violations.

All municipalities are also conducting inspec-tion raids since the beginning of Ramadan against food outlets especially eateries.

Inspectors focus more on preparation of the food and storage in healthy conditions, in

addition to its transportation which should meet technical specifications.

The campaign also includes raising aware-ness among food outlet directors about the use of best health practices, in addition to making sure that food is well cooked. The food must be stored at more than 65 degrees celsius for hot ones, and less than 5 degrees for cold ones. Storing food at unsuitable temperatures may spoil it and may lead to food poisoning.

Meanwhile, The Beaches and Islands Section at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment recently cleaned the port of Al Khor from wastes.

A large quantity of plastics boxes and aban-doned tyres, in addition to fishing nets and wooden boxes were removed .

The Beaches section urges people to support the its efforts to maintain beaches and islands clean by throwing waste in proper places and not throw wastes in the sea because such work causes a damage to the marine environment.

Eid Charity spends over QR4.7m for the needy in Qatar this yearThe Peninsula

Eid Charity provided finan-cial support including cash, monthly expendi-

tures and food items worth over QR4.7m to poor families and individuals- citizens and expa-triates in the country during the first five months of this year.

The social centre of Eid Charity has been offering money to poor people and families for their monthly expenditures, food items, packets of cooked foods and in-kind materials, said a release.

More than 139,000 families and workers benefitted from ready-foods and food items dis-tributed by food saving section, an arm of Eid Charity during past five months from January to May, 2017. In addition, thou-sands of families also received in-kind materials.

The cash was distributed to poor families, widows, divorcees and limited income people. Some 95 patients were given QR829,000 to pay their medi-cal bills. Families suffering from financial problems for some rea-sons were also provided cash.

Charity offered QR793,786 to 61 loan defaulting people to repay their bad loans. The ben-eficiaries have financial

liabilities in small and unable to repay due to some financial problems. The financial support helped them return to their nor-mal life.

At least, 475 poor families were provided cash for monthly expenditures as their income was not enough to pay house rent, foods and cloths and other basic needs.

Another 84 families were provided monthly expenditures at a cost of QR192,000. They received cash from QR1,000 to QR10,000 as per the financial situation and number of the family members.

Ration coupons worth rang-ing from QR300 to QR1,000 were distributed to 260 families to buy food items from a shop-ping complex.

The food saving unit distrib-uted 162,000 packets of ready-foods to poor families and workers. The unit also gave 40 tonnes of basic food items to 126,000 workers and 13,000 families.

The in-kind supporting unit distributed 31,000 in-kind used materials donated by the peo-ple in Qatar. Thousands of poor people benefitted from the materials.

Eid Charity officials dispatching materials for the needy.

05THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017 MIDDLE EAST

Turkey Parliament ratifies Qatar military dealsAnkara

Reuters

Turkey brought forward troop deployment to Qatar yesterday and also pledged to pro-vide crucial food and

water supplies. Turkish President Recep

Tayyip Erdogan has said isolat-ing Qatar would not resolve any problems. Erdogan said Ankara would do everything in its power to help end the regional crisis.

Lawmakers from Erdogan's ruling AK Party and the nation-alist opposition MHP were the main backers of the bill that allows troops to be deployed to Turkey's base in Qatar, but the main opposition CHP party said the timing sent the wrong message.

The Turkish parliament has also endorsed an accord between the two countries on military training cooperation. Both bills were drawn up before the spat erupted.

Turkey's main exporters' body said it was ready to meet food and water supply demands from Qatar, after a Qatari offi-cial said Doha was in talks with Iran and Turkey to ensure trade disruptions did not create shortages.

Grain traders said Qatar appears to have a comfortable immediate supply of wheat.

"Qatar recently purchased about 20,000 tonnes of Russian milling wheat which according to my calculations has just

arrived in past days or will arrive in coming days," one European grain trader said.

Turkey set up a military base in Qatar, its first such installa-tion in the Middle East, as part of an agreement signed in 2014. In 2016, Ahmet Davutoglu, then Turkish prime minister, visited the base where 150 personnel are already stationed, the Turkish daily Hurriyet reported.

In an interview in late 2015, Ahmet Demirok, Turkey's Ambassador to Qatar at the time, said 3,000 ground troops would eventually be deployed at the base, which was primarily to serve as a venue for joint train-ing exercises.

The text of the draft bill, which includes the agreement between Qatar and Turkey on the base, shows the cooperation will be primarily about the mod-ernisation of Qatar's military, as well as widening cooperation in training and war exercises.

The bill did not specify how many troops would go nor when.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) and Turkish Minister of Interior, Suleyman Soylu (second right) attend an Iftar with Internal security units at the Police Special Operation Department's Headquarters in Golbasi district of Ankara, yesterday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said isolating Qatar would not resolve any problems. Erdogan said Ankara would do everything in its power to help end the regional crisis.

Syrians, who fled the IS stronghold of Raqqa, arrive in an area near the village of Balaban, south of Jarablus, yesterday.

US-backed forces gain ground against IS in RaqqaBeirut

AFP

US-backed fighters gained ground against the Islamic State group in the streets

of Raqqa yesterday, their com-mand said, a day after breaking into the IS's Syrian bastion. The Syrian Democratic Forces have spent months advancing on the northern city and finally thrust into the eastern neighbourhood

of Al-Meshleb on Tuesday. The Arab and Kurdish fight-

ers captured the neighbourhood and the Harqal citadel to the west of the city, the command of Operation Wrath of the Euphra-tes said. The citadel sits on a hilltop roughly 2km from the city limits. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there was also fighting inside the Division 17 military complex, around two kilometres north of Raqqa, but

the area had been heavily mined by IS. The Britain-based moni-toring group said the US-led coalition had carried out heavy bombing raids on the city over-night. Captured by the militants in early 2014, Raqqa became notorious as a hub for IS's oper-ations in Syria, Iraq and beyond.

The city has been the scene of some of the group's worst atrocities, including gruesome executions.

US finds March bombing in Syria legalWASHINGTON: A US mil-itary investigator said yesterday that a March 16 air strike near Aleppo, Syria was a valid and legal attack on a meeting of Al Qaeda fighters and did not kill dozens of civilians as reported by human rights groups.

An investigation of the attack on a building in Al-Jina village was able to identify only one per-son who might have been a civilian who was wounded or possibly killed, Army Brigadier General Paul Bontrager, deputy director for oper-ations for US Central Command, told a Penta-gon briefing by telephone. "We considered media reports that indicated a large number of civilians were killed, but our inves-tigation did not uncover evidence to support those claims," said Bontrager, who acknowledged investigators were una-ble to visit the scene or talk to anybody who was on the ground at the time.

The Syrian Observa-tory for Human Rights, a British-based war moni-tor, had said at least 49 people were killed and dozens wounded, which the Pentagon denied at the time.

The group identified the building as a mosque and said it was filled with worshippers.

06 THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

First IS attacks in Iran: 12 deadTehran

AFP

Gunmen and suicide bombers stormed Iran's parliament and the shrine of its rev-olutionary leader

yesterday, killing 12 people in the first attacks in the country claimed by the Islamic State group.

Dozens were injured in the attacks, which targeted two of Iran's most potent symbols: its parliament complex in central Tehran and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who led the 1979 Islamic revolution.

In a statement after the attacks, President Hassan Rou-hani called for global unity against violent extremism.

"Iran's message as always is that terrorism is a global prob-lem, and unity to fight extremism, violence and terrorism with regional and international coop-eration is the most important need of today's world," he said.

The country's powerful Rev-olutionary Guards vowed revenge for the attacks and claimed the United States and Saudi Arabia were "involved".

The standoff lasted around five hours before all the gunmen holed up in parliamentary office buildings were killed.

IS released a video of the attackers from inside the build-ing via its Amaq propaganda agency — a rare claim of respon-sibility while an attack was still going on, suggesting a degree of coordination.

Tehran is deeply involved in fighting the IS group in both Syria and Iraq. The assaults began mid-morning when four gunmen burst into the parliament com-plex, killing a guard and one other person, according to the

ISNA news agency.The parliament attackers

were in their early 20s and spoke Arabic, according to a Revolu-tionary Guards intelligence official.

Another official said they were dressed as women and entered through the visitors' entrance. One eventually exploded a suicide vest while the others were killed by security

forces. One man, recovering in a hospital bed, told state TV he was waiting to meet an MP when the shooting began.

"I was in the visitors' lobby and suddenly shooting began. There were women and children. I escaped towards the parlia-ment, and was shot in the leg while running," he said.

At roughly the same time, two assailants entered the grounds of the Khomeini mau-soleum, killing a gardener and wounding several other people. One detonated a suicide vest, while the other was shot dead.

It was not clear whether the shrine attackers were women, as earlier reported, or just wear-ing female clothing.

Iran's emergency services said a total of 12 people were killed in the two attacks and 46 wounded. In a statement after the attacks, the Guards said they "will never allow the blood of

innocents to be spilt without revenge".

"This terrorist action... after the meeting of the president of the United States with the leader of the one of the region's reac-tionary governments... shows they are involved," it added, referring to US President Don-ald Trump's recent visit to Riyadh.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attacks would "certainly reinforce the determination of Iranians to fight against terrorism".

Parliament was in session as the violence unfolded and mem-bers were keen to show they were undeterred, posting selfies showing themselves as calm and continuing with regular business.

Meanwhile, gunshots contin-ued in the neighbouring office buildings, with police helping staff to escape from windows

and snipers taking position from rooftops.

Speaker Ali Larijani dis-missed the attacks, saying they were a "trivial matter".

The intelligence ministry said there had been a third "terror-ist" team that was neutralised before the attacks started.

Tehran was on lockdown, with streets blocked and parts of the metro closed.

Messages of support were sent by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Syrian foreign ministry.

The three countries are close

allies in the fight against rebels and militants groups in Syria. Iran has also been helping to bat-tle IS in Iraq, which also sent its condolences.

Militant groups have clashed frequently with Iranian security forces along the borders with Iraq and Afghanistan, but the country has largely escaped attacks within its urban centres.

The intelligence ministry said in June 2016 that it had foiled an IS plot to carry out multiple bomb attacks in Tehran and around the country.

Iranian lawmakers sit inside the parliament during an attack in central Tehran as policemen evacuate a child from the parliament building, yesterday.

Dozens were injured in the attacks, which targeted two of Iran's most potent symbols: its parliament complex in central Tehran and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini.

People stand over the bridge as the huge waves hit coastline during the heavy storm in Cape Town, yesterday.

Nigeria adrift as leader in London for treatment

Boko Haram launches major attack in MaiduguriMaiduguri

Reuters

Suspected Boko Haram fighters attacked the city of Maiduguri in

northeast Nigeria yesterday, the militant group's most serious assault on the regional capital in a year and a half.

The raid comes six months President Muham-madu Buhari said Boko Haram had "technically" been defeated by a military campaign that had pushed many jihadists deep into the remote Sambisa forest, near the border with Cameroon.

Aid workers and wit-nesses reported explosions and heavy gunfire for at least 45 minutes in the southeast-ern and southwestern outskirts of the city. Thou-sands of civilians fled the fighting, according to witnesses.

Nigeria's military said it had contained the attack.

"The situation in Maidug-uri is under control," it said in a statement, urging the city's inhabitants not to panic.

Maiduguri in Borno state has been the epicentre of the eight-year fight against Boko Haram but has been rela-tively free of violence since the beginning of 2016, bar-ring sporadic suicide bombs on its outskirts.

Fighter jets roared over-head as soldiers and police sped towards the scene, the witnesses said. Three chil-dren were hit by bullets, one witness said.

Lagos

AP

Nigeria, West Africa's economic and military powerhouse, is adrift as

President Muhammadu Buhari (pictured) has been in London for medical treatment for a month as of yesterday, wor-rying many that his undisclosed health problems have left Africa's most popu-lous country without strong direction.

The president's prolonged absence has created "a vac-uum," said Dapo Alaba Sobowale, the head of a small IT company in Lagos' sprawl-ing Computer Village, where small shops and vendors line the streets selling mobile phones and computer gadgets.

"A lot of people are rely-ing on him," Sobowale said. He said he isn't bothered about who, exactly, is sitting in office. "I'm bothered about the per-son being there making the right choices," he said.

Buhari, 74, went on med-ical leave to the United Kingdom on May 7 for unspec-ified health problems. He had already been in London for nearly seven weeks earlier this year for treatment. He looked thin and frail when he returned to Nigeria, where he later missed three consecutive weekly Cabinet meetings. On his return, he said he'd never been as sick in his life.

Government officials and Buhari's family have sought to reassure Nigerians who have expressed their worry about his absence on social

media under hashtags like # W h e r e I s B u h a r i a n d #MissingPresident.

On Tuesday, Aisha Buhari, the president's wife, said her husband is "recuperating fast" after she returned to Nigeria from visiting him in London. "He thanks Nigerians for their constant prayers for his health & steadfastness in the face of challenges," she tweeted.

Buhari's long absences this year have raised questions over whether the former mil-itary leader from northern Nigeria will be able to com-plete his four-year term that is up in 2019 and kicked off speculation over who might succeed him. This is especially important in Nigeria because an unwritten agreement main-tains the presidency should alternate between the Muslim-majority north and Christian-dominated south. Nigeria's 170 million people are almost evenly divided between Christians and Mus-lims. Buhari was elected in 2015 after defeating incum-bent Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner, on campaign promises to battle corruption and crack down on Boko Haram extremists in the

nation's northeast. Buhari's administration, which marked two years in office on May 29, has a mixed track record of fulfilling those promises, ana-lysts say.

Although the military has dislodged Boko Haram from areas where it had declared a caliphate, Nigeria's homeg-rown extremists continue to carry out suicide bombings and attacks. A rail-thin Buhari welcomed 82 Chibok school-girls who were released by Boko Haram in May after three years in captivity and then he flew to London that night.

This is not the first time Nigeria has experienced an ailing, absent president. In 2010 President Umaru Yar'Adua died after being out of the country for medical treatment for several months.

8 dead as storm brings rain to Cape TownJohannesburg

AP

At least eight people were killed in a storm that swept into the Cape Town

area, which has been suffering from a severe drought, South African authorities said yesterday.

Victims included four peo-ple who died in a fire caused by lightning and one who was killed when a home collapsed, local media reported. One outlet, Jaca-randa FM, attributed the death toll of eight to James-Brent Styan, a provincial official.

Cape Town workers said they had taken measures to protect

some poor residents, who live in sprawling neighbourhoods of makeshift homes. However, hun-dreds of homes were flooded or damaged, authorities said.

The storm forced President Jacob Zuma, who was in Cape Town, to cancel a speech to an international media conference in Durban, a city on the Indian Ocean coastline, his office said. He was due to address an annual congress organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. The South Afri-can military said it had placed a helicopter on standby to help with any emergency evacuations in Western Cape province, which includes Cape Town.

07THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017 ASIA

NEWS BYTES

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka and China have signed a MoU to con-struct a hospital for kidney patients in the island nation's North Central province. The National Nephrology Hospital at Polonnaruwa is to be built under a donation of the Chi-nese government at the request of Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, Xinhua news agency reported. Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine Ministry official Janaka Sri Chandraguptha signed the MoU with a Chinese diplomat, Yang Zuoyuan. President Sirisena was present at the cere-mony. The hospital will have 200 beds, 100 blood dialysis machines and a modern surgery complex. The facility will cover Polonnaruwa and surrounding areas like Trincoma-lee, Hambantota and Kandy.

KATHMANDU: Sher Bahadur Deuba was sworn in as the 40th Prime Minister of Nepal yesterday. President Bidya Devi Bhandari administered the oaths of office and secrecy to the newly-elected Prime Minister at a ceremony in the capital. After taking the oaths, Deuba — who is also Nepali Congress President — administered oaths to seven new min-isters -- three from the Nepali Congress (NC), three from CPN (Maoist Centre) and one from the Nepal Loktantrik Forum. Deuba returned to power for the fourth time on Tuesday -- 12 years after he was removed by then King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev — with 388 votes in his favour out of 593 voters in Parliament.

SHILLONG: An Army Major, three militants and a civilian were killed in a gunfight between security forces and ter-rorists early yesterday in Nagaland's Mon district bordering Myanmar. Three Army Para commandos were injured in the gun battle at Lapa Lempong hilltop in Oting village. One of them was flown to a military hospital in Jorhat in Assam in critical condition. The Army said an AK-56 assault rifle, two Chinese-made AK rifles, two grenades, three impro-vised explosive devices and 270 cartridges of AK-series firearms were seized from the spot. The deceased officer was identified as Major David Manlun of the 164 Brigade of the Territorial Army.

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will leave today for Astana, in Kazakhstan, to attend the Shanghai Coopera-tion Organisation (SCO) Summit where India is expected to be granted full membership of the Eurasian political, eco-nomic and military bloc. India, which has been an observer to the SCO since 2005, was informed in the 2015 Summit in Ufa, Russia, that it would be granted full membership and the process for this started from the 2016 Summit in Tashkent. With Pakistan also expected to be granted full member-ship at the Astana Summit, the two South Asian neighbours are going to be the seventh and eighth members of the SCO.

Sri Lanka & China sign MoU on hospital

Deuba sworn in as Nepal Premier

Five dead in Nagaland encounter

Modi to attend Astana SCO Summit

A Kochi Metro train leaves Changampuzha Park station during its trial run in Kochi, yeserday.

Kochi Metro trial run

New Delhi

IANS

The Election Commis-s i o n y e s t e r d a y announced that voting, if required, to elect India's next President

will take place on July 17 and counting thereafter on July 20.

The last date for filing nom-inations is June 28 while scrutiny of nominations will take place on June 29, Chief Election Com-missioner Nasim Zaidi told media persons here. The last date for withdrawal is July 1.

"The date on which polling will be held, if required, is July 17. Counting, if required, will be done on July 20," Zaidi said.

The term of President Pranab Mukherjee, the country's 13th President, will end on July 24.

Zaidi said members of the electoral college -- comprising

members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha and state assem-blies, including Delhi and Puducherry -- will be provided special pens to cast their ballot and use of any other pen will render the vote invalid.

The poll announcement has set the ball rolling for the decla-ration of candidates by the ruling National Democratic Alliance and the opposition parties for the country's highest elected office.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA, which is seen to have a clear edge in the electoral college, has so far not given any indication about its choice.

Several opposition parties have since held parleys to find a consensus candidate but have

decided to wait for the ruling alli-ance to reach out to them with the name of its candidate.

The parties have said that if a consensual candidate does not emerge, they will field a candi-date "who will steadfastly defend the constitutional values".

Congress President Sonia Gandhi has initiated moves to bring the opposition parties on a common platform for the pres-idential and vice-presidential elections.

The term of Vice President Hamid Ansari will end in August.

Zaidi said that Lok Sabha Secretary General Anoop Mishra will be the Returning Officer for the presidential poll and ballots will be cast in Parliament House

and in the respective state assemblies. The counting of votes will take place in the national capital under the super-vision of the Returning Officer.

The Chief Election Commis-sioner said presidential election will take place through secret ballot and political parties "can-not issue any whip" to their respective MPs or MLAs.

The election is held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote. Every elector can have as many preferences as the candi-dates contesting the election and the winner has to secure the required quota of votes to be declared elected -- 50 per cent

of the valid votes plus one. Zaidi said a nomination

paper has to be backed by at least 50 electors as proposers and at least 50 electors as seconders.

He said Assistant Returning Officers will be appointed in all state capitals, besides Delhi and Puducherry, to ensure smooth logistics for the election. He said each candidate will be allowed to deploy a representative at the venue of polling.

Zaidi said MPs are expected to vote in Parliament House in Delhi and the MLAs in their respective assemblies but they can vote at another polling sta-tion in case of exigency after applying to the poll panel in advance.

Indore

IANS

Fresh violence erupted in Madhya Pradesh yesterday as protesting farmers

indulged in arson, a day after the police gunned down up to eight peasants demanding relief from debts and higher crop prices. Hundreds defied curfew in Mandsaur where police opened fire on Tuesday at a mob of farmers, leaving five dead according to official count and eight according to farmer leaders.

And some 200km away, a group of farmers marched to a police station in Dewas district and set fire to vehicles parked there. The government of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan tried to douse the fires by announcing financial compen-sation for those killed in the violence and said he was ready for talks with farmers.

"I am a farmer and under-stand your problems. You can be assured your government will implement all promises," Chou-han tweeted, urging people to maintain calm and not pay heed to rumours.

In New Delhi, Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi, who has promised to double farmers' income by the end of his first term in 2019, met Home Minis-ter Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari.

The Home Ministry has sent

1,100 anti-riot police to Madhya Pradesh. The extra forces would be deployed in violence-hit Ujjain, Dewas, Mandsaur, Nee-much and Sehore, an official said.

But tension was still high as angry farmers blocked roads and also attacked two senior officials at Mandsaur. Mobile connectiv-ity has been cut and thousands

of police in riot gear were deployed.

Mandsaur District Magistrate Swatantra Kumar Singh and Indore Superintendent of Police O.P. Tripathi were roughed up when they reached Barkheda Pant where the farmers were squatting on a road with the body of one of those killed on Tuesday.

New Delhi

IANS

The Supreme Court yes-terday said it will hear, on June 15, a plea chal-

lenging the Central government notification pro-hibiting sale and purchase of cattle at animal markets for slaughter on the grounds that it violates the right to free trade.

Petitioner Mohammed Abdul Faheem Qureshi has also challenged the Preven-tion of Cruelty to Animals (Care and Maintenance of Case Property Animals) Rules, 2017 which deals with the sei-zures, recovery of the cost of transportation, maintenance and treatment of seized animals.

Hearing counsel Sano-bar Ali Qureshi, appearing for the Hyderabad-based petitioner, a vacation bench of Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice Deepak Gupta listed the matter for hearing on June 15.

Faheem Qureshi, who is himself a lawyer, contended that the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017, which bans sale of cat-tle for slaughter and restricts cattle trade to farm owners, is arbitrary, illegal, and unconstitutional.

New Delhi

IANS

CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury was roughed up by two youth

at a press conference here yes-terday. The two who belong to Hindu Sena were handed over to police.

Enraged members of the Communist Party of India-Marxist pounced on them and thrashed them before handing over the pair to police.

Yechury, who was address-ing a press conference on the violence in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur where five protest-ing farmers were killed in alleged police firing, described the attack on him as an attempt by the RSS "to silence the voices of dissent". "We will not be cowed down by Sangh goond-agardi to silence us. This is a battle for the soul of India, which we will win," he tweeted.

Upendra Kumar and Pawan Kaul were taken at Mandir Marg

Police station after the incident. The Hindu Sena activists entered the CPI-M office premises in Gole Market area of central Delhi while chanting 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' and slogans against him, a police official said.

Hindu Sena President Vishnu Gupta said that their two party workers were detained by police "for staging a peaceful protest against CPI-M for their article against the Indian Army" and had done "nothing" but only demanded the party apologise.

New Delhi

AFP

An explosion at a fire-works factory in central India yesterday killed 20

workers and injured 10 others, some with serious burns, an official said.

Dozens of employees man-aged to escape unhurt but firefighters spent two hours bringing the major blaze under control in Balaghat district of Madhya Pradesh state.

"A total of 20 charred bod-ies have been pulled out of the factory," local administrative chief Bharat Yadav told AFP from the accident site.

"The rescue operation is over now, we have cleared the place and thankfully no one is trapped inside," he added.

Yadav said it was unclear what caused the blast, but sus-pected a worker may have callously tossed a burning beedi (a local type of cigarette) inside.

"What exactly triggered the fire is not yet known. It is pos-sible that someone might have thrown a burning beedi," he told the Press Trust of India.

Madhya Pradesh's Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan offered his condolences on Twitter, announcing compen-sation of Rs200,000 each for the families of the dead.

India to vote for next president on July 17

Fresh farmers' protests in MP after police firing

Demonstrators burning an effigy depicting Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan during a protest organised by opposition Congress Party in Bhopal, yesterday.

CPM leader Yechury manhandled during press conference in Delhi

SC to hear plea against cattle rules

Firecracker factory blast leaves 20 dead in MP

Nominations

The last date for filing nominations is June 28 while scrutiny of nominations will take place on June 29, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi told media persons. The last date for withdrawal is July 1.

The government of President Ashraf Ghani in Afghanistan is accelerating the fight against the Taliban and other militant forces after the deadliest ever attack in Kabul in which the death toll has jumped

from 90 to at least 150. Afghan leaders met officials of two dozen foreign government and institutions this week launching what is called a Kabul Process for peace talks. The initiative is the direct result of the Kabul bombing, which was a clear indication of the increased ability of militants and insurgents to launch deadly attacks. The severity of the attack has also sent signals to the US that the Afghan government alone cannot fight the militants, perhaps prompting a shift in US position towards taking a more active role. This was evident in the statement of Secretary of Defence James Mattis in Australia a few days ago, where he broke with the position of Barack Obama that there is “no military solution” to the conflict in Afghanistan and said “they [the Taliban] use bombs, because ballots would ensure they never had a role to play.” Though Secretary of State Tillerson did not go as far as Mattis, he said he would never allow Afghanistan to become a platform for terrorism to operate from.

The Kabul Process launched by Ghani is an attempt to move more sternly and faster in tackling the insurgency because any status quo or delay will

benefit only Taliban and other terrorists. Ghani said the meeting he called would be more than a ceremonial effort. He said if the Taliban did not soon begin negotiations, he would seek new sanctions against the group as a sponsor of terrorism. “This is the last chance, take it or face the consequences,” he said. He also wants the fight against terrorism to be made on a regional level with international cooperation. “We’re fighting 20 transnational

terrorist groups on your behalf. What we need is an agreement on regional security,” he told the foreign diplomats.

But Ghani has a tough battle ahead. With Taliban controlling or claiming to control about 40 percent of the country, according to US government estimates, the incentives for them to join peace talks and make concessions seem remote. The only way to put pressure on militants is through military action, for which the US needs to change its strategy. US President

Donald Trump has yet to announce his plans for Afghanistan, with at least 8,400 American troops training Afghan forces and conducting counterterrorism operations while another 6,000 foreign troops contribute to the advising mission. The US military commanders have proposed sending 3,000 to 5,000 more advisers to Afghanistan in a bid to break the current “stalemate”.

08 THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017VIEWS

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

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

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

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

msalim@pen.com.qa

Afghan peace process

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Obamacare is in a total death spiral and the problems will only get worse if Congress fails to act.

Donald TrumpUS President

President Ashraf Ghani is speeding up the fight against the Taliban and other militants after the deadly Kabul attacks.

A diplomatic crisis apparently ignited with hacking of Qatar News Agency (QNA) website has unmasked the real faces of some media outlets that were indulging

in shallow and unethical journalism. Rather than doing constructive reporting,

they chose to run fake news with the sole aim to create bitterness among the GCC nations which are bound by brotherly relations. This unfortunate incident has also raised questions on the role of media in shaping relations among GCC countries in future.

It was May 1981 when six Gulf countries signed an agreement establishing the Gulf Cooperation Council, an institution formulating similar regulations in various fields like finance, trade, customs, tourism, legislation, religion and administration. The establishment of this institution was greeted with plenty of hopes by the citizens of all the six brotherly states.

The Gulf countries share common traditions, culture, language, history as well as economic and political systems strongly based on intertwined tribes covering the vast majority of the population of these counties. All these factors ease the process of bringing these countries towards further cooperation and under a unified economic and political system creating solid ground for more regional integration.

The GCC has made a remarkable progress in materializing many objectives through cooperation and strengthening ties between their people.

However, this does not mean there were no differences between the brotherly states. Off and on, small irritants would crop up between the countries especially when it came to foreign policies or subjects regarding positions taken by the member states towards regional or international issues.

Despite all these minor friction, these countries were benefiting from the strong traditional practices of mediation process usually led by the elder rulers like the role being played nowadays by the the Emir of Kuwait H H Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah of a mediator between Doha and three Gulf capitals.

Now, old traditions of ironing out differences through consultations, away from the public eye and without interventions of media outlets or external powers, have been broken despite the fact that the culture of the region historically placed a lot of emphasis on values like mutual respect, role of seniors etc.

Differences will always be there in any group and their development is a natural and healthy phenomenon to some extent and to talk about them and reaching a common stand is the mature solution. How does one deal with these issues show the stability and maturity of an organization or a group or a country.

The current level of escalation being raised by three states is unprecedented and measures of punishing their fellow citizens

Media propaganda fails to garner GCC people’s support against QatarMohammed Osman

for showing sympathy with Qatar is nothing but just disgusting.

The media has quoted UAE’s Attorney-General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi saying “strict and firm action will be taken against anyone who shows sympathy towards Qatar, or against anyone who objects to the position of the United Arab Emirates, whether it be through the means of social media, or any type of written, visual or verbal form.”

How can a tweet sent by anyone lead to a punishment with a jail term of up to 15 years and a fine of at least 500,000 dirhams ($136,000)?

The question is what pushed the authorities in the UAE to go to such extreme extent of announcing this punishment for its own people? Why are they afraid of their own shadow? If their decision was a prudent one, why their people are not supporting them rather raising questions over it?

They took the step as contrary to old traditions, this time their own people opposed their move and took to social media platforms to express sympathy or in some cases solidarity with Qatar.

The emergence of media outlets as a new actor in internal relations of GCC states (infringement of sanctities, lineage) and officials tweeting against other fellows and reckless expressions of disrespect to the sovereignty of a member state are new phenomena and they do not augur well for the entire region.

Perhaps the governments of these states were disappointed with their citizens’ reactions or found them standing in the opposite direction of what they were expecting from them. This time silence which is louder than words has expressed the public position and opinion that is showing sympathy with Qatar or dissatisfaction on their respective countries decisions.

The people are also unhappy with their respective governments which

went for a clampdown against Qatar on the grounds that why this extreme measure was taken in the sacred month of Ramadan.

These governments have found themselves not only standing without people’s support but also far away from the context of history, values and traditions of the Gulf societies. What made authorities take such unprecedented decisions, and extraordinarily odd stance? No one knows yet!

Since 2014, when a diplomatic crisis between the GCC member states led to the withdrawal of some ambassadors from Qatar, the strong involvement of some media outlets is breaking the long practiced tradition of resolving disputes and is possibly hindering or complicating the path of the traditional culture of mediation.

It is incredible to ask people repeat false allegations, and spread disinformation which they see very difficult for themselves to digest not to mention support or propagate them.

How can people believe in these biased and well-greased media outlets and their efforts to malign Qatar’s image in the region? The propaganda approach of such media outlets of attributing all types of incidents, from the latest to the oldest in the history, to Qatar without any proof will serve no purpose but will permanently damage relations between friendly countries.

Also, without taking into account at least the minimum percent of possibility of a third party (intentional) involvement which may be trying to damage the relations between these three Gulf countries, these media outlets are actually becoming part of the pre-planned plan; a conspiracy which started with the hacking of QNA website. Are these media houses are performing the role designated to them by those standing behind the hacking of the QNA website or have they lost their senses when they try to damage ties of brotherly nations?

On the other hand, Qatar, despite caustic reporting by some media outlets has not closed their offices in Doha which shows its maturity and level of respect for freedom of expression and press.

FBI’s primary report has confirmed the hacking, and in coming days may unveil who was behind the conspiracy but media outlets like Al Arabiya and Sky News Abu Dhabi are not ready to listen to the facts and are acting with malice and sinister motives.

Qatar never accused directly or indirectly anybody of hacking incident and said it was targeted by an “unknown entity”, and denounced the hacking of QNA website emphasizing that the news published by hackers was totally fake and fabricated but media outlets like Al Arabiya and Sky News Abu Dhabi from the very first moment of the hacking are carrying out intensive and systematic propaganda campaign against Qatar.

(The writer is a Doha-based journalist)

Differences will always be there in any group and their development is a natural and healthy phenomenon to some extent and to talk about them and reaching a common stand is the mature solution. How does one deal with these issues show the stability and maturity of an organization or a group or a country.

ED ITOR IAL

09THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017 OPINION

Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton. That’s not particularly dangerous to Trump unless it can be shown that his campaign colluded with the hackers — or that Rus-sia tried to influence the actual vote count. The report appears to imply just that.

In reality, even if the allegedly GRU-affiliated hackers got into the computers of local officials in the states where VR Systems technology was used, they couldn’t have changed the election outcome.

VR doesn’t actually make voting machines. It makes electronic poll books that make paper voter rolls unnecessary. They allow an election worker to check a voter’s personal data against the rolls and issue a ballot. By messing with such a system, hack-ers could produce confusion, making it difficult for voter names to be verified. They could even enable ineligible people to vote — but for such a ploy to work, there would need to be large numbers of such ineligible people available for a massive fraud oper-ation on voting day.

The Intercept story suggests that the same local officials who handle the electronic voter rolls also manually install updates on the voting machines. If so, they could inadvertently infect the voting equip-ment with malware. But even if that happened, it didn’t swing any states Trump’s way.

The US intelligence community knew about the VR Systems hack in December, 2016; the company isn’t mentioned by name in news stories from that time, but it’s the only one of the 14 registered elec-tion systems manufacturers that’s based in Florida. But results in the states that use VR equipment and software — Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New York, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia — were not challenged. They yielded no surprises compared with polling data.

Clinton carried Illinois, New York, California and Virginia. She was so far behind in Indiana and West Virginia that it’s difficult to suspect the results were tweaked. Trump won the too-close-to-call races in North Carolina and Florida, but the big sur-prises — the ones that clinched the Electoral College — came in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin,

Trump reacts to London attack by feuding with mayor

A traditional president would have reacted carefully to the London Bridge terrorist attack by instilling calm, being judicious about facts and appealing to the country’s better angels.

Donald Trump, of course, is no traditional presi-dent. He reacted impulsively to Saturday night’s carnage by stoking panic and fear, being indiscreet with details of the event and capitalizing on it to advocate for one of his more polarising policies and to advance a personal feud.

Before British authorities detailed exactly what happened on the London Bridge, before they blamed Islamist extremism and even before they publicly concluded it was an act of terrorism, Trump fired off a tweet to his 31 million followers: an unconfirmed bulletin from the Drudge Report. “Fears of new terror attack after van ‘mows down 20 people’ on London Bridge . . .,” read the Drudge tweet, which Trump retweeted. Before offering his condolences to the British people, the victims of three gruesome attacks in as many months, Trump pecked out a second tweet. “We need to be smart, vigilant and tough,” the president wrote, calling on US courts to affirm his administration’s “travel ban” on people from six majority-Muslim nations.

Later that evening, Trump spoke with British Prime Minister Theresa May and extended his sup-port for America’s closest ally. He tweeted, “Whatever the United States can do to help out in London and the UK, we will be there — We Are With You. GOD BLESS!”

On Sunday morning, however, once the breadth of the horror in London was clear, Trump was back on Twitter. He criticised the city’s mayor — Sadiq Khan, a liberal Muslim and an old Trump foil — for not being tough enough protecting his citizens. “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’” Trump tweeted. Trump took Khan’s quote out of context. The mayor had urged Londoners, in a BBC interview that was replayed, not to be “alarmed” by an increased police presence in the city. He said that after condemning the “deliberate and cowardly attack” as “barbaric.”

A Khan spokesperson swatted away Trump’s taunt, saying in a statement that the mayor “has more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump’s ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks urging Londoners not to be alarmed when they saw more police — including armed officers — on the streets.”

Trump also stoked the long-running and emo-tionally-charged national debate over gun laws by pointing out that the London attackers did not use firearms. “Do you notice we are not having a gun debate right now? That’s because they used knives and a truck!,” Trump tweeted.

Britain has some of the world’s strictest laws restricting gun purchases. The death toll in London might have been higher had the attackers used the kind of semiautomatic weapons that are more easily attainable in the United States.

White House officials did not respond to ques-tions about Trump’s response on Sunday.

With Trump spending another day at his private golf club in suburban Sterling, Virginia, the White House’s social media director, Dan Scavino, revived an old Trump-Khan feud on Twitter and scolded the mayor to “WAKE UP!!!!”

Chris Lu, who served as White House Cabinet secretary under President Obama, was aghast.

“The fact that the White House social media director is commenting before the national security leadership has spoken is yet another example of Trump’s ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ attitude towards handling international incidents,” Lu said.

Historian Robert Dallek said Trump is exhibiting an entirely new style of presidential leadership. “Trump rubs everything raw,” he said. “He makes it more acerbic, more contentious.”

Dallek, who has studied former president Frank-lin D. Roosevelt, who steered the country through Pearl Harbor, was unsparing in his critique of Trump’s response to the London attack.

“There’s something so petty about this man,”

Dallek said. “What we’re dealing with is someone who is, and I think this is the best term, an egoma-niac. Everything has to revolve around him -- he knows better, he’s right, he one-ups everything.”

Trump’s supporters are likely to see his swift flurry of commentary as evidence of strength and unwavering resolve — a leader dispatching with political correctness and caution to deliver an assess-ment that is authentic and immediate.

This is just how Trump behaved on the campaign trail. He was quick to pounce on terrorist incidents in Paris and Brussels, as well as Orlando and San Ber-nardino, Calif., with tough vows, even if he was loose with his facts.

Last month, after a suicide bomber killed 22 oth-ers and injured scores more at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, Trump labeled ter-rorists “evil losers” and vowed to obliterate “this wicked ideology.”

Trump last week also prematurely called a deadly attack in a casino in the Philippines a “terror-ist attack.” Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte later said it was not the work of terrorists but a “crazy” gunman.

Trump’s response to this weekend’s London Bridge incident won praise Sunday morning from friend Nigel Farage, who as head of the UK Inde-pendence Party led last year’s Brexit movement, which Trump supported and saw as a precursor to his own election.

In an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends,” a show Trump is known to watch fre-quently, Farage sharply criticised Khan and May’s responses to the London attack as too timid and politically correct. He also lamented that the city had become, in his assessment, a safe harbor for Muslim “radicals.” “We don’t just want speeches given out-side 10 Downing Street,” Farage said. “We want genuine action. And if there’s not action, then the calls for internment will grow.”

Trump echoed Farage’s broad sentiment,

The publication that revealed a classified National Security Agency report on alleged Rus-sian attempts to hack US election-related systems, treats

the report as possible evidence that Russia tried to rig the vote. More likely, however, the Kremlin expected the vote to be rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton. According to the leaked report, the Russian military intelli-gence, GRU, ran a spear-phishing campaign targeting the employees of VR Systems, a voting hardware and software producer. At least one of its employee accounts was apparently compromised.

Then, the hackers used the harvested credentials to trap local government offi-cials in charge of organizing elections. Emails, coming credibly from a VR Sys-tems employee, contained malware that would have allowed the GRU (although the report provides no clues as to how the attribution was made) to control the com-puters of these local officials. The NSA doesn’t seem to have determined whether the hackers managed that with any of their targets.

Reality Winner, 25, the NSA contractor accused of leaking the report to the Inter-cept, an online news organisation, had an apparent motive: Her Twitter feed (under the name Sara Winners) shows she was disappointed when Trump won. So far, Russia’s alleged help to Trump in the 2016 election has amounted to Russian sources stealing and publishing some emails and documents related to the campaign of

Leaked NSA report is being read backward

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan speaks during a vigil to remember the victims of the attack on London Bridge and Borough Market, at Potters Field Park, in central London.

where VR Systems isn’t present.In any case, it would have been extremely difficult to

infect the voting machines even in the states where VR Sys-tems equipment was used. The different counties use a great variety of equipment. In Florida, where I was on election day to watch the results come in, Trump won in counties that use touchscreens and in those that stick to paper ballots. There was no clear pattern to suggest a hack or a rigging operation.

I have written that it’s not impossible to rig a US presiden-tial election (and was ridiculed for saying so). The rigging, however, would require a vast conspiracy spanning the entire country and involving local election officials — the kind that exists in Russia. Trump, with his cheap, hastily thrown together campaign infrastructure, could have achieved noth-ing of the kind, but as the election campaign drew to a close he appeared to fear such an effort from Barack Obama’s Dem-ocratic administration.

Experts pooh-poohed this conspiracy talk, pointing out how disparate the US election system was and what a massive clandestine effort would be required to subvert it. In Moscow, there were people telling President Vladimir Putin that Clin-ton had all the levers (financial and intelligence service contacts) to falsify a vote. Whether or not Putin agreed, he would have had a lively interest in checking whether Clinton, whom he has long hated, won the election fraudulently. One way to find evidence of fraud would be to watch electoral rolls — for example, for the sudden inclusion of large numbers of additional voters. Reading the emails and computer files of local election officials for signs of a rigging conspiracy would have been helpful, too.

In other words, hacking VR Systems and the local officials would have been much more useful to the GRU if it had been conducting an intelligence operation to detect pro-Clinton fraud than if it had been planning to rig the election.

That, of course, doesn’t rule out collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign when it came to releasing damaging information about Clinton. That is still for US author-ities to investigate. But the NSA report, which is likely to land Reality Winner in prison, at best provides additional evidence of Putin’s skepticism of Trump’s ability to beat the US establish-ment, not of his meddling with vote results. Russia doesn’t run the US — American voters do, even if they have excellent rea-sons today to regret their decision of November 8.

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assailing political correctness in the United States as well. “We must stop being politically correct and get down to the business of security for our people. If we don’t get smart it will only get worse,” Trump said on Twitter.

Although Trump and May have a relationship that both countries describe as positive and productive, Trump has long tangled with Khan, a member of the Labour Party who was elected mayor last year, Lon-don’s first Muslim chief executive.

Khan has positioned himself as a moral and ideological foil to Trump. During last year’s US presidential campaign, Trump proposed banning all Muslims from entering the United States, but suggested he would make an exception for London’s mayor. Khan responded by saying Trump had an “ignorant view of Islam.”

This January, Khan criticised Trump’s travel ban on people from seven majority-Muslim countries — it was later revised to six. The mayor called it “shameful and cruel,” say-ing that the policy “flies in the face of the values of freedom and toler-ance.” And just last week, Khan joined the chorus of foreign leaders denouncing Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement.

In the aftermath of the London attack, Trump’s critics chastised him for continuing his feud with Khan. “I don’t think that a major terrorist attack like this is the time to be divi-sive and to criticise a mayor who’s trying to organise his city’s response to this attack,” former Vice Presi-dent Al Gore said Sunday on CNN. “The terrorists want us to live in a state of constant fear.”

Philip Rucker The Washington Post

Although Trump and May have a relationship that both countries describe as positive and productive, Trump has long tangled with Khan, a member of the Labour Party who was elected mayor last year, London’s first Muslim chief executive.

Leonid Bershidsky Bloomberg

10 THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017ASIA

Greenpeace activists displaying a banner during a rally in front of the US embassy in Jakarta, yesterday, following US President Donald Trump's decision to quit the Paris climate accord.

Greenpeace activists' protest

Kim Jong-Un attending Children's Congress

Impact assessment

Two missile launchers have been deployed in the southern county of Seongju, where hundreds of residents have staged fierce protests over what they see as potential environmental hazards posed by the batteries used in the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

Seoul

AFP

South Korea will suspend any further deployment of a controversial US mis-sile defence system until an environmental impact

assessment ordered by new Pres-ident Moon Jae-In is finished, his office said yesterday.

Seoul agreed last year under Moon's ousted predecessor Park Geun-Hye to deploy the power-ful missile intercept system to guard against threats from nuclear-armed North Korea despite angry opposition from Bei-jing, which views it as a threat to its own military capabilities.

Two missile launchers have been deployed in the southern county of Seongju, where hun-dreds of residents have staged fierce protests over what they see as potential environmental haz-ards posed by the batteries used in the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

There is "no need to with-draw" the two launchers that have already been deployed, a senior

official at the South's presidential office told reporters.

However, "additional deploy-ment (of THAAD) should be carried out only after the environ-mental impact assessment is over," the official added.

"We do not view the deploy-ment process as urgent enough to bypass the whole environmental

impact assessment," he said.The deployment freeze comes

two days after Moon ordered a "proper" probe into the potential environmental impact of the

missile batteries in a bid to win greater public support for the project.

Four more launchers arrived recently in the South and are

currently being stored at a US army base in the country, which plays host to some 28,500 US troops as a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Manila

AFP

A major Philippine bank shut down online trans-actions and cash

machines yesterday after money went missing from accounts, triggering fears it had been hacked even as company officials said it was an internal computer error.

Customers of Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) were shocked yesterday morning to see unauthorised with-drawals and deposits from their accounts.

BPI said in a statement the problem was caused by an "internal data processing error" that had been identified.

But it had to close its auto-matic teller machines (ATMs) and told its eight million cus-tomers they could not do online transactions yesterday as the bank scrambled to fix the problem.

"Please do not panic... we will make sure that your money is there," BPI senior vice president Cathy San-tamaria said at a news conference as social media lit up with complaints from cus-tomers about missing money and inconvenience.

Efforts to fix the problem were "progressing well" and the glitch was expected to be resolved within the day, the bank added in a statement, although it did not explain why the glitch occurred.

There has been global concern about hacking fol-lowing the world's biggest ransomware attack last month that struck hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide.

Nestor Espenilla, the incoming governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the country's central bank, said they had accepted "for now" BPI's explanation that no hacking was involved, but would still conduct its own probe.

Yangon

Reuters

Ships and planes were scouring the coast of southern Myanmar yester-

day after a military aircraft vanished over the Andaman Sea with 122 soldiers, family mem-bers and crew on board, the army and civil aviation officials said.

The Chinese-made Y-8-200F transport plane left the coastal town of Myeik at 1:06pm, heading north to Yangon, Myan-mar's largest city, officials said. It was on a weekly military flight that was scheduled to stop at sev-eral coastal towns along the way.

The plane lost contact 29 minutes after takeoff while fly-ing at 18,000 feet over the sea, about 70km west of the town of Dawei, the military said.

"We don't know what exactly happened to this plane after the loss of contact," said Kyaw Kyaw Htey, a civil aviation official at Myeik airport.

Authorities reported conflict-ing numbers of people aboard. The latest military update from around 10:00pm put the total number of those aboard at 122, including 108 soldiers and their family members and 14 crew. Among the passengers were 15 children, 58 adults and 35 sol-diers and officers, according to the statement.

It is monsoon season in Myanmar, but Kyaw Kyaw Htey said the weather had been "nor-mal" with good visibility when the plane took off. The military began a search soon after the plane disappeared, mobilising nine navy ships and three mili-tary planes, the army said.

Seoul

AFP

The daughter of the South Korean tycoon blamed for the 2014 Sewol ferry dis-

aster arrived in Seoul yesterday to face questioning over her own role in the affair, after being extradited from France. Yoo Som-Na was detained in Paris in May 2014 and has been wanted in South Korea on

suspicion of embezzling millions of dollars from subsidiaries of her family's company, Chong-haejin Marine Co.

South Korean authorities believe the alleged embezzle-ment contributed to safety defects which led to the April 2014 sinking that claimed the lives of 304 people, most of them high school children.

Yoo denied the "outrageous" allegations after arriving at the

Incheon Prosecutors' Office for questioning.

"I've never embezzled any-thing from the company," she told reporters, adding that the only money she had ever taken was "the pay I received for my service". Yoo, her wrists hand-cuffed in front of her and covered with a black cloth for privacy, wept when asked about the disaster.

"I cannot help crying

whenever I think about the victims... no words can possi-bly console the relatives," she said.

Yoo, 51, was detained for 13 months in France but released in the middle of 2015.

But in June last year, the then-Prime Minister Manuel Valls signed a decree for her extradition. Yoo appealed the decision but it was upheld.

Her father Yoo Byung-Eun

was the target of a massive man-hunt in South Korea after he refused to respond to a summons following the ferry disaster.

The tycoon, who in addition to his substantial business inter-ests also ran a religious group, was found dead in a plum orchard two months after the accident.

A post-mortem on his badly decomposed body failed to determine the cause of death.

Jakarta

AP

Six Islamic militants accused by Indonesian police of plotting to fire a rocket at

downtown Singapore from a nearby island were sentenced to prison yesterday on charges of harboring and training extremists.

Judge Tarigan Mudalimbong said there wasn't enough evi-dence to prove the rocket plot.

Instead, the court found the men guilty of violating Indone-sia's anti-terrorism law by hiding two Chinese Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs), who were trying to join an extremist group in Poso on the Indonesian

island of Sulawesi, and by set-ting up a jihadi training camp.

The group's leader, 32-year-old Gigih Rahmad Dewa, was sentenced to four years in prison and the other men were each sentenced to three years. Mudal-imbong said the defendants' actions were an "inexcusable attack on society."

The six men were arrested last year on Batam island, about 25km southeast of Singapore.

Police said instant messag-ing chats between them and Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian fighting with the Islamic State group in Syria, indicated they wanted to fire a rocket at the predominantly Chinese city-state.

Dhaka

IANS

At least one person died and dozens others have so far fallen ill

due to suspected anthrax con-tracted from consuming meat of ill domestic animals in Bangladesh, media reported yesterday.

"At least 25 residents in Pabna district are suspected to be affected with anthrax after they consumed beef from sick cows recently," Xinhua news agency quoted a doctor as saying.

He said that three patients with anthrax symptom got admitted to a hospital in Pabna on Tuesday, pushing the total number of infected people to 25 in the district since May 27.

A 12-year-old boy, sus-pected to be affected with anthrax, died on Friday, the report said.

The boy fell sick after con-suming meat of a diseased cow.

People who slaughtered the cows and processed their meat were also reportedly infected with anthrax.

"Officials said they had already collected samples of meat of the diseased animals for tests," it said.

Seoul to suspend further THAAD deployment

The Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Cheyenne arriving in Busan, South Korea, yesterday.

Philippine bank chaos as money goes missing from accounts

Myanmar army plane with 122 aboard missing

Sewol owner's daughter denies allegationsSuspected anthrax outbreak in Bangladesh

Indonesia sentences rocket plot suspects

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un attending the 8th Congress of the Korean Children's Union (KCU) at the House of Culture in Pyongyang, yesterday.

Elegant art

Paris

Reuters

France created a new counter-terrorism task force yesterday, bring-ing together all the intelligence services, to

coordinate the response to attacks, a day after an Algerian student assaulted police officers outside Notre Dame cathedral.

Newly elected President Emmanuel Macron, portrayed by rivals as weak on security during the presidential cam-paign, ordered the task force to be set up last month to steer France’s multiple security agen-cies from his Elysee Palace offices.

The performance of France’s intelligence services has come

under close scrutiny since the November 2015 attacks on Paris, when militant gunmen and sui-cide bombers s truck entertainment venues across the capital, killing 130 people.

In total, more than 230 peo-ple have been killed in a wave of attacks in France either claimed by or inspired by Islamic State over the past two-and-a-half years.

In Tuesday’s attack, a 40-year-old Algerian student armed with a hammer and kitchen knives shouted “this is for Syria” as he struck at and wounded a policeman, before being shot by police officers.

A source close to the inves-tigation named the assailant as Algerian-born Farid Ikken, a PhD student of communications registered since 2014 at a

university in the eastern city of Metz.

The source said that a video in which Ikken pledged alle-giance to Islamic State had been found in his flat in Cergy-Pon-toise, northwest of Paris, during a police raid on Tuesday evening, after the attack.

Government spokesman Christophe Castaner said the assailant had not previously “shown any signs of radicalisation”.

One academic who taught Ikken, a strong linguist who spoke French, English, Arabic and Swedish, described his stu-dent as an individual who at times felt lonely. But he said he “fell off his chair” when he saw the news of his implication in an attack.

“When I knew him he was

pro-West and very much a sup-porter of democratic values. There was never any outward sign of excessive adherence to Islam,” Arnaud Mercier, Ikken’s thesis tutor, told BFM TV.

“The only thing I knew he denied himself was beverage but not drinking beverage does not make you a human being.”

Mercier said he last saw Ikken in June 2016, and was sur-prised when his student failed to reply to his message in Novem-ber saying they needed to arrange a meeting.

Government spokesman Castaner said that Iken was being held in custody in hospi-tal and that his words “this is for Syria” meant his attack was being treated as a terrorist inci-dent. Macron yesterday appointed Pierre de Bousquet de

Florian to head the new intelli-gence task force known as the National Centre for Counter Ter-rorism. It will be under the direct authority of the president.

The new task force chief once headed France’s DST inter-nal intelligence service, which was disbanded under former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

It will include some 20 peo-ple representing the various security services and operate 24 hours, seven days a week.

“This has been created to ensure that the intelligence serv-ices truly cooperate,” said a French presidency official.

Macron also named career diplomat Bernard Emie, who served as ambassador to Britain, Turkey, Libya and Jordan, as head of the DGSE external intel-ligence service.

France creates counter-terrorism task forceFighting terrorism

The assailant was named as Algerian-born, Farid Ikken, a PhD student of communications in the eastern city of Metz. A video in which Ikken pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS) had been found in his flat in Cergy-Pontoise during a police raid.

The new task force will include some 20 people representing the various security services and operate 24 hours, seven days a week.

Berlin

Reuters

Germany’s Social Demo-crats (SPD) unveiled plans yesterday to keep

pensions stable and cap contri-butions in an effort to win over voters in a September election and unseat conservative Chan-cellor Angela Merkel who is seeking a fourth term.

The centre-left SPD, junior party in Merkel’s current right-left coalition, hopes its pension plans will help put the issue of social justice at the heart of the election, though it has not weighed very heavily so far among voters.

The SPD has lost the momentum it gained after first nominating former European Parliament chief Martin Schulz in January as its candidate for chancellor to run against Merkel.

A poll yesterday showed the conservatives’ lead over the SPD had widened to 15 points. Schulz said his party wanted to preserve the level of pensions

at 48 percent of an average sal-ary until 2030. Pensions are projected to fall to 44.7 percent of wages by 2030 as the gov-ernment tries to rein in costs as the population ages.

The party also aims to cap contributions, equally divided between workers and employ-ers, at 21.8 percent of salary by 2030 from 18.7 percent.

“We want to ensure dignity in old age,” Schulz told report-ers, promising to keep the retirement age at 67.

The extra cost for these commitments would be paid for by making some three million self-employed people pay con-tributions, increasing the contributions faster and lifting funding from tax to ¤15.3bn in 2030 from ¤14.5bn now.

However, the radical Left party attacked the plans for not going far enough.

“Whoever wants to stop poverty in old age must not limit themselves to stopping a further fall in pensions but must make sure that they go up,” said Left leader Bernd Riexinger.

Zagreb

AFP

Croatia will move forward with building a bridge linking the two parts of its

Adriatic coastline, which should cut travel times for tourists, after the EU yesterday approved ¤357m ($400m) in financing.

A small sliver of Bosnian

territory that juts to the Adriatic means Croatian territory is split in two, creating a lengthy detour for tourists travelling along the coast. The 2.4km bridge will take advantage of the fact that the Bosnian coast is at the end of a narrow channel made by a Croatian peninsula. When com-pleted in 2022 the bridge should shave hours off the travel time

to the southern resort of Dubrovnik, known as the 'Pearl of the Adriatic,' as travellers will no longer need to make a bor-der crossing.

Tourism is a major industry for Croatia, with the nearly 16 million visitors that the former Yugoslav nation welcomed last year far outstripping its popu-lation of 4.2 million.

Paris

AFP

A Frenchwoman suffer-ing from chronic respiratory problems

yesterday sued the state, accusing it of failing to pro-tect her from air pollution in Paris. Clotilde Nonnez, an asthmatic 56-year-old yoga teacher, said that she had "nearly died" during a spike in air pollution in the capital in December 2016.

Her breathing difficulties had triggered "a serious car-diac problem" she said, adding: "I'm still not over it".

Her lawyer Francois Laf-forgue said his client was seeking ¤140,000 ($158,000) for the damage to her health caused by the state's "culpa-ble incompetence" on pollution.

Brussels

AFP

Belgium's top court yes-terday upheld a two-month jail term

imposed on French comedian Dieudonne over racist and anti-Semitic remarks, Belga news agency said.

Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala, who has faced similar cases in France, made the com-ments at a show in the southeastern Belgian city of Liege in 2012.

He was sentenced to jail and a ¤9,000 ($9,566) fine by a criminal court in Liege in November 2015, and had an original appeal rejected by an appeals court in January. Judges at Belgium's top court rejected by a majority his lat-est appeal, overruling only a part of the sentence demand-ing that he contribute to a victims' fund, Belga said.

One of Dieudonne's law-yers, Henri Laquay, said they had not yet received a copy of the court's decision.

Dieudonne has been absent from all the proceed-ings so far.

The performer originally made his name in France in a double act with Jewish comedian Elie Semoun. But he became infamous for com-ments about Israel and for his trademark "quenelle" hand gesture that looks like an inverted Nazi salute but which he insists is merely anti-establishment.

Brussels

Reuters

The European Union exec-utive threw its support yesterday behind Franco-

German plans to integrate Europe’s militaries and defence industries, offering money and coordination to build up their depleted forces.

Spurred by Britain’s decision to leave the European Union and pressure from the United States, Brussels has seized on deeper military ties proposed last year by France and Germany to show

its citizens the bloc can still pro-vide security in the face of Islamist militant attacks and a resurgent Russia.

“Defence and security is one of the fields through which we can re-launch the European Union,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told a news conferences. Failings in Europe’s bombing campaign in Libya in 2011, when the United States had to step in with refuelling planes, and Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea have reignited EU defence plans that date back to the 1950s but have remained

elusive. Britain had long blocked EU defence integration and France’s Defence Minister Syl-vie Goulard said yesterday now was the time to act: “This is a turning point to better share the costs, but also the defence capac-ities,” she said in a statement.

Although the European Union has more than a dozen military missions abroad, the world’s biggest trading bloc has never been able to match its eco-nomic might with broad defensive power, preferring to rely on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

But US President Donald Trump’s sharp criticism of Euro-pean allies for low defence spending and his refusal to fully back the alliance added to con-cerns that without Washington and London, the European Union was vulnerable to a host of threats, from cyber to militant attacks.

A year since proposals on an “European Defence Union” from Paris and Berlin, the European Commission said it was willing to provide money from the EU’s common budget for the first time for defence.

The Commission said it would also create a fund to reverse billions of euros in defence cuts to let governments club together to develop and buy new helicopters and planes at lower costs, also opening the door to new drones, cyber war-fare systems and other hi-tech gear.

While the amounts of money depend on EU governments’ willingness to collaborate, the Commission said it would put forward at least ¤1.5bn a year from the bloc’s budget for the research and purchase of assets.

Woman sues France over Paris pollution

Belgian court upholds French comic's jail term

EU’s executive offers funds for Franco-German defence plans

Bridge soon to link Adriatic coastline

Merkel’s SPD plans to keep pensions stable

Argentinian artist Marta Minujin poses in front of the 'Parthenon of Books' at the Documenta 14 art exhibition in Kassel, yesterday.

'Parthenon of Books'

Stockholm

Reuters

Sweden’s centre-left gov-ernment said yesterday it had reached an agreement

with the main opposition par-ties to beef up anti-terrorism laws after a series of attacks around Europe.

Sweden has taken a number of measures in recent years to combat extremism but plans have been speeded up since April, when a truck mowed down pedestrians on a busy shopping street in Stockholm,

killing five. The government said new measures would include increased checks on individuals considered a pos-sible threat, greater information sharing between authorities and safety improvements in public places. “The most impor-tant thing is that we are united against terrorism across the political spectrum,” Minister for Home Affairs Anders Ygeman said.“We are going to go for-ward robustly in making it more difficult for terrorists and increasing security in our country.”

Sweden to tighten anti terrorism laws

11THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017 EUROPE

A man walks past "Kenilworth AM1" at the press preview of Grayson Perry's "The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!" show at the Serpentine Gallery in London, Britain, yesterday.

London

Reuters

British politicians made their final pitches to voters yesterday, the eve of an election that will define Britain’s

approach to leaving the EU but has been overshadowed by two deadly attacks in as many weeks.

Prime Minister Theresa May unexpectedly called the election seven weeks ago, seeking to boost her parliamentary major-ity ahead of the start of Brexit negotiations and to win more time to deal with the impact of the divorce from the European Union.

But the campaign has seen a series of unexpected twists, including the bloodiest militant attack in Britain since 2005 and the shrinking of May’s once-commanding poll lead of more than 20 percentage points over the opposition Labour Party.

The attacks by Islamist mil-itants in Manchester and London threw the spotlight onto secu-rity. And May was forced to

backtrack dramatically on a social care policy pledge, in a

move pundits said was unprec-edented in British election campaign history.

On the eve of the parliamen-tary vote, May tried to bring the campaign back to Brexit.

“When it comes to the elec-tion tomorrow, I think the choices and the questions that people need to ask are exactly the same today as they were right at the beginning of the cam-paign,” she told a campaign rally in Norwich.

“And the first is a question of who do you trust to actually have the strong and stable leadership that is going to deliver the best deal for Britain in Europe.”

May and her husband Philip started the day with a visit to a London meat market, where they were greeted with jeers of “Vote Labour”.

Later in the morning she enjoyed a warmer reception 70 miles (110km) away at a bowls club in Southampton, while Jer-emy Corbyn, Labour leader, started the day in the Scottish city of Glasgow.

May has repeatedly said only she can deliver the right Brexit

deal for Britain and that her opponents would lead its $2.5 trillion economy to ruin in the negotiations with the EU.

Pollsters expect May to win a majority. But if she fails to sur-pass handsomely the 12-seat majority her predecessor David Cameron won in 2015, her elec-toral gamble will have failed and her authority will be undermined both inside her Conservative Party and at talks with the 27

other EU leaders.When May stunned political

opponents and financial markets by calling the snap election, her poll ratings indicated she could be on course to win a landslide majority on a par with the 1983 majority of 144 won by Marga-ret Thatcher. May’s poll lead has shrunk over the past three weeks. Latest surveys put her party between 12 and one point ahead. One projection said she

would win a majority of 64 seats.At least five opinion polls are

expected before voting begins at 0600 GMT on Thursday. Britons have until 2100 GMT to vote, and there will be an exit poll as soon as voting ends. The first handful of seat results are expected to be announced by 2300 GMT, with the vast majority of the 650 con-situencies due to announce results between 0200 GMT and 0500GMT tomorrow morning.

May brings focus back on Brexit on poll eve

Voting today

Britons have until 2100 GMT to vote, and there will be an exit poll as soon as voting ends. The first handful of seat results are expected to be announced by 2300 GMT, with the vast majority of the 650 consituencies due to announce results between 0200 GMT and 0500 GMT tomorrow morning.

May’s poll lead has shrunk over the past three weeks. Latest surveys put her party between 12 and one point ahead. One projection said she would win a majority of 64 seats.

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May gives an election campaign speech to Conservative Party supporters in Norwich, yesterday.

London

AFP

A senior member of Labour Party leader Jeremy Cor-byn's team relinquished

her role as home affairs spokes-woman yesterday, the final day of a British election campaign where she was ruthlessly criti-cised by rivals for being inept.

As home affairs spokes-woman, Diane Abbott was in line to become interior minister if Labour won today, with respon-sibility for dealing with security and policing after recent terror attacks.

But a string of poor media appearances during the

campaign, where she forgot key policy details, saw her pilloried in the media and targeted by Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservatives as one of Labour's weak spots.

When Abbott pulled out of two events on Tuesday, the Con-servatives repeated that she was "unfit to serve as home secre-tary" and deal with the aftermath of the London and Manchester attacks.

Corbyn announced yester-day that she had been replaced "for the period of her ill-health", adding that she had not been well for a "couple of days".

Abbott, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, became

the first black woman elected to the House of Commons when she entered parliament in 1987, representing the inner-city Lon-don seat of Hackney.

While the reputation of vet-eran socialist Corbyn has improved during the campaign, some Labour candidates had complained that Abbott remained a liability.

Labour's international trade spokesman Barry Gardiner said he had been told by party offi-cials that she had a "long term" condition, which helped explain her performances in recent weeks. Abbott's post will be filled by fellow London lawmaker Lyn Brown.

Madrid

AFP

The family of a Spanish man who used his skate-board to try to defend a

woman from one of the assail-ants during the London attack confirmed yesterday that he had died, ending an excruciat-ing four-day wait.

"Ignacio didn't survive the attacks," Ignacio Echeverria's sister Ana wrote on her Face-book page. "My brother Ignacio tried to stop terrorists and lost his life trying to save others.

Igna we love you and will never forget you," his other sister Isa-bel wrote on Facebook.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday by three assailants who mowed down people in a van before going on a stabbing spree in the Borough market area, killing eight people.

Friends of Echeverria, who lived in London, were quoted in Spanish media as saying that they were walking in the area when they saw what they thought was an ordinary fight.

Madrid

Reuters

Spain’s interior minister yes-terday questioned the length of time that Britain

was taking to identify victims of Saturday’s attack in London, and said the delay was causing mis-ery to the family of a possible Spanish victim.

Spaniard Ignacio Echeverria jumped off his bike to help a woman who was being stabbed in the rampage, fighting off her attacker with a skateboard, his family told Spanish media.

However, he was set upon by two other men and was last

seen slumped on the pavement, the family said, citing friends who were with him at the time.

Echeverria’s family has trav-elled to London to assist in any identification. The 39-year-old is from Madrid but lived in Lon-don, where he worked for HSBC.

Police received his finger-prints on Sunday but they were not enough to make an identifi-cation and they have asked for DNA tests, which could delay the process further, El Pais newspa-per reported.

“The amount of time Britain is taking to identify people seems strange to me,” Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said in an

interview with Radio Nacional yesterday, echoing similar remarks made by the foreign minister on Tuesday. “Ignacio Echeverria’s family is showing exemplary behaviour and is going through an inhuman and desperate situation,” he added.

London police said special-ist officers were working with the families of victims to iden-tify those who were killed and liaison officers had been sent out to families of people believed to be dead.

They have so far officially identified two victims. The death toll stands at seven, with dozens wounded.

Police said there were a number of reasons why an iden-tification could take longer in some circumstances and that families would be notified as soon as possible.

“We work in liaison with the coroner, that’s how the system works. When the coroner is con-tent and we are content with the ID we have got we will issue that publicly,” a police spokesman said. In a Facebook post on Tues-day night, his brother Joaquin Echeverria wrote: “Still no news from Ignacio Echeverria. The UK authorities ask us for 24 or 48 more hours to give us information.”

The French government announced and named yester-day a second French victim who was killed on Saturday night and is waiting for confirmation on a third man who may have been knocked off London Bridge dur-ing the attacks.

The Australian foreign affairs department yesterday confirmed two Australians died in the attack, but did not name them. The families named the victims as Sara Zelenak, 21, and Kristy Boden, 28. Both were listed as missing for days and they were not identified until after their parents flew to London and met directly with police.

Ally of Labour Party leader quits post

Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (centre) arrives to speak at a campaign rally in Halton, north-west England, yesterday.

Spain's 'skateboard hero' confirmed dead

Police officers sweep the street outside a restaurant in Borough Market behind the police cordon around the scene of the attack in London, yesterday.

British delay on identifying attack victims strange: Spain

London

AFP

Human Rights Watch yesterday condemned comments by British

Prime Minister Theresa May vowing a hardline approach to terrorism, after the deadly London attacks and on the eve of a national election.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of the New York-based group, took aim in particular at remarks May made to supporters on Tues-day questioning limits imposed by human rights laws on tackling violent extremism. "As if George W Bush never happened, UK promotes the canard of rights abuse protecting from terror-ism," Roth wrote on Twitter.

HRW slams May's commentson anti-terrorism

London

AFP

British police carried out a controlled explosion yesterday near the con-

struction site for the new US embassy building in London after being called to a report of two unattended vehicles.

The Metropolitan Police later announced that the inci-dent had ended and was not related to terrorism.

"Police were called at 4:38pm yesterday, to Ponton Road, Wandsworth... to a report of two unattended vehicles," police said in a statement.

"Specialist officers are at the scene and cordons have been put in place. London Ambulance Service and the London Fire Brigade are also in attendance. "A controlled explosion was carried out at around 5:37 pm." The police later issued a further message on Twitter, saying: "The inci-dent in #PontonRoad #Wandsworth has been stood down. This was not terrorism related."

The US embassy is due to move from Grosvenor Square in Mayfair to the new cubic building later this year.

Controlled explosion held near US embassy

12 THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017EUROPE

13THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017 AMERICAS

Washington

AFP

Fired FBI director James Comey confirmed yes-terday that US President Donald Trump urged him to

drop a probe into his former national security advisor Michael Flynn -- a bombshell revelation ahead of his hotly-anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill.

In an explosive statement on the eve of his testimony to Con-gress, Comey said Trump raised the sensitive FBI probe into Rus-sian meddling in the US election in multiple discussions, leaving him deeply uneasy over whether the president was attempting to interfere.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy," Comey quoted Trump as telling him on February 14 as they sat

alone together in the Oval Office."I had understood the presi-

dent to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in con-nection with his false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in Decem-ber," added Comey, who was fired by the US president early last month.

Comey also said Trump demanded he pledge his loyalty in a White House meeting on January 27, just days after he took office under the cloud of allegations that Russia's interfer-ence helped him win election.

In that meeting, Trump asked him if he wanted to stay in his job.

Comey said he told Trump he was not "'reliable' in the way

politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth."

"The president said, 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.' I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed," Comey said.

Comey's comments, largely confirming press reports pub-lished in the past two months, were made in a statement ahead of his appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee today.

In it Comey made clear he was uncomfortable discussing an ongoing investigation with the president, even as he assured Trump that he himself was not a target of the probe.

Comey did not say whether he thought the president's actions amounted to obstructing the investigation, a charge made by some Democrats, and which is expected to feature highly in l a w m a k e r s ' q u e s t i o n s Thursday.

"I did not understand the president to be talking about the broader investigation into Rus-sia or possible links to his campaign," Comey recalled. "I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn's depar-ture and the controversy around his account of his phone calls."

"Regardless, it was very con-cerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency," said the former director.

In another discussion, a phone call on March 30, Comey said Trump described the over-all Russia probe as "a cloud" that made it difficult for him to lead the country.

"He asked what we could do to 'lift the cloud,'" Comey wrote.

Comey said he told the pres-ident that the investigation was going as quickly as a possible. Trump understood, Comey said, "but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him."

Comey's statement came hours after two top US spy agency chiefs skirted questions from the Senate panel about whether the president also "asked" them to intervene in the Flynn probe, while saying they never felt pressured to do so.

Comey confirms Trump told him to drop Flynn probeLoyalty sought

Comey says Trump raised the sensitive FBI probe into Russian meddling in the US election in multiple discussions.

Comey also said Trump demanded he pledge his loyalty in a White House meeting in January.

Cincinnati

Reuters

US President Donald Trump said yesterday that the Obamacare

healthcare system is in a "death spiral" and must be reformed soon, a day after insurer Anthem Inc announced it would with-draw from the Ohio healthcare insurance exchange next year.

Trump has struggled to get a healthcare package passed by the US Congress even though his Republican Party controls both

the House of Representatives and the Senate. A House plan was approved on May 4, and the Senate is trying to pass a version this summer.

Trump, visiting Cincinnati, Ohio, to tout his infrastructure plan, met with several people who dislike President Obama's signature healthcare law, for-mally known as the Affordable Care Act, and afterward called on Congress to act. "Obamacare is in a total death spiral and the problems will only get worse if Congress fails to act," he said.

Trump spoke a day after Anthem announced it would not participate in the Obamacare insurance exchanges next year in Ohio, a potentially crippling blow to the healthcare system.

Trump said opposition from Democrats needed to be over-come in order to gain passage of a new law.

"It's only obstruction from the Democrats. The Democrats are destroying healthcare," he said. "It's only going to be Republicans or bust. The Dem-ocrats are really in our way."

US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on the US healthcare system at Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport in Cincinnati, Ohio, yesterday.

President: Obamacare in 'death spiral'

Pentagon boostsability to defend against ICBMsWashington

Reuters

After a successful May test, the Pentagon has upgraded its assess-

ment of its ability to defend the US against incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), like the ones North Korea is attempting to develop, according to a memo seen by Reuters yesterday.

The conclusion could add to the US military's view that it is outpacing the mounting threat from North Korea, which has increased the pace of its missile tests over the past year in its declared effort to develop an ICBM that has the ability to strike the US mainland.

Since 2012, the Penta-gon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation had assessed only that the United States had a "limited capabil-ity" to defend against a threat like the one from North Korea or Iran using interceptors in the Ground-based Midcourse Defence (GMD) program, managed by Boeing Co.

But after successfully intercepting a simulated ICBM last month, the Penta-gon office elevated that assessment, the memo, dated June 6, said.

Trump taps seasoned white-collar crime lawyer to head FBIWashington

AP

President Donald Trump surprised Washington yesterday with his choice

to replace James Comey a day ahead of the ousted FBI direc-tor's blockbuster congressional testimony, tapping a white-col-lar defense lawyer with strong law enforcement background. Senate Republicans and some Democrats praised the nomination.

In an early morning two-sentence tweet, Trump said he intended to nominate Christo-pher Wray, a high-ranking official in George W Bush's Jus-tice Department who represented New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the Bridgegate scandal. Trump, in a statement later yesterday, called Wray "an i m p e c c a b l y q u a l i f i e d individual."

"I know that he will again serve his country as a fierce guardian of the law and model of integrity once the Senate confirms him to lead the FBI," Trump said.

While the choice captured headlines early in the day, it was quickly overwhelmed by the advance release of Comey's

riveting testimony, in which he said Trump sought his loyalty at a January dinner. The former FBI chief also said he told the president three times he was not under investigation in the probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

The White House and its allies have been looking for ways to offset that potentially damaging testimony and have been working on strategies aimed at undermining Comey's credibility.

Trump abruptly fired Comey on May 9, roiling Washington and multiple congressional investigations and prompting the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The nomination of Wray — and the Senate con-firmation hearings for the 10-year post — promise days more of public discussion about Trump and Russia.

Wray said he was honoured to be selected. "I look forward to serving the American people with integrity as the leader of what I know firsthand to be an extraordinary group of men and women who have dedicated their careers to protecting this country," he said.

Cosby lawyers paint accuser as opportunistNorristown

Reuters

Bill Cosby's lawyers sought yesterday at his criminal trial to portray the woman

accusing him of a 2004 sexual assault as an opportunist who pursued the comedian's affec-tions before going after his money.

Phone records showed And-rea Constand called Cosby 53 times between January 20, 2004, days after she said the assault occurred, and March 31, 2004, when she left Temple Univer-sity, including twice on Valentine's Day. They also indi-cated that she called lawyers specializing in civil litigation before reporting the alleged assault to police.

Constand told jurors she had only spoken with Cosby a hand-ful of times, all related to her administrative job with the women's basketball program at Temple. Cosby, a university trus-tee, followed the athletics department closely, she said.

The defence's cross exami-nation of the trial's key witness came a day after Constand tes-tified that the entertainer drugged and abused her at his Philadelphia-area home, after

months of acting as a mentor.Cosby has faced sexual

assault allegations from dozens of women, though Constand's accusation is the only one to lead to criminal charges. The 79-year-old entertainer, once known as "America's dad" for his role in the 1980s television series "The Cosby Show," has denied all wrongdoing.

In more than four hours of cross examination over two days, defensc attorney Angela Agrusa did not ask Constand any details about the alleged assault.

Instead, she strove to under-mine Constand's credibility by focusing on discrepancies in her statements to police in 2005, when she first reported the inci-dent. Those statements included

Constand's claim that she had never been alone with Cosby before.

Agrusa attempted to portray as romantic earlier encounters between the two, including a pri-vate dinner on Cosby's couch in front of a fire.

"The room was dark, and there was a nice mood in the room, correct?" she said.

Court upholds ruling that Houston bail system unfairHouston

AP

Dozens of inmates who couldn't afford bail were slated to be released

from a Houston jail yesterday after a federal appeals court upheld a ruling that the coun-ty's bail system unfairly discriminates against the poor.

Harris County officials asked the US Supreme Court late on Tuesday to issue an emergency order blocking the original ruling, which the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld earlier in the day.

US District Judge Lee Rosenthal ruled in April that the inmates could be released on personal bond. In her ruling, which was stayed pending Tues-day's decision, Rosenthal said the bail system violated equal pro-tection rights against wealth-based discrimination and violated due process protections against pretrial detention with-out proper procedures or an opportunity to be heard.

The county jail began releas-ing eligible inmates late Tuesday and was expected to release about 100 others on Wednesday,

said Jason Spencer, a spokesman for the county sheriff's office. Before being released, inmates had to fill out an affidavit swear-ing to their financial situations. "I think some people were expecting a massive release, but it's really just sort of steady," Spencer said.

The 100 releases represent just over 1 percent of the jail's population and would become a daily occurrence unless the Supreme Court stayed the lower court ruling. "We're going to operate under whatever the latest order is," Spencer said.

Rosenthal's ruling came in a lawsuit filed last year against Harris County by two civil rights groups and a Houston law firm after a woman was jailed for two days for driving without a valid license because she couldn't afford her $2,500 bail. They argued that poor offenders are unfairly incarcer-ated while awaiting trial.

The jail handles about 50,000 misdemeanor offenders annually. More than 50 percent of the county's misdemeanour defendants are detained until the conclusion of their cases, many due to an inability to post bail.

Bill Cosby returns to the courtroom on the third day of his trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, US, yesterday.

14 THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017AMERICAS

Ottawa

AFP

Canada announced yes-terday plans for a sharp increase in military spending over the next decade as US President

Donald Trump has demanded of America's Nato allies.

The move, which would nearly double Canada's military spending by 2026, comes as Ottawa seeks to take on a larger role in global affairs, even as Washington appears to be retrenching.

Trump alarmed western leaders by failing to reaffirm US commitment to the defense of Nato allies at a summit last month. Instead he castigated them for not living up to a com-mitment to spend 2.0 percent of their GDP on defence. "Govern-ments have not invested adequately and predictably (in the Canadian military)," Defense

Minister Harjit Sajjan said."In an increasingly unpre-

dictable world, it's time for government to hold up its end of the bargain," he said. Ottawa's plan would raise Canada's mili-tary spending to 1.4 percent of GDP at the end of 10 years, up from less than 1.0 percent.

That would take military spending from Can$18.9bn this

year to Can$32.7bn by 2026. The plan calls for invest-

ments in new warships, fighter jets, drones, light armored vehi-cles, precision-guided munitions and other equipment, as well as a modernization of its subma-rine fleet.

Major equipment purchases -- many of which had already been announced -- are to reach 32 percent of total military spending by 2026, exceeding Nato's 20 percent target. This includes the purchases of 15 new warships and 88 fighter jets (up from 65 previously announced) to replace its aging fleet.

The size of the army, mean-while, would increase by 5,000 (including reserve and regular forces), to 101,500 troops.

The plan would see Canada expand its military intelligence and special operations capabil-ities, enhance its Arctic presence and explore with Washington new roles for the North

American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) beyond its current mandate of securing the continent's airspace and shores.

The Canadian military would also develop new capabilities to thwart threats in space, such as from wayward satellites or debris,

and launch new communications and surveillance satellites.

It also plans to train hackers to launch cyberattacks in sup-port of military operations. Ottawa had considered partici-pation in a US missile defense system but chose not to at this

time. A senior military official said the new defense policy aims to meet "not just one enemy," but a range of possible threats. "It's very difficult to see what's com-ing," the official said, "So we're developing a multipurpose force that is very flexible."

Canada to increase military spending over next decade

Larger role

Ottawa seeks to take on a larger role in global affairs even as Washington appears to be retreating.

The new defence move would nearly double Canada's military spending by 2026.

Venezuela commander urges troops not to hurt protestersCaracas

AFP

The head of Venezuela's mil-itary warned his troops not to commit "atrocities"

against protesters demonstrat-ing in the country's deadly political crisis ahead of fresh clashes yesterday.

The warning by General Vladimir Padrino Lopez, who is also President Nicolas Maduro's defense minister, came after more than two months of vio-lent clashes between protesters

and security forces.The opposition and a press

rights group say security forces have attacked, robbed and run over protesters and journalists.

Fresh clashes erupted yes-terday as thousands of protesters tried to march to the offices of the electoral authority from var-ious points of the capital, in the latest in more than two months of protests.

On Monday, videos pub-lished on social media had appeared to show security forces attacking and robbing people of

their belongings."I do not want to see any

more guards committing atroc-ities in the street," Padrino said in a public address on Tuesday.

"Whoever departs from state policy, which gives pre-emi-nence to respect for human rights, and who acts unprofes-sionally, will have to answer for it."

Opposition congressional speaker Julio Borges said ahead of Wednesday's demo: "We call on Padrino Lopez to make good on his word and let the march

go ahead peacefully."But as usual, riot police dis-

persed the demos with tear gas, water cannon and plastic bullets and some demonstrators hurled petrol bombs and rocks.

The opposition-controlled legislature has accused Interior Minister Nestor Reverol of being responsible for "repression" of protesters.

Reverol has been hit by US sanctions for alleged involve-ment in drug-trafficking.

Prosecutors say 65 people have died in the unrest since

April 1. Maduro's opponents are protesting to demand early elec-tions to remove him from power. They blame him for a desperate economic crisis.

"We have to stay in the street until Maduro negotiates his departure or the military withdraws its support for him," senior opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara said yesterday.

Maduro says the crisis is a US-backed conspiracy and brands the protesters insurgents and terrorists.

Toddler born without a nose dies Alabama

AP

An Alabama toddler who drew worldwide atten-tion after he was born

without a nose has died.Eli Thompson's father,

Jeremy Finch, posted the news on Sunday on the social media site Facebook, a day after Eli was pronounced dead at Springhill Medical Center in Mobile. Thompson had turned 2-years-old March 4.

Finch's post expressed sad-ness, saying, "We lost our little buddy last night. I'll never be able to make sense of why this happened, and this will hurt deeply for a long time. But I'm so blessed to have had this beautiful boy in my life!"

Multiple media outlets report Thompson was born with congenital arhinia, an extremely rare birth defect that affects only one in 197 million births.

"He finished his race a lot earlier than we would have liked, but it was God's time to bring him back home," Finch's post continued. "I'll forever look forward to seeing him at the gates of Heaven waiting on me to give me another one of his famous fist bumps! I love you little man. Rest in peace with my Father." Finch told Al.com that the family is final-ising funeral arrangements.

The little boy used baby sign language, and Finch told the news site in an interview that his son was beginning to do speech therapy at home with a speaking valve. "His favourite sign was 'cookie'," he said. The first thing he did every morning was to ask for a cookie.

Brasilia

Reuters

Brazil's top electoral court yesterday was split over whether to allow new evi-

dence in plea-bargain testimony from construction company Odebrecht in an illegal campaign funding case that could lead to President Michel Temer leaving office.

The issue delayed proceed-ings on the second day of sessions by the Supreme Elec-toral Tribunal (TSE), which adjourned until Thursday with-out voting on whether to annul Temer's ticket in the 2014 elec-tion for allegedly receiving under-the-table donations.

Temer opponents expect a TSE ruling against the president to force him from office and help Brazil exit a political crisis stoked by graft allegations against the center-right leader. A TSE deci-sion could take weeks if not months and could be appealed by Temer.

The judge tasked with spear-heading the case, Herman Benjamin, said the additional evidence in plea bargain testi-mony by Odebrecht executives was crucial to determine whether former president Dilma Rousseff and her running mate Temer used illicit funds in their 2014 campaign.

Benjamin, who is expected to vote to annul the ticket and its 2014 election victory, said Ode-brecht was the "biggest parasite" among the companies accused of paying billions in kickbacks from overpriced contracts with state-run oil company Petrobras.

But Judge Napoleão Nunes Maia said he would oppose use of the extra plea statements as evidence, arguing that the case would never end if it continued to add information from the ava-lanche of testimonies in the Car Wash probe. Temer, who replaced Rousseff when she was impeached last year, has said his campaign accounts received no illegal money.

The defence team of both Temer and Rousseff requested the testimony be scrapped, arguing that it went beyond the scope of the original complaint filed by the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) after it lost the 2014 election.

The PSDB's own candidate

in that race, Aecio Neves, has since been charged for graft him-self, accused of taking millions in bribes from the world's larg-est meatpacker, JBS SA.

In plea-bargain testimony given in Brazil's sprawling "Car Wash" graft investigation, Ode-brecht executives said the

company channeled millions of dollars to the Rousseff-Temer campaign in illegal donations.

If the seven-justice tribunal decides that Rousseff and Temer used illegal money to fund their campaign, it could annul the election result and force Temer from office.

Brazil court split on new Temer evidence

US may expand laptop ban to 71 airports: Homeland SecurityWashington

Reuters

The US government might expand a ban on larger electronics like laptops in

airplane cabins to flights origi-nating from dozens of airports in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the head of Homeland Security said yesterday, though an expansion could be avoided if countries agree to improved security procedures.

The US restrictions imposed

in March currently cover about 350 flights a week originating from 10 airports, primarily in the Middle East.

Extending the ban to all European airports that directly serve US airports would affect nearly 400 flights a day and cover 30 million travellers and pose major logistical challenges, airlines and security officials say.

"We are looking right now at an additional 71 airports," Sec-retary of Homeland Security John Kelly told a House of

Representatives panel. "We're also looking at ways that we think we can mitigate the threat" without expanding the ban.

Kelly said his deputy will attend a conference in Malta next week "to present what we think are the minimum increased security standards ... and present those to people to say if you meet these standards we will not ban large electronics."

The restrictions on laptops announced in March, including on f l ights originating

from airports in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, came amid fears that a concealed bomb could be installed in electronic devices taken aboard aircraft.

Britain quickly followed suit with restrictions on a slightly dif-ferent set of routes.

Kelly said many countries are working to not be added to the ban list by improving screen-ing to "detect this very sophisticated device."

He called the danger real.

"This is a very serious constant threat to knock down an air-plane," Kelly said. Homeland Security spokesman David Lapan declined to identify the 71 airports that are under consideration.

Any move to restrict carry-ing larger electronics to the cargo hold of aircraft has potential safety implications related to past problems with laptop bat-teries. Kelly said he is reviewing those concerns.

US Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao at a Senate hearing

yesterday said lithium ion batter-ies on airplanes can be a problem. "This is a difficult issue that the administration is grappling with especially from a security point of view," Chao said.

A laptop fire in a cabin can be detected quickly, versus a device stored in a cargo hold.

On May 30, a New York Jet-Blue Airways Corp flight bound for San Francisco was diverted to Michigan because of a lithium battery fire from a passengr lap-top in the airplane cabin.

An unidentified woman, who was stopped while trying to get inside the Planalto Palace shouting "I Love You, President Temer", is assisted, in Brasilia, yesterday.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with former US president Barack Obama at Liverpool House in Montreal for dinner.

15THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017 HOME

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Amna Pervaiz Rao The Peninsula

Over 36 participants took part in the Fifth (consecutive) Table Tennis Competition for people

with special needs organised by Aspire Zone Foundation (AZF) in collabora-tion with the Qatar Paralympic Committee at Aspire Dome on Monday.

The one-day event was categorised in visual impairment, physical impair-ment (sitting/standing) and hearing impairment categories. AZF organised table tennis competitions for the visu-ally-impaired for the second consecutive year in the Ramadan Sports Festival (RSF).

Ikrami Fouad secured the top posi-tion after showcasing a commendable performance followed by Abdulrah-man Sami in the second place and Ali Metaab in third place.

Khalid Al Yafei secured the top spot in the physical impairment category (sitting), followed by Ismail Moham-med in second place and Abdullah Al Ishaq in the third.

Meanwhile, participant Mostafa Ameen won first place in the physical impairment category (standing) fol-lowed by Mohammed Musa in second and Faisal Al Baridi in third place.

In the hearing-impaired category, Saeed Saleh won top spot, Ibrahim Mesad secured second position and Mohammed Shehab bagged third posi-tion. Winners were awarded by Mohammed Mubarak Al Kuwari, offi-cial of AZF; Abdullah Aman Al Khater, Events Manager at AZF; Al Anoud Al Misnad, member of RSF organizing committee at AZF; as well as Abdullah Al-Mulla, Chairman of the Qatari Cul-tural and Social Center for the Deaf and

Hussain Haddad, Member of the Qatar Paralympic Committee and the Direc-tor of the Table Tennis Tournament.

Talking to The Peninsula Salman Sheershani, Qatari participant said: “I have been playing table tennis since 2006. I have participated in interna-tional and regional championships. I participated in AFZ competition for the first time hoping to win this year.”

Ismaeel, an Indian participant said: “It is the fourth time I am participating in Ramadan Festival hosted by AFZ. I practice at Qatar Paralympic Commit-tee but AZF is the only platform where

I participate every year. For three con-secutive years I have been receiving third prize. I hope to achieve the first one this year.”

Commenting on this year’s event, Mohammed Mubarak Al Kuwari, Direc-tor of Venues and Events at AZF said, “We’re proud to be providing logisti-cal support for this great tournament, because we’re dedicated to ensuring that we organize various exciting sport-ing events for everyone in Qatar irrespective of nationality, age, gender or disability to encourage active par-ticipation all year-round and

particularly during Ramadan.”Hussain Haddad, Member of the

Qatar Paralympic Committee and the Director of the Table Tennis Tourna-ment said, “AZF is keen to engage everyone in their sporting events. The table tennis competition was carefully selected because it was tailored for var-ious disabilities. This year, we have proudly organised a very successful competition for the visually impaired for the second year in a row. We hope to continue this fruitful partnership with AZF and we look forward to future events.”

Participants and organisers pose for a photograph during the Fifth (consecutive) Table Tennis competition for people with special needs at Aspire Dome yesterday. Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula

AZF holds Table Tennis competition

16 THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017HOME

UDC to host several Garangao activities at The Pearl-QatarThe Peninsula

United Development Company (UDC), master developer of The Pearl-Qatar, will host a multi-

tude of activities to celebrate the Garangao tradition, a mid-Ram-adan festival for children. The event will take place tomorrow, from 8pm to 11pm, in an indoor arena in 29 La Croisette, Porto Arabia.

Celebrations will feature a variety of activities in a tradi-tional tent setting. Activities include henna drawing, col-ouring and face painting stations, balloon twisting,

folkloric mascot characters and photography booths in addition to offering popcorn, cotton candy, Arabic coffee, dates and ice-cream to event participants. Story-telling and give-away goodies which will be distributed by the traditional “Musaher” mascot (Ramadan Drummer), will also be part of the night’s highlights.

The event underscores UDC’s efforts to revive the Garangao tradition in a modern setting and encourage youth to preserve this form of heritage. A large number of citizens and residents of all ages have come together to mark the occasion in recent years to learn more

about Qatari traditions.Garangao is a tradition long

practised in Qatar, during which children, carrying pouches and singing, roam the streets after Iftar to knock on people’s doors and collect candies.

Throughout Ramadan, The Pearl-Qatar also offers both vis-itors and residents the opportunity to experience a variety of Iftar and Suhoor offer-ings across all restaurants on the island.

Visitors can also enjoy shop-ping for oriental perfumes and incense, Ramadan gift baskets and sweets across retail shops in Porto Arabia, Medina Cent-rale and Qanat Quartier.

Celebrations will feature a variety of activities in a traditional tent setting.

THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017HOME

THURSDAY 8 JUNE 2017

Exercise during fasting not harmful: Doctor

The Peninsula

Exercising and fasting can coincide without causing any harm to the body, say experts at the Primary

Healthcare Corporation (PHCC). In fact, excericisng during Ram-adan, if done properly at a specific time, can help control one's weight and encourage a healthy lifestyle.

“There are three times in the day that are ideal for exer-cise during Ramadan,” confirmed Dr Khalid Shams, the Director of Al Shahaneya HC in PHCC.

"Exercising early morning after having refrained from eat-ing and the stomach has digested food from Suhoor is very beneficial as one can breathe well during exercise and enjoy suitable weather locally,” said Dr Khalid.

He also added that some exercise such as walking can be done before breaking the fast for non-diabetic people, and after Iftar, especially after Taraweeh prayers for 30 to 45

minutes. Walking indoors is advisable to avoid the hot weather.

"Exercising an hour before breaking the fast at Iftar is rec-ommended for people in good physical condition when the weather is suitable”, added Dr Khalid Shams.

The third suitable time to exercise is 4 to 5 hours after Iftar, when someone has fully digested his meal to avoid the risk of stomach discomfort by redirecting the blood used for digestion to other parts of the body such as the arms or the legs.

“Whereas the aforemen-tioned times are suggested for regular people, the most suita-ble time for professional athletes is five hours after Iftar because their sport exerts much effort and is quite time-con-suming”, added Dr Khalid.

He also stressed on the necessity of not exercising dur-ing fasting, because glucose, water and mineral salts levels decrease in our body which may cause headaches, dizzi-ness, fatigue and lack of focus. The body compensates the glu-cose deficiency by using its storage 6 hours after consum-ing its last dose.

However, maintaining ade-quate water levels is a real problem as it decreases in the body during fasting, even more so during exercise.

Therefore, staying away from extreme heat and high humidity is highly recom-mended during exercise in Ramadan, in order not to lose critical amounts of water.

Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit won the award for its documentary, 'Stealing Paradise', on corruption in Maldives.

Al Jazeera Investigative Unit wins Corruption Reporting AwardThe Peninsula

Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has won the Corrup-tion Reporting Award at

the annual One World Media ceremony in London.

The documentary 'Stealing Paradise', provides an unprec-edented insight into the workings of a corrupt govern-ment. It exposes jaw-dropping levels of wrongdoing at the very top of government in the holi-day islands of the Maldives.

President Abdulla Yameen is accused of theft, bribery and money laundering. The Presi-dent received bags filled with up to $1m in cash, it was so much that it was “difficult to carry,” according to one of the men who delivered it.

The One World Media Awards highlight the vital role

journalists play in reporting the developing world.

'Stealing Paradise' attracted global news attention as Presi-d e n t Y a m e e n h i r e d London-based legal and public relations firms to try to suppress Al Jazeera's broadcast. The regime also promised serious consequences for anyone “in any way connected with the Al Jazeera documentary”. The threats were broadcast on state television and followed by police raids on two media out-lets in the capital Male. The offices of a legal firm were also raided by police. Al Jazeera’s London-based investigative reporter, Will Jordan, faced numerous death threats on social media prompting a police investigation.

Accepting the award, Jordan dedicated the prize to the

memory of Yameen Rasheed, a writer who was murdered out-side his home in April. “We must all keep exposing corruption, which is undermining societies the world over, large and small”, Jordan told the audience.

Phil Rees, Manager of Inves-tigations, praised Jordan and his teammates for their cultivation of sources. “Those who brought this information had faith in two things.

First, that having spent one year living in the Maldives, Will Jordan could understand the del-icate nature of this story.

And second, that Al Jazeera would have the guts to broad-cast it. hey were right on both scores.”

The documentary was edited by Adrian Billing, and filmed by Chris Olivotos and Manny Paneratos.

Qatar says education a fundamental human rightGeneva

QNA

Qatar confirmed that it pays great attention to formal and non-formal

education and considers it a key priority.

This came in a speech delivered by Noor Ibrahim Al Sada, Second Secretary of the Permanent Mission of Qatar to the United Nations Office at Geneva, during the inter-active dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education as part of the 35th session of the Human Rights Council (item 3).

The Qatari Constitution establishes education as a basic foundation for the progress of society, and the state shall seek to ensure, fos-ter and endeavour to spread it, Al Sada said.

This significance is also emphasised by Qatar National Vision 2030, which consid-ers human development as its cornerstone, as no develop-ment and no progress can be accomplished without qual-ity educational and training services that are aligned with the aspirations and abilities of each individual, she added.

Al Sada stressed the importance of formal and non-formal education as a fundamental human right that would enable all groups of society to fully enjoy their other rights, adding that while we agree with the Rapporteur that non-formal education can provide solutions to address some of the chal-lenges faced by those who did not have the opportunity to receive formal education.

The right to education also includes a responsibility of states to provide basic edu-cation that is consistent with academic standards, quality and continuity, she went on to say.

Al Sada pointed out that the importance of non-formal education is increasing dur-ing times of conflict and crisis, stressing that this type of edu-cation could be provided to displaced persons, refugees and other affected persons of different age groups in a flex-ible manner that enables them to cope with different chal-lenges, especially in the case of children who face chal-lenges accessing education due to lost personal identity documents and ensuring mar-ried girls have the opportunity to complete their education.

Right time

One can exercise four to five hours after Iftar, when the meal is fully digested, to avoid the risk of stomach discomfort by redirecting the blood used for digestion to other parts of the body.

Miswaak use a healthy tradition amid trappings of modernityAmna Pervaiz Rao The Peninsula

As many habits change with the advent of holy month of Ramadan, the use of

miswaak too has become a new-in of town.

Several people are using miswaak in order to practise Sunnah and to benefit from its countless medicinal properties.

“I use miswaak which is available at any pharmacy and costs only QR3, it is available in plastic packaging. The main

reason for using miswaak in Ramadan is to follow the Sun-nah of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Also, it is scientifically proven to change the smell of the breath due to its medicinal ben-efits," said Muhammad Bilal, a regular miswaak user.

“People fasting in Ramadan are careful not to swallow water while they are brushing their teeth using toothbrush and paste hence they prefer using miswaak which doesn't need water,” he added.

Miswaak, not only is related

to religion and tradition of Mus-lims but bears modern science certifications over its health ben-efits. It contains substances that prevent cavities, gum bleeding, mouth cancer and putrefaction. Miswaak has another ingredient that strengthens gums and pre-vents teeth from changing colour or decaying.

Dr Shahnaz Kadir, a Doha-based dentist told The Peninsula: “Miswaak inhibits formation of dental plaque and is effective in reducing gum inflammation. Chewing stick helps in removal

of interproximal plaque as com-pared to toothbrushes which are less effective.”

With rising demand in the market, new marketing strate-gies and innovations are also being adopted by some traders. ‘Miswaak Royale’ has revived the centuries-old Arabian tra-dition attracting people towards Sunnah of miswaak by launch-ing the world’s finest quality miswaak.

Ahmed Balochi, salesman at Royale Miswaak stall, said: “The miswaak has lost some of its

prominence due to the rapid modernisation of the Islamic world. As Arabs begin to adopt more modern customs, many have abandoned the tradition of miswaak and this is what Mis-waak Royale aims to change. We have a special Ramadan offer going on ten pieces for QR200, one piece costs QR25.”

He said that the people used to gift ‘Royale Miswaak’ on occa-sions “while during fasting we can use miswaak which makes it a plus point of gifting their friends and family members”.

Qatar Museums lines up several exhibitions for summerQNA

Qatar Museums (QM) announced a series of cap-tivating exhibitions to take

place in the country this summer. The wide-ranging choice of shows comes as part of QMs commitment to educate and inspire residents and visitors, spark creativity among artists and enthusiasts, and ultimately, develop an engaged cultural audience.

In addition to the exhibitions described below, an exciting pro-gramme of events will be presented by institutions in both Qatar and Germany as part of the Qatar Germany 2017 Year of Cul-ture this year.

The initiative aims to strengthen existing ties between both countries through a mutual exchange of arts, culture, and sport, and to promote dialogue, mutual understanding, recogni-tion and appreciation between Qatar and Germany.

The annual Mathaf Student Art Competition and Exhibition is returning for the fourth time this year.

The exhibition, due to kick off tomorrow and run until July 10 will showcase the works of students from various schools.

This time following the theme "what is your imagined future city?"

The competition is an origi-nal Mathaf educational programme that supports QMs commitment for art education and creativity.

SAC&E celebrates the crea-tive minds of students aged between 6 -18 and encourages students, teachers and parents to explore modern and contem-porary art by experiencing Mathaf's permanent collection.

Mathaf Collection, Summary, Part 2 will kick off on June 10, 2017. Mathaf houses the largest and most extensive permanent collection of modern and con-temporary Arab art in the world,

featuring over 9,000 works. The collection covers artworks from the 19th century to the present day, reflecting a number of defining moments in Arab his-tory and artistic innovations in the region.

This summer, Mathaf presents a rehang of the entire Permanent Collection galleries,

offering a glimpse of its most iconic works and highlighting groundbreaking modern and contemporary artists from the Arab world. The new display includes historical artists such as Farid Belkahia (Morocco), Sal-oua Raouda Choucair (Lebanon), Faraj Daham (Qatar), Inji Effla-toun (Egypt), Abdulhalim Radwi

(Saudi Arabia) and Hassan Sharif (Dubai), and a younger genera-tion of artists such as Manal Al Dowayan (Saudi Arabia), Wael Shawky (Egypt) and Hayv Kah-raman (Iraq-USA).

In addition, Mathaf contin-ues to increase its investments in education and audience engagement around the collec-tion that includes making the collection accessible online.

QM Gallery will host the Skate Girls of Kabul exhibition in Katara from July 20 to Oct 21, 2017.

QM Award winning photog-rapher Jessica Fulford-Dobson will present her series of strik-ing portraits, Skate Girls of Kabul. The exhibition tells the extraor-dinary story of Afghan girls who took up skateboarding, thanks to Skateistan, an Afghan charity that builds skate parks as a way of getting children from disad-vantaged families back to school. The series, viewed by more than 74,000 visitors during its

two-week run at London's Saatchi Gallery, will bring to life the colourful, and free flowing spirit of these young girls, offer-ing a new perspective on the skateboarding culture.

Museum of Islamic Art will host Powder and Damask: Islamic Arms and Armour from the Collection of Fadel Al Man-soori will be held from August 27 2017 to May 12, 2018.

This exhibition presents Islamic arms and armour from the private collection of Fadel Al Mansoori. Including both edged weapons and firearms, the objects on display range from the 17th to the 19th century, and were produced primarily in Tur-key, Iran and India. Powder and Damask explores the art of craftsmanship, which reached unprecedented levels in these regions under the Ottoman, Safa-vid and Mughal empires, where these objects were considered not only as weapons but as works of art.

Artist Abeer Al Kuwari working on her sculptures.

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