17 Feb

tennis

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THE FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE DAILY IN FREE KUWAIT Established in 1977 / www.arabtimesonline.com emergency number 112

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013 / RABEE’A AL-THANI 7, 1434 AH

NO. 14966

52 PAGES

150 FILS

Bomb kills 79 people in Pakistan’s Quetta: police

A vendor sells colorful balloons at a park decorated with red lanterns in Beijing, Feb 16. Millions of people start to rush back to workplaces all over China when a week-long Lunar New Year holiday comes to an end. (AP)

‘Terrorism threatens us all’

‘We did it’

Saudi urges unity against terror threat

QUETTA, Pakistan, Feb 16, (RTRS): Seventynine people including school children died on Saturday in a bomb attack carried out by extremists from Pakistan’s Sunni Muslim majority, police said.

A spokesman for Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni group, claimed responsibility for the bomb in Quetta, which caused casualties in the town’s main bazaar, a school and a computer centre. Police said most of the victims were Shiites.

Burned school bags and books were strewn around.

“The explosion was caused by an improvised explosive device fitted to a motorcycle,” said Wazir Khan Nasir, deputy inspector general of police in Quetta.

“This is a continuation of terrorism against Shiites.”

RIYADH, Feb 16, (AFP): A senior Saudi official told an international conference on security on Saturday that the “terrorist” threat remains and urged global cooperation to combat it.

“The danger of terrorism and terrorists still persists and affects several countries,” Prince Turki bin Mohammed al-Saud of the foreign ministry told delegates at the opening of the two-day event.

“We must face up to it using all means and at all levels, local, regional and international.

“Terrorism threatens us all, without exception,” Prince Turki said, calling for global action to “eradicate terrorist plans through coordination between specialised centres in the struggle against terrorism.”

Some 50 countries are represented at the gathering in Riyadh, which has been organised in conjunction

with the United Nations.

In 2005, Saudi Arabia proposed creating in its capital an international anti-terrorism centre, a proposal that was approved in September 2011 by the UN General Assembly.

Riyadh has pledged to finance the centre for three years at a cost of $10 million (7.5 million euros).

Between 2003 and 2006, the ultra-conservative Gulf kingdom was targeted by a wave of attacks claimed by the extremist al-Qaeda network, prompting a harsh crackdown by security forces.

Al-Qaeda franchises remain active in the region, especially in Iraq and Yemen where the Saudi and Yemeni branches of the network have united to form al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

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Details Page 13

ATTACK SUSPECTED TO HAVE ORIGINATED FROM CHINA

Hackers hit ‘Facebook’ Data not compromised SAN FRANCISCO/LOS ANGELES, Feb 16, (RTRS): Facebook Inc said on Friday hackers had infiltrated some of its employees’ laptops in recent weeks, making the world’s No.1 social network the latest victim of a wave of cyber attacks, many of which have been traced to China.

It said none of its users’ data was compromised in the attack, which occurred after a handful of employees visited a website last month that infected their machines with so-called malware, according to a post on Facebook’s official blog released just before the ‘US can’t stop Tehran’ three-day US President’s Day weekend.

Iran not seeking ‘nuke’ weapons

TEHRAN, Feb 16, (AFP): Iran has no intention of developing nuclear weapons, but if it wanted to the United States could not thwart it, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday.

“We believe nuclear weapons must be abolished and we have no intention of building” such weaponry, Khamenei said in remarks posted on his website leader.ir.

But, Khamenei said, “if Iran had such intentions, the US could in no way prevent it” from making an atomic bomb.

The West and Israel suspect the Islamic republic is masking the development of an atomic weapons capability under the guise of a nuclear programme that Iran insists is purely peaceful.

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged Tehran to “recognise that now is the time for a diplomatic solution” to the nuclear stand-off.

“And we will do what is necessary to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon,” Obama said.

Khamenei’s remarks come less than two weeks before a major meeting in Almaty on February 26 between Iran and six world powers — the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany — seeking to curb its nuclear activities.

“As soon as we discovered the presence of the malware, we remediated all infected machines, informed law enforcement, and began a significant investigation that continues to this day,” Facebook said.

It was not immediately clear why Facebook waited until now to announce the incident. Facebook declined to comment on the reason or the origin of the attack.

A security expert at another company with knowledge of the matter said he was told the Facebook attack appeared to have originated in China.

The attack on Facebook, which says it has more than 1 billion members, underscores the growing threat of cyberattacks aimed at a broad variety of targets.

Twitter, the microblogging social network, said earlier this month it had been hacked and that about 250,000 user accounts were potentially compromised, with attackers gaining access to information, including user names and email addresses.

Newspaper websites, including those of The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, have also been infiltrated.

Those attacks were attributed by the news organizations to Chinese hackers targeting coverage of China.

Earlier this week, US President Barack Obama issued an executive order seeking better protection of the country’s critical infrastructure from cyber attacks.

Facebook noted in its blog post that

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Photo by Anwar Daifallah

Children having fun during the Entertainment Festival for Kuwaiti families and people with disabilities at Souq Mubarakiya in Kuwait City. — See Page 2

Hundreds taken in tit-for-tat kidnappings

Syrian rebels press on offensive DAMASCUS, Feb 16, (AFP): Rebels pressed an offensive in northern Syria on Saturday, attacking Aleppo airport and two airbases, as a rights watchdog and residents reported hundreds of people held in a string of sectarian kidnappings.

Regime troops fended off fierce rebel onslaughts around Aleppo international airport and the adjacent Nayrab military airbase, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

East of Aleppo, rebel attacks around the Kwiyres military airbase sparked counter-strikes from regime warplanes.

The insurgents launched the “Battle of the airports” on Feb 12, and have since seized Al-Jarrah military airport and a military complex tasked with securing Aleppo’s civilian airport.

Rebels on Saturday also overran a military police checkpoint in the Golan Heights town of Khan Arnabeh just beyond the outer ceasefire line along the demilitarised zone bordering Israel, the Observatory said.

Regime forces responded by shelling Khan Arnabeh and the nearby village of Jubata al-Khashab, inside the ceasefire zone, forcing a rebel retreat.

The Israeli military said it had taken five Syrians wounded in clashes on the Golan to a hospital inside the Jewish state.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said “soldiers provided medical care to five injured Syrians adjacent to the security fence” on the strategic plateau.

The Golan has been tense since the near two-year Syrian uprising morphed into a bloody insurgency, at

Newswatch

‘Bill to naturalize 4,000 Bedouns will not pass’

MANAMA: Clashes broke out on Saturday at the funeral in Bahrain of a teenager killed in protests marking the second anniversary of a Shiite-led uprising, with police using tear gas against mourners, witnesses said.

The security forces blocked access to Hussein al-Jaziri’s funeral in the Shiite-populated village of Daih near the capital Manama, firing tear gas and stun grenades to disperse dozens of people trying to push their way through.

Jaziri, 16, died on Thursday after being shot in the stomach by security forces, according to Al-Wefaq, the main Shiite opposition bloc, during Shiite-led protests against the kingdom’s Sunni rulers in which a policeman was also killed. ❑ ❑ ❑

WASHINGTON: The Heart Attack Grill, the Las Vegas restaurant whose slogan proudly boasts that its arteryclogging fare is “worth dying for,” Continued on Page 42

times spilling over with mortar and gunfire into the Israeli-held zone but with serious escalation so far contained.

Northwestern Syria has meanwhile fallen into a security vacuum, illustrated by reports on Saturday that more than 300 people were abducted in tit-for-tat kidnappings in 48 hours, the Britain-based Observatory and residents said.

The spate of abductions, involving large numbers of women and children, began on Thursday when upwards of 40 civilians from majority-Shiite villages were kidnapped by armed groups in Idlib province.

Hours later, more than 70 people from Sunni areas were seized in retaliation by gunmen from nearby Shiite villages. Subsequently, dozens more people

By Nihal Sharaf

and these lie at the heart of eruptions on the sun known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). This is the first time scientists were able to discern the timing of a flux rope’s formation. (Blended 131 Angstrom and 171 Angstrom images of July 19, 2012 flare and CME). (AFP)

No increased cancer risk after IVF: study

KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: The executive authority will reject a bill that proposes citizenship grants to 4,000 qualified Bedoun (stateless residents) in 2013 during its second deliberation this week, cited parliament sources on Saturday.

During the first deliberation on Feb. 7, the bill was disapproved by all present ministers and a number of pro-government MPs who abstained from the vote. According to the sources, the Interior and Defense Affairs Committee is determined to pass the bill without any changes, but the executive authority said it believes only 2,000 persons who have the ‘Bedoun’ status should be granted citizenship this year, not the 4,000 persons urged by the bill.

NEW YORK, Feb 16, (RTRS): Women getting fertility treatments can be reassured that in vitro fertilization (IVF) does not increase their risk of breast and gynecological cancers, according to a new study of Israeli women.

“The findings were fairly reassuring. Nothing was significantly elevated,” said lead author Louise Brinton, chief of the Hormonal and Reproductive Epidemiology Branch at the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland.

Still, she added, “We should continue to monitor these women.”

IVF treatments can involve ovulation-stimulating drugs or ovary puncturing to collect eggs — procedures that researchers have suspected may increase women’s risk of cancer.

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Arab Times Staff

This NASA image released Feb 15, shows magnetic loops on the sun, captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). It has been processed to highlight the edges of each loop to make the structure more clear.

A series of loops such as this is known as a flux rope,

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ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

LOCAL

2

MP sends query to Thikra on misuse of co-op, charity funds Al-Shatti seeks reasons over suspension of MoH ‘overtime’

Photo by Ahmad Al-Naqeeb

Dr Al-Haifi and Dr Al-Jassar opening the conference.

Foreign doctors attend 3-day event

Health minister opens confab on obstetrics and gynecology

By Joana Saba Arab Times Staff KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: Under the patronage of the Minister of Health Dr Mohammed Al-Haifi, the Update & Controversy in Obstetrics & Gynecology conference was launched on Saturday morning.

The conference was inaugurated by Dr Mohammed Al-Haifi, as well as the Conference Chairman Dr Waleed Al-Jassar, with a keynote speech from Zaid Al-Refai, the first Arab to reach the summit of Mt Everest. Delegations of doctors and specialists from various countries arrived in Kuwait to attend the conference, which will take place over three days.

“The excellent organization of this conference, and the precision in choosing the academic papers, guests and speakers from fellow countries shows the recognition of the organizers as to the great challenges that healthcare faces in obstetrics and gynecology, as well as the future vision in evolving medical and technical apparatus and keeping up with international findings and modern diagnostic techniques” stated Dr Al-Haifi in his opening speech. The conference will discuss the latest developments in obstetrics and gynecology, and other issues in women’s health that affect childbearing and birth, as well as the various challenges faced in those areas. This includes but is not limited to tumors and women-related cancers, such as ovarian, uterine and cervical cancer, the latter of which has proven to be a significant problem.

Dr Waleed Al-Jassar continued, stating, “The

State of Kuwait takes pride in the healthcare provided at the level of both nationally and internationally accredited standards. The provision of various services to maintain optimum maternal health during pregnancy has led to maintaining a low maternal mortality rate as represented by the latest WHO statistics.”

In addition, special guest Zaid Al-Rifai, renowned for being the first Arab to have scaled the summit of Mt. Everest in 2003, and having previously climbed many more, provided a special keynote speech on the occasion. He recounted his experiences and challenges on his journey to climb Mt. Everest, including the various dangers and brushes with death he faced.

“Climbing a mountain for me is just like conceiving, bearing and delivering a child, in a way.

The process takes more than 9 months, depending on the nature of the mountain. Although pain comes in delivery while joy comes in summiting a mountain, the end result is all joy for both.

Trying to reach a mountain on your own is a huge challenge,” he stated, pointing visible and invisible enemies involved in both processes of climbing a mountain and giving birth.

The opening ceremony was concluded with a presentation of honorary plaques to Dr Al-Haifi, Dr Al-Jassar and Al-Refai. In conjunction with the conference, Dr Al-Haifi also inaugurated an exhibition features stands from various specialized medical and pharmaceutical companies.

The conference and exhibition are taking place in the Al-Raya Ballroom, by Marriott Courtyard, until February 18.

KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: MP Essam Al-Dabous has presented some queries to the Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Thikra Al-Rasheedi asking about embezzlements in charitable funds and the cooperative societies, in addition to conditions set to officially inaugurate the cooperative societies, reports Al-Seyassah daily.

He asked the minister about news report published in the local dailies recently on embezzlements by charitable committees and funds. He wants to know the surveillance role the ministry plays in this regard and the names and addresses of the charitable committees and funds or public utilities where manipulation and embezzlements have been recorded. He asked for procedures taken against the authorities and people involved in cases of this nature.

Also, he wanted to know stipulations and bylaws allotted by the ministry to establish new cooperative societies in the new residential areas. He asked if there is any stipulation that the founder of new cooperative society must deposit KD 100,000 in his bank account.

What is the basis for dissolving the board of cooperative societies, he inquired.

He also asked if any of the lawmakers or ministers is mounting pressure to recruit certain members in the board of cooperative societies.

Meanwhile, MP Khalid Al-Shatti forwarded a query to the Minister of Health Dr Mohammed Al-Haifi and asked for reasons behind suspension of the allowance for overtime approved by Civil Service Commission (CSC).

On the other hand, MP Abdullah Al-Tameemi supports the statements HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah issued recently affirming some top officials in the country cannot conduct their duties as it should be.

He said coercive campaign has been launched against the Prime Minister to impede the achievement of the executive authority. He reiterated support for the premier to accomplish the ambitions of Kuwaitis who have suffered many years of escalation. He noted certain personalities attacking the ministers only aim to destroy Kuwait’s development.

He also said the Parliamentary Interior and Defense Affairs Committee will reject any amendment that aspire to specify the number of applicants to be naturalized in 2013, indicating the government must respect the parliamentary wishes by approving the committee’s report to naturalize 4,000 Bedouns this year.

Photos by Anwar Daifallah

Above: some photos from the entertainment festival

Kuwaiti families and those with disabilities attend

Association holds entertainment fest

By Michelle Fe Santiago Arab Times Staff KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: Adults as well as children filled the restaurant square of Souq Mubarakiya on Friday night to witness the Entertainment Festival for Kuwaiti families and those with disabilities organised by the Association of Kuwaiti Families Volunteer in line with the celebration of Kuwait’s national and liberation days this month.

Association of Kuwaiti Families Volunteer President Ibrahim AlMashouti welcomed everyone to the festival as he enjoined those who were present to enjoy the programme prepared for them. “We have organised various activities for the Kuwaiti families and those with disabilities all over the country. We

want them to enjoy and have fun. It’s also a day of thanksgiving as we celebrate the country’s national and liberation days,” he stated.

Al-Mashouti also urged the citizens especially the youth to become volunteers and spend their time productively in worthy causes. “We have to instill among our youth the spirit of volunteerism,” he stressed.

During the festival, children and adults waved Kuwaiti flags as traditional Kuwaiti music reverberated in the venue. Some children danced and stomped their feet to the beat of the music while others sang along.

A traditional band also played some music to the delight of the audience.

There were also singers who crooned patriotic songs while others sang some modern tunes.

The people in the crowd were filled with suspense and excitement with the entrance of a snake charmer who held the snake with so much flare.

The audience cheered as he tried to place the snake’s head near his mouth. Some children who mustered enough courage volunteered to go near the snake charmer to touch the snake.

There were also some clowns who entertained the audience with their funny antics, bringing everyone down to laughter.

Children also participated in various parlour games prepared for them.

Everyone had fun while singing and dancing. “We hope everyone enjoyed tonight’s festivity as we hope to see everyone again next year,” stated AlMashouti.

Kuwait Today Prayer Timings Fajr .............................................................. 05:06 am Sunrise ............................................................... 06:26 Zohr .................................................................... 12:02 Asr .................................................................03:14 pm Maghrib ............................................................. 05:39 Isha ................................................................... 06:56

Civil ID info: 1889988 Site for checking travel ban www.kuwaitcourts.gov.kw/mojweb/NGeneral/Main.jsp Station

Weather Expected weather for the next 24 hours:

By Night: Partly cloudy with moderate to fresh north westerly wind, with speed of 20-45 km/h causing rising dust over open areas with a chance for scattered light rain.

By Day: Partly cloudy with moderate freshening at times north westerly wind, with speed of 20-40 km/h causing rising dust over open areas.

Station Max Min Rec Exp Kuwait City 26 15 Kuwait Airport 29 13 Nuwaiseeb 31 09 Wafra 32 12 Salmi 22 13 Abdaly 25 15 Jalaliyah 26 13 Failaka 21 14 Ahmadi Port 24 15 Qaruh Island 19 16 Umm Al-Maradem 20 16

South Dolphin Ahmadi L/V Beacon M28 Beacon N6 Qaruh Island Umm Al-Maradem Sea island Buoy20 Salmiyah

Max Exp

Min Rec

Sea Surf

22 17 18 20 19 20 16 21

17 08 17 17 16 16 17 17

16 16 18 6ft -

Today’s Waves Ht Direction

6ft 6ft 6ft 6ft 6ft 6ft SE 6ft

SE SE SE SE SE SE SE

4-days forecast - Marine Sunday, Feb 17 Expected weather ...partly cloudy + raising Sea state ......................moderate to rough Wave height .......................................3-6 ft Max Temp ............................................26C Min Temp .............................................13C Wind Direction......................................NW Wind Speed..............................20-40 km/h Monday, Feb 18 Expected weather.........................M.sunny Sea state .......................slight to moderate Wave height .......................................1-3 ft

Max Temp ............................................25C Min Temp .............................................12C Wind Direction ..................................NW-N Wind Speed..............................06-28 km/h Tuesday, Feb 19 Expected weather ..................partly cloudy Sea state............................................slight Wave height .......................................1-2 ft Max Temp ............................................25C Min Temp .............................................13C Wind Direction .............................NW-VRB Wind Speed..............................06-22 km/h Wednesday, Feb 20 Expected weather.............................sunny Sea state .......................slight to moderate Wave height .......................................1-3 ft Max Temp ............................................26C Min Temp .............................................13C Wind Direction ..............................VRB-NE Wind Speed..............................06-26 km/h

Tide times at Shuwaikh Port 1st high tide:......................................04:30 2nd high tide:.....................................16:00 1st low tide: .......................................22:30

Marine Forecast

Recorded yesterday at Kuwait Airport Max temp.............................................25C Min temp..............................................07C Max Rh................................................82% Min Rh.................................................13% Max Wind.................................. S 25 km/h Total Rainfall in 24 hrs ....................00 mm

Recorded yesterday at South Dolphin Min/Max/ Air Temp ..........................14/19C Min/Max Rel Hum ..........................51/80% Wind Direction/Wind Speed.......S/27 km/h Prev Wave Dir/Max Wave Ht.............N/1-ft Min/Max Sea Surface Temp ..........16/17 C Sea Current ...............................Downdraft – Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Meteorological Dept.

deaths

4-days forecast - Weather Sunday, Feb 17 Expected weather .....partly cloudy + rising dust Max Temp ............................................26C Min Temp .............................................13C Wind Direction......................................NW Wind Speed..............................20-40 km/h Monday, Feb 18 Expected weather .................mostly sunny Max Temp ............................................25C Min Temp .............................................12C Wind Direction ..................................NW-N Wind Speed..............................06-28 km/h Tuesday, Feb 19 Expected weather ..................partly cloudy Max Temp ............................................25C Min Temp .............................................13C Wind Direction .............................NW-VRB Wind Speed..............................06-22 km/h Wednesday, Feb 20 Expected weather.............................sunny Max Temp ............................................26C Min Temp .............................................13C Wind Direction ..............................VRB-NE Wind Speed..............................06-26 km/h

2nd low tide: ......................................10:15 Sunrise: .............................................06:26 Sunset: ..............................................17:39

Muhammad Hamuud Muhammad Juweibir Al-Azmi, 73 years old, buried. Condolences: Ahmadi, Block 2, Street 2, Avenue 4, House 399, Tel: 99633500. Muhammad Rasheed Matar Rasheed Al-Muwei’zi Al-Harbi, 34 years old, buried.

Condolences: (Men) Qasr, Block 3, Street 2, House 42. (Women) Qasr, Block 4, Street 3, Avenue 2, House 290, Tel: 99022473, 99018005, 97992314. Salim Rashid Saood Al-Qazeer, 17 years old, buried. Condolences: (Men) Rumaithiyah, Block 4, Ahmad bin Hambal Street, Avenue 43, House 11. (Women) Sabah AlSalem, Block 4, Street 17, House 22, Tel: 67700028, 65010009.

Fahad Mubarak Rashid Al-Nuwei’em, 18 years old, buried.

Condolences: Sabahiyah, Blcok 1, Street 17, House 871, Tel: 97895919, 99517301. Mohammad Mubarak Molfi Al-Hadyah, 16 years old, buried. Condolences: Salwa, Block 2, Street 7, House 39, Tel: 99075377, 99777810. Amal Khalid Fahad AlObaidan, 66 years old, widow of Yusuf Ali Abdulhameed Al-Bahr, buried. Condolences: (Men) Zahra, Block 3, Street 305, House 32. (Women) Surrah, Block 2, Street 14, House 13, Tel: 67650568. Ahmad Jam’aan Mujbil Al-Suweileh, 31 years old.

Condolences: (Men) Dohor, Block 2, Street 4, House 54.

(Women) Dohor, Block 2, Street 4, Avenue 3, House 16, Tel: 60099994. Khalid Abdulmajeed Rasheed Al-Kazimi, 44 years old, buried. Condolences: (Men) Imam Al-Hussein Mosque,

Bayan, Tel: 99625585. (Women) Sabah Al-Salem, Block 6, AlAwal St, Avenue 1, House 79, Tel: 99222768. Fattouh Mansour Mohammed Al-Khanfar, 54 years old, buried. Condolences: (Men) Abdullah Al-Salem Area, Block 2, Hummoud Yousef Al-Nisf St, House 33, Tel: 99778137, 99047866. (Women) Abdullah AlSalem Area, Block 1, Sanaa St, Avenue Ahmad Al-Hindi, House 14, Tel: 22519160. Jassem Yousef Mohammed Al-Meheemad, 78 years old, to be buried on Sunday at 9:00 am. Condolences: (Men) Maarafi Old Hosainiya in Sharq, Tel: 99838101. (Women) Mansouriya, Block 2, St 28, House 29, Tel: 97550050. Badriya Mohammed Mubarak Al-Najdi, 70 years old, wife of Baqer ABdulrazzaq Al-Attar, buried. Condolences: (Men) Salwa, Block 1, Al-Aqsa St, Mislem bin Aqeel Hosaniya, Tel: 60094494, 60604069. (Women) Mishref, Block 1, St 9, House 13, Tel: 69901000. Hessa Sayer Abdullah Al-Rasheedi, 82 years old, widow of Meta’b Ja’ed Al-Rasheedi, buried. Condolences: Ardhiya, Block 9, St 3, Avenue 4, House 10, Tel: 97804188, 99054420. Wasmiya Abdullah Misfer Al-Qahtani, 76 years old, widow of Mohammed Abdulrahman Shatfan Al-Qahtani, to be buried on Sunday after Asr prayer at Sabhan Graveyard.

Condolences: (Men) Ali Sabah Al-Salem Area, Block 4, St 4, House 9, Tel: 97872828. (Women) Fahaheel, Block 9, St 21, House 5, Tel: 99996040.

Feb 16, 2013

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

LOCAL

3

Granting citizenship is state sovereign right: Al-Fadhala MoJ issued 1,023 docus to bedouns in ’12 2nd ’versary of anti-Gaddafi revolt to be marked

Libyans have genuine will to up ties with Kuwait – envoy

By Iddris Seidu Arab Times Staff KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: The people and government of Libya have the genuine will to strengthen ties between Libya and Kuwait and also ensure those ties are strengthened in different fields such as political, economic as well as social, said Libya’s Ambassador to Kuwait Dr Mohammed Omeish as he spoke to the media at a roundtable on the Embassy premises on Wednesday to kick off second anniversary celebrations of the anti-Gaddafi revolt that ultimately ended the 40-year rule of the then Africa’s longest reigning leader.

February 17 marks the second anniversary of the Libyan revolution against Muammar Gaddafi, which was ignited in the eastern city of Benghazi and ended on October 20 with the dictator’s killing. A litany of challenges remains after the fall of the strongman.

The post-revolt challenges range from how to tame the powerful militias who fought Gaddafi’s forces to establishing a new rule of law in the country, building from scratch an all-new security system involving the police, army and so forth. Throughout Gaddafi’s 40-year strong-arm rule, the security forces were front and center of everything, so dismantling the highly indoctrinated security apparatus left power in the hands of tribal militias in the interim.

“We shall be able to surmount those hurdles and I’m not saying this because I represent Libya here but because I was personally involved in the fighting to liberate the nation and saw how resilient the people are”, said Ambassador Omeish who is also celebrating his first anniversary as Ambassador to Kuwait.

Ambassador Omeish recalled that when they were still fighting in Tripoli and the going was very tough, Kuwait’s Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, after meeting with the visiting National Transition Council

KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16, (KUNA): Granting nationality is a state sovereign issue and external powers have no right to meddle in such internal affairs of a sovereign and independent country, affirmed the Chairman of the Central Apparatus for Illegal Residents Saleh Al-Fadhala.

International law grants states legislation right and freedom of setting terms and restrictions for granting the citizenship, in harmony with the state political, economic and social interests, said Al-Fadhala in a statement to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).

Photo by Mahmoud Jadeed

The Ambassador making a point.

(NTC) chairman Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, donated fifty thousand Kuwaiti Dinar (KD 50,000) in support of our course. “This donation has been seen by the Libyan people as very generous, as it came in the form of diesel, gas, ambulances and so forth, at a time those commodities were what we needed most”.

He added that at the time he was presenting his credentials to the Amir, Sheikh Al-Sabah told him about the importance of the unity as well as the security of Libya, noting that the people and government of Libya have the genuine will to strengthen the ties between Libya and Kuwait and also ensure ties are strengthened in different fields such as political, economic and social as well.

“We look forward to hosting Kuwaiti investors in Libya where they can explore the available opportunities there”.

Another aspect of Kuwaiti development Libya hopes to emulate is the strong civil society with lots of non-governmental organizations. The Ambassador thanked the Amir sincerely for the support he’s extended to the Syrian people through the hosting of the donors’ conference.

The first indicator of Libya’s economic rebound is the recovery of oil export figures to the pre-revolt level of 1.7 million barrels per day as Libya depends 95% on the commodity. With internation-

al companies streaming back into the country, the prerevolt investment levels could even be surpassed in the next few years as stability and security cease to be overarching issues of the day.

After the July 2012 elections, there were calls from some quarters for the establishment of a federal system of governance in the country. Whether those calls were sincere or not, what is clear is that with the old order over, the people want a say in how the country is governed and genuine decentralization ensuring equal footing in terms of resources and governance in the localities.

“The government is looking into a system by which to divide Libya into some form of administrative systems where people have some kind of powers to take care of their local areas. If we succeed in this where the local authorities provide peoples’ needs then the call for federalization will be muted”, said Ambassador Omeish.

On the unity of Libya, Dr Omeish said that after the recent liberation of Bin Waleed, the powerful tribal fiefdoms have softened their stances against the government and fallen in line to submit to central government authority, noting that “ at the end of the day, Libya is for everyone and we need to build it together so its important that everyone comes on board with the past behind us for the forward march”.

“Citizenship is subject to the state judgment, in line with the country’s higher interests, thus external parties cannot intervene in such purely internal issues,” Al-Fadhala re-stressed in his statement to the national news agency of Kuwait.

His statement came as a reaction to remarks made by a delegation of international organization during a recent visit to the country, calling to grant the Kuwaiti nationality to a segment of residents who are not legally eligible to hold the Kuwaiti identification card.

Kuwait’s hosting of delegations of such organizations is part of the state policy of transparency regarding the issue of the illegal residents.

The Apparatus, he elaborated, is ready to discuss humanitarian aspect of this issue with these foreign agencies, indicating that they should not meddle in the other dimensions of this question that fall within jurisdictions of the State of Kuwait.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice announced on Saturday issuing 1,023 legitimate documents of marriage, divorce and marriage counseling contracts of illegal residents in the country for the year 2012.

Issued The Department of Legal Authentication and its subsidiaries have issued 921 marriage documents, 93 divorce documents and nine marriage counseling ones for illegal residents during the period between January and December of 2012, Assistant Undersecretary for Legal Affairs and Legislation Documentation of the Ministry of Justice, Bader AlZamanan, told KUNA. Al-Zamanan said “During the same year, the department also issued 306 marriage contracts, 37 divorce documents and a single marriage counseling one for Kuwaitis and their wives who are illegally residing in Kuwait.

“It also issued 134 marriage and 19 divorce documents for illegal male residents and their Kuwaiti wives.” He noted that the total number of documents issued by the department in 2012 amounted to 15,416 while the number of inheritance documents reached 315.

Al-Zamanan said the Council of Ministers Resolution No. 409 of the year 2011 for the submission of a number of privileges and facilities for illegal residents encouraged those people to implement such provisions at the department.

With regard to the Department of Real Estate Registration and Authentication at the ministry, Al-Zamanan said that the total number of authentication and ratification documents issued for the illegal residents during the past year amounted to 13,488, including 183 admission documents, 3603 authorization and 1,427 power of attorney.

This department has also issued 17 documents for illegal residents owning real estate in Kuwait, which included ten documents that will be forwarded as a grant from the country to the families of martyrs and four of them will be owned by relatives of Kuwaitis.

In addition, he praised the role of the central agency for addressing the situations of illegal residents and its cooperation with the Ministry of Justice in order to facilitate all documentation issuance assigned to the latter from the agency.

The right of accessing those documents is guaranteed to everyone, and the ministry does not prevent anyone from obtaining them, AlZamanan concluded.

A photo from the seminar

Al Tamimi holds ‘standing room only’ seminar

Focus on Kuwait’s Companies Law KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: Al Tamimi & Company, the largest law firm in the Middle East, conducted a “standing room only” seminar focused on the new Kuwait Companies Law that was recently issued in Kuwait. The seminar was held at the JW Marriott on Feb 11 and drew a large crowd of well over 200 attendees, including high level executives, in-house legal advisors and company representatives.

The seminar introduced the new Companies Law, highlighted a number of key provisions as well as a comparative analysis to the former law. Opening the seminar for Al Tamimi was Partner and

Head of the Kuwait Office, Alex Saleh, who welcomed the guests and provided an introduction on the new laws and discussed corporate structuring and Shari’a compliant aspects of the new law. Al Tamimi Partner Philip Kotsis then provided a detailed overview of the corporate governance provisions and ended by discussing the laws references and compatibility with the Capital Markets Authority. Concluding the presentations was Dubai based Partner and Regional Head of Corporate Structuring, Samer Qudah, who spoke on UAE and regional corporate structuring. The seminar ended

with an interactive questions and answers session and reception.

Commenting after the event, Alex Saleh noted that, “We are pleased to see the excitement in the market place on the issuance of the new law. This truly highlights the importance and effect on conducting business that the new law will have in Kuwait over the coming weeks, months and years.” Partner and Joint Venture Partner, Attorney Yaqoub Yousef Al Munayae added, “I am pleased to see such a great turnout this morning which is an indicator of the importance and significance of this new law in Kuwait.”

News in Brief Top MP praises ties with Qatar: Kuwait parliament speaker Ali AlRashed said Saturday his visit to Qatar aimed at further cementing relations between the two people and coordinate over a host of issues of mutual interest.

Speaking to KUNA after his arrival in Doha within a Gulf tour, Al-Rashed said Kuwaiti-Qatari relations were historic and deep-rooted, citing the Qatari soldiers who died defending Kuwait during the latter’s war of liberation from the Iraqi invasion in 1991.

Al-Rashed, received by speaker of the Shura Council Mohammad AlKhulaifi and Kuwaiti diplomats, said he would be discussing with the Qatari officials ways of fostering bilateral relations and cooperation, noting that Kuwait was the rotating chairman of the union of Arab parliaments. (KUNA) ❑ ❑ ❑

Five academic scholarships okayed KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: The Scholarship Committee in Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry at a recent meeting approved five academic scholarships for interested Kuwaiti students to obtain master’s degree in business administration (MBA) and commercial law for 2013.

First Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce and

Industry and chairperson of the committee Khaled Abdullah AlSaqer said the sector offers scholarships, as part of its social responsibilities and need to develop the citizens. He stressed that programs of this nature will benefit the country in the long run, especially in the area of economic development and human resources empowerment.

PAYS launches environ drive:

Kuwait.

The campaign, sponsored by Minister of Information and Minister of State for Youth Affairs Sheikh Salman Al-Sabah, began with placing of a plant then visiting a number of camps to urge them preserve environment. (KUNA)

The Public Authority for Youth and Sports (PAYS) and the governorates’ Environment Committee launched Saturday an awareness campaign for campers aimed at highlighting importance of preserving environment in

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

LOCAL Top students rewarded

KFAED sponsors Turkey trip for ‘well-achievers’ ISTANBUL, Feb 16, (KUNA): A group of 12 Kuwaiti high school well-achievers arrived in Instanbul on Saturday in a trip organized by the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED).

The week-long trip is part of KFAED initiative “Be A Well-Achiever” to reward the distinguished students and encourage them to pursue their excellent performance.

The students are accompanied by supervisors from the Ministry of Education and KFAED. “The main objectives of the trip are entertainment and to familiarize Kuwaiti students with KFAED’s role in financing development and infrastructure projects in world countries,” Head of the Educational Activities at Al-Jahra Education Directorate, one of the trip supervisors, Shehab Al-Kharaz told KUNA. The students will visit Turkish main touristic destinations, as well as the KFAED-financed development projects across Turkey.

“The trip is also cultural in nature, which aims to nurture patriotic spirit of the students and encourage them to carry on with their studies,” Ahmad Al-Sarraf, supervisor of the trip from the KFAED, told KUNA. KFAED arranges annually similar one-week trips for top students to visit countries that benefit from the KFAED’s funds in order to become acquainted with the Fund’s various activities in those countries.

The KFAED is the first institution in the Middle East that took an active role in international development efforts.

The Kuwait Fund extends loans on concessionary term to finance development projects in developing countries. The Fund also provides technical assistance to finance the costs of the feasibility studies of projects, as well as the training of nationals of the borrowing countries. In addition, the Fund subscribes in the capital of international and regional development institutions.

The Kuwait Fund forms a solid bridge of friendship and solidarity between the state of Kuwait and the developing nations.

5

‘Grilling requests could spell dissolution’ KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: The high number of grilling requests might lead to the dissolution of the Parliament, especially since the government feels the real motive behind the submission of these requests is to settle personal scores, reports Al-Rai daily quoting MP Taher AlFailakawi.

Al-Failakawi pointed out the submission of one grilling request after another might demoralize some members of the executive and legislative authorities,

up to the point when they no longer cooperate with each other while a few lawmakers are keen on instigating conflicts.

According to Al-Failakawi, three grilling requests will be submitted to the Parliament Office on Tuesday.

He also unveiled the legislature’s plan to deliberate on the grilling request of MP Hussein Al-Qallaf against the minister of communications, as well as that of MP Faisal Al-Duwaisan against the interior minister. He

said the lawmakers will review the first point of AlDuwaisan’s grilling – the need to boycott Jewish companies.

Al-Failakawi believes the incessant interpellations will lead to the dissolution of the Parliament. He said the Liberal Bloc, in which he belongs, has asked the legislative authority to give the government a grace period of six months to carry out its tasks and then after that they will evaluate its performance.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

LOCAL

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10 illegals caught in Salmi desert

Drugs, liquor found on Kuwaiti, expats

By Munaif Nayef Special to the Arab Times KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: A Kuwaiti youth was arrested recently for possession of narcotics in Hawally. He was referred to the concerned authorities with the drugs for necessary legal action against him.

Meanwhile, two Asian expatriates were arrested recently in Farwaniya for possession of 20 bottles of locally brewed liquor.

According to security sources, while securitymen were patrolling Farwaniya, they noticed the suspects selling some bottles and approached them for investigations. When they noticed securitymen approaching them, they appeared nervous.

Securitymen checked the bottles and discovered that it contained locally brewed

liquor. They were referred with the liquor bottles to the concerned authorities for necessary legal action against them. ❑

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Illegals held: Security operatives attached to Jahra Command arrested 10 residency law violators at Salmi desert region during a security campaign they conducted across the governorate. The suspects have since been referred to the concerned authority for necessary action. ❑

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Citizen hurt in fight: A citizen was injured after engaging in a fistfight with another in Salmiya. Securitymen rushed to the location immediately after the Operations Room received information

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Home broken into: An unknown individual broke into the house of a Kuwaiti citizen in Jahra and stole some electronic devices.

According to security sources, the Kuwaiti citizen rushed to Jahra Police Station and filed a theft case, informing securitymen that when he returned home, he was shocked to realize that someone broke into his house and stole the electronic devices.

Investigations are ongoing to arrest the suspect and retrieve the stolen items.

KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: Assistant Undersecretary for Commercial Control at Ministry of Commerce and Industry Abdullah Al-Ali expressed his surprise over the statement made by Municipal Council member Abdullah AlKandari regarding the import of zebra meat from Ethiopia and distribution to number of restaurants and shops by a local company, reports Al-Rai daily.

He pointed out that Al-Kandari should have informed Kuwait Municipality for them to take necessary action instead of announcing it in public and causing panic among the people.

By Munaif Nayef Special to the Arab Times General Fire Department organized an aircraft fire drill for firefighters from the Kuwait International Airport and military fire stations.

The three-week fire drill courses, which started on Feb 3, are part of General Fire Department’s training project to develop the skills and efficiency of firefighters in fire and rescue missions to save lives and properties.

The Director General of Fire Department Major General Yusuf Abdallah Al-Ansari, Deputy Director of

Fire Control Affairs and Human Resources Brigadier Khalid Al-Mikrad and representatives from United Kingdom Fire Brigade Faculty Neil Cosby and Cain Presat attended the event.

Brigadier Al-Mikrad praised the efforts taken by the concerned bodies in the Fire Department to ensure the success of the training project.

The training project, which consists of four phases, includes courses on combating fire in residential and industrial areas, and oil fields and aircraft fire as well as on rescue missions and handling of dangerous substances.

Duo not guilty in rape

One acquitted in murder case

By Jaber Al-Humoud Special to the Arab Times KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: The Court of Appeals acquitted one of the five Kuwaiti youths who were accused of murdering a GCC national at Marina Mall.

According to the court files, the five youths were accused of premeditated murder, as they assaulted the victim to death by punching, kicking and stabbing him with knives.

According to the Forensics medical report, the victim had succumbed to the severe injuries he sustained.

Khabbaz The Public Prosecution requested the court to issue severe punishments against two of the suspects who stabbed the victim with knives, basing its case on Articles 150, 151 and 161 of the Penal Code and Article 1/2, B, 14/AB of Juvenile law 3/1983.

Lawyer of the fifth suspect Zaid AlKhabbaz informed the court that his

client had no direct role in the incident.

He requested the court to acquit his client as he was a witness and not a suspect, which one of the main suspects admitted during interrogations. ❑

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sustained the verdict of a lower court that acquitted two Bedouns of kidnapping and raping an Asian housemaid inside a tent at Sulaibiya desert.

According to the case file, the victim filed a report in a police station and said one of the suspects who claimed to be the husband of her friend tricked her into a car with his friend and drove to the aforementioned location where they raped her violently. They are said to have stolen her SIM card after the incident.

Attorney of the suspects Ali Saleh AlRashidi argued that the account given by the victim was illogical, as she did not sustain any injury in the process of the alleged kidnapping or rape to suggest the use of violence or force. Moreover, she declined to lodge an official complaint promptly and so the court reasoned with the argument of the defendant counsel, since the situation did not depict any use of force or violence.

expatriate was arrested for attempting to stab another during a quarrel in Mubarakiya market, reports Al-Watan Arabic daily.

According to a security source, while securitymen were patrolling Mubarakiya market, they noticed a furious Egyptian holding a knife.

They controlled him and discovered during interrogations that he was looking for a compatriot to stab him after passersby dispersed a quarrel between them.

Securitymen referred him to the concerned authorities for necessary legal action against him. ❑ ❑ ❑

2 held with drugs: Two youths - a GCC national and a Bedoun - were arrested recently for possession of 60 narcotic pills and an unlicensed weapon, reports Al-Rai daily.

Reportedly, while securitymen were patrolling Arabian Gulf Street, they

stopped the youths for checking.

Sensing their nervousness and disoriented state, securitymen checked the vehicle and found the drugs and weapon.

They were arrested and referred to the concerned authorities for necessary legal action against them. ❑ ❑ ❑

Bedoun arrested: A Bedoun was arrested recently for his involvement in several crimes. He was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison for stealing from parked vehicles, reports Al-Rai daily. When securitymen received several complaints about thefts, they carried out investigations and arrested the suspect.

At the time of arrest, the suspect seemed to be in a disoriented state.

Securitymen seized several stolen accessories and jewelry from the suspect’s vehicle.

He was referred with the confiscated items to the concerned authorities for necessary legal action against him.

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KD 30,000 stolen: An Eritrean expatriate was arrested recently for stealing KD 30,000 from the vehicle of a Syrian expatriate. Investigations are ongoing to arrest his three accomplices, reports Al-Rai daily.

According to a security source, the Syrian expatriate lodged a complaint at Nugra Police Station, informing securitymen that he had withdrawn the money from a bank which he placed in his vehicle, which was parked in front of a commercial complex in Nugra. He went inside the complex and when he returned, he was shocked to note that the side glass of his vehicle was broken and the money was missing.

Securitymen viewed the records captured by the CCTV camera of the bank, suspected a number of individuals and managed to arrest one of them.

The suspect admitted to the act and provided securitymen with information about his three compatriot accomplices.

Investigations are ongoing to arrest them. ❑

Duo not guilty: The Court of Appeals

News in Brief Bid to stab man: An Egyptian

He added Al-Kandari could have informed the minister about the incident and provided him with the name of the supplier company.

Al-Ali said, “The least the Municipal Council member can do is provide the names and addresses of the restaurants where the meat was distributed as well as that of the supplier company to the Commercial Control Department in order for the department to take the necessary action” ❑

Trio

held

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gambling:

Three Bangladeshi expatriates were arrested recently for gambling in an open ground, reports Al-Watan Arabic daily.

According to a security source, when the Operations Room of Ministry of Interior received information from a Bangladeshi expatriate about some of his compatriots gambling in an open ground, securitymen rushed to the location and arrested two of the gambler while the others managed to run away. During investigations, securitymen discovered that the informant had lost his money while gambling with the arrested individuals and had called securitymen to take revenge against them.

Securitymen arrested the informant and referred him along with the two other suspects to the concerned authorities for necessary legal action against them. ❑

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Indians selling liquor: Three Indian expatriates were arrested recently for selling locally brewed liquor inside a park in Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh, reports AlWatan Arabic daily.

Reportedly, while Farwaniya securitymen were patrolling the area, they noticed the three suspects selling locally brewed liquor publicly and arrested them.

They were referred with 31 bottles of liquor to the concerned authorities for necessary legal action against them. ❑

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Compatriot swindled: An Indian expatriate lodged a complaint against a compatriot at Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh Police Station, accusing him of swindling KD500 from him, reports Al-Anba daily.

The victim informed securitymen that he had given KD 500 to a compatriot for obtaining a drivers’ license. However, the latter kept the money for himself and switched off his mobile phone.

A case was registered and investigations are ongoing to arrest the suspect. ❑

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‘Coalition plan ideal’

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Name supplier : official

Drill tackles fire on aircraft

a digest of public opinion

on the incident. The injured was taken to Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital.

A case was registered and investigations are ongoing to determine the actual circumstances leading to the fight.

Kandari slammed for spreading ‘meat panic’

Smoke rises from a plane on fire in the drill

DIWANIYA

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Phone, watches stolen: An unidentified individual broke into the house of a Kuwaiti citizen in Jahra and stole a mobile phone and six watches, reports Al-Watan Arabic daily.

Officers from General Department of Criminal Evidences rushed to the location and lifted fingerprints to identify the unknown suspect.

‘Rag tag opposition lacks teeth’ “THE FOUNDATION of opposition parties in Kuwait except the Kuwaiti Progressive Bloc and the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM) are not based on sound organizational principles,” columnist and former director of Culture Department at National Council for Culture, Arts and Literature (NCCAL) Waleed Al-Rujaib wrote for Al-Rai daily.

“Most components of the Kuwaiti political opposition are based on principles created by their leaders and followers. In other words, these components are like diwaniya groups with general political direction but lacking organizational, political and intellectual unity. They also lack commissions, bureaus and a common leadership for taking decisions and devising necessary policies. The Kuwaiti opposition takes action based on reactions and its strength depends on the increasing number of members.

“This certainly applies to the opposition parliamentary blocs and some youth groups that appear and disappear randomly. These groups are not based on specific political Al-Rujaib platforms, clear-cut visions or even political awareness of the nature of the current phase. Their political slogans are mostly ambiguous and incapable of conveying their objectives clearly.

“Lately, on a global level in general and Arab World in particular, we notice that the political powers are well aware of how to achieve the targeted changes motivated by their belief in coalitions and unified fronts in order to accomplish the necessary balance of power in the framework of nationalistic principles.

“These political powers have realized that it is impossible for a single power to lead all the popular organizations and achieve the required changes. They are convinced about the significance of forming provisional entities for dealing with imperative issues.

“In Kuwait, we still need to figure out the terms required for forming the national fronts and coalitions because they mostly consist of political organizations. In order to keep up with the current situation, creation of a coalition comprising of political organizations, parliamentary blocs, unions and nationalistic figures seems ideal.

“Regarding the formation of National Front for Protection of Constitution last September, we believe it was a good development even though the founders were some individuals, which I presume is one of its prominent shortcomings.

“Several nationalistic and Islamic organizations had refused to cooperate with this front, as those organizations were involved in limited struggle for some basic issues.

“Nevertheless, we support the step adopted by the Opposition recently to form a national coalition.

We hope Kuwait Democratic Forum (KDF) and Kuwait Progressive Bloc will join the proposed coalition in order to avert the latter from being dominated by the Islamic groups.

Furthermore, the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM) joining the coalition will satisfy a significant condition that is required for the formation of any national front or coalition in the country.”

Also: “The global economic meltdown and its consequences have affected the Kuwaiti economy to such an extent that its effects still exist even though four years have been passed since the start of the recession,” columnist Bader Al-Humaidhi wrote for Al-Qabas daily.

“As a matter of fact, Kuwait does not suffer from liquidity issue due to its high petrodollar income of up to $290 million per day and indirect income obtained through state-run services.

“So then what is the major reason behind such a slump in the Kuwaiti national economy? Analyzing this matter, this slump can be attributed to several factors including the political aspect, which has hindered development of the national infrastructure. It is also due to non-application of valid laws and lack of cooperation between the executive and legislative powers, which have caused the state of turmoil and corruption currently prevalent in the country.

“Furthermore, the situation of Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE), the differences between KSE management and concerned authorities as well as the current Law of Companies have played a signifi-

cant role in current state of economic slump in the country.

“In addition, the persistence of the bureaucracy in the country to remain stagnant in terms of development has also contributed to this economic slump.

“In order to deal with such obstructions, development of the country’s institutions is mandatory, particularly since no development has occurred in this aspect from early 1950s.

“Moreover, our economic problems will not be solved if we continue protecting the managements of certain firms who manipulate the public funds. The Law of Companies must be amended to avoid market dominance.

“The legislative power should hasten in enacting the laws required for protecting the small investors and guaranteeing them the right to resort to the judiciary in case of defects in the budgets of the relevant firms.” ❑ ❑ ❑ “In order for life to be stable, consistent and balanced, oppressors must face necessary punishments for their actions; this has always been the dream of honest and peaceloving people,” columnist Dr Ghanim Al-Najjar wrote for AlJaridah daily.

“Unfortunately, such people have observed throughout ages that most of the tyrants responsible for serious massacres and genocides have escaped judgment and punishments to continue living in affluence in most cases. They planned their escape routes through political settlements, exiles or other dishonest means.

“The ability to escape punishment remains a major incentive that encourages prevalence of criminal activities. It is not impossible to find individuals who murdered large number of people but later became heroes in just the blink of an eye through changes in political situations.

“However, the tyrants of the world should be alert and remember that the international community is now decisive about punishing tyrants to ensure they spend the rest of their lives in prisons.” ❑ ❑ ❑ “Considering the outcome of the previous fiscal year and current proposal to restructure activities in majority of the private institutions, there are differences in the concerns of Kuwaiti and expatriate employees of the private sector particularly when it comes to job security and stability,” columnist Dr Hanadi Abdullah Al-Hamli wrote for AlAnba daily.

“The employees always find it necessary to plan for the best way to meet up with financial responsibilities including school fees, consumer loan payments and other family and financial burdens.

“While the employees of the private sector are worried about their professional future, we, the young Kuwaiti experts, are concerned about Kuwaiti society and ways for developing human resources. We are determined to study the nature of risk involved and professional challenges in the private sector.

“We are mindful of expectations related to the need for activating the role of the private sector and increasing their contributions to the financial and economic development, as well as infrastructural projects of the country.

“Our major concern in this phase is to focus on legislation and assist only Kuwaitis in improving their professional competency, in addition to providing equal opportunities in order for them to replace expatriates easily through governmental support and enforcement of law.” ❑ ❑ ❑ “The recent speech of US President Barack Obama on the union was not something new to us.

He merely talked about the actual situation in the Middle East countries without stating a clear position on certain issues like the ongoing genocide in Syria,” Mubarak Mohammad Al-Hajiri wrote for AlRai daily.

“What we heard from the US president was nothing more than rhetoric in an attempt to obtain the people’s sympathy. We have not seen any effort to transform his words into action. He has yet to tackle important issues which need quick intervention from the most powerful country in the world.

“Actually, concrete steps must be taken to stop the bloodshed all over Syria. Thousands have left the country without knowing their destination, while those who cannot leave have been deprived of their most basic right — the right to live.

“The most painful aspect of the

issue is seeing the biggest and most powerful country in the world avoiding its responsibilities. It is also trying to make people focus on minor issues that should not be discussed.” ❑ ❑ ❑ “Certain online news sites refer the current National Assembly as the ‘one-vote parliament’ without realizing that this attribute clearly contradicts the democratic principles which is the basis of the current parliament,” columnist Dr Khalid Eyad Aljenfawi wrote for AlSeyassah daily.

“No news agency is permitted to distort the reality of local news or cast doubts on an entity that was formed on the basis of constitutional principles and through a fair and transparent election. This indicates clear fabrication and immature intention to play down the legitimacy of the current National Assembly.

Ironically, all this is happening because some people chose not to grasp the opportunity to vote for their representatives in the last election or nominate themselves as electoral candidates.

“I support the current parliament and I will not allow anyone to play down its legitimacy, especially after international organizations endorsed the legitimacy of the last elections.

Do the aggravators think we are unaware of their objectives in terming the current parliament as a ‘one-vote parliament’? To what kind of democracy are these people referring? The four-vote parliament had representatives of cults who were keen on serving only those cults.

“I sincerely hope the Minister of Information will soon propose the ‘electronic publishing’ bill to the National Assembly for implementing it on the aggravators and individuals who distort the reality of the local news. We are bored of online foolishness, audacity and narrowmindedness. We are tired of their sick attempts to control the free minds of the people of Kuwait.” ❑ ❑ ❑ “In the wake of the success of Egyptian national revolution that forced former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to resign, new terminologies have found their way into the Egyptian political dictionary, among them ‘remnant’, meaning the followers and supporters of Hosni Mubarak,” Saleh Al-Shayeji wrote for Al-Anba daily.

“It is okay to use the word ‘remnant’ to refer to followers and supporters of past regimes, but once the word is used against anyone who is against the new regime, intervention is needed in order to set the record straight. In Tunisia, the current regime pointed fingers to the socalled remnants of Bin Ali’s regime, accusing them of assassinating leftist thinker Shukri Bal’eed.

“During criminal investigation, the first thing investigators look into is the one who benefits from the crime. Therefore, it is not logical for the remnants of Bin Ali’s regime to assassinate someone who share mutual stand against the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia. The same scenario applies in Egypt, where every uprising against the current regime is considered as the actions of Mubarak’s remnants.

“Where are the real revolutionaries in this case? The accusers in Egypt and Tunisia fail to realize they are admitting the former regimes are still able to control the populace, and that revolution will continue until demands of the populace are met.” ❑ ❑ ❑ “Without a doubt, the high tax imposed on shares of foreign partners in local economic activities before 2008 is one of the factors that pushed foreigners away from the local investment market,” Dr Abbas Al-Mijrin wrote for Al-Jarida daily.

“This was mentioned in the UNCTAD World Investment Report on real projects. Another reason behind the decision of foreign investors to avoid the local market is Kuwait’s small share in those investments compared to other GCC countries, thereby, showing Kuwait’s incapability to attract foreign investments.

“Other GCC countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar witnessed developments in this field from 2003 to 2011. Despite reducing tax from 55 percent to 15 percent, no big difference has been noticed. It is still early to predict which direction the Kuwaiti economy will follow to attract foreign capitals.

“We cite political instability as one of the factors that might have a huge impact on the trade movement.

We can say Bahrain is an example since its average share in foreign investments has declined from nine points to less than two in the last two years due to internal conflicts.”

— Compiled by Zaki Taleb

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

LOCAL

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Amir’s wisdom averted ‘revolt’ by local political blocs KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: MP Mubarak Al-Nejadah considers the statements about neighboring countries threatening Kuwait’s stability as baseless and delusional, stressing it’s not easy to destroy a country based on the interests and strategies of great nations playing essential role for that purpose, reports Al-Shahed daily.

In an interview with the daily, Al-Nejadah added some international decision-makers promote the aforementioned idea to indirectly incite the trade in weapons, noting Kuwait will last by its Constitution

and legality.

He also said the Arab Spring revolutions misled some local political blocs to the possibility of changing Kuwait’s face by demanding a popular prime minister, with the purpose of taking control of the nation but they failed thanks to the wisdom of the Amir.

Kuwait managed to get out of the logjam through the recent parliamentary election of one-vote system, he noted, indicating some boycotters of the election were wrong to have thought they are more patriotic than

other citizens.

Meanwhile, MP Khalil Al-Saleh, member of AlMustaqbal Bloc has said the bloc will discuss two interpellation requests submitted by MPs Hussein Al-Qallaf and Faisal Al-Duwaisan against the Minister of Communications Salem Al-Othaina and First Deputy Premier, the Minister of Interior Sheikh Ahmad AlHumoud during its next meeting, reports Al-Qabas daily.

He explained the bloc will allot a clear mechanism to deal with the two proposals and announce its opinion in

this regard. He added the bloc will make its legislative priorities and opinion on popular cases in the political arena known for the coming phase, stressing the lawmakers have the right to submit grilling requests, as per the Constitution, and that government must present opportunities to push the wheel of development forward.

For his part, the spokesman of Conservative Bloc MP Soud Al-Hareeji said the bloc will meet next week to discuss its most prominent priorities, besides grilling proposals and other important cases.

Fund takes students on Lanka visit COLOMBO, Feb 16, (KUNA): A delegation from the Kuwaiti Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) arrived in Colombo on Saturday, accompanied by a number of excelling female high school students, as part of KFAED’s educational program (Be a Well-Achiever) to become acquainted with the Fund’s most significant contributions in Sri Lanka.

The (Be a Well-Achiever) trip, which will be running until February 22, includes a visit to the Kalu Ganga Development Project, east of Sri Lanka, and to the rehabilitation of tsunami-affected educational and administration institutions, in addition to trips to the most significant historical landmarks in island country, northern Indian Ocean.

On the choice of the trip’s destination, Head of KFAED delegation, Amira AlKandari told KUNA “the richness of Sri Lanka’s culture and geographic diversity makes it an ideal destination to serve the goals of the Fund, which already executed 12 projects.

“It is the first time that KFAED organizes a trip to Sri Lanka under the (Be a Well-Achiever) program, which is held for the fourth consecutive year,” she added.

Al-Kandari is heading the official delegation, which groups Sarah Al-Farsi and Sharifa Al-Sabah from KFAED, Dina Al-Ateeqi and Lulwa Al-Shuwaiti from the Ministry of Education and students Hajar Muhanna, Anwaar Al-Otaibi, Noura AlMutairi, Noura Bin Eid, Suad Al-Asfour, Fatima Malallah, Rawan Bunajma, Reem Al-Enezi, Aljawhara Al-Adwani, Sundus Al-Jarki and Ablah Al-Haddad.

KFAED has launched its (Be a Well-Achiever) program in collaboration with the Ministry of Education in 2010. It is an annual trip for 11-graders to two countries that the Fund cooperates with, to see Kuwait’s developmental contributions and its role in achieving global development.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

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Wife attacks husband caught sitting in eatery with girlfriend Florist accuses Egyptian of rape KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: A quarrel broke out between a Kuwaiti husband and wife recently inside a restaurant in Salmiya over the husband’s extramarital affair, reports Al-Rai daily.

According to a security source, when the Kuwaiti woman saw her husband put on his best clothes and perfume and leave home on Valentine’s Day, she followed him.

She noticed him sitting with his girlfriend inside a restaurant and offering her a present.

She confronted him and attacked him. She also hurled abuses at her husband’s girlfriend.

When the Operations Room of Ministry of Interior received information about a fight among three individuals inside a restaurant, securitymen rushed to the location and arrested the Kuwaiti couple.

They were referred to Salmiya Police Station where a case of assault was filed against the wife. ❑ ❑ ❑ Florist says raped: An unidentified woman who works as a florist in Salmiya lodged a complaint against an Egyptian expatriate, accusing him of raping her, reports Al-Rai daily.

She informed securitymen that she had befriended the Egyptian expatriate but when he attempted to convince her to visit his apartment, she refused.

However, the suspect managed to obtain her address and he made an impromptu visit. Sensing his bad intention, she asked him to leave but he raped her.

A case was registered and investi-

Firemen trying to retrieve body of Asian from under the truck.

Kuwaiti, Asian die in mishaps

By Munaif Nayef Special to the Arab Times Several accidents were reported over the weekend, leading to the death of a citizen and an Asian; while five other motorists were injured.

Firefighters, paramedics and security officers dealt with the cases in an appropriate way and transferred the injured to nearby hospitals.

In details, an Asian died when a truck ran over him at the Shadadiya University project. His

gations are ongoing to arrest the suspect. ❑

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remains were referred to Forensics and investigations are in progress to know the actual cause of the accident.

Meanwhile, a car crash in Wafra resulted in the death of a citizen whose body was transferred to Forensics. Investigations are underway to determine the actual circumstances leading to the accident.

On the other hand, two Asians sustained injuries due to a two-car collision in Kabad. Both of them are said to be in critical condition and they are undergoing treatment at Farwaniya Hospital.

Girls fight over staring: A quarrel broke out among 16 minor girls on Restaurant Street in Salmiya, reports Al-Rai daily.

According to security sources, the fight started when five girls accused each other of staring. Securitymen rushed to the location and arrested the 16 girls. They were referred to Salmiya Police Station and their parents were summoned to the station.

The girls were released after they signed written pledges to maintain public conduct. ❑ ❑ ❑ Drugs with wanted man: An unidentified individual was arrested recently for possession of drugs and for his involvement in 16 crimes, reports Al-Watan Arabic daily.

According to a security sources, while securitymen were patrolling Khaitan, they noticed a driver playing loud music and driving his vehicle recklessly. They stopped the driver and checked his details to discover he was wanted by law for 16 crimes.

They checked his vehicle and found large quantity of ‘Shapu’ drugs and KD 560 cash.

He was referred with the drugs to the concerned authorities for necessary legal action against him. ❑ ❑ ❑ Miraculous escape: The driver of a heavy vehicle sustained minor burns when the vehicle suddenly burst into flames on Seventh Ring Road, reports Al-Watan Arabic daily.

Reportedly, the driver managed to jump out of the vehicle as soon as it burst into flames. Firefighters from Al-Qurain Fire Station rushed to the location when they received information about the vehicle on fire.

They extinguished the fire within a short time and the victim was referred to the nearest hospital for treatment.

469 cars seized

7,712 citations issued KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: The General Traffic Department (GTD) organized series of surprise campaigns across the six governorates at the weekend, which led to the registration of 7,712 citations.

Some 469 vehicles and 12 motorbikes were also impounded.

Officers recorded 1,896 citations and seized 40 vehicles in the Capital, and also registered 900 citations and impounded 30 vehicles in Farwaniya, while campaign in Hawalli led to the registration of 1,527 citations and impounding of 203 vehicles.

In Ahmadi, traffic men issued 902 violations and confiscated 5 vehicles, while 423 citations were issued in Mubarak Al-Kabeer where officers also towed 3 vehicles to the ministry garages. 746 citations were issued against motorists in Jahra area, where 48 vehicles were also seized.

Meanwhile, officers from the Operations Unit registered 1,087 citations and impounded 140 vehicles plus 12 motorbikes, while 231 citations were registered at the Kuwait airport.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

MIDEAST

10

Talks on new govt rescheduled for Monday

Islamists protest in Tunis to bolster Ennahda TUNIS, Feb 16, (AFP): Thousands of members of Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party Ennahda on Saturday protested to support their movement’s legitimacy and denounce plans for a government of technocrats aimed at resolving a major crisis.

Protesters, many waving party flags and some holding black Salafist banners, thronged Habib Bourguiba Avenue, a Tunis boulevard that was the cradle of the 2011 uprising that ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. “Supporting Ennahda is a duty,” they shouted, also jeering ex-premier Beji Caid Essebsi and the secular opposition party Call of Tunisia which he heads, and which portrays itself as an alternative to the ruling Islamists.

The mass rally was called by Ennahda to denounce Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali’s plan to form a government of technocrats in a bid to resolve Tunisia’s worst political crisis since the revolution.

Jebali, Ennahda’s number two, announced his plan to form a non-partisan government in the wake of public outrage over the killing of leftist leader Chokri Belaid, who was gunned down outside his home on February 6.

Belaid’s assassination sparked bloody clashes between opposition protesters and police and attacks on Ennahda offices.

The violence plunged Tunisia into further turmoil after months of failure to overhaul the government, while also laying bare divisions within the ruling party.

The prime minister has threatened to resign if he fails to

Saleh warned of sanctions

UN council welcomes Yemen dialogue UNITED NATIONS, Feb 16, (AFP): The UN Security Council Friday praised plans for a national dialogue in Yemen and warned former president Ali Abdullah Saleh he could face sanctions for undermining the political transition.

Yemen’s interim President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi last week set March 18 as the date for the long-awaited talks to push forward the transition process, after violent protests in 2011 and another year of political uncertainty.

The 15-member Council welcomed Hadi’s announcement and “commends those that have engaged construc-

tively in the preparatory stages of the process,” it said in a statement.

But it expressed concern about “reports of money and weapons being brought into Yemen from outside for the purpose of undermining the transition,” and warned Saleh and others not to meddle in the process.

It also expressed “concern over reports of interference in the transition by individuals in Yemen representing the former regime” and the former opposition including Saleh and former vice president Ali Salem al-Beidh.

get the support he needs to form his new government.

After meeting the leaders of the main parties on Friday, Jebali said talks on the new administration had been rescheduled for Monday and that a previous Saturday deadline for its formation had been cancelled, with no new date set.

Ennahda was repressed under Ben Ali’s regime but emerged as a powerful political force after his overthrow in January 2011, with its veteran leader Rached Ghannouchi

returning from 20 years in exile to a hero’s welcome.

It won the first post-revolt polls in October 2011, securing the key foreign, interior and justice ministries in the coalition government, and controls the National Constituent Assembly, holding 89 of 271 seats.

But it is divided between moderates, among whom Jebali is the most prominent, and hardliners, represented by Ghannouchi, who are refusing to give up key portfolios, insisting on the party’s electoral legitimacy.

Suicide bombers kill senior Iraqi intel officer, two guards Two more dead in other blasts as violence surges tor said.

A colonel in the Tal Afar police said the attack involved two suicide bombers — one who killed two guards and wounded four others, and a second who killed the general himself.

Lower-ranking officers and enlisted personnel are usually the victims of attacks on Iraqi security forces, but senior officers including generals are periodically targeted and killed as The attacks were the latest in a surge in violence that comes as Iraq grapples with well.

Also north of Baghdad, a judge was killed by a magnetic “sticky bomb” attached to his car nearly two months of anti-government protests and a political crisis. in the village of Sulaiman Pak, according to security and medical officials.

Brigadier General Aouni Ali, who headed the country’s main intelligence academy, and two Ahmed al-Bayati, a Sunni Arab who is now a judge handling civil cases, had previously of his guards were killed outside the officer’s home in Tal Afar near Mosul, police and a docreceived threats while he was working as an anti-terror investigator, and had to pay kidnappers a $150,000 ransom after his son was snatched last year.

Elsewhere, a roadside bomb killed an army lieutenant and wounded two soldiers in Heet, northwest of the capital.

No group claimed responsibility for the blasts, but Sunni militants linked to al-Qaeda often target security forces and government officials in a bid to erode confidence in the government and push Iraq back towards the bloody sectarian conflict that plagued the country in past years.

Iraq has seen a rise in attacks in recent weeks. The latest violence brings the number of people killed in the country this month to 135, according to an AFP tally based on security and medical sources.

However, levels of violence remain markedly lower than during the peak of the sectarian war in 2006 and 2007.

Sunni Islamist insurgents tied to al-Qaeda have stepped up bombings on Iraqi Shi’ite targets and security forces in a campaign of sectarian violence a year after the last US troops left the country.

One bomber was shot outside the home of Brigadier-General Awni Ali, the director of the Defence Ministry’s intelligence school, in the northern town of Tal Afar. But a second attacker managed to detonate his exploA Palestinian protestor uses a slingshot to throw stones towards for more than 200 days, and other prisoners on hunger strike in sives.

Israeli security forces during clashes in front of Ofer prison, near the Israeli prisons on Feb 15. A United Nations official on Feb 13, “Guards killed one suicide West Bank city of Ramallah, following a demonstration in support of expressed concern about the wellbeing of Palestinian detainees in bomber, but when the brigadier Palestinian detainee, Samer Issawi, who has been on hunger strike Israeli prisons and in particular about the condition of Issawi. (AFP) general and his bodyguards went out another bomber ran among them and blew himself up,” a local official said.

Tal Afar is near the Syrian border, about 420 kms (260 miles) north of Baghdad and just west of the volatile northern city of Mosul. The town has a large DUBAI, Feb 16, (Agencies): Iran will soon Thursday drew a link between his killing and weapon. Iran says its programme is peaceful.

Shi’ite Muslim population in a exact revenge on Israel for the recent killing of a Israel.

Israel is believed to be the Middle East’s only volatile province that is home to Revolutionary Guards commander in Syria, an Ali Shirazi, the representative of Khamenei to nuclear-armed state. many Sunni Arabs as well as aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali the Guards’ elite Quds force, said on Friday The Revolutionary Guards media office said Christians, ethnic Kurds and Khamenei was quoted on Saturday as saying. evening Iran’s “resolve against Israel” had only this week that Khoshnevis had been “martyred Turkmen.

Iran said on Thursday that an Iranian military grown stronger with Khoshnevis’s killing. on his way from Damascus to Beirut by merceIncreasing sectarian violence commander named Hessam Khoshnevis, also “Our enemies should also know that we will naries”. has accompanied growing politicalled Hassan Shateri in some news accounts, quickly get revenge for (the death of) Haj The state news agency IRNA said Khoshnevis cal unrest in Iraq as thousands of had been killed in Syria by rebels fighting Hassan (Shateri) from the Israelis, and the enewas a military engineer during the 1980-88 conSunni Muslims in western President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Tehran. mies cannot shut off the Iranian people with flict between Iran and Iraq, and had later worked provinces rally against Shi’ite Syrian rebels accuse Iran’s Revolutionary such stupid acts,” Shirazi was by the Iranian in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Guard of sending forces to help Assad crush Students’ News Agency (ISNA) on Saturday as Officials stressed Khoshnevis had been accusing him of marginalising their 22-month-old uprising, a charge denied by saying. engaged in civilian reconstruction in Lebanon their minority sect. the Islamic Republic.

Israel has not commented on the killing. for the last seven years. Iran backs the Lebanese More than 10 suicide attackers Details of Khoshnevis’s killing are sketchy Israel has hinted at military action against Iran Shi’ite movement Hezbollah, which fought a have struck security forces, and various accounts have emerged. But Iran’s if Tehran continues with a nuclear programme brief war with Israel seven years ago and allied Shi’ite targets and a lawmaker envoy to Beirut Ghazanfar Roknabadi on which Israel says is aimed at developing a with Assad. since January.

MOSUL, Iraq, Feb 16, (AFP): Two suicide bombers killed a senior Iraqi intelligence officer and two guards near the main northern city of Mosul on Saturday, while other blasts left two more people dead, officials said.

Shateri killed in Syria for helping Assad

Iran to take revenge on Israel for killing guard

Indirect talks to ease Gaza blockade

Israel, Hamas discuss truce JERUSALEM, Feb 16, (AFP): Israel and Gaza-rulers Hamas have been holding indirect talks on easing the blockade on the Palestinian enclave, Channel 2 television reported Friday, under the terms of a truce deal reached last year.

The report said the talks have been going on for “a number of weeks,” and involved Israeli army officers. Both sides speak only via Egyptian mediators, it said.

The report on the privately owned channel noted that these negotiations were part of the agreements reached between

Israel and Gaza after the deadly week-long conflict in and around the Gaza Strip last November.

Talks included opening the Rafah crossing on Gaza’s border with Egypt to enable the transfer of construction materials from Qatar, as well as enabling agricultural produce from Gaza to enter Israel.

A Hamas spokesman on Friday said that in the past two weeks there have been no talks, but in the past there has been contact between their representatives and the Egyptians on implementing the truce.

Saudi cleared ‘initial’ hurdle DENVER, Feb 16, (AP): A Saudi linguist convicted of sexually assaulting a housekeeper and keeping her a virtual slave for four years in Colorado has cleared initial administrative hurdles for a transfer to Saudi Arabia under a United States treaty.

A spokeswoman for the state corrections department said Friday that Homaidan Al-Turki’s foreign national offender transfer application is awaiting final approval by the department’s director.

Al-Turki says he’s innocent and a victim of anti-Muslim sentiment.

A group of protesters including family members of more than 300 jailed military officers accused of plotting to overthrow Turkey’s Islamic-rooted government,hold banners as they stage a demonstration for ‘justice and fair trial’ in Ankara on Feb 16. In Sept 2012 more than 300 retired and active military officers received prison sentences of up to 20 years after the court ruled that a military exercise dubbed ‘Sledgehammer’ in 2003 was an undercover coup plot. (AFP)

Thousands of Tunisian supporters of the ruling Islamist party Ennahda march along Habib Bourguiba Avenue holding up the Tunisian, Islamist and party flags during a demonstration to affirm their right to govern the country on Feb 16, in Tunis. Tunisia’s ruling Ennahda party has called on supporters to rally Saturday and back its ‘legitimacy’ even as the prime minister, who belongs to the Islamist party, scrambles to form a new government of technocrats. (AFP)

Cradle of Arab Spring

Tunisian fighters head abroad to perform jihad TUNIS, Tunisia, Feb 16, (AP): The cradle of the Arab Spring is increasingly looking like the birthplace of jihadists.

Long before Tunisia ousted its dictator Zine El Abdine Ben Ali and inspired the North African pro-democracy movement, the small, relatively prosperous country had the more dubious distinction of exporting Islamic militants. Now, as the country wrestles with the creation of a new government after the killing of a liberal opposition leader, experts say the flow of fighters is getting worse.

The repressive measures of the old secular dictatorship fueled the anger that produced jihadi movements, but its ruthless security apparatus also kept them largely in check. The much more relaxed approach of the country’s new leaders is allowing extremist groups and their networks to flourish like never before, experts say.

Traveled Though no one knows for sure just how many Tunisian fighters have traveled abroad, evidence suggests it remains one of the top exporters of jihadists per capita. Tunisians have turned up on the battlefields of Iraq, Syria, Libya and now Mali.

The 32-man militant strike team that seized a gas plant in Algeria and Ben Ali took dozens of foreign workers hostage was more than onethird Tunisian.

Because of its small, welleducated population, there were hopes Tunisia would transition relatively easily to democracy after the ouster of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. But it is now a battleground pitting secularists and Islamists against one another and in the confusion of creating a new state networks radicalized by the previous regime are flourishing.

The country has fallen victim to a faltering economy, high unemployment and the failure of its new leaders to keep track of extremists freed from prison during the revolution. The longoppressed moderate Islamist party, Ennahda, won elections in 2011 and immediately sought to overturn the harsh security measures and intolerance for religion of its predecessor — opening them to accusations they are coddling violent Islamists.

“The high number of

Tunisian jihadis is because of the lack of control of these people after they were freed following the revolution, by either state or society,” said Alaya Allani, an expert on these groups and author of numerous articles on the subject.

Tunisia is a special case.

Largely middle class, Tunisians have more means to travel abroad than their poorer neighbors in Egypt, Morocco or Yemen. Its high unemployment, even under the relatively prosperous economy of the dictatorship, has also left a ready pool of militant recruits.

Experts say Tunisians turned to extremist forms of Islam as a reaction to Ben Ali’s heavyhanded secular rule. There was no freedom of expression under Ben Ali and many were imprisoned not just for having extremist ideas but practically any anti-government sentiment.

Allani blamed the “absence of a clear religious policy on the part of the new authorities” for the spread of jihadi networks, noting that more than a hundred mosques of the 2,500 across the country are under the control of radical preachers who advocate jihad in other countries.

The government has repeatedly promised to bring these radical mosques, which are believed to be a key part of Tunisia’s recruiting network, under control.

Much of the recruiting is done openly.

Tunisia’ most famous militant, Seifallah Ben Hassine or Abu Yadh, was released following the revolution— after which he formed a group known as Ansar al-Shariah that is believed to be behind an assault last year on the US embassy in Tunis.

Ben Hassine regularly preached for joining jihads in Syria and elsewhere and is now on the run from Tunisian police in the embassy attack. In an interview on his organization’s Facebook page, the leader said many Tunisians were fighting in Syria and Mali.

“Tunisians can be found everywhere in the land of jihad,” he said, claiming that his organization actually urges them to stay in the country.

“The ways of going are easy and we don’t stop our people from leaving.”

A suspect in the fatal Sept 11 attack on the US diplomatic mission in Libya that killed the US ambassador and three others had been released from a Tunisian prison during the revolution. Ali Harzi was question

by Tunisian authorities, and even the FBI, but was released due to lack of evidence.

News in Brief Arrests in Egypt: Egypt’s interior ministry said on Saturday police arrested 60 people across the country during violent protests the night before targeting government and police buildings.

In Cairo, police arrested 30 people in clashes outside one of the presidential palaces, the ministry said in a statement.

Opposition activists have organised almost weekly protests every Friday which often dissolve into clashes at a presidential palace. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑ Student jailed: A court in Turkey on Friday sentenced a French-Turkish student to more than five years in prison for “terrorist propaganda” but allowed her to return to France pending an appeal, her lawyer said.

The lawyer, Inayet Aksu, said the court in the northwestern city of Bursa had sentenced Sevil Sevimli, 21, to five years and two months in prison but freed her until her planned appeal and did not require that she stay in Turkey.

She will however have to pay 10,000 Turkish lira (around 4,200 euros, $5,600) in bail before she leaves, Aksu said. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑ ‘Morsi’s son earns $133’:

Hunger strike in jail

EU calls on Israel to respect rights BRUSSELS, Feb 16, (AFP): The European Union on Saturday called on Israel to respect its human rights obligations towards Palestinian prisoners, saying it was concerned about the condition of four detainees on a long-term hunger strike.

The European Union is “following with concern” the worsening health conditions of Samer Assawi, Jaafar Ezzedine, Ayman Sharawneh and Tareq Qaadan, who are all staging long-term hunger strikes, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement.

The head of Egypt’s holding company for airports and aviation says President Mohammed Morsi’s son has applied for a job that pays $133 a month starting salary.

Captain Magdi Abdel-Hadi dismissed accusations of nepotism and denied reports that the starting monthly salary would be $5,000.

(AP)

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

INTERNATIONAL

11

‘Safety of Filipinos in Borneo main concern’

Philippines calls for peaceful solution to stand-off LAHAD DATU, Malaysia, Feb 16, (AFP): The Philippines on Saturday called for a peaceful resolution to a tense stand-off between Malaysian forces and a group of gunmen claiming to be followers of the heir of a former Borneo sultan.

The group, estimated at 200 with dozens believed to be armed, landed by boat near the Borneo town of Lahad Datu in Malaysia’s Sabah state from the neighbouring Philippines on Tuesday.

Police say the group has declared itself followers of a former Philippine-based Islamic sultanate that once controlled parts of Borneo, including the standoff site, and is refusing to leave Malaysian territory.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino’s spokeswoman Abigail Valte said Saturday the safety of the Filipinos was the government’s main concern as Malaysian armed forces and police have locked down the area.

“The primary concern now is their safety and to resolve the incident peacefully,” Valte said in a radio interview in Manila. She said the Philippines had received assurance from Malaysia that the government would encourage the group, which Manila has yet to identify, to leave the area peacefully.

Sabah police chief Hamza Taib was quoted by local dailies as saying police were in negotiations with the group and expected the stand-off to be resolved “very soon with the group returning to their home country”.

Malaysian police have set up a series of road blocks along the route leading from Lahad Datu through palm oil

Military accused of Maiduguri violence

Nigeria blast kills 2; houses, shops burnt MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, Feb 16, (AFP): A bomb explosion targeting soldiers killed at least two people on Friday in the restive northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri while houses and shops nearby were burnt, the military said.

The two dead were suspected to be the bombers, according to a statement from Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa, though independent confirmation was not immediately available and the military’s information is often unreliable.

“No civilian was killed or wounded,” the statement said of the incident in the Gambaru market area, adding that a military vehicle was damaged and a soldier was

wounded.

Musa also said shops and houses in the area caught fire due to the effects of the blast, but this also could not be independently confirmed. It was also not clear how many houses and shops were burnt.

The military has been accused of setting homes and shops alight in Maiduguri in response to previous bomb blasts, among other abuses.

Maiduguri is the home base of Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, which has carried out a violent insurgency in Nigeria’s north and central regions.

plantations to the remote village where the gunmen are.

Marine police were also patrolling the sea.

An AFP photographer was denied access some 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the stand-off site.

The group involved in the impasse has claimed to be adherents of the former Sulu sultanate, a regional power centre until its demise a century ago.

A Philippine military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP Friday the group was demanding an increase in the nominal amount Malaysia pays, under

a long-standing agreement, to the heirs of the sultanate for possession of Sabah.

Sabah has a history of incursions by armed Philippine groups, and the prickly situation could test ties between the neighbours, who are fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

In the worst incident, guerrillas of the Islamic militant Abu Sayyaf movement seized 21 mostly Western tourists at the Sabah scuba diving resort of Sipadan in 2000. They were taken to Philippine islands and later ransomed.

Afghan forces banned from calling air strikes: Karzai President expresses anger over civilian casualties KABUL, Feb 16, (RTRS): Afghan security forces will be banned from calling for NATO air strikes in residential areas to help in their operations, President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday, three days after 10 civilians died in such a strike in the country’s east.

NATO air strikes and civilian casualties have become a significant stress point in the relationship between Karzai and his international backers. The issue threatens to further destabilise a precarious international withdrawal, to be completed by the end of 2014.

Afghan National Army officers shake hands with Afghan President Hamid Karzai (center), during a conference at the National Military Academy in Kabul on Feb 16. Afghanistan has committed to taking

Addressing a conference at Kabul’s National Military Academy, Karzai expressed his anger about the strike and said he would issue a decree on Sunday preventing any resort to such measures by his forces.

“Tomorrow, I will issue an decree stating that under no conditions can Afghan forces request foreign air strikes on Afghan homes or Afghan villages during operations,” Karzai told more than 1,000 officers, commandos and students.

If issued, such a decree would for the first time bar Afghan security forces from relying on NATO air strikes, and increase pressure on them as they increasingly assume control of

full responsibility for its own security after US forces leave, and the White House said Afghan security forces now count 352,000 troops, thanks to a broad NATO training effort. (AFP)

Peace plan to end war with insurgents

Pakistani tribesmen pushing Taleban to talk PESHAWAR, Feb 16, (AP): Five years after setting up an umbrella organization to unite violent militant groups in the nation’s tribal regions, the Pakistani Taleban is fractured, strapped for cash and losing support of local tribesmen frustrated by a protracted war that has forced thousands from their homes, analysts and residents say.

The temperamental chief of the group known as the Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP), Hakimullah Mehsud, recently offered to start peace talks with the government, raising the prospect of a negotiated end to Pakistan’s war against insurgents in a lawless region that runs the length of the border with

Afghanistan.

The group’s offer of sanctuary to Afghanistan’s Taleban has been one of the most divisive issues in US-Pakistan relations and has confounded efforts to get the upper hand against Afghan insurgents after more than 11 years of war.

Pakistan denies providing outright military and financial help to militants fighting in Afghanistan. With 120,000 Pakistani soldiers deployed in the tribal regions, Pakistan has waged its own bloody battle against insurgents that has left more than 4,000 soldiers dead.

In interviews with analysts, residents and militant experts, Mehsud’s network has

emerged as a narrow collection of insurgents - often with links to criminal gangs - that has only limited influence in a vast tribal region overrun by scores of insurgent groups led by commanders with disparate agendas and varying loyalties.

Rather than a precursor to peace, Mehsud’s offer to talk peace is an attempt to regain stature, silence critics and gain concessions from a weak government heading into nationwide elections, according to those familiar with the militant organization.

Taleban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan has repeatedly denied reports of divisions within the TTP, including reported challenges to Mehsud’s leadership.

No talks with rebels: Kenya

Somali bomb blast kills one

MOGADISHU, Feb 16, (RTRS): Kenyan defence officials said on Friday they would not negotiate with Somali militants linked to al Qaeda who said they executed a Kenyan army private at midnight on Thursday.

The al Shabaab militants, who want to impose a strict version of sharia, or Islamic law, said they killed the soldier after the expiry of an ultimatum for the release of Muslims held by Kenya on terror charges. The rebels also postponed the execution deadline by 72 hours for five other hostages, including two government workers.

MOGADISHU, Feb 16, (AFP): At least one person was killed Saturday by a car bomb in the latest of a string of attacks in Somalia’s war-ravaged capital, set off outside a popular beachside restaurant, police said.

“We have reports that one person was killed and another was injured in the blast,” said police officer Hussein Ali, who was nearby when the car exploded.

The explosion took place close to Mogadishu’s famous Lido beach, which is usually crowded on a weekend with families enjoying the sand, playing football or swimming in the Indian Ocean waves.

Somalis postpone execution deadline

Colonel Cyrus Oguna, spokesman for the Kenyan military which has been battling al Shabaab in Somalia since October 2011, confirmed the soldier was one of its troops, but said the Kenya Defence Forces was investigating the claim of the execution.

He said the soldier had been abducted and was not captured during the KDF’s operations in Somalia. Oguna also ruled out negotiations with the rebels.

The Kenyan defence forces have always said none of its soldiers was believed held as prisoners of war by al Shabaab.

security from international forces.

NATO and its partners are racing against the clock to train Afghanistan’s 350,000-strong security forces, though questions remain over how they well the Afghans will be able to tackle the insurgency in the face of intensifying violence.

On Wednesday, a NATO air strike — requested during an operation in eastern Kunar province involving Afghan and American troops targeting Taleban fighters linked to alQaeda — struck two houses in a village in the Shultan valley.

The strike killed 10 people, including five children and four women. Four Taleban fighters, who had links to al-Qaeda, according to Afghan officials, were also killed.

Foreign air power is crucial for Afghan forces, particularly in areas like Kunar and Nuristan, which are covered with forests and rough terrain, making ground operations difficult.

Nuristan and Kunar also share a long, porous borders with lawless areas inside Pakistan, known to be home to foreign fighters and al-Qaeda members.

Karzai said he had been told that the air strike was requested by the Afghan spy agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS).

“If this is true, it is very regrettable and it is very shameful. How could they ask foreigners to send planes and bomb our own houses?” he said.

According to Kunar officials one of the dead insurgents was identified as a Pakistani citizen and Taleban leader named Rocketi. A second was identified as a Taleban commander called Shahpour.

A spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said there would be no comment on any presidential decree until it was actually issued.

In June last year, following the deaths of 18 civilians in a NATO air strike in the country’s east, the ISAF commander at the time, General John Allen, issued a directive restricting their use against insurgents “within civilian dwellings”.

Somali soldiers walk near the wreckage of a car bomb that went off at a popular beachfront restaurant frequented by Somali officials and city residents in Mogadishu, Somalia, Feb 16. A Somali police officer says the car bomb detonated by remote control in the parking area of the restaurant, which was opened last year following the ouster from the seaside capital of al-Qaeda-linked militants, has killed one person and wounded two others. (AP)

Malaysian armed policemen return from a sea patrol in Tanjung Labian near Lahad Datu, on the Malaysian island of Borneo on Feb 16. The Philippines called for a peaceful resolution to a tense standoff in a remote area on Borneo island in Malaysia, where hundreds of Filipinos with arms have landed. (AFP)

‘Poll timeline can be changed’

Dissident Mali army unit to be dispersed BAMAKO, Feb 16, (Agencies): An elite army unit loyal to Mali’s ousted president that has clashed repeatedly with rival units since his ouster will be dispersed by March, the crisis-torn country’s government said Friday.

Most “Red Beret” paratroopers have refused to obey an order absorbing them into other units to fight Islamist rebels who seized northern Mali in the wake of a coup in March last year.

A week ago gunfire broke out as tensions boiled over between rival “Green Beret” units and paratroopers who had refused to budge from their base in the capital.

Interim prime minister Diango Cissoko said in a statement read on national TV that all parties involved had met and that the order “restructuring” the paratroopers would now be carried out.

One company will remain in the capital as instructors, while two others will be sent to the northern cities of Gao and Timbuktu, he said.

“The members of the Gao and Timbuktu companies will be deployed... for training and then engage in operations,” he said.

The measures “shall take effect by March 1, 2013 at the latest”, he added.

The order dispersing the paratroopers was issued Cissoko after they staged a failed counter-coup against the Green Berets who had overthrown president Amadou Toumani Toure, himself a former Red Beret.

Fighting between feuding factions left some 20 people dead.

Toure was ousted on March 22 by a group of mid-level officers who blamed him for the army’s humiliation by separatist rebels in the north.

In the chaotic aftermath of the coup, Al-Qaeda-linked extremists hijacked the separatist rebellion and took control of the north.

Driven A French-led military intervention launched on January 11 has driven them from the towns they controlled.

But suicide attacks and guerrilla fighting have continued, and the deep divisions in the Malian army have raised fears it will not be able to restore security on its own.

Meanwhile, the minister responsible for organising elections meant to haul Mali out of crisis said Friday the timeline can be changed, after interim president Dioncounda Traore raised eyebrows by promising a vote by July 31.

Mali is struggling to claw its way out of a crisis unleashed by a March 22 coup that ousted democratically elected president Toure, creating a power vacuum that Islamist rebels exploited to seize the north of the country.

But critics said July was still too soon to organise the presidential and parliamentary polls given the problems Mali faces, including ongoing insurgent attacks, a deeply divided military and hundreds of thousands of people who have fled their homes.

Territorial Administration Minister Moussa Sinko Coulibaly, an army colonel who was part of the ruling junta before it handed power to Traore’s transitional government, said Friday the timeline laid down by the interim president last month was flexible.

“The organisation (of the elections) will depend on the timeliness with respect to the ongoing military operations,”

he said.

“The July deadline can be changed if necessary,” he added.

“Our goal... is not to make deadlines but to get out of this crisis.”

He also acknowledged the challenges of ensuring displaced voters will be able to cast ballots.

Some 380,000 people have fled northern Mali since the conflict began, including more than 150,000 who have sought refuge in neighbouring countries, according to UN figures.

Difficult “We’re aware that it will be difficult to organise the elections at the end of July with refugees participating,” he said.

The elections are part of a roadmap adopted unanimously by parliament late last month to restore constitutional rule in what was once considered one of west Africa’s most stable democracies.

Meanwhile, the top Tuareg officer in Mali’s army urged France on Friday to keep its forces in Mali for as long as it takes to drive out Islamist rebels for good.

Colonel El Hadj Ag Gamou, who remained loyal to Mali’s government last year when fellow Tuaregs rebelled, said an early withdrawal by French troops would allow the Islamist forces, linked to alQaeda, to regain ground lost in a five-week-old French-led offensive.

“They (the French) have started something that is not close to being finished,” he said.

After pushing Islamist insurgents from north Mali’s major towns with relentless air strikes and rapid advances by special forces and armoured columns, and backing from former Tuareg rebels, France’s leaders have said they intend to start withdrawing the 4,000 French troops next month.

But Gamou, who is a commander in the Malian army, said he expected the jihadist insurgent groups to fight a guerrilla war from the remote and rugged Adrar des Ifoghas mountains into which they had retreated, near Algeria’s border.

“This is where they organised themselves ... and that is where they can hide and resupply. They are protected by nature – there is water,” Gamou told Reuters in an interview, sitting in desert fatigues and beige turban in a sandy compound flanked by men from his unit, almost all Tuareg desert fighters like him.

The Tuaregs are desert dwellers who live mostly in Mali’s Saharan north as well as in neighbouring Niger and Algeria.

Gamou said France should not withdraw from its former colony until the Malian army could maintain government control over the sprawling state, Africa’s third largest gold producer after South Africa and Ghana.

“The French have to continue their mission until the threat is neutralised ... and Mali’s army is able to control the whole country,” the Tuareg officer said softly as the desert wind whipped through the shade of the thatched hut.

Gamou only came back to Mali last month with his men after months of exile in neighbouring Niger, returning to the Saharan town of Gao, recaptured from the insurgents three weeks ago.

He said the rebels’ links with Libya, Algeria and Tunisia and their history of ties with smuggling networks across the vast Sahara gave them the ability to bring in supplies across the mountain passes and uncontrolled, porous borders.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

INTERNATIONAL

12

British minister reacts to Stanfford scandal

Hunt warns on ‘gagging clauses’ in NHS LONDON, Feb 16, (AFP): Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has written to hospitals in England to warn them against using “gagging orders” to stop staff from exposing poor practices, the ministry said Saturday.

The letter referred to the case of Gary Walker, a former National Health Service (NHS) manager who received a legal warning this week after revealing how he was forced to keep quiet about his dismissal and his fears for patient safety.

Hunt said this exertion of pressure was particularly worrying as it came just days after an official report was published into a major scandal of care at Stafford Hospital in central England.

The report revealed how staff, managers and professional bodies had all failed to expose the appalling neglect of mostly elderly patients over three years, which saw them denied the most basic care and attention.

“Fostering a culture of openness and transparency is essential if we are to ensure we never repeat the mistakes of Mid Staffs (Stafford Hospital) — which means creating a climate where it is easy for staff, present and former, to come forward with any concerns they have relating to patient safety,” Hunt wrote.

In the letter sent on Friday, the health minister warned against a “culture which is legalistic and defensive” and a level of “institutional self-defence that prevents honest acknowledgement of failure”.

One boy hurt in ‘poor man’s Monte Carlo’

Woman killed in Scottish rally car crash LONDON, Feb 16, (AFP): A rally car plunged into a crowd of spectators in Scotland on Saturday killing a 50-year-old woman and injuring an eight-year-old boy, police said.

The accident happened in Glenurquhart Forest near Loch Ness during the first stage of the Highland Car Club Snowman Rally, which has been going since 1955 and is known locally as the “poor man’s Monte Carlo”.

The boy’s condition is not believed to be life threatening, but he has been taken to hospital, the Northern Constabulary said in a statement.

“Neither the driver or the co-driver of the vehicle was injured as a result of the incident. No other spectators were injured,” it added.

The rally was abandoned following the incident, and the car club said it extended its sympathies to the families of those involved.

Prime Minister David Cameron admitted that the scandal at Stafford Hospital had rocked the public’s faith in the NHS, a vast cradle-to-grave system of healthcare which has been free at the point of use since its creation in 1948.

Last week’s report blamed the neglect on management’s focus on meeting government targets and cutting costs, but said there also needed to be a change in culture so everyone took responsibility for patient care.

In an interview with the BBC this week, Walker said he had been forced to sign a confidentiality agreement two years ago promising not to go public with his concerns about patient care at the United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust in central England where he was chief executive until his dismissal in 2010.

Following the interview, he received a letter from the trust’s lawyers warning he was in breach of their agreement and would have to repay the £500,000 ($775,000, 580,000 euros) pay-off he was given when he left.

Indian helicopter scandal risks clouding Cameron’s business trip Britain plans to double trade with India But his second trip to India as prime minister will require deft handling after the Indian government said it was cancelling a $748 million (560 million euro) deal to buy 12 helicopters for VIPs from an Italian firm amid allegations the contract was won through kickbacks.

India took steps to scrap the contract on Friday after Italian investigators probed allegations that aerospace group Finmeccanica, the parent company of Anglo-Italian helicopter unit The trip to Delhi and the commercial capital Mumbai comes hot on the heels of a AgustaWestland, had broken the law by paying bribes to foreign officials.

The helicopters, three of which have already been delivered, are manufactured in southwest visit to India by French President Francois Hollande to drum up trade, underlining the England. Cameron’s first overture to India was snubbed last year when Delhi selected a French growing importance of the Indian economy. fighter jet over the part-British Eurofighter in a $12 billion contract, a deal which Hollande was Cameron said ahead of the visit that he wanted the relationship between Britain and India to be “one of the great partnerships of the 21st century”. seeking to tie up during his visit.

The British government has taken note of the fact that the huge contract with Dassault Aviation is still not finalised, and hopes to remind the Indian government of Eurofighter’s merits in case they change their mind.

A government source told Britain’s Press Association news agency: “Hollande was in India this week and a deal has not been signed so we will want to find out from the Indians how their talks are progressing with the French.”

Aside from defence, British retailers are keen to increase their presence in India and executives from the Tesco supermarket chain, Britain’s biggest retailer which already has a joint venture in India, are expected to fill some of the seats on Cameron’s plane.

The prime minister remains confident that he will reach of goal of doubling Britain’s trade with India from £11.5 billion ($17.8 billion, 13.4 billion euros) in 2010 to £23 billion by the time he faces the next general election in 2015.

Cameron also wants to use the trip to correct any misunderstandings about his government’s drive to bring immigration numbers under control amid concerns that young Indians could be deterred from applying to study in Britain.

Admitting that the government “haven’t perhaps communicated Anti-war protesters from the ‘Stop the War Coalition’ hold a rally in Iraq, opposite Downing Street, the official residence of the British this properly” to would-be stuagainst western intervention in Syria and calling for western troops Prime Minister, in central London, Feb 15. (AP) dents, he said there was “no limit” to leave Mali, on the 10th anniversary of the march to stop the war on the numbers of Indians studying at British universities or staying on in graduate-level jobs.

In an interview with the London-based Asian television and radio station Sunrise, Cameron said he was “really, really enthusiastic” about the prospects for increased trade BRUSSELS, Feb 16, (AFP): The European ers across Europe. sent to French firm Comigel, which makes between the two countries.

Union has agreed the immediate launch of tests In Britain, the Food Standards Agency said frozen meals at its Tavola subsidiary in “We both want to see jobs, we for horse DNA in meat products, seeking to that 29 out of 2,501 beef products it has tested Luxembourg. want to see growth, we want to reassure nervous consumers that their food is so far have been found to contain more than That meat was used to make 4.5 million see investment,” he said. safe and to end the horsemeat scandal spreadone percent horsemeat but stressed that these products that were sold by Comigel to 28 dif“It’s a very special partnership ing across Europe. must be considered exceptions. ferent companies in 13 European countries. between Britain and India.

The test programme will also look for the “The overwhelming majority of beef prodNorgesGruppen, Norway’s largest retailer, “We’ve got these ties of history, presence of phenylbutazone, an anti-inflammaucts in this country do not contain horse. The said Friday that horsemeat was found in frozen language, culture, but really I see it tory treatment for horses which is harmful to examples we have had are totally unacceptable lasagne dishes made by Comigel and sold in its as a very strong relationship about humans and by law supposed to be kept out of but they are the exceptions,” FSA chief execustores and Austria said horsemeat was found in the future — huge investment from the food chain. tive Catherine Brown said. beef tortelloni manufactured by a German food India into Britain, huge investment The crisis continued to build Friday as Brown added that the results were “still far company and delivered to Austrian branches of from Britain into India, lots of our Austria and Norway confirmed that ready-tofrom the full picture” and that testing continbudget retailer Lidl. businesses partnering, lots of trade eat “beef” meals containing horsemeat had ued. French meat-processing firm Spanghero, Danish authorities said Friday they were and lots of jobs.”

India on Friday said it had been found, stoking concerns many more cases blamed by Paris for the growing scandal, insistprobing whether a slaughterhouse may have taken steps to cancel a contract for in more countries will come to light after falseed again it was not responsible. “I don’t know mixed horsemeat into meat marked as beef that 12 Italian helicopters amid allegaly-labelled meat was found in Britain, France, who is behind this but it is not us,” Spanghero was supplied to pizza makers. tions the deal was won through Germany and Switzerland. boss Barthelemy Aguerre told Europe 1 radio.

Meanwhile Dutch officials raided a meat kickbacks as the head of the susThe scandal has left governments scrambling The French government on Thursday processing plant in the south of the Netherlands pected defence company stepped to figure out how and where the mislabelling charged that Spanghero knowingly sold 750 believed to be mixing horsemeat and beef and down. happened in the sprawling chain of production tonnes of horsemeat mislabelled as beef over a selling it on as pure beef, the public prosecutor spanning a maze of abattoirs and meat suppliperiod of six months, 500 tonnes of which were said.

See Also Page 13

LONDON, Feb 16, (AFP): British Prime Minister David Cameron heads to India next week with an extensive trade delegation for a visit clouded by a corruption scandal over British-built helicopters.

Plan to launch tests for horse DNA in meat

EU approves plan to halt horsemeat scandal

Assange embassy stand-off

UK police costs $4.5 mln LONDON, Feb 16, (AFP): The cost of keeping police round the clock outside the Ecuadoran embassy in London in case Julian Assange emerges has hit £2.9 million ($4.5 million, 3.4 million euros), British police said Friday.

Officers have been stationed outside ever since the WikiLeaks founder jumped bail and fled there on June 19 after losing his battle in the British courts against extradition to Sweden, where he faces questioning over allegations of rape and sexual assault. Ecuador has granted him political asylum.

Scotland Yard police headquar-

ters estimated the total cost to the end of January at £2.9 million — £2.3 million in salary for the officers stationed on duty and the rest in overtime payments. The embassy is a flat in a mansion block in west London’s plush Knightsbridge district. It is across the street from the back of Harrods department store.

Assange, a 41-year-old Australian former computer hacker, founded the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website which enraged Washington by releasing cables and war logs relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the biggest security breach in American history.

Horsemeat in hospital food BELFAST, Feb 16, (RTRS): Horse meat has been discovered in a batch of beef burgers supplied to hospitals in Northern Ireland, officials said on Friday.

The supplier of the hospitals, Irish food firm Rangeland Foods, said the burgers used meat from Poland and some contained between 5 percent and 30 percent horsemeat.

Horse meat has been found in beef products across Europe in recent weeks, damaging confidence in the continent’s vast and complex food industry.

Sunrise over Bamburgh Castle, north eastern England, Feb 16. After several days of severe winter weather, forecasters expect a pleas ant week of Spring-like conditions next week. (AP)

An unidentified butcher cuts beef at a butcher’s shop in London on Feb 15. Twenty-nine beef products out of 2,501 on sale in Britain have tested positive for more horsemeat, the Food Standards Agency said on Feb 15. (AFP)

Horsemeat scandal

British butchers enjoy sales boost after furore LONDON, Feb 16, (Agencies): In one of Britain’s oldest butcher’s shops, staff in straw hats are rushing to cope with a surge in demand for pricey pies and sausages from customers worried about a scandal over mislabelled horsemeat and rich enough to buy peace of mind.

Founded in 1850, Lidgates in London’s smart Notting Hill district retains a Dickensian atmosphere, displaying beef from grass-fed cows, organic chickens, and silver trophies won by its products.

The discovery of horsemeat in food labelled as beef has shocked the British, a nation of horse-lovers, and exposed a gap between rich shoppers who can afford top-quality meat and those forced to hunt for bargains at the other end of the market.

Squeezed The current climate of economic austerity has squeezed family budgets, forcing many to choose cheap mass-produced foods containing often untraceable ingredients.

But Lidgates, where a whole beef fillet sells for more than £100 ($160) and half a dozen sausages cost £6 ($9), is a world away from these concerns.

“Sales on items such as minced beef, pies, sausages went up ranging 10 and 20 percent directly on day one,” said Danny Lidgate, 33, the fifth generation of his family to run the shop.

Lidgate The trend towards upmarket meat appears to be gathering pace elsewhere in Britain, where many people are so sentimental about horses that they find the idea of eating their meat repulsive.

According to the Q Guild, which represents high-end independent butchers, its members say sales of beefburgers and meatballs have risen by 30 per cent since the horsemeat furore started, with overall trade up by an average of 20 percent.

As the scandal deepened this week, the government played down the health risks, saying it was doing everything to ensure food sold across the country was safe enough to eat.

Generally, horsemeat is not a danger to health, but the damage to public confidence has already been done.

Scrutinising a cut of rib-eye steak, Jacqueline O’Leary, a housewife from the upscale Kensington district, said the revelations about horsemeat had changed her shopping habits.

“I haven’t bought lately (from supermarkets). I’ve just been buying more here so they’ve probably seen me three times a week and I buy sausages and mince from here now, it’s just easier.”

Upstairs in Lidgates’ busy kitchen, a butcher completes a cottage pie, the traditional British dish of minced meat covered in a layer of potato.

Selling for more than £5 ($8) a portion, the fresh grass-fed or organic minced beef dish is rather more expensive than the alternative from frozen food giant Findus, available for just 1 pound from one supermarket.

After finding it beef lasagne contained horsemeat, the British unit of Findus began recalling the product from supermarket shelves last week on advice from its French supplier Comigel, raising questions over the complicated nature of the European food chain.

Elsewhere in London, Mark McCartney, another shopper, said he would rather go to his local butcher than buy meat at the supermarket.

“I trust this meat more than I trust anything out of the supermarkets and you can pick and choose and give this man the money.” he said. “It’s cheaper, it’s better quality and it’s better people getting the money.”

The loss of trust in supermarkets and processed food may be temporary and will probably be restored gradually after the scandal.

But the trend is still a worry for Britain’s food and farming industries, which contribute £88 billion ($140 billion) to the economy every year.

Meat and meat products accounted for £1.7 billion out of Britain’s total food and drink exports of £18.2 billion in 2011, according to farm minister Owen Paterson.

Nearly half of British consumers said they would avoid buying meat from supermarkets affected by the horsemeat scandal, according to a survey this month for Retail Week magazine. Family butchers may be experiencing a revival but it is likely to be short-lived given the attraction of supermarkets to busy shoppers.

In Britain, four supermarket chains together account for over three quarters of the grocery market, according to the Kantor research company.

Many family-run butchers have been hit hard in the past decade, with many blaming high parking charges in towns as well as increasingly timepoor customers.

The number of registered butcher’s shops fell to around 6,800 in 2011 from more than 9,000 in 2000, according to figures from the British tax authorities.

At a bustling London street market, butcher Raymond Roe said he had been in the trade for 37 years but at least eight of his local competitors had closed their doors since 1976.

Even though shoppers are angry with supermarkets now, he was pessimistic about the future.

“They’ve lost their trust,” he said. “I get a lot of people saying they’re not going to buy from them (supermarkets).

Convenient “But the thing is, supermarkets are convenient for everyone and most people haven’t got much time. A lot of it is, people don’t cook no more.”

Pointing behind him on the wall to diagrams of animals with lines drawn to indicate cuts of meat, Roe described his role as butcher, teacher and chef for his customers.

“I show them the charts where the cuts come from to try and educate them because years ago, the older people - a lot of them are dead now - they knew the cuts but no one knows nothing now,” he said sadly. “They don’t even know how to cook.”

Officials also said horsemeat was present in cottage pies delivered to 47 schools in Lancashire county, northern England, and in hospital meals in Northern Ireland.

Tests are continuing, and officials say this is far from over.

“The more people have looked for horsemeat, the more products have been found containing it,” said Duncan Campbell, a senior British food inspector. “I don’t think we have got to the bottom of it yet.”

European officials say the scandal is the result of fraud, and possibly an international criminal conspiracy to pass off cheap horsemeat as more expensive beef.

The French government says the chain of fraudulent meat sales reaches across 28 firms in 13 countries.

At least some of the horsemeat originated at abattoirs in Romania, and was sent through a Cyprus-registered trader to a warehouse in the Netherlands.

A French meat wholesaler, Spanghero, bought the meat from the trader, then resold it to the French frozen food processor Comigel. The resulting food was marketed in Britain and other countries under the Sweden-based Findus label as lasagna and other products containing ground beef.

French authorities blame Spanghero for the fraud, but it strongly denies wrongdoing.

“The responsibility started upstream,” chief executive Barthelemy Aguerre said Friday. “We didn’t want to cheat anyone.” The Romanian companies and the Dutch trader also deny fraud. They say the meat was clearly labeled as horse when they handled it.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

SUBCONTINENT

13

‘Complying with India’s request for clarifications over bribery scandal’

Italy helicopter firm says it is ‘clean’ ROME, Feb 16, (Agencies): AgustaWestland, a unit of Italian aerospace group Finmeccanica, said Saturday that it was complying with India’s request for clarifications over a bribery scandal and had fully respected the law.

“AgustaWestland is confident that the full compliance with the relevant laws as well as the good conduct of its past and present senior executives and managers will be demonstrated as soon as practicable,” it said in a note.

India on Friday had said it had taken steps to cancel a $748 million contract for 12 helicopters from AustaWestland amid allegations the deal was won through bribes of up to 50 million euros ($66 million).

The ministry of defence said it had “initiated action for cancellation” of the contract and asked the Italian firm to “reply within seven days” if terms of the contract and an “integrity pact” it signed in 2010 had been violated.

AgustaWestland confirmed that the ministry had “given notice requesting information within seven days”, and said it was compling with the request.

The scandal toppled the head of the head of the suspected defence company, Giuseppe Orsi, who resigned from behind prison bars in Italy on Friday. The former head of AgustaWestland, Bruno Spagnolini, is also behind bars.

India, which has put payments to the company on hold, has already received three of the choppers. The rest were to be delivered by the end of 2014.

The purchase came under scrutiny from Italian investigators probing allegations the group had broken the law by pay-

Indian president rejects mercy plea

4 convicts sentenced to hang seek last-ditch reprieve NEW DELHI, Feb 16, (AFP): Four bandits sentenced to death over a landmine blast that killed 22 policemen in 1993 approached India’s Supreme Court on Saturday in a last-ditch bid to escape execution, a lawyer for the men said. The four accomplices of slain sandalwood smuggler Veerappan were scheduled to hang on Sunday after Indian President Pranab Mukherjee rejected their mercy plea, according to the convicts’ lawyer, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.

But a senior prison official where the four convicts were being held said no immediate preparations were underway

for their hanging. “I have filed a request for an urgent hearing later today (Saturday) at the Supreme Court, asking for a stay on their execution,” the lawyer for the convicts said.

“We are asking for their sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment because of the mental distress suffered by them while waiting eight years for a decision on their mercy plea,” he added.

“No preparations are going on for the execution of the four convicts tomorrow (Sunday). We are awaiting instructions from higher authorities,” said a senior official at Belgaum jail, where the four men are being held.

ing bribes to foreign officials. Italian prosecutors suspect that kickbacks worth up to 10 percent of the deal were paid to Indian officials to ensure AgustaWestland won the contract.

Cash was allegedly handed to a cousin of former Indian air force chief S.P. Tyagi, who denies wrongdoing, with more money funnelled via a web of middlemen and companies in London, Switzerland, Tunisia and Mauritius, press reports say.

Orsi denies any wrongdoing and his lawyer has called the

allegations against him “inconsistent” and his arrest “unjustified”.

This is not the first time that a defense deal in India has been mired in allegations that a company paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to Indian officials. In the 1980s, thenprime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s government collapsed over charges that the Swedish gun manufacturer Bofors AB paid bribes to supply Howitzer field guns to the Indian army.

Bomb in SW Pakistan kills 79, injures over 200, say police ‘Shiite community was the target’ “At least 64 people have been killed and at least 200 more wounded. The death toll may rise. It was a remote-controlled bomb,” Wazir Khan Nasir, senior police officer in Quetta, told AFP. “It was a sectarian attack, the Shiite community was the target,” he added.

“We have recovered more dead bodies from the debris of a collapsed building.

Azhar Ali Shah, a second police officer, confirmed the death toll, which had initially been The death toll has now risen to 79,” police official Wazir Khan Nasir told AFP, as put at 10. Provincial home secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani told AFP that the dead included rescue workers searched for survivors at the blast site in Hazara town, an area dom- women and children. inated by Shiites on the outskirts of Quetta, in Baluchistan province.

“We fear more casualties. We have announced an emergency in hospitals,” he said.

Durrani said the bomb was planted near the pillar of a building in a bazaar.

“The building collapsed due to the intensity of the bomb, some people have been trapped inside,” he said.

Officials and witnesses said an angry mob surrounded the area after the blast and were not allowing policemen, rescue workers and reporters to reach the site.

“They were angry and started a protest, some of them pelted police with stones,” home secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani told AFP. “Some of them were armed and were firing gunshots in the air, now they have allowed police and rescue workers to reach on spot,” he added.

An AFP photographer counted 30 dead bodies in only one hospital.

Baluchistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, has increasingly become a flashpoint for sectarian violence between Pakistan’s majority Sunni Muslims and Shiites, who account for around a fifth of the country’s 180 million people.

More than 400 Shi’ite were killed in Pakistan last year, many by hitmen or bombs, and the perpetrators are almost never caught.

A spokesman for the LeJ claimed responsibility for Saturday’s bloodshed near the main bazaar, school and computer centre. Burned school bags Pakistani tribal people from South Waziristan hold a rally in Islamabad, against Taleban and al-Qaeda militants. They demanded peace in and books were strewn around.

Pakistan, on Feb 15. Dozens of protesters from Mehsud tribe gathSouth Waziristan and whereabout of missing people from their tribe.

“I saw many bodies of women ered to condemn US drone attacks and ongoing military operations Placard in center reads ‘our students are without education.’ (AP) and children,” said an eyewitness at a hospital. “At least a dozen people were burned to death by the blast.”

Last month, LeJ said it carried out a bombing in Quetta that killed nearly 100 people, one of Pakistan’s worst sectarian attacks.

Thousands of Shi’ites protested in COLOMBO, Feb 16, (AFP): Gunmen shot and still in intensive care,” she said adding abductions and disappearances remained several cities after that attack. wounded a journalist near Sri Lanka’s capital Shauketaly had written a series of articles on unsolved.

Most Western intelligence Colombo, police said on Saturday, the latest in a alleged corruption in the energy sector in recent “We urge the authorities to investigate this agencies have regarded the string of attacks against media in the country. months. shooting and bring the attackers to justice,” Pakistani Taleban and al-Qaeda as Faraz Shauketaly, 54, a reporter with the pri“We believe the attack was due to his journalJayasekera said. “If the government is serious the gravest threat to nuclear-armed vately owned Sunday Leader, whose editor was istic work,” she said, adding the reporter knew about allowing media freedom, they must show Pakistan, a strategic US ally. shot dead in 2009, was rushed to hospital for he was under threat and had feared for his safetheir goodwill by ensuring a successful investiBut Pakistani law enforcement surgery following the midnight attack at his ty. officials say LeJ has become a gation. home, according to colleagues. formidable force, staging attacks A local media rights group, the Free Media “As long as a culture of impunity persists, “Investigations are underway,” police said in in several parts of the country in Movement, said the attack underscored the danthere will be no press freedom.” a bid to spark sectarian warfare, a statement, without elaborating. gerous working climate for journalists in Sri Presidential spokesman Mohan create chaos and install a Sunni At least three gunmen stormed into the Lanka.

Samaranayake said President Mahinda theocracy. reporter’s house in the tourist resort area of “The government has created conditions to Rajapakse had ordered police to carry out a thorThe growing sectarian vioMount Lavinia, a suburb of Colombo, and expose media personnel to this type of attack ough investigation. lence has hurt the credibility of opened fire, a colleague said. because the perpetrators know they will never be Media rights groups accuse the government of the government, which has Doctors were operating to remove a bullet brought to justice,” the group’s secretary Sunil trying to silence dissenting voices. already faced criticism ahead of from the neck of Shauketaly, who holds dual Sri Jayasekera told AFP. In 2009, the editor of the Sunday Leader, elections due in May for its Lankan and British nationality, his editor, He noted not a single person had been proseLasantha Wickrematunge, was shot dead near inability to tackle poverty, corShakuntala Perera, told AFP. cuted for the killing of 17 journalists and media his office. He had been a fierce government critruption and economic stagnation.

“We are told his condition is stable but he is workers in Sri Lanka in the past decade and ic.

QUETTA, Pakistan, Feb 16, (Agecnies): The death toll from a bomb attack targeting Shiite Muslims in a busy market in Pakistan’s insurgency-hit southwest has risen to 79, police said early Sunday.

Faraz’s ‘condition stable ... but still in intensive care’

Gunmen shoot Sri Lanka journalist: police

‘Killing’ prompts protests in Dhaka

Anti-Islamist blogger killed DHAKA, Feb 16, (Agencies): A blogger who had been critical of Bangladesh’s Islamist groups was killed in the capital late Friday, police said, a day after he attended a big rally against leaders of the country’s largest Islamic party.

Protests championed by the country’s bloggers have seen thousands of people take to the streets demanding the execution of leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami party who are under trial for war crimes. Clashes between police and Islamist protesters demanding the trials be halted have also rocked the capital.

Police found the body of Ahmed

Rajib, 35 — better known by his online identity Thaba Baba — near his home in Dhaka’s Pallabi suburb, with his head hacked apart with a machete.

Meanwhile, more than 100,000 Bangladeshi protesters, angered by the killing of one of their leaders, poured back onto the streets of the capital on Saturday to demand the death penalty for those found guilty of war crimes in the 1971 independence conflict.

The demonstrators, who denounced a life sentence handed down this month on an Islamist leader involved in the war, reversed a decision to scale back demonstrations, now in their 12th day.

Gandhi letter was sold for £115,000 LONDON, Feb 16, (KUNA): A Mahatma Gandhi letter was Friday sold for £115,000 in an auction in Britain after expectations the letter written by the late Indian leader would only be sold for £10,000£15,000.

The BBC reported that the letter, typed by Gandhi when he was detained by British forces in India in 1943, contains a plea for his freedom.

Richard WestwoodBrookes of auctioneers Mullocks, in Shropshire, said he believed it was a “world record figure” for a letter by the Indian leader.

In this Feb 12, 2013 file photo, Bangladeshi activists shout slogans demanding the execution of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Mollah and others convicted of war crimes in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

They had waited more than four decades for justice in the mass killings and rapes during their independence war. (AP)

Hindu devotees cover themselves with a tarp as they walk in heavy rain in Allahabad on Feb 16. Moderate to heavy rains fell across northern India Feb 16, with night temperatures expected to drop in several areas across the region. (AFP)

Indian activists of Y. S. Rajasekhar Reddy Congress Party (YSRCP) burn an effigy representing the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government during their protest against the fuel price hike in Hyderabad on Feb 16. State-run fuel retailers raised petrol prices by 1.50 INR per litre and diesel by 45 paise per litre, excluding local tax, as of midnight Feb 15. (AFP)

Reputation of defence minister at stake

Italian bribery scandal shakes Indian politics NEW DELHI, Feb 16, (AFP): India’s government struggled to contain the fall-out Friday from a fresh corruption scandal involving the purchase of Italian helicopters for VIPs which has blown up the year before national elections.

The arrest earlier this week of the boss of Italian firm Finmeccanica has touched off a firestorm in New Delhi, leading to parallels between a famous graft case in the 1980s which helped bring about a change in government.

India signed a $748-million deal in 2010 to buy 12 helicopters for use by VIPs from Finmeccanica’s Anglo-Italian unit AgustaWestland, which beat off competition from American and Russian rivals to land the lucrative contract.

Purchase The purchase came under scrutiny from Italian investigators probing allegations the Italian group had broken the law by paying bribes to foreign officials, leading to the arrest of Giuseppe Orsi in Milan on Tuesday.

Tyagi Revelations from the preliminary investigation report, based on testimony from whistleblowers, suggest up to 51 million euros ($68 million) was paid in kickbacks to secure the deal, according to press reports.

Cash was allegedly handed to the cousin of former Indian air force chief S.P. Tyagi, who denies wrongdoing, with more money funnelled via a web of middlemen and companies in London, Switzerland, Tunisia, and Mauritius.

“The deal has the potential to become a big issue during the 2014 general elections,” said Sanjay Kumar of the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

The scope for serious political and economic damage in India is vast, with the reputation of “Mr Clean” Defence Minister A.K. Antony at stake

amid questions over why he delayed investigating the deal.

He ordered a police probe this week, nearly a year after the first reports about bribery surfaced, and three months after telling parliament the Indian government was unable to gain any information on the Italian investigation.

“The Italian authorities have been the whistleblower in this case otherwise the entire deal would have never tumbled out from the closet,” senior opposition leader Ravi Shankar Prasad from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) told AFP. President Pranab Mukherjee could also find himself in the firing line as he was defence minister when key parts of the deal — allegedly influenced by air chief Tyagi to favour AgustaWestland — were approved.

India has suspended deliveries and payments on the contract in a move likely to cause severe financial problems for Finmeccanica which could find itself blacklisted if any allegations are proved.

The knock-on effects of the scandal might also delay other negotiations for defence contracts under India’s giant armed forces modernisation programme that has turned the country into the world’s biggest arms buyer.

Deal “Suspending the deal has a direct impact on India’s credibility as a buyer,” C. Uday Bhaskar, a defence analyst and a former naval officer, told AFP. It is also likely to lead to more disruption in parliament when it opens next Thursday and will overshadow the visit of British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is due in India on Monday and Tuesday next week.

The VIP helicopters, sold at $62 million each due to the high-end specification and modifications demanded by India, are being manufactured in southwest Britain.

India goes to the polls in the first half of 2014 with the ruling Congress party struggling in the face of sharply lower economic growth and serious credibility problem after a string of corruption scandals.

News in Brief Hollande seeks more trade: French President Francois Hollande wrapped up his twoday trip to India on Friday with a call for more investment and trade between the countries as he met with business leaders.

Hollande, making his first trip to Asia since taking office last year, said that trade between India and France was barely 8.0 billion euros ($11 billion) annually — far from an objective of 12 billion euros set in 2008.

The French leader has sought to sell France for its infrastructure and highly educated labour force in a trip that has focused on business, particularly on the sale to New Delhi of French fighter jets and nuclear technology.

“The idea of my visit, beyond friendship and our historical links and our common positions about the future of the world, is

also to intensify economic and trade links,” he said in New Delhi. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Curfew in Kashmir lifted: Police on Saturday lifted a strict curfew across Indian-controlled Kashmir imposed one week ago after the secret execution of a Kashmiri man in the Indian capital.

Authorities also restored mobile internet and cable television services that were blocked fearing massive protests by Kashmiris, said police officer Ashok Prasad.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in the region.

Mohammed Afzal Guru was hanged Feb 9 in a New Delhi jail and buried there. Guru had been convicted of involvement in a 2001 attack on India’s Parliament that killed 14 including five gunmen. (AP)

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World News Roundup Crime Fraud charges

Jackson Jr to ‘plead guilty’ WASHINGTON/CHICAGO, Feb 16, (RTRS): Former Chicago congressman Jesse Jackson Jr, son of the famed civil rights leader, plans to plead guilty to charges filed on Friday accusing him of misusing $750,000 in campaign funds, his attorney said.

Jackson’s wife, Sandi Jackson, has also agreed to plead guilty to a related charge of filing false tax returns, according to her attorneys.

She resigned Jackson Jr her seat on the Chicago city council last month.

Both Jacksons, once considered one of the most powerful couples in the city, issued statements accepting responsibility.

“I offer no excuses for my conduct and I fully accept my responsibility for the improper decisions and mistakes I have made,” said Jesse Jackson Jr, a Democrat, in his statement. He faces fraud and conspiracy charges.

Jackson’s wife said in a statement that she was “deeply sorry” for her actions.

Once considered one of the most promising black politicians in the United States, Jesse Jackson Jr resigned his congressional seat on Nov 21 for health reasons, acknowledging at the time that he was under investigation by the FBI.

Potential Jackson was once talked about as having the potential to become the first black president, noted Andy Shaw, president and CEO of the Chicago-based Better Government Association.

“Instead of heading for the White House, he is heading for the big house, and that is an enormous fall from grace,” Shaw said in a radio interview on WBBM-AM. Jackson’s father, a former presidential candidate, was not immediately available for comment.

Prosecutors said at least seven people were involved in the scheme to divert campaign funds to personal uses.

Among the accusations is that Jesse Jackson, Jr shipped a $43,350 men’s Rolex watch purchased with campaign funds to his DC, address.

He also shipped fur capes and parkas purchased with $5,150 in campaign funds to the Beverly Hills home of an unnamed person, the documents said.

As part of the case, the government said Jackson must forfeit tens of thousands of dollars in celebrity memorabilia derived from the alleged crimes, including a $4,600 fedora that once belonged to late pop star Michael Jackson.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, if convicted, Jackson faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and his wife three years, but defendants who accept responsibility are typically sentenced to much less than the maximum term.

US President Barack Obama greets students after speaking about gun violence as well as the economy at Hyde Park Academy in Chicago on Feb 15. (AFP)

Guns US president support for gun control has roots in his hometown

Obama bemoans Chicago violence US Army Chief of Staff Gen Raymond Odierno speaks at the Brookings Institution, Feb 15, in Washington, DC. Odierno spoke on the topic of ‘The Army of the Future,’ focusing on issues such as transforming international security environment as well as new budget realIties. (AFP)

Condition Jackson disappeared from public view early in the summer of 2012 and speculation swirled for weeks about his condition. He said in late June he had taken a leave of absence two weeks earlier for treatment of what was then described as exhaustion.

Jackson issued a statement in early July saying his health problems were more serious and he needed extended in-patient treatment for unspecified “physical and emotional ailments.”

Days later, his physician said the congressman was receiving intensive care for a “mood disorder” and was expected to make a full recovery. The Mayo Clinic announced in late July that Jackson had been admitted.

He was treated for at least six weeks at Mayo for bipolar disorder, sometimes called manic depression, which is marked by highs and lows of mood and can be treated by medication and psychological counseling.

Representative Danny Davis, another Chicago Democrat, said he believed the alleged offenses were related to the disorder, the symptoms of which can include reckless behavior, such as spending sprees.

“It’s kind of beyond one’s imagination,” Davis told Reuters. “A $5,000 football — that’s kind of bizarre. It’s so sad and so unfortunate.”

Jackson made it to Congress in 1995 after winning a special election triggered by the resignation of Representative Mel Reynolds, who was convicted of sexual assault, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography.

Reynolds is now vying for the seat again in a Feb. 26 Democratic primary.

Allen

Duncan

North America ‘General wants time on posting’: The White House says President Barack Obama wants to give Marine Gen John Allen time to consider his next assignment before deciding whether to proceed with his nomination to lead US and NATO forces in Europe.

Allen, just back from a 19-month Afghanistan command, was linked to — but then cleared of — a sex scandal that ended David Petraeus’ job as CIA director.

Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said Allen wants time with his family.

He said Obama has a “ton of confidence in Gen Allen.”

Allen’s nomination to the top European command was shelved during an investigation into emails Allen exchanged with a woman connected to the Petraeus affair.

Allen was cleared. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑

CHICAGO, Feb 16, (Agencies): President Barack Obama’s support for gun control has its roots in his hometown of Chicago, a city plagued by deadly shootings where as many children die from guns every four months as were slaughtered at a horrific school shooting in Connecticut.

Obama told a Chicago audience Friday that high-profile mass shootings are one part of a national tragedy created not just by guns but by communities where there is too little hope. As a result, he said, “too many of our children are being taking away from us.”

Gun control was not on Obama’s agenda in his first term, but the president responded quickly to the December shooting of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut.

He is pushing measures including background checks for all gun purchases and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, even as both sides in the debate doubt he’ll be able to achieve the full package. Gun advocates have pushed back hard, arguing that such restrictions are an infringement on the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which states that citizens have the right to bear arms.

Obama on Friday returned to Chicago to bemoan the epidemic of murderous gun violence that took 443 lives in the city last year.

Standing before Hyde Park Academy students in their navy uniform shirts, the president said 65 children were killed by gun violence last year in Chicago.

“That’s the equivalent of a Newtown across Canada about poor living conditions.

Duncan is the first minister to resign on

every four months,” Obama said.

“This is not just a gun issue,” Obama said. “It’s also an issue of the kinds of communities that we’re building, and for that we all share responsibility as citizens to fix it.”

Emotional It was an emotional return to a city whose recent shooting victims have included Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-yearold drum majorette gunned down a mile (less than 2 kms) from Obama’s home just days after she performed at the president’s inauguration in Washington.

Obama was a reliable vote in favor of gun control as an Illinois state senator in the late 1990s, with one important exception that contributed to his only electoral loss. While running in 1999 for the Democratic primary for a seat in the House of Representatives, Obama missed a vote on a gun control measure that narrowly failed, an episode that he later said cost him any chance to win.

The lesson for the future president: Don’t sit idly by in reaction to gun violence.

Earlier Friday at the White House, Obama honored the six educators killed in the Connecticut shooting by presenting the Presidential Citizens Medal to their families. “They gave their lives to protect the precious children in their care,” Obama said.

Critics of Obama’s effort note that Chicago’s spike in homicides offers evidence gun restrictions don’t work.

The city prohibited handguns until a 2010 Supreme Court ruling threw out the ban. Chicago then adopted a strict gun ordinance that requires gun owna point of accountability since the Conservatives of Prime Minister Stephen Harper came to power in early 2006 vow-

Problem Violence has long been a problem in Chicago, a city the president represented for eight years in the state Senate while building a record of voting for gun control. He invoked the ire of gun rights advocates when he voted against a measure that would have exempted prosecution of people who fire guns to fend off home invaders, inspired by a man who shot an intruder who repeatedly broke into his home.

In 1999, Obama made his first run for national office by entering the Democratic primary race for Congress against incumbent Rep. Bobby Rush.

In October 1999, Rush’s son was fatally shot by drug dealers outside his home, and Obama suspended his campaign for a month.

That December, Obama announced he would push federal gun legislation that goes far beyond than what he is ing to clean up Ottawa. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑

‘No to legalizing marijuana;:

Abuse lawsuit

Cardinal faces grilling

Nuclear tank leaking liquids: A tank that holds radioactive liquids is leaking at the most contaminated nuclear site in the US, the governor of Washington state said Friday in Olympia, Washington, raising concerns about the integrity of other storage facilities at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

The US Department of Energy said liquid levels are decreasing in one of 177 underground tanks at the nuclear reservation, which was created during World War II as part of a secretive project to build the atomic bomb. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Canadian minister quits: Canadian Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan resigned unexpectedly on Friday in Ottawa, after admitting he had inappropriately written a letter to a tax court on behalf of a constituent.

Duncan leaves a month after thousands of unhappy natives mounted protests

ers to be fingerprinted, undergo a background check, pass a training class and pay fees that can be higher than the price of the weapons. Still, the city’s homicide rate rose to more than 500 last year.

Gun control proponents say Chicago illustrates the need for tougher restrictions nationally because guns are coming from outside the city.

Statistics show that more than half of the guns seized by Chicago police in the last 12 years came from other states. A University of Chicago study found that more than 1,300 guns confiscated by police since 2008 were purchased at a single store just outside city limits. More than 270 were used in crimes.

Betzaida Jimenez (second from right), pauses at the casket of her daughter Sarai Sierra, during her funeral at the Christian Pentecostal Church, in the Staten Island borough of New York, Feb 15. The 33-year-old mother of two was killed while vacationing alone in Turkey. Sierra disappeared Jan 21, and her body was discovered 12 days later near Istanbul’s ancient city walls. (AP)

LOS ANGELES, Feb 16, (AP): Cardinal Roger Mahony, the former Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles, will be questioned under oath next week as part of a clergy abuse lawsuit just days before he flies to Rome to help select the next pope, attorneys said Friday.

The recently retired head of the nation’s largest archdiocese will be deposed Feb 23 about how he handled a visiting Mexican priest who police believe molested 26 children in the Los Angeles archdiocese during a nine-month stay in 1987.

The Rev Nicolas Aguilar Rivera fled to Mexico in 1988 after parents complained. He has since been defrocked but remains a fugitive, with warrants for his arrest in both the US and Mexico.

proposing now. It would have limited gun purchases to one a month, banned the sale of firearms other than antiques at gun shows, limited the sale of guns to adults over 21 who took a training course and increased gun licensing fees. He also would have increased the penalties on gun runners and brought a felony charge against owners who didn’t lock up firearms that were later stolen and used in a crime.

He announced the antigun plan near the home of an 84-year-old woman killed when several young men invaded her home mistakenly believing she won the lottery.

But Obama went to his native Hawaii for the Christmas holiday to see his grandmother and spend time with his wife and then 18-month-old daughter, Malia. He wrote in his autobiography “The Audacity of Hope” about how the Legislature was called back into special session while he was gone, but Malia was sick and unable to fly home.

Obama acknowledged on Friday that he wished his father had been a bigger part of his life as he argued that stronger families are just as important as gun control in reducing crime and violence in poverty-stricken neighborhoods.

Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, was raised largely by his mother and grandparents in Hawaii.

His father, Barack Obama Sr, divorced Obama’s mother when the president was two years old, and he was the central figure in Obama’s memoir, “Dreams from My Father.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he opposes legalizing marijuana - or any other illicit drug.

Bloomberg discussed the issue on his weekly WOR Radio show Friday. A day earlier, he said New York City plans to stop booking and arraigning many people arrested on low-level marijuana-possession charges.

Bloomberg says he opposes legalizing marijuana because it’s stronger than it used to be. He added that if marijuana were legal, those dealers would just start selling something else, like cocaine.

He says the policy change that takes place next month will ease congestion in courts and jails. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Fund divests from gun makers: The pension fund for New York City teachers has sold its stock in companies that make guns and ammunition. City Comptroller John Liu says it’s the largest pension fund in the U.S. so far to do this since the Connecticut school shooting in December.

Teachers union head Michael Mulgrew said Friday that selling the stock was “the right thing to do.”

Pension funds across the country are making similar reviews of gun-industry holdings after a gunman shot dead 20 young children.

New York’s $46.6 billion fund had a total of $13.5 million invested in five gun makers. (AP)

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Contraceptives Birth control policy

Bishops seek Hill ‘reprieve’ WASHINGTON, Feb 16, (RTRS): US Roman Catholic bishops stepped up their battle against President Obama’s contraceptives policy on Friday by urging Congress to use its fiscal debate to free religious employers from a mandate requiring insurance coverage for birth control.

In a letter to all 535 members of Congress, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore suggested two provisions to extend existing federal conscience protections to the contraceptives mandate and strengthen the ability of Lori opponents to seek vindication in federal court.

“The federal government’s respect for believers and people of conscience no longer measures up to the treatment Americans have a right to expect from their elected representatives,” wrote Lori, who chairs the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“I urge you in the strongest terms possible to incorporate the provisions ... in the upcoming legislative proposals to fund the federal government,” Lori added.

Alert The conference also plans to send out an action alert via email and text message calling on supporters across the country to visit local congressional offices next week when lawmakers are home on break.

Obama’s 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires employers to provide health insurance coverage through group coverage plans for all contraceptives approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, including the so-called “morning after” pill.

The archbishop’s letter underscored a growing sense of urgency among church leaders over the birth control coverage rules that are due to take effect on Aug 1 for religiously affiliated employers including universities, hospitals and charities.

The bishops have tried several times to get Congress to act over the past year, amid numerous protests and more than 40 lawsuits by religious groups and employers. But Lori’s letter marks their first attempt to use the debates over deficit reduction, the debt limit and government funding.

The cruise ship Carnival Triumph is moored at a dock in Mobile, Ala, on Feb 15. The ship, which docked Thursday in Mobile after drifting nearly powerless in the Gulf of Mexico for five days, was moved Friday from the cruise terminal to a repair facility. The ship carrying more than 4,200 pas-

US cruise ship passengers’ parting gift: bathrobes The 4,000-plus exhausted passengers who lived a hellish four-day ordeal aboard the powerless and drifting Carnival Triumph cruise ship won’t be left completely empty handed.

The cruise company is making a gift to the travelers of the bathrobes they were using on the ship, the com-

pany announced Friday.

“Of course the bathrobes for the Carnival Triumph are complimentary,” it said in a tweet on the official @carnivalcruise account. But the announcement has been received with less than full-throated cheers.

“Who wants a stinky robe?!” tweeted a reporter in North Carolina, Astrid

Martinez, while another user of the social media site, Natalie Eshaya, enthused sarcastically, “Oh how generous.” Another skeptic, Paul Nather, wondered “What do you think the going rate for a Carnival cruise bathrobe will be on eBay tomorrow?”

The white bathrobe has become an unlikely symbol of the nightmare

of the cruise-goers, who donned them to attract attention as they stood on the drifting ship.

Others used the white terrycloth as a canvas to write messages, with one passenger proclaiming, “I survived Carnival’s triumph redbags” — a reference to the bags that substituted for toilets.

The Triumph docked Friday morning in the port of Mobile, Alabama. It had originally been scheduled to return to port early Monday after a weekend stop in Cozumel in Mexico, before an engine room blaze left the massive vessel without electricity to power the kitchens, toilets, and other necessities. (AFP)

Nominations Brennan advocates more openness

‘Drone casualties should be public’ Photo dated Dec 28, 2010 shows US President Barack Obama playing golf at the Mid Pacific Country Club in Kailua, Hawaii. (AFP)

Must-pass “To many people, this looks like the main must-pass vehicle going through Congress this year,” said Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the conference’s Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities.

The new healthcare law contains an exemption for houses of worship but has come under attack from Catholic leaders, Protestant Evangelicals and other social conservatives who also want religious nonprofit organizations and religious business owners exempted. The Catholic Church regards contraception as a sin and birth control products like the morning-after pill a form of abortion. In a development that could intensify the debate, the US Centers for Disease Control reported this week that growing numbers of American women are using the morning-after pill.

The Obama administration offered its opponents a compromise on Feb. 1 by proposing new regulations that would allow religious employers to avoid paying for birth control coverage for their workers. Instead, insurers would provide the benefits free through separate coverage plans.

The president of the bishops conference, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, rejected the plan as inadequate last week.

Doerflinger said church efforts to get favorable language on contraceptives included in funding legislation follows a congressional precedent for including conscience provisions in appropriations bills in the US House of Representatives.

But he acknowledged that the bishops could face an uphill fight on Capitol Hill. “The pressure everywhere is for just trying to address the money issues,” he said. “That’s why we need to remind members of Congress that these issues of fundamental rights are also pending and won’t go away.”

sengers and crew members had been idled for nearly a week in the Gulf of Mexico following an engine room fire. (AP)

Harmon

Napolitano

America Harmon to polish Obama’s golf game: Once he obsessed over swing states, now he has the luxury of worrying about the state of his own swing.

Barack Obama will flee winter this long President’s Day weekend and plans to polish his golf game on a stag weekend in balmy Florida, reportedly enlisting Butch Harmon, the coach who once schooled Tiger Woods.

With his wife and daughters off on an annual ski trip in the Rocky Mountains, the president, freed of the need to consider what voters might think after his reelection win, will hit the links with some friends.

Obama, an obsessive golfer, normally tees it up on a track at Andrews Air Force Base during the summer months in Washington, and rarely plays at private clubs, unless he is on vacation in Hawaii or Martha’s Vineyard.

The White House, weary of complaints

by Obama’s Republican foes that he spends too much time on the golf course, has yet to confirm the president’s plans — other than to say he will be playing a couple of weekend rounds.

But Golf Digest magazine reported that legendary coach Harmon and his son Claude Harmon III were flying into Palm City, Florida to give Obama’s game a tune-up.

“I’ve played golf with Ike, Nixon, Ford and President Bush 41,” Harmon told the magazine before heading to his golf school at the Florida resort to meet the president. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

WASHINGTON, Feb 16, (RTRS): President Barack Obama’s pick for CIA director, John Brennan, promised senators who will vote on his nomination more openness about US counter-terrorism programs, saying the closely guarded number of civilian casualties from drone strikes should be made public, according to his written responses to questions released on Friday. Brennan was questioned sharply by Democrats and Republicans alike during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on his nomination last week.

Along with harsh interrogation techniques, Brennan was questioned about drone strikes against terrorism suspects in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere. These strikes have increased under Obama and included the killing in Yemen of a US-born cleric suspected of ties to al-Qaeda and his US-born son.

The US government, without releasing numbers, has sought to portray civilian deaths from these strikes as minimal. But other organizations which collect data on these attacks put the number of civilians killed in the hundreds.

“I believe that, to the extent that US national security interests can be protected, the US government should make public the overall numthe last 14 months must continue after the election on Feb 24 and 25.

Obama described his visitor, who plays a largely ceremonial role but has been an important player during Italian elections, as an “extraordinary” leader not only in

‘There’s a lot of ill will’

Hagel delay helps opposition refine attack WASHINGTON, Feb 16, (AP): US Senate Republicans have succeeded in delaying a confirmation vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination as defense secretary, but signaled they would eventually relent and allow a vote after they return from their recess on Feb 25.

But the weeklong Senate recess gives outside interest groups opposed to Hagel’s nomination more time to sharpen their attack against President Barack Obama’s choice.

They’re promising to scour Hagel’s record and to pressure senators to vote against him.

But that leaves an uncomfortable

gap for Hagel and the White House, which doesn’t want any surprises that would further delay or possibly derail an already difficult confirmation. Hagel’s nomination was met with intense opposition from fellow Republicans, including former colleagues in the Senate, who challenged his past statements and votes on Israel, Iran, Iraq and nuclear weapons.

Even if Hagel is confirmed, his relations with Republicans could be colder than the Obama administration might have hoped.

In choosing Hagel, a twicewounded Vietnam combat veteran,

the White House expected him to be an asset, not a liability, among Republicans who are often critical of Obama’s national security policies.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the delay was a political tactic and that Obama is still confident Hagel will be confirmed.

Earnest read a transcript of an interview Sen. John McCain, a Republican, gave to Fox News on Thursday in which McCain said “there’s a lot of ill will” toward Hagel because he “attacked President Bush mercilessly” and said the surge of US troops in Iraq “was the worst blunder since the Vietnam War.”

bers of civilian deaths resulting from US strikes targeting al-Qaeda,” Brennan wrote in response to a question from Senator Dianne Feinstein, the committee chairwoman.

“In those rare instances in which civilians have been killed” reviews are conducted and, if appropriate, condolence payments are provided to the families, he wrote.

Such casualties from drone strikes have created profound anger among civilian populations overseas and severe tension between the United States and Pakistan and Afghanistan.

During last week’s hearing, Feinstein said she had been trying to speak publicly about the “very low number of civilian casualties” and to

verify that number each year has “typically been in the single digits.”

However, she said she was told she could not divulge the actual numbers because they were classified.

Italy but on the wider European stage.

“I’ll be interested in hearing from him how he anticipates the elections and government formation in Italy and what implications that has for the larger European project,” Obama said in

Obama-Abe talks

Pact seen on agenda

Obama meets Italian president: US President Barack Obama consulted with Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano Friday on the implications of his country’s looming elections.

Napolitano, who is retiring, said before the talks in the Oval Office that the “remarkable” progress made in Italy over

Washington.

Napolitano said that Italy, which is reeling from a major debt crisis, must continue to make progress “because Italy needs it, Europe needs it, and I think the world as a whole needs it.”

In this March 15, 2011, file photo, First Lady Michelle Obama gestures while speaking at the National League of Cities Conference about the Let’s Move! initiative in Washington. C-SPAN has teamed up with The White House Historical Association to produce a series on first ladies. It begins with an overview Monday, Feb 18, on President’s Day and continues for 35 parts until ending with an hour on Michelle Obama on Feb 10, 2014. (AP)

WASHINGTON, Feb 16, (RTRS): President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are expected to discuss Japan’s possible entry into regional free trade talks with the United States at a White House meeting late next week, US trade policy specialists said on Friday.

A nuclear test by North Korea on Tuesday that drew international condemnation is also expected to figure prominently in their talks, the first meeting of the two leaders since Abe led his party back to power in December. “The president looks forward to in-depth discussions with Prime Minister Abe on a range of bilateral, regional and global issues, including the USJapan Security Alliance, economic and trade issues, and deepening bilateral cooperation,” Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, said in a statement.

The New America Foundation said the number of civilians killed

by US drone strikes in Pakistan was 261-305 from 2004 to 2013. (http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones).

Opinion polls showing former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is running in his sixth election campaign, narrowing the gap between his center-right party the center-left ahead of the Feb 24-25 vote.

Three-time premier Berlusconi, 76, has based his campaign on attacking the EU, the single currency and Germany’s role in the 27-member bloc. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

US Army could extend deployments: Soldiers deployed to Afghanistan next year may see their war tours extended because budget cuts will drastically limit training for brigades to replace them, the top US Army general said Friday in Washington.

Army Chief of Staff Gen Raymond Odierno said the military will be able to fund training and operations for combat units in Afghanistan now and for those deploying in the summer and fall. But he says there will be delays in training for those deploying in 2014.

If those training delays can’t be made up, Odierno said he would have to send forces to war that aren’t ready or extend deployments of units already there. A number of combat brigades will be deploying later this year and next year, even as the US winds down the war.

“We will try to divert money so we do not have to extend people in Afghanistan,” Odierno told a conference at the Brookings Institution in Washington. (AP)

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16

World News Roundup Italy ‘Old-style over’

Monti vows ‘hard truths’ ROME, Feb 16, (AFP): Cerebral economics professor Mario Monti may not get pulses racing but supporters at a rally on Friday said his blend of bitter economic medicine and European credentials are just what Italy needs.

The outgoing prime minister told the crowd that the time for old-style politics was over and that he was the best man to lead Italy at a time of daunting economic challenges, as a general election looms next week.

“Maybe I can’t tell you I know how to realise a dream Monti but I know how you can overcome a nightmare by gritting your teeth,” the 69-year-old former Eurocrat told some 1,000 fans assembled in a concert hall on the outskirts of Rome.

“Italian citizens have a great capacity to understand if you just tell them the truth,” he said, as supporters waved flags with the name of his movement “Civic Choice” and sported badges reading: “With Monti for Italy”.

Monti smiled and waved to his supporters but the long-time academic spoke in the slightly stilted style that has made him the butt of jokes by a stand-up comedian who plays the prime minister as a partrobot, part-alien.

Monti, a regular church-goer, also referenced the impending resignation of Pope Benedict XVI saying: “It seems that on both banks of the Tiber River an era is changing and maybe with that change we lack a reference point.”

The Vatican is across the river from the seat of political power in Rome.

A man works on ‘The rail road with Big Ben’ a sculpture made from oranges and lemons, on Feb 15, in Menton on the French Riviera, ahead of the start of the ‘Fete du Citron’ (lemon carnival). The

Religion Electing new pope could start before March 15

Conclave rituals, secrecy explained

Glad Among the crowd of mostly middle-aged and elderly supporters, many said they were glad to have a sober-minded prime minister in power after the sex scandals of his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi, who stepped down in November 2011.

“All the scandals we’ve had in the past had discouraged me from voting, I was disillusioned with politics,” said 72-year-old pensioner Carlo Missinato.

“But in Mario Monti I see someone who is credible and deserves respect. And I think he really shares the Christian values I believe in,” Missinato said.

Cristina Cannelli, a civil servant at Rome city hall, said: “I think we should continue supporting him because we’ve seen what happened in Greece. “I think Italy hasn’t suffered as much because the government intervened”.

A former top European commissioner, Monti was installed by parliament to replace Berlusconi as leader of a technocratic government charged with restoring public finances and saving the country from impending bankruptcy.

Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party withdrew its support for him a year later and Monti announced on December 23 that he would enter the political fray as head of an eclectic group of centrist politicians and civil society figures.

Discontent Most recent polls put him in fourth place behind centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani, threetime prime minister Berlusconi and former comedian Beppe Grillo who has captured rumbling discontent with a populist campaign.

Monti is scoring between 12.6 percent and 16 percent in the polls.

But political observers say Bersani may fail to win a majority in both houses of parliament, which could lead to a coalition with Monti that might in turn mean he will return to government once more in a senior role.

Monti has tried to shake off a somewhat staid image in recent weeks, shedding his fogeyish loden coat, drinking a beer on a television talk show and even adopting a dog he has named “Empathy” — or “Empy” for short.

Valerio Loscascio, a 23-year-old volunteer for Monti’s campaign, said he did not agree with all of the prime minister’s policies and said the austerity measures implemented in recent months had been too harsh for many people. But he said he had been won over by Monti’s impressive personal qualities.

“I’ve admired him during his months in government because I think he is someone worthy and totally devoted to Italy,” he said.

“For example, he refused to receive a salary. No one before him had ever done that.”

theme of this 80th edition, running from Feb 16, until March 6, is ‘Le Tour du monde en 80 jours’ (Around the world in 80 days). (AFP)

In this file photo taken on April 18, 2005 and released by the Vatican paper L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, at the beginning of the conclave. (AP)

Samaras

Christofias

Europe Greek leftists regain lead: Greece’s leftist opposition party has regained a narrow lead over the ruling conservatives, an opinion poll published on Saturday said.

The survey by Pulse for the 6 Imeres newspaper also showed Greeks divided over their government’s tough stance against strike action.

It put support for Syriza at 24 percent, giving it a 1.5 percentage-point lead over New Democracy but still within the margin of error of 2.7 percent. That compares to 29.6 percent for New Democracy and 26.9 percent for Syriza in a parliamentary vote last June.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s New Democracy party and the anti-bailout Syriza have been neck-and-neck in recent polls. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑

VATICAN CITY, Feb 16, (AP): It’s a ritual as rich in tradition and symbolism as the Catholic Church can muster: secret oaths, hypnotic Gregorian chants, scarlet-decked cardinals filing through the Sistine Chapel — all while the public outside in St. Peter’s Square watches for white smoke or black to learn if they have a new pope.

Next month’s conclave to elect the 266th leader of the world’s billion Catholics will have all the grand trappings of papal elections past — with the added twist that this time around the current pope is still alive.

Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation, the first papal abdication in 600 years, has caused chaos in the Vatican: Nobody knows for sure what he’ll be called much less what he’ll wear after Feb. 28. But one thing is clear: The rules and rituals to elect his successor will follow a carefully orchestrated program thanks in large part to Archbishop Piero Marini.

The Vatican’s master of liturgical celebrations for two decades under Pope John Paul II, Marini organized the funeral rites for the late pontiff and the conclave that elected Benedict. He was by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s side minutes after the election when the new pope uttered the words “I accept” — officially launching his papacy on April 19, 2005.

“I still remember, with some emotion, the silence that there was — the participation of the cardinals,” Marini financial turmoil enveloping the cashstarved island. Christofias, a communist leader elected in 2008, will not be contesting presidential elections scheduled for this Sunday. Right-wing leader Nicos Anastasiades is expected to win the vote, which could extend to a runoff on Feb 24.

“The government cannot be blamed for

recalled in an interview in his Vatican offices. “It was an event that had been prepared with great care.”

Marini subsequently published the “bible” of how to run a conclave — a dense tome of footnoted decrees, floor-plans, directions and photos.

The book will serve as a guide when 117 cardinals gather in the Sistine Chapel to elect Benedict’s successor.

Rules The Vatican said Saturday that the conclave may well start before March 15, the earliest date that current rules would allow it to get underway. The Holy See in the coming days or weeks plans to publish an update to the main apostolic constitution that guides the papal transition with some ceremonial tweaks.

The conclave begins with the cardinals in their red cassocks filing into the Sistine Chapel, chanting the monophonic Litany of Saints followed by another sacred song, Veni, Creator Spiritus, imploring the intervention of the saints and Holy Spirit as they take their places before Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment.”

The cardinals place their hand on the Gospel and promise to observe absolute secrecy both during and after the conclave, and to “never lend support or favor to any interference, opposition or any other form of intervention ... in the election of the Roman Pontiff.”

While the Vatican is notoriously obsessed with secrecy, there are actually good historical reasons why conthe economic crisis, ignoring a global crisis and the damaging responsibilities of banks and its regulator,” Christofias said in a televised address.

A new government will be in place on March 1. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑

clave proceedings are kept quiet and why cardinals promise to vote independently, said Monsignor Robert Wister, professor of church history at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

Up until the early 20th century, papal elections could be vetoed by the kings of France, Spain or the Holy Roman Emperor, Wister noted. The power was rarely invoked but was used in the 1903 conclave to replace Pope Leo XII. Leo’s No. 2, the Vatican’s secretary of state, was in the lead when his election was blocked

by Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph.

The eventual winner, Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, took the name Pius X — and promptly abolished the veto power. Still, the memory of outside intervention has continued to weigh over the College of Cardinals, leading them to be sequestered until they have a pope.

Now they have a Vatican hotel to stay in while not voting, but are forbidden from having any contact with the outside world: no phones, no newspapers, no tweeting.

Fear “There is that fear,” Wister said.

“Going back previous centuries, kings did interfere, sometimes with an army.”

Secrecy under penalty of excommunication also ensures that the winner doesn’t know who among his cardinals voted against him — an important element going forward to keep the church’s top leadership unified.

“It’s not the Renaissance where

‘Struggle’ goes to court: A court in Bosnia was asked to rule on a six-month power struggle in the country’s autonomous Muslim-Croat Federation on Friday after Bosnian Muslim lawmakers blocked a motion to sack their ministers in the government.

‘Stoking nationalism’

Greece arrests 3 neo-Nazis: Greek police have arrested two neo-Nazi sympathisers for illegal arms possession and a third person suspected of involvement in an attack that left three Pakistani migrants hospitalised, a police source said Friday.

The arrests come as Greece is increasingly coming under pressure by human rights groups and its European neighbours to fight its growing neo-Nazi tendencies and widespread xenophobic violence.

In a public appeal to witnesses, police on Friday released the names and photographs of two of the men — arrested in an Athens suburb earlier this month after officers found a gun, switchblade knives and bats stashed in their car.The men, aged 19 and 27, are suspected of having taken part in recent anti-migrant raids linked to the violent Greek neo-Nazi group, Golden Dawn, which entered parliament in June after amassing seven percent of the votes. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Cyprus president blames banks: Outgoing Cypriot President Demetris Christofias said on Friday he was bowing out with his head held high, blaming profligate banks and a global economic crisis for

US warns ally

A man stands on a giant crane, on Feb 16, in Nantes. Protesting for his rights as a father and in support of a man stationed on another crane for a second day demonstrating for the same reason. The 34-year-old man, ‘deprived of his two boys’ after their care was entrusted by the court to their mother, said that ‘it is an act of solidarity with the father on the first crane.’ The banner reads ‘Benoit 2 years old, without dad.’ Banners read ‘Father one days = Father always,’ and ‘Fathers struggling, all fathers united.’ (AFP)

TIRANA, Feb 16, (RTRS): The United States has warned leaders in NATO ally Albania in no uncertain terms to stop stoking nationalism in the run-up to an election because they risk destabilising the region.

Facing a close contest in the parliamentary election in June, Prime Minister Sali Berisha has been ruffling feathers in neighbouring states that are home to millions of ethnic Albanians with his increasingly nationalist statements.

Last November, the foreign minister of neighbouring Greece boycotted Albanian centenary festivities in Tirana after Berisha hailed a town over the border as “Albanian lands”. The president of Macedonia, where a quarter of the population are ethnic Albanians, also stayed away.

he’d be poisoned, but it’s a matter of human respect,” Wister said.

Once the final oath is taken, the master of liturgical ceremonies gives the order “Extra omnes” (everyone out) and all those not taking part in the conclave leave the frescoed walls of the chapel. An elderly cardinal, over age 80 and thus ineligible to participate, remains and reads a meditation about the qualities a pope should have and the challenges facing the church, after which he and the master of ceremonies leave the cardinals to begin voting.

On Day 1, only one round of balloting is taken; after that cardinals cast two votes in the morning, two in the afternoon until they have a victor. A two-thirds majority is necessary.

Each cardinal writes his choice on a paper inscribed with the words “Eligo in summen pontificem,” or “I elect as Supreme Pontiff.” They approach the altar one by one and say: “I call as my witness, Christ the Lord who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who, before God, I think should be elected.”

The folded ballot is placed on a round plate and slid into an oval urn.

After the votes are counted and the outcomes announced, the papers are bound together with a needle and thread, each ballot pierced through the word “Eligo.” Then they are burned with a chemical to send black smoke (meaning no) or white (meaning yes) out of the Sistine Chapel’s chimney.

The impasse has paralysed government in the Federation, one of two regions in Bosnia along with the Serb Republic, and is symptomatic of the complex and unwieldy system of rule in the Balkan country under the peace accords that ended its 1992-95 war.

Lawmakers from the largest Bosnian Muslim, or Bosniak, party, the SDA, blocked a confidence vote in the government, citing “vital national interest”, a mechanism designed to safeguard important ethnic rights.

The move means the Federation’s Constitutional Court must rule on the motion, which otherwise won the support of both houses of parliament before the SDA blocked its passage.

The dispute stems from last year, when a new coalition government was formed at the state level and tried to replicate the alliance in the Federation. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑

4 Bosnian Serbs jailed: Four former Bosnian Serb policemen were sentenced Friday to from 15 to 22 years in prison for their involvement in the execution of at least 150 Muslim and Croat civilians during the 1992-1995 war.

“Zoran Babic, Milorad Skrbic, Dusan Jankovic and Zeljko Stojnic participated in a joint criminal enterprise... and were found guilty of having committed crimes against humanity,” judge Mirko Bozovic said.

The victims were separated from a convoy transporting more than 1,200 people expelled from territory controlled by Bosnian Serb forces in the nothwestern region of Prijedor. (AFP)

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

INTERNATIONAL

17

China Goes global

China plays by own rules MEXICO CITY, Feb 16, (AP): When Venezuela seized billions of dollars in assets from Exxon Mobil and other foreign companies, Chinese state banks and investors didn’t blink. Over the past five years they have loaned Venezuela more than $35 billion.

Elsewhere around the Caribbean, as hotels were struggling to stay afloat in the global economic slowdown, the Chinese response was to Bankroll the biggest resort under construction in the Western Hemisphere — a massive hotel, condominium and casino complex in the Bahamas just a few miles from halfempty resorts.

All over the world, from Latin America Chavez to the South Pacific, a cash-flush China is funding projects that others won’t, seemingly less concerned by the conventional wisdom of credit ratings and institutions such as the World Bank.

The Chinese money is breathing life into government infrastructure projects that otherwise might have died for lack of financing. For commercial projects such as the Caribbean resort, China is filling a gap left by Western investors retrenching after the 2008 financial crisis.

But some in the Bahamas worry what will happen if the sprawling Baha Mar project fails. They picture an economy saturated with hotels, dragged down by an expensive Chinese white elephant.

Likewise, the infrastructure loans are loading financially shaky countries with more debt and letting them avoid economic reforms that other lenders would likely have demanded.

“The Chinese play by other rules,” said Kevin Gallagher, a Boston University international relations professor who has studied Chinese lending to Latin America.

“We’ll give you financing with no conditions, and we’ll finance things the International Monetary Fund won’t fund, things others won’t fund anymore, like big infrastructure projects. It allows countries to shop around, which has good and bad sides.”

Offerings of flowers are lined up as North Koreans bow in front of bronze statues of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to pay their respects in Pyongyang, North Korea on Feb 16. North

North Korea Anti-Pyongyang leaflets launched on Kim’s birthday

US warns North on ‘provocative acts’ Former North Korean defectors living in South Korea prepare to float giant balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets at Imjingak park near the inter-Korean border in Paju on Feb 16. (AFP)

Loans

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez talked up his independence last year while highlighting another $4 billion in Chinese loans, part of a wave of money that has translated into new railways, utilities and other projects.

“In a few days, they’re going to deposit 4 billion little dollars more from Beijing,” Chavez told reporters, holding up four fingers for emphasis.

“Fortunately, we don’t depend on the dreadful bank. What’s that one called that you mentioned? The World Bank. Poor are those countries that depend on the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund.”

Venezuela’s Oil and Mining Minister Rafael Ramirez says China has loaned his country $36 billion since 2008, and others put the figure even higher. The Spanish-language version of a report co-authored by Gallagher, “The New Banks in Town: Chinese Finance in Latin America,” estimates it at $46.5 billion.

The loans have added to Venezuela’s $95.7 billion in public foreign debt as of mid-2012, which has risen even as the country rakes in record-high oil revenue. Some analysts say the spending helped Chavez win re-election in October, despite battling cancer.

China has emerged in recent years as the largest provider of development loans not only to Venezuela but also to Ecuador and Argentina, according to the Gallagher report. All three are junk bond countries, ratings agencies say. In contrast, the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank remain larger lenders in Brazil and Mexico, both countries with higher bond ratings.

In cases such as the tiny South Pacific islands of Tonga, China is lending enormous sums to countries few expect will be able to repay.

What has surely given the Chinese banks courage is the trillions of dollars in reserves the country holds in US Treasury bonds, investments that pay almost nothing in interest.

Making that money work harder for a return overseas has become nothing less than a national priority, part of China’s trumpeted “going out” strategy.

China’s economy is the second largest after the US, and many of the deals stipulate repayment in oil and natural gas, locking in the commodities China will need to sustain its growth for decades to come.

Koreans turned out to commemorate what would have been the 71st birthday of Kim Jong Il who died on Dec 17, 2011. (AP)

Kunio

Webb

Asia Mystery gifts for Japan: A Japanese city devastated by the 2011 tsunami has received anonymous gifts of gold worth more than $250,000 in a phenomenon dubbed a “goodwill gold rush” ahead of the second anniversary of the disaster.

The president of the company which operates the port in the northeastern city of Ishinomaki last week received a parcel containing two slabs of gold each weighing one kilogram (2.2 pounds).

“Since it was labelled as ‘miscellaneous goods,’ I casually opened the box,” thinking it must be books or the like as it was heavy, said Kunio Sunow, president of the Ishinomaki Fish Market Co Ltd. “I was stunned because what’s in there was 24k gold in two plates. One was wrapped in brown paper and the other in a page taken from a magazine — both were sitting in bubble sheets,” he told AFP by telephone on Saturday. The parcel had been sent anonymously from Nagano city northwest of Tokyo with no message.

“Just looking at 24k gold can encourage people as it has a presence. It’s great to know we haven’t been forgotten,” Sunow said, adding he had not yet decided how to use the gift. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

WASHINGTON, Feb 16, (AFP): The United States Friday called on North Korea not to take any further provocative steps, as a US think tank said Pyongyang was preparing a launchpad that could pave the way to firing a long-range missile.

Asked about media reports that North Korea, also known as the DPRK, has told China it is preparing further nuclear tests, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said such moves would just “lead to more isolation.”

“The United States calls on the DPRK to refrain from additional provocative actions that would violate its international obligations and run counter to its commitments,” she told journalists.

UN Security Council resolutions insist North Korea should not carry out any further nuclear tests, or face further global sanctions.

There was global outrage after Pyongyang on Tuesday defiantly carried out its third nuclear test, saying it was responding to US “hostility” after the UN Security Council condemned its last missile launch two months ago.

“The DPRK is not going to achieve anything in terms of the health, wealth, safety, (or) future of its own people by these kinds of continued provocative actions,” Nuland said.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, speaking aboard Air Force One, also stressed that Pyongyang should abide by UN resolutions.

“We encourage the North Koreans to live up to their international obligations, abandon their nuclear program and work with the rest of the international community to become a responsible member of the international community,” he said.

38 North, a blog of the US-Korea ing, identity fraud and other activities which are facilitated by a lack of transparency,” Webb said.

“This has been a dark day for transparency in Hong Kong.” (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said Thursday it had analyzed satellite photos that it said showed possible assistance from Iran at the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground in northeastern North Korea.

38 North said a commercial satellite photograph taken on January 5 showed “important progress” since the area was hit with typhoons last year and indicated activity that was consistent with preparations for a launch.

But the website said there was not enough evidence to support speculation that North Korea could raise the stakes by testing its KN-08, a new missile with potential intercontinental range first displayed in a parade in April.

The website said that North Korea likely was preparing to test much larger rockets by the time the site is completed in 2016.

Test Congress is weighing in on international condemnation of North Korea’s nuclear test, and Republicans are calling on the Obama administration to revamp its policy and take a tougher stance against Pyongyang.

The House of Representatives passed a bipartisan resolution Friday by a 412-to-2 vote, calling for the US to work with other countries to impose additional sanctions on North Korea.

It also urged China to pressure the North to curtail its nuclear and missile programs and prevent the transshipment of technology that could be used for those programs through Chinese territory.

Washington is currently negotiating in the UN Security Council for stronger sanctions against Pyongyang after the council quickly condemned Tuesday’s underground atomic blast, the third conducted by the North since 2006. The North said it was respond-

US slams ‘horrific’ toll: The United States on Friday denounced the “horrific” toll as the number of Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule rose to 101.

Washington had noted “the horrific fig-

Vigilant “In the face of this aggression, Congress and the American people, Democrats and Republicans alike, will remain vigilant in punishing the North Korean regime and strengthening cooperation with our allies South Korea and Japan,” said Rep Eliot Engel, top Democrat on the House panel that oversees foreign policy.

Republicans in particular are calling for stiffer action to rein in Pyongyang, which has made major advances but still appears a ways off its goal of having a nuclear weapon that threatens the US. International sanctions bar North Korea from the arms trade and blacklist specific companies, but lawmakers complain the restrictions have done little to impede the North’s weapons development. Pressure could grow for the US to adopt new unilateral sanctions to punish foreign banks that handle North Korean funds.

Rep. Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the House panel, said he plans to introduce legislation that would target the North’s ability to access hard currency.

Rep. Steve Chabot, a Republican who chairs a House subcommittee on the Asia-Pacific, took aim Friday at Obama’s policies of “ineffective sanctions and empty threats.”

“Pyongyang is now essentially a nuclear power – a state that we have ures” and was “deeply concerned by the reports that these immolations are continuing,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told journalists.

“We call on those who are immolating, or those who might be considering this, to

New Year fest

Fires kill 36 people

Activist takes database off: A Hong Kong activist who posted an identity card database online in protest at a proposed law that would restrict access to information on company directors has removed the file from his website.

Corporate governance activist David Webb said he decided to take down the database of over 1,100 names, including some of the city’s leading tycoons, on Friday after authorities said they were investigating his activities.

Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, said it was looking into a “possible personal data breach”.

Webb, who compiled the database from publicly available information said he was astonished at the decision, in a message on his website (www.webb-site.com).

“Our first, internal reaction was — are you serious? For information that anyone could legally have found online?”

“All of this aims to increase transparency and accountability, and to reduce corruption, corporate fraud, money-launder-

ing to what it called a US threat and has warned of further, unspecified measures of “greater intensity” if Washington remains hostile – possibly signaling further tests if sanctions are tightened further.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Friday that more provocation, like another nuclear test, would only further isolate the North.

A Japan Coast Guard vessel, top, sails along with a Chinese surveillance ship near disputed islands called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China in the East China Sea, on Feb 15. Three Chinese Maritime Surveillance vessels entered Japanese territorial waters around the islands for about six hours on Friday, according to the Coast Guard. (AP)

BEIJING, Feb 16, (AP): Chinese state media say fires killed 36 people during China’s week-long Lunar New Year festival.

Chinese traditionally set off fireworks to welcome in the new year and ward off evil spirits.

Xinhua News Agency says more than 6,500 fires broke out across the country from Feb 9 to Feb 15 and caused property losses of 58 million yuan ($9 million).

It cited a statement from the fire department of the Ministry of Public Security. It didn’t say what caused the fires.

The Lunar New Year celebration also known as Spring Festival is China’s most important family holiday.

been trying to prevent,” Chabot said in address to the Institute of KoreanAmerican Studies. He said the administration needs to stop offering “carrotand-stick deals” to North Korea, but did not elaborate on alternative policies.

Separately, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved Thursday legislation supporting stiffer international sanctions against North Korea and counter-proliferation measures.

Meanwhile, North Korean defectors in the South launched 200,000 antiPyongyang leaflets across the tense inter-Korean border on Saturday, the birth anniversary of the North’s late leader Kim Jong-Il. The defectors used gas-filled balloons to float the leaflets along with $1 currency notes across the western border town of Imjingak, despite high tensions owing to the North’s third nuclear test on Tuesday.

The balloons were inscribed with slogans such as “Stop provocative acts with missiles and nuclear tests”, “North Koreans rise up” and “The Kim dynasty will soon collapse”.

In other developments, the European Union will tighten sanctions on North Korea to curb trade in gold and diamonds and crack down on financial links in protest at Pyongyang’s recent rocket launch and nuclear bomb test, EU diplomats said on Friday.

Diplomats have agreed on a new list of sanctions which will be formally approved by EU foreign ministers on Monday.

Diplomats from Britain and several other EU countries with embassies in North Korea are also expected to show their displeasure by boycotting Saturday’s celebrations of the birth of late leader Kim Jong-il, one EU diplomat said. think hard about whether it’s the best way to express yourself,” Nuland said.

The United States also called on the Chinese government “to address its own policies in Tibet that have caused these kinds of tensions and frustration.”

Western rights groups and media said that a former monk, from the Kirti monastery, set fire to himself last week near a police station in Aba prefecture, a Tibetan area of Sichuan province in southern China. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Japan to send envoy: Japan will next week send a foreign ministry official to Beijing for three days for talks on an ongoing territorial dispute and North Korea’s recent nuclear test, a report said Saturday.

Tokyo will dispatch Shinsuke Sugiyama, head of the ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs bureau, for the meetings with Chinese government officials from Tuesday, Kyodo news agency said, citing a ministry source.

The relationship between the Asian giants has cooled over the territorial row involving the Japanese-controlled Senkaku islands, which Beijing claims as the Diaoyus, which last year triggered anti-Japan rallies across China.

Sugiyama is expected to raise Tokyo’s concerns about a Chinese frigate locking its weapons-control radar onto one of its destroyers last month, the report said, in an incident Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called “provocative” and “dangerous.” China has flatly denied the accusation. (AFP)

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

INTERNATIONAL

18

World News Roundup Asia New law bolsters Manila: The Philippines hopes to avoid being put on a blacklist of money-laundering havens after President Benigno Aquino signed a new law boosting safeguards against such crimes, his spokeswoman said Saturday in Manila.

The law brings the country up to international standards as required by the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force which threatened to blacklist it, spokeswoman Abigail Valte said.

“We’re very hopeful that, with the passage of this particular law, the FATF will see we are really serious in our commitment to fight money-laundering,” she told Aquino reporters.

Officials of the Philippine anti-money laundering council will leave soon for an FATF meeting in Paris to show that Manila was complying with their conditions, she said.

The law is aimed at preventing terrorists, corrupt officials, drug syndicates and human-traffickers from using the country as a hiding place for their ill-gotten gains, Valte said.

As demanded by the FATF, it broadens the definition of crimes covered and expands the businesses to be monitored for money-laundering beyond mere financial institutions such as banks.

The FATF had previously placed the Philippines on its “dark grey list” of jurisdictions deemed not to be making sufficient progress in fighting moneylaundering and threatened to blacklist it in early 2012.

It called for greater state powers to make it easier to scrutinise bank accounts, as well as casinos, foreign exchange traders and other non-bank entities.

While the Philippines previously passed two crucial anti-money laundering laws in June, it only passed the third law sought by the task force this month.

The new law, signed by Aquino late Friday, also still spares casinos from coverage for fear this would scare off investors, lawmakers said.

The Philippines recently opened Entertainment City, an $4 billion Manila casino complex aimed at rivalling Macau, Las Vegas and Singapore as a gaming hub.

Asked if omitting casinos might have a negative effect, Valte said “we will make an evaluation first and then we’ll move forward from there”.

An FATF blacklist would make it difficult for millions of Filipinos working abroad to remit their earnings and also affect Filipinos seeking to invest overseas. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑ Quake shakes Mindanao: A powerful 6.2-magnitude earthquake rocked the southern Philippine island of Mindanao on Saturday triggering panic, but there were no immediate reports of any damage or casualties.

The quake struck at 12:37 pm (0437 GMT), off the coast, about 30 kms (19 miles) northeast of the town of Sarangani, said the government seismology institute in Manila.

Residents said people rushed out of buildings in panic after the quake sent lighting fixtures swaying.

The government institute said it did not expect any damage or casualties and there was no risk of a tsunami.

The Philippines sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire — a belt around the Pacific Ocean dotted by active volcanoes and tectonic trenches.

A 7.6-magnitude quake hit the country’s east coast in August last year, triggering a tsunami alert that forced tens of thousands to flee their homes and causing a landslide that killed one person. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

A Chinese family leaves a Chinese temple after prayers during Chinese new year in Yangon on Feb 15. (AFP)

Singapore Former-PM Lee hospitalized

Rare mass rally in S’pore

Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi talks during a meeting with local residents at a branch office of her National League for Democracy party in Kaw-Hmu where she won her lower house parliamentary seat in April by-election in 2012 from the rural Kawhmu constituency near the old capital Yangon, on Feb 16, in Yangon, Myanmar. (AP )

No buried Spitfires in Myanmar: The sponsor of a British-led team hunting for dozens of rare World War II Spitfires said to have been buried in Myanmar has abandoned the search, saying stories of the stashed planes are merely “legend”.

Rumours that dozens of the iconic single-seat aircraft were buried in 1945 by Britain, the former colonial power in what was then Burma, had excited military history enthusiasts, but surveys at Yangon airport in the Mingaladon district have failed to bear fruit.

The project backer, online game company Wargaming, said the team “now believes, based on clear documentary evidence, as well as the evidence from the fieldwork, that no Spitfires were delivered in crates and buried at RAF Mingaladon during 1945 and 1946”.

Lead archaeologist Andy Brockman said the investigation into the stories of buried Spitfires was undertaken in the spirit of US television forensic police series “CSI” (Crime Scene Investigation).

“We followed the clues in the documents, period maps, pictures and air photographs; we talked to surviving witnesses, and visited the ‘crime scene’ in order to turn our study in the archives into facts on the ground,” he said in Yangon.

“As a result we believe that the legend of the buried Spitfires of Burma is just that: a captivating legend about a beautiful and iconic aircraft.”

In a statement released late Friday, Wargaming said the search for Spitfires in Myanmar was rooted in persistent rumours that began among servicemen in “the bars and canteens of South East Asia” as early as 1946.

It added that no surviving witnesses had actually seen planes being buried and that its research in British archives had failed to produce any evidence of the arrival of the aircraft in Myanmar in the latter months of the war.

But a local businessman involved in the project, Htoo Htoo Zaw, on Saturday vowed to continue the planned digs in the northern city of Myitkyina and

Xenophon

Carr

Detention ‘shocking’ Malaysia detained an Australian politician at Kuala Lumpur airport Saturday, branding him a “prohibited immigrant” ahead of his expected deportation, in a move Canberra described as “disappointing”.

Nick Xenophon, an outspoken independent senator who has been critical of Malaysia’s electoral system, was held at the international airport near the capital Kuala Lumpur upon his arrival from Melbourne.

He was expected to be deported back to Melbourne later Saturday. He and other Australian lawmakers were planning the Malaysia trip to try to ascertain the freeness of upcoming national elections, due to take place by June.

Immigration director general Alias Ahmad said in a text message to AFP that Xenophon had “tarnished the image of the country” and been classified as a “prohibited immigrant”.

He later elaborated in a statement that Xenophon was blacklisted because he attended an “illegal street protest” in Kuala Lumpur last year.

Xenophon, who has said he attended the electoral reform mass rally last April as an observer while studying Malaysia’s poll system, told AFP that he was “shocked” by his detention.

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said officials were in touch with Xenophon and were seeking his “swift release” and a “full explanation” of the incident. (AFP)

Yangon airport, signalling a split within the team.

“We haven’t started any digging yet.

SINGAPORE, Feb 16, (AFP): More than 2,000 Singaporeans attended the city-state’s biggest protest rally in recent memory Saturday, amid growing public indignation over predictions of a surging foreign population.

The peaceful rally, held at an officially designated protest zone, was staged by a civic group after the government said foreigners could account for nearly half of the densely packed island’s population in less than 20 years.

Organisers estimated the crowd at 3,000, but AFP reporters on the scene said between 1,000 and 1,500 people had taken part despite afternoon downpours, making it the biggest protest in Singapore in recent years.

Rally leaders, who used Facebook and other online platforms to draw support, openly attacked the People’s Action Party (PAP), which has been in power for more than 50 years, over its immigration and other policies.

“The large crowd here shows the PAP government that they are not afraid any more, they don’t want to hide behind a moniker on Facebook to show their displeasure,” said chief organiser Gilbert Goh, a former opposition candidate for parliament.

“They are showing their deep displeasure with the white paper,” he told AFP, referring to a controversial population projection issued last month.

A spokesman for the Singapore Police told AFP that it was not monitoring the size of the crowd, which was largely clad in black, armed with clap-

So how can we say for sure whether there are Spitfires or not?” he told AFP. It was unclear to what extent the exca-

pers and clutched a sea of umbrellas.

There were no signs of riot police in or around the rally venue, a grassy park where protesters are allowed to address the public in a spot known as Speakers’ Corner.

A government policy paper last month said the population could range between 6.5 and 6.9 million by 2030, with foreigners making up 45 percent because Singaporeans are not producing enough babies to sustain economic growth.

Population Citizens currently make up 62 percent of the current population of 5.3 million, of whom more than a third are foreign-born.

A banner at the rally read: “Save Singapore — Say NO to 6.9 million.”

“Stop selling memberships. We are not a country club,” read a handmade poster, referring to naturalisation.

Protests are rare in Singapore, a wealthy island republic known for strict security and social controls, but Facebook, Twitter and other social media have set the tone for political debate in recent years.

Rallies of more than a few dozen people are unusual.

In October 2008, about 600 angry investors gathered in the same spot, urging the Singapore central bank to help them recover money they lost from investments linked to collapsed US bank Lehman Brothers and other institutions.

Saturday’s rally came less than two years after the general election of

vations would continue and project leader David Cundall — a farmer and aircraft enthusiast who has spent around 17 years

May 2011, when the ruling party suffered its worst ever performance, with immigration already a sensitive issue.

Foreigners have been blamed for stealing Singaporeans’ jobs as well as straining housing, transport and medical services.

Goh, the rally organiser, ran unsuccessfully for parliament in 2011 under the opposition National Solidarity Party.

On the eve of the rally, Goh issued a public apology to foreigners living in Singapore for an earlier posting in which he listed racial profiles and social habits of various Asian nationalities as well as westerners.

Also: SINGAPORE:

Former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew is recovering in hospital after suffering from an irregular heartbeat, the government said Saturday.

Lee, 89, will remain at Singapore General Hospital for a few days, said a statement issued by the office of his son, current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

The elder Lee was confined on Friday “after experiencing a suspected transient ischaemic attack (TIA) associated with a prolonged episode of atrial fibrillation”, or an irregular heartbeat, the statement said.

TIA occurs when blood flow to a part of the brain stops briefly, according to the statement, which added that a person who suffers from this “will have stroke-like symptoms which clear in less than 24 hours”.

chasing the Spitfires — was not immediately reachable for comment. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Lost in Outback

Teen survives ordeal

In this Feb 15 photo, British backpacker Sam Derry-Woodhead (second left), sits in a rescue helicopter as he is tended to by ambulance personnel, near Upshot Station, a cattle ranch 90 kms (55 miles) from Longreach, Australia. (AP)

CANBERRA, Australia, Feb 16, (AP): A British teenage backpacker drank contact lens fluid and his own urine to survive three days lost in Australian Outback scrubland in oppressive summer heat, his mother said Saturday.

Claire Derry reached the bedside of her 18-year-old son, Sam Derry-Woodhead, on Saturday at Longreach Hospital in northeast Australia, where he is recovering from dehydration.

She said she feared the worst while flying from London’s Heathrow Airport to Longreach until she was told during a stopover in the east coast city of Brisbane that searchers in a helicopter had winched her son to safety on Friday.

Myanmar rejects ‘claim’: Myanmar under the govt of Thein Sein on Saturday dismissed an independent report that alleged security forces used white phosphorus in a crackdown on a copper mine protest last year, which left dozens of people injured.

The pre-dawn raid on protest camps at the Chinese-backed mine in northern Myanmar in November was the toughest clampdown on demonstrators since a reformist government came to power in early 2011.

A network of lawyers sent a canister discovered at the site in Monywa to a laboratory overseas which was found to contain military-issue white phosphorus that can lead to serious injuries, their report said.

Thein Sein But presidential spokesman Ye Htut dismissed the report without commenting on its findings, saying the government would only recognise a separate parliamentary probe being conducted by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. “We do not study or give comment on individual inquiries,” he told AFP, adding that the report could “disturb” the work of Suu Kyi’s commission.

The lawyers group, which submitted its findings to the Nobel laureate in late January, this week released a final draft of its report claiming government forces used “excessive force” in breaking up the mine demonstration.

It added that senior local officials acted on behalf of the mine — a joint venture between Chinese firm Wanbao and military-owned Myanmar Economic Holdings — and “misused their powers to punish villagers opposed to selling their land”.

Activists said about 100 people were injured in the crackdown. Some suffered severe burns. The government has since apologised to senior Buddhist clerics over injuries sustained by monks who were at the forefront of the protest.

President Thein Sein’s office initially said that tear gas and smoke bombs were used against the protesters, but denied allegations by local media that a form of chemical weapon was deployed.

Chinese-backed projects to tap Myanmar’s abundant natural resources have sparked resentment among local residents. Opponents are calling for work at the mine to be suspended to allow environmental and social impact studies.

Suu Kyi’s commission was originally supposed to present its findings by the end of January, but the date has been postponed, with members of the inquiry suggesting a decision would not be before late February. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑ Quake strikes off North Island: A 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the North Island of New Zealand on Saturday, the US Geological Survey reported in Wellington, but there were no reports of any damage.

The quake at 6:16 pm (0516 GMT) was centred 204 kms (126 miles) deep and about 300 kms northeast of Auckland.

The tremor was not widely felt on the mainland and police said there were no immediate reports of damage or injury.

A shallow 6.3-magnitude quake devastated New Zealand’s second largest city of Christchurch in February last year, leaving 185 people dead.

The sparsely populated country sits on the so-called “Ring of Fire”, the boundary of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates, and experiences up to 15,000 tremors a year. (AFP)

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

INTERNATIONAL

19

Africa Ivory Coast member of ICC: Ivory Coast on Friday became a member of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where its former president is facing trial for alleged crimes against humanity.

Ambassador Youssoufou Bamba formally turned in paperwork to the United Nations in New York showing the country had ratified the Rome Statute, which set up the court. The moves makes it the 122nd state to become party to the statute.

Former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo is currently being held by the ICC, where he has been charged with crimes against humanity committed during the five months in which he Gbagbo refused to step down after he was declared the loser in the November 2010 election.

The violence that ensued cost around 3,000 lives.

The court has also issued an arrest warrant for Gbagbo’s wife Simone, accusing her of being his “alter ego” in orchestrating a campaign of election violence.

The warrant on four counts of crimes against humanity was issued in February but only made public by the court in November. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Watchdog backs lifting immunity: Watchdog Transparency International Zambia said Saturday that it supports calls for lifting the immunity of the country’s former president Rupiah Banda so that he can answer corruption charges.

“As TIZ we support calls to have the immunity of president Banda removed.

This will accord him an opportunity to clear his name against all the corruption charges that he is associated with,” TIZ executive director Goodwell Lungu told AFP in Lusaka. In the past week, some civil society organisations and government officials have called for stripping Banda, who took office in 2008 but lost power during the 2011 elections to Michael Sata, of his immunity so that he answer corruption charges.

On Thursday, President Sata said that Banda was in South Africa to seek political asylum, but Banda denied late on Friday that his trip to South Africa was to seek political asylum. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

A woman takes part in a protest against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas and to ask for the release of hostages on Feb 15, in Bogota, Colombia. (Inset): A Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, rebel stands guard on a hill before the release of two hostages in Montealegre, Colombia, Feb 15. FARC rebels released Friday, police officers Cristian Camilo Yate, 21, and Victor Alfonso Gonzalez, 26, seized last month. The FARC currently is pursuing peace talks with Colombian government representatives in Cuba. (AP)

Venezuela First images in 2 months break virtual news blackout

Gabon bans large-calibre arms: Gabon is banning large-calibre arms after experiencing a surge in elephant poaching in its national parks, the interior ministry said Friday.

“The interior ministry has decided to suspend the sale of rifles and ammunitions of type 375 and 458, used for big game hunting throughout the national territory,” it said in a statement.

Last week, a study showed that Gabon — which hosts more than half of Africa’s forest elephants — has become a target for poachers who have killed at least 20,000 elephants there in the past decade. The animals are mainly hunted for their ivory.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, some of the money raised through the llegal poaching in Africa is used to finance armed groups. The black-market trade of ivory is mostly fuelled by demand in Asia and the Middle East, where elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns are used to make ornaments and in traditional medicine. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Chavez photos cheer supporters Haitian President Michel Martelly speaks about the Haitian political situation during a press conference on Feb 15, in Port-au-Prince. (AFP)

Mugabe issues referendum date: Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe issued an official proclamation on Friday setting March 16 as the date for the nation to vote on a new constitution ahead of national elections later this year.

A government notice formally published on Friday leaves a calendar month for distribution of the 160-page draft document and campaigning for a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ vote.

Independent advocacy groups say that is not long enough for a free poll to reflect the wishes of electors.

Friday’s notice in Harere said polling stations will be opened for 12 hours countrywide at 7 am (0500 GMT) on March 16, which is a Saturday.

The draft constitution was completed on Feb. 6 after three years of disputes, bickering and constant delays and funding shortages. Democratic reforms to the constitution were a key demand of regional mediators after violent, disputed elections in 2008. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Camara charged over beatings: A court in Guinea has charged the governor of the capital Conakry and two former top military officers over the detention and beatings of protesters during a 2010 presidential election, a human rights group said on Friday.

The governor, Sekou Resco Camara, was charged on Thursday, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said in a statement.

Ex-army chief General Nouhou Thiam and Commander Aboubakar Sidiki Camara, the former head of the presidential guard, were also charged, the group said. Both men are already on trial for a rocket attack on the residence of President Alpha Conde in July 2011, in which Conde was not harmed.

“With the charging of the governor of Conakry for very grave acts, Guinea’s justice system is sending an important signal in the fight against impunity,” said FIDH president Souhayr Belhassen. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑ DR Congo plans anti-Kabila demo: Part of the parliamentary opposition in the Democratic Republic of Congo has announced a march in Kinshasa on Saturday to protest against the rule of President Joseph Kabila, in spite of a ban.

The Forces Acquired for Change (FAC) party, which has eight lawmakers in the 500-seat parliament, wants to hand in a memorandum at the presidential palace, FAC moderator Jean-Pierre Lisanga Bonganga told AFP. “The country is going very badly. If the president feels he can’t lead things well, he has only to resign,” he added.

The memorandum accuses Kabila’s regime of “bad governance” of the vast and troubled country since he was re-elected in 2011 in a vote whose outcome was rejected by the main opposition Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) Party. (AP)

Sanchez

Rousseff

Lat/Am Blogger prepares tour abroad: Cuba’s best-known dissident, blogger Yoani Sanchez, said in Havana she plans to make good use of “my victory” when she leaves on an 80-day-tour of more than a dozen countries on Sunday.

Sanchez, under Cuba’s sweeping migration reform that went into effect this year, was granted a passport two weeks ago, after being denied permission to travel more than 20 times over the past five years.

Sanchez, considered Cuba’s pioneer in social networking, told Reuters on Thursday that she would visit the headquarters of Google, Twitter and Facebook, and travel to Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, the United States, Spain, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic and other countries.

“This is a victory after fighting five years for my right to travel, using patience, energy, legal and journalistic tools, and most of all the solidarity of many people,” she said, as she left her home to pick up a visa at a local embassy. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑

Rare shooting kills 1: A man was killed Friday in a rare shooting in broad daylight in one of Mexico City’s most crowded tourist zones.

An Associated Press photographer at the scene saw the man’s lifeless body covered with a tarp on a blood-covered sidewalk in the Zona Rosa, an area crowded with hotels and restaurants.

An official of the city’s Public Safety Department confirmed the man was shot to death. Under department rules, the official was not authorized to be quoted by name.

The official said that one of two men on a motorcycle fired several shots at the man and then drove off. Assassins commonly use motorcycles in Central America, but that has been less common in Mexico.

Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said the killers appeared to have been going after a specific victim, “clearly because of some quarrel.” (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑

CARACAS, Feb 16, (Agencies): Supporters of President Hugo Chavez displayed new confidence Saturday after the government released the first post-surgical photos of the ailing Venezuelan leader, in which he appears bed-ridden but smiling in the company of his daughters.

The pictures show the 58-year-old Chavez lying on his back in a Havana hospital and leafing through Thursday’s edition of the official Cuban newspaper Granma.

Chavez supporters rejoiced at the confirmation that the president was alive.

The four images broke a virtual news blackout for Venezuelans who have been living in limbo without their media-happy comandante — a populist firebrand who is the most visible face of the Latin American left and who has irked the United States by aligning himself with Iran, Syria and Cuba.

For over two months Venezuelans had not seen a photo or TV image of Chavez, nor heard the voice of a man usually omnipresent across state media. Sketchy government updates about his health fueled speculation he was actually dead.

Chavez’s absence has also enraged political opponents, who have wondered aloud who is running Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

He was last seen as he left Caracas airport on December 10 for treatment in Cuba.

Opposition On Thursday night, opposition leader Henrique Capriles kept up his assertion that the government has probably been lying about Chavez’s health, suggesting the president is in demanding better living conditions for inmates. “What the investigation shows is that the attacks were triggered by problems within the prison system. Inmates claimed they were the victims of violence and this is being investigated,” said Claudete

worse shape than officials have said he is.

Capriles expressed fresh anger over of the release of the pictures and said they had not clarified the president’s true health condition.

However the pro-Chavez camp was jubilant to see their hero, and could not resist a dig at the rumors simmering on social media that Chavez was no more.

“Wow! For a dead man you look really good, comandante,” tweeted @mormaldonado.

“He’s alive, he’s alive! Thanks be to God and to the whole world. This is proof,” said Dora Salcedo, 67, one of dozens of Chavez fans who gathered in downtown Caracas after the photos came out.

But Venezuelans apparently will have to wait longer for the former commando to break his silence.

He has been fitted with a breathing tube in his throat, making it hard for him to speak, Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said.

That’s because of a respiratory infection that emerged after the surgery. The infection has been brought under control but “the underlying disease is not without complications,” Villegas said in a televised speech to the nation.

It was Chavez’s son in law Jorge Arreaza, also science minister, who showed the printed photos of Chavez on television.

“We wanted to share with you now some shots from last night of our commander accompanied by his two daughters Rosa Virginia and Maria Gabriela ... yesterday on the day of friendship, on Valentine’s Day,” Arreaza said.

A leading political analyst here said it was a savvy move by the governLehmkuhl, a spokeswoman for the Santa Catarina military police.

“Prison guards have been dismissed and new measures could be taken,” she added, citing the possible transfer of prisoners to other penitentiaries.

Broadcast These pictures “put us at ease,” Arreaza said in a broadcast that all radio and TV stations were ordered to carry.

Chavez remains alert with all his mental faculties intact and is “in close collaboration with his government team and on top off all the issues” facing the government, Villegas said.

But Capriles reacted with scorn. He said that while just a few days ago government officials who have been shuttling back and forth to Havana said they had spoken to Chavez “now they say he cannot speak. They are making a mockery of their own people,” Capriles tweeted.

Chavez was first diagnosed with cancer in 2011. After surgery and treatment he declared himself free of the disease and went on to win another term in elections last October.

But he suffered a relapse, and after the latest surgery he was still too sick to come back to Venezuela for his scheduled inauguration on Jan 10. It has been postponed indefinitely, and Vice-President Nicolas Maduro has essentially been running Venezuela.

Prison-based gangs also control drug trafficking networks, Lehmkuhl added.

Press reports have blamed a gang called the First Group of the Capital, similar to a Sao Paulo-based prison syndicate known as the PCC, or First

‘Kidnap threat’

US tourists warned

Inmates order street attacks: Prisoners complaining of violence behind bars ordered a wave of attacks out on the streets in southern Brazil over the past two weeks, officials said Friday in Sao Paulo as police reinforcements began arriving.

The state of Santa Catarina has seen buses torched and police fired on in some 30 cities since Jan 30.

Authorities say the violence has been masterminded by prison-based crime gangs

ment to publish the photos, even if Chavez appeared to be in a somewhat debilitated state.

“It was the right move politically,” said Luis Vicente Leon, president of the firm Datanalisis.

The pictures are similar to each other, and show Chavez with the daughters, one on either side of him, looking through the Cuban newspaper. Chavez wears a white baseballtype jacket that goes up to his neck.

The breathing tube is not visible, with the leader lying back, his face puffy, but smiling.

Police block the sidewalk where the covered body of an unidentified man (center), lays on the sidewalk in the Zona Rosa neighborhood of Mexico City, Feb 15. The apparent shooting occurred in broad daylight in one of Mexico City’s tourist hot spots outside a popular restaurant, and local authorities have not released information. (AP)

LIMA, Peru, Feb 16, (AP): A US Embassy warning to US tourists of a potential kidnapping threat in the Cuzco region, including the famed Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, drew vehement objections from Peruvian officials Friday.

But a US Embassy official said credible evidence exists of a threat from a Peruvian terrorist group.

The official confirmed a report in the Peruvian newspaper La Republica that said leaders of the cocaine-financed Shining Path outlaw band discussed kidnapping foreigners, principally Americans, in intercepted communications.

Tens of thousands of Americans visit Peru each year.

Maduro used the occasion of the pictures’ publication to accuse the opposition of “trying to confuse the public” and “destabilizing” the country, with its strident criticism of the president’s prolonged absence.

Explanation Along with images of the puffyfaced Chavez came a government explanation for why no one has heard from the longtime president since his surgery: He’s breathing through a tracheal tube that makes speech difficult.

Chavez’s government described his condition as “delicate” and said he continues to undergo “vigorous treatment for his fundamental illness.”

The images and new details filled a vacuum of information about Chavez’s condition that has unleashed rampant speculation in Venezuela.

Government officials say Chavez has been recovering in Cuba since his cancer surgery Dec 11.

The four photos show Chavez reclining on what appears to be a bed, his cheeks reddish, and a blue pillow behind his head. He smiles broadly, while his daughters Rosa and Maria lean in close to him.

Three of the images show Chavez looking at Thursday’s issue of the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma, his daughters flanking him.

Chavez’s son-in-law, Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza, showed the photos on Venezuelan state television.

Chavez’s hasn’t been seen publicly or heard from since he left for Cuba on Dec 10. During previous treatments in Havana, he spoke on TV or appeared in photos.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said Friday that the tracheal tube makes talking difficult for Chavez.

Command of the Capital. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Medvedev to meet Rousseff: Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will pay a courtesy call on President Dilma Rousseff next week on the sidelines of an annual bilateral cooperation meeting, Rousseff’s office said Friday in Brazilia.

Medvedev will meet Rousseff Wednesday before holding talks with Brazilian VicePresident Michel Temer, the president’s office said.

Brazil and Russia are both members of the BRICS group of emerging powers along with China, India and South Africa.

In December, Rousseff paid her first official visit to Russia where she met with both Medvedev and President Vladimir Putin.

(AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Haiti ‘not yet’ open for biz: A UN envoy in Haiti said in Port-Au-Prince Friday that the Caribbean nation is “not yet” ready for foreign investment.

The remarks by UN Acting Special Representative Nigel Fisher challenged a mantra often championed by Haitian President Michel Martelly’s government.

The slogan “Haiti is open for business” has been a rallying cry for the government as it seeks outside investors to help the country rebuild from the devastating 2010 earthquake. “We can blame external partners for their slowness to pay the promised assistance,” Fisher said. (AP)

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

INTERNATIONAL

20

World News Roundup

In this combo made from frame grabs from dashboard camera video, a meteor streaks through the sky over Chelyabinsk, about 1,500 km photo (930 miles) east of Moscow, Russia, Feb 15. With a blinding flash and a booming shock wave, the meteor blazed across the western Siberian sky Friday and exploded with the force of 20 atomic bombs, injuring more than 1,000 people as it blasted out windows and spread panic in a city of 1 million. (AP)

‘High scientific priority’

Space

Experts eye Europa for ‘life’

‘Fireball over California’

2 space rocks hours apart point up danger CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, Feb 16, (Agencies): A space rock even bigger than the meteor that exploded like an atom bomb over Russia could drop out of the sky unannounced at any time and wreak havoc on a city.

And Hollywood to the contrary, there isn’t much the world’s scientists and generals can do about it.

But some former astronauts want to give the world a fighting chance.

They’re hopeful Friday’s cosmic coincidence — Earth’s close brush with a 150-foot (46-meter) asteroid, hours after the 49-foot (15-meter) meteor struck in Russia — will draw attention to the dangers lurking in outer space and lead to action, such as better detection and tracking of asteroids.

“After today, a lot of people will be paying attention,” said Rusty Schweickart, who flew on Apollo 9 in 1969, helped establish the planetprotecting B612 Foundation and has been warning NASA for years to put more muscle and money into a heightened asteroid alert.

Earth is menaced all the time by meteors, which are chunks of asteroids or comets that enter Earth’s atmosphere. But many if not most of them are simply too small to detect from afar with the tools now available to astronomers.

Power The meteor that shattered over the Ural Mountains was estimated to be 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. It blew out thousands of windows and left more than 1,000 people injured in Chelyabinsk, a city of 1 million. And yet no one saw it coming; it was about the size of a bus.

“This is a tiny asteroid,” said astronomer Paul Chodas, who works in NASA’s Near-Earth Object program in Pasadena, California “It would be very faint and difficult to detect — not impossible, but difficult.”

As for the three-times-longer asteroid that hurtled by Earth later in the day Friday, passing closer to the planet than some communications satellites, astronomers in Spain did not even discover it until a year ago.

That would have been too late for pre-emptive action — such as the launch of a deflecting spacecraft — if it had been on a collision course with Earth.

Asteroid 2012 DA14, as it is known, passed harmlessly within 17,150 miles (27,599 kilometers) of Earth, zooming by at 17,400 mph (28,001 kph), or 5 miles (8 kilometers) per second.

Scientists believe there are anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million “near-Earth” asteroids comparable in size to DA14 or bigger out there.

But less than 1 percent have actually been spotted. Astronomers have catalogued only 9,600 of them, of which nearly 1,300 are bigger than 0.6 miles (0.97 kilometers).

Size Earth’s atmosphere gets hit with 100 tons of junk every day, most of it the size of sand, and most of it burning up before it reaches the ground, according to NASA. “These fireballs happen about once a day or so, but we just don’t see them because many of them fall over the ocean or in remote areas.

This one was an exception,” NASA’s Jim Green, director of planetary science, said of the meteor in Russia.

A 100 to 130-foot (30 to 40-meter) asteroid exploded over Siberia in 1908 and flattened 825 square miles

(2,137 square kilometers) of forest, while the rock that is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was a monster 6 miles (9.6 kilometers) across.

The chances of Earth getting hit without warning by one of the big ones are “extremely low, so low that it’s ridiculous. But the smaller ones are quite different,” Schweickart said. He warned: “If we get hit by one of them, it’s most likely we wouldn’t have known anything about it before it hit.”

Chodas said the meteor strike in Russia is “like Mother Nature is showing us what a small one — a tiny one, really — can do.”

All this points up the need for more money for tracking of near-Earth objects, according to Schweickart and the former space shuttle and station astronaut who now heads up the B612 Foundation, Ed Lu. Elsewhere, thousands of Russian emergency workers went out on Saturday to clear up the damage from a meteor that exploded over the Ural mountains, damaging buildings, shattering windows and showering people with broken glass.

Divers searched a lake near the city of Chelyabinsk, where a hole several metres wide had opened in the ice, but had so far failed to find any large fragments, officials said.

Evidence The scarcity of evidence on the ground fuelled scores of conspiracy theories over what caused the fireball and its huge shockwave on Friday in the area which plays host to many defence industry plants.

Nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky told reporters in Moscow it could have been “warmongers” in the United States. “It’s not meteors falling. It’s a new weapon being tested by the Americans,” he said.

A priest from near the explosion site called it an act of God. Social media sites were flooded with speculation about what might have caused the explosion.

Also: SAN FRANCISCO: A science institute in Northern California says it has received numerous reports of a bright streak of light over the San Francisco Bay area.

The Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland reports receiving calls describing what appeared to be a fireball flying west Friday night, but it’s not clear what the object was.

Astronomer Gerald McKeegan tells KGO-TV that the center’s large telescopes did not pick up the object during a stargazing event.

Elsewhere, Cuba apparently experienced a phenomenon similar to the meteorite that detonated over Russia this week, island media reported, with startled residents describing a bright light in the sky and a loud explosion that shook windows and walls.

There were no reports of any injuries or damage such as those caused by the Russia meteorite, which sent out shockwaves that hurt some 1,200 people and shattered countless windows.

In a video from a state TV newscast posted on the website CubaSi late Friday, unidentified residents of the central city of Rodas, near Cienfuegos, said the explosion was impressive.

“On Tuesday we left home to fish around five in the afternoon, and around 8:00 we saw a light in the heavens and then a big ball of fire, bigger than the sun,” one local man said in the video.

Archaeologists work at the El Paraiso archaeological site in Lima.

An ancient temple believed to be about 5,000 years old was discovered at the archaeological site of El Paraiso, some 40 km northeast of Lima. If the date is confirmed, it would be among the oldest sites in the world, comparable to the ancient city of Caral, a coastal city some 200 km (125 miles) to the north. (AFP)

BOSTON, Massachusetts, Feb 16, (Agencies): US astronomers looking for life in the solar system believe that Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, which has an ocean, is much more promising than desert-covered Mars, which is currently the focus of the US government’s attention.

“Europa is the most likely place in our solar system beyond Earth to possess .... life,” said Robert Pappalardo, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

“And it is the place we should be exploring now that we have a concept mission we think is the right one to get there for an affordable cost,” he continued.

“Europa is the most promising in terms of habitability because of its relatively thin ice shelf and an ocean ... And we know there are oxidants on the surface of Europa.”

At the request of NASA, a proposed mission to explore Europa was revised to significantly reduce the cost, the scientist told the media on the sidelines of an annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) underway here.

Developed DeBrum

Hamel

Science Islands appeal to UN: The Marshall Islands and other low-lying island nations appealed to the UN Security Council to recognize climate change as an international security threat that jeopardizes their very survival.

Tony deBrum, a minister and assistant to the Marshall Islands president, said Friday the island nations are facing opposition from Security Council permanent members Russia and China and a group of more than 130 mainly developing nations, which argue that the UN’s most powerful body is the wrong place to address climate change.

DeBrum told reporters after a closed Security Council meeting on the “Security Dimensions of Climate Change,” organized by Britain and Pakistan, that he hopes more council members will be convinced that “this is a security issue and not just an economic-political-social issue.”

The low-lying islands, which are already being inundated with sea water, want the council to bring its “political weight” to the issue and help their countries survive, for example, by harnessing new technologies and ensuring alternative energy supplies, he said.

DeBrum said it was “ironic, bizarre perhaps” that 35 years after he went before the Security Council to seek the independence of the Marshall Islands he was back again “to appeal for the survival of my country.”

He said climate change has already taken a toll on the Marshall Islands. Wells have filled with salt water, making drinking water scarce and in turn affecting food production. One small island in a lagoon is now under water, and coastlines are being eroded.

The impact of climate change is also causing migration to other islands, as well as to Australia and the United States, he said.

In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, Rachel Kyte, the World Bank’s vice-president for sustainable development, said that since the council’s last discussion of climate change “the sense of immediacy and urgency has increased.”

“The question is: Do you want to keep on cataloguing all of the terrible things that are going to happen if we continue on a business as usual track, or are we actually going to start doing anything about it?” she said Kyte said she explained to the council on Friday that “it is possible to stop the worst from happening but it will require real, concerted policy action globally at every country level.”

“Economically we know what to do, but politically it’s going to take leadership,” she said. “And every day we don’t act we make the job more difficult for ourselves.”

As a result of this review, the JPL and the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland developed a new exploration project named Clipper with a total coast of two billion dollars minus the launch.

Following the successful example of Cassini, a probe that explored Titan, a moon of Saturn, a spacecraft would orbit Jupiter and conduct numerous close flybys of Europa.

“That way we can get effectively global coverage of Europa by doing many many flybys,” Pappalardo argued.

“And that can do outstanding science — not quite as good as an orbiter, but not that bad — for half the cost, which is two billions dollars over the life of the mission excluding the launch.”

If the plan is approved, Clipper could be launched by 2021 and take three to six years to reach Europa. By comparison, it takes six months to reach Mars.

But NASA already announced at the end of 2012 that there will be no funds for the Clipper mission in the current “What the Security Council has to do is understand that everything has to be seen through this lens. Climate change is changing the future scenarios for every country,” Kyte said. “It’s framing decisions on security, economic security, food security.” (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Orbital impatient with progress: Orbital Sciences Corp worries that budget pressures and “old habits” may limit funding for the US government’s move toward smaller, less complex satellites aimed at avoiding cost overruns and delays that

atmosphere of budgetary cuts, he said.

However, the space agency announced in December that it was sending to Mars in 2020 a new robot similar to Curiosity, a project that cost an estimated $2.5 billion.

Curiosity, which arrived on the Red Planet in August 2012, is trying to find out whether life was possible on Mars in the past.

Under the current plans of robotic exploration, after the arrival of the probe Juno to Jupiter’s orbit in 2016 and its planned crash a year later, the United States will no longer have probes in the distant reaches of the solar system .

NASA could, however, participate in a mission to Jupiter by the European Space Agency (ESA) called “Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer,” during which a spacecraft is expected to arrive to its destination around 2030.

Noting that Mars consumed most attention in the course of NASA’s exploration of the solar system, Pappalardo said the agency should not ignore planets that have a high scientific priority.

In his view, life could have existed on Mars several billion years ago, but Europa could have life today.

“If Europa is the best place in the solar system after Earth to host life, Encelade (a Saturn Moon) is right up there as well,” said Amanda Hendrix, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. “It has at least a subsurface sea, if not an ocean, and there is geological activity.

“It has heat at the south pole and is ejecting water particles in a geyser and other components in the south pole plume.

Europa was closely observed for the first time by the twin Voyager probes in 1979 and then, in more detail, by Galileo in the 1990s.

Also: ALMATY, Kazakhstan: Russia may suspend its lease for some facilities at the Baikonur space complex in Kazakhstan, opening the way for its joint administration by the two countries, a senior Russian space official says.

The launch pad for satellite-deploying Zenit rockets at the complex will be the first facility to be reviewed, Roscosmos deputy head Sergei Savelyev told the Ivzestia newspaper in an interview pubhave often plagued space programs.

Orbital last week reported record revenues and operating income for 2012, but said revenues in its advanced space segment dropped by 19 percent due to “decreased activity on national security satellite contracts.

Michael Hamel, a retired general who heads business development for the company, said in Washington, he worries that tight budgets will limit even modest investments in a shift towards less complex satellites. Orbital thinks a move to a so-called “disaggregated” approach could ultimately save the government money

A circular hole in the ice of Chebarkul Lake where a meteor reportedly struck the lake near Chelyabinsk, about 1,500 km (930 miles) east of Moscow, Russia, on Feb 15. (AP)

lished last week.

Baikonur is a sprawling complex in the remote south of the oil-rich Central Asian nation. It was the site of Yuri Gagarin’s historic maiden flight to space in 1961 and holds 15 launch pads, including the one used by the Soyuz spacecraft, which remains the only transport available for astronauts — including American ones — traveling to the International Space Station.

Statements from Kazakhstan about the complex had provoked speculation that it was seeking higher rental payments, but officials seem mainly intent on expanding the country’s own space industry.

Russia currently pays Kazakhstan $115 million annually to use the Sovietbuilt cosmodrome under a deal that expires in 2050. Russia spends $160 million per year operating the complex.

“I want to stress that there is no talk of Russia leaving Baikonur. New forms of cooperation are being worked upon,” Savelyev told the Moscow-based daily.

While taking over partial management of facilities, Kazakhstan also wants training for its own space industry technicians, Savelyev said.

Roscosmos did not immediately respond to AP requests for more information.

Russia has bristled over what it perceives as obstructionism from Kazakhstan over Baikonur. Kazakhstan last year announced that it would allow no more than 12 launches in 2013 of the heavy-load Proton vehicle, less than the 14 hoped for by Russia. The limitation represents a grave threat to Russia’s satellite-launching business.

“We asked them to reconsider the parameters laid out in the government decree of Dec. 28,” Savelyev said. “Our partners in Kazakhstan are meeting us halfway.”

Savelyev said officials from both governments will meet in March to work on a roadmap for future cooperation that would culminate with a new arrangement on Baikonur.

Kazakhstan space agency chief Talgat Musabayev laid out his country’s vision in a meeting last week.

“By 2030, Kazakhstan should broaden its niche in the global space market and bring a number of ongoing projects to their logical conclusions,” Musabayev said. and make its space hardware less vulnerable.

“We’re caught in this vicious cycle,” he told Reuters this month. “We’re going to build up an inventory of these very expensive systems and that means there won’t be dollars to reinvest in more resilient architectures and solutions.”

Orbital, which builds both satellites and the rockets that launch them, contends that the government could save money and time by building simpler satellites that could be launched on smaller rockets.

It says that it could provide five basic satellites and rockets for the price of one big US military satellite.

Many of the problems facing satellite programs date back to the 1990s, during the last downturn in defense spending, when the Air Force tried to save money by squeezing several missions onto a single big satellite. Nearly every program structured that way ran into technological challenges, massive cost overruns and long launch delays, Hamel said.

The programs also required far more expensive launchers and intensive government oversight, given their cost and importance to US national security, he added, noting that some of those practices were “old habits” that were difficult to change.

Air Force officials insist that many of the older satellites programs, including the Space Based Infrared System missile warning satellites built by Lockheed Martin Corp, are in better shape now, and the government is trying to save money by buying several at a time through socalled “block buys.”

Hamel argues that spending more on these big satellites means there will be less funding for newer smaller technologies, which can also be launched on smaller, commercial-style rockets that are a third less expensive to produce. (RTRS)

‘They make us feel as if we were there, too’

Oscar-nominated documentaries capture history

By Christy Lemire

T

Film

he Oscar-nominated features “5 Broken Cameras” and “How to Survive a Plague” represent documentaries in the truest, purest form of the word: They capture a spark, a moment in history, and they make us feel as if we were there, too.

Both films were shot by regular people who happened to be witnessing an uprising. They’re by amateur photographers who had the foresight to record everything — long before such a practice became the norm with the advent of the iPhone and YouTube —

from the mundane moments of their daily lives to scenes of violence, upheaval, death and eventually some sort of victory.

They’re very different films from very different directors on very different topics. “5 Broken Cameras” is a collaboration between Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat and Israeli director Guy Davidi featuring years of footage Burnat shot in his occupied village of Bil’in, a place that became a sort of symbol for nonviolent resistance. Each of the five cameras was destroyed in the midst of protests or gunfire; one still has a bullet lodged in the lens. But it

also includes daily events in the life of this husband and father of four; he actually bought the first camera in 2005 for the reason so many parents do, to record the first smiles and steps of his youngest son, Gibreel.

Spread “Plague” is a collection of archival footage from the late 1980s and early ‘90s, as members of the New York-based AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) fought to find a cure for the disease as it quickly spread and claimed millions of lives. Director David France, who was in the

middle of many of these boisterous planning meetings and theatrical demonstrations, culled through thousands of hours of footage from about two dozen different sources.

Burnat of “5 Broken Cameras” said he’d always intended to make a movie, but initially figured it would be something private to show to family and friends. He felt it was his responsibility to depict the fight for territory through his own eyes.

“Many films were made about Palestine and the subject but the story was being told by people who live outside. They didn’t feel

this feeling, this relation between the person and the land and how to live, how to survive in this situation under occupation,” Burnat said.

He watched his brothers get arrested and friends get shot by Israeli military, and even though he knew it was dangerous to venture into it all with his camera, “this is the situation, this is our life, our daily life,” Burnat said.

Future “At the same time, I was thinking for my kids, the future of my kids, to make this for them. My goal is to show the world and to

spread the film and to change people, to change the situation. So this was important for me.”

Burnat sought out Davidi, who shaped the film and wrote the narration, because he knew him as an Israeli peace activist. Together, the two aimed to craft a documentary with no political slant or judgment.

Davidi spent a year and a half editing from 900 hours of footage that Burnat and a few others had shot before bringing in French editor Veronique Lagoarde-Segot to help fine-tune the narrative. He said the naturalistic, intimate look of “5 Broken Cameras” isn’t as effortless as it may appear. (AP)

Features

Variety

Romanian director Calin Peter Netzer (center left), and Romanian producer Ada Solomon (center right), are applauded after they were given the Golden Bear for Best Film for their movie Pozitia Copilului (Child’s Pose) during the awards ceremony of the 63rd Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin on Feb 16. (Inset): Iranian

Film Panahi’s ‘Closed Curtain’ bags best screenplay

‘Child’s Pose’ wins Berlin fest top prize LOS ANGELES: Oscilloscope

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

director Kamboziya Partovi holds his Silver Bear for Best Script award he received in place of Jafar Panahi (not pictured) for the movie “Parde” (Closed Curtain) during a press conference following the awards ceremony in Berlin. (AFP)

Laboratories has picked up the North American rights to Martha Shane and Lana Wilson’s abortion documentary, “After Tiller,” the company announced on Friday.

“Tiller” explores thirdtrimester abortions, which are only performed by four doctors in the US Those doctors are former colleagues of Dr George Tiller, a physician slain by an anti-abortion activist in 2009.

The film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last month, will receive a theatrical release, followed by video-ondemand, digital and home entertainment formats.

“We made ‘After Tiller’ to shed more light, rather than more heat, on this issue and know that Oscilloscope’s smart, sensitive approach will get it out to the widest audience possible,” Shane and Wilson said in a statement.

The film was written by Shane, Wilson, and Greg O’Toole and produced by Shane and Wilson.

“Martha and Lana have created a moving and unique exploration of one of the most incendiary topics of our time, and they’ve done so in an informative, thought-provoking, and compassionate way,” Oscilloscope’s Dan Berger and David Laub said. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑

LOS ANGELES: Lovebirds turned out in force on Valentine’s Day, pushing the romantic drama “Safe Haven” past “A Good Day to Die Hard” at the box office last week, according to studio estimates.

Relativity Media’s “Safe Haven” earned $8.9 million, besting the “Die Hard” sequel’s $8.3 million gross, although most analysts predict that the action film will ultimately blow away the competition over President’s Day Weekend.

“A Good Day to Die Hard” opened with limited late-night shows, racking up $840,000 from 2,328 theaters. It expanded

BERLIN, Feb 16, (Agencies): “Child’s Pose”, a mother-son drama about Romania’s new ruling class by director Calin Peter Netzer, won the Golden Bear top prize at the 63rd Berlin film festival Saturday.

Netzer, a member of Romania’s new wave in cinema, tells the story of a wealthy and controlling mother who fights to get her son acquitted after he kills a poor teenager with his car.

“I want to thank the jury for this amazing prize, this wonderful prize,” Netzer told the panel led by Chinese director Wong Kar Wai. The Berlinale, the first major European film festival of the year and typically its most politically minded, handed two top prizes to the Bosnian docu-drama “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker”.

Nazif Mujic, the real-life protagonist of the picture by Oscar-winning director Danis Tanovic about a Roma couple denied life-saving medical treatment, claimed the best actor prize.

The film also won the runner-up jury prize.

US independent director David Gordon Green picked up the Silver Bear best director award for his buddy picture “Prince Avalanche”.

The movie, the only comedy among the 19 contenders at the festival, stars Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch as highway maintenance workers in Texas at crossroads in their lives.

The Silver Bear for best actress went to Chile’s Paulina Garcia for her role in “Gloria”, a feel-good movie about a middle-aged divorcee who refuses to give up on a shot at happiness.

Favourite The film was an early crowdpleaser in what critics called a fair-to-middling year in competition and a favourite to take home the Golden Bear.

Best screenplay went to “Closed Curtain”

by Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi and his longtime collaborator Kambuzia Partovi, a

to 3,552 locations on Thursday, 302 of which are Imax theaters.

“Safe Haven” will show across 3,223 locations this weekend.

The latest “Die Hard” film has been excoriated by critics, but most analysts expect its built-in fan-base will turn out in force, pushing it as high as $50 million over the long weekend.

Duhamel

film made in defiance of a ban by the authorities in Tehran “It is impossible to stop a thinker and a poet — it’s never been possible to stop them. Their thoughts bear fruit everywhere,” Partovi said, accepting the award because Panahi was not granted permission to travel to the festival.

“I have the dream of every artist and thinker to be able to focus on my own thoughts and my own dreams in my country in the service of peace.”

A Chilean feel-good movie about ageing, a picture made in secret by Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi and a drama about Romania’s new rich were the odds-on favourites for prizes Saturday at the Berlin film festival. In what critics called a fair-to-middling competition at the Berlinale, now in its 63rd year, women of a certain age were the breakout stars, with views from around the world of how middle age can be just the time for a fresh start.

“Directors seem to have discovered the value of maturity and been anxious to explore the female face and psyche as they age, gracefully or otherwise,” the trade magazine Hollywood Reporter wrote ahead of the awarding of the Golden Bear top prize by the jury president, Chinese director Wong Kar Wai. Audiences swooned over Chile’s “Gloria” starring Paulina Garcia, until now known mainly for television roles, as a divorcee pushing 60 who is determined to seek happiness despite the knocks life has to offer.

“Gloria is like Rocky: she takes a hit, picks herself up and gets back out there,” said director Sebastian Lelio, 38, who took inspiration from his mother’s friends, a generation of survivors of the country’s brutal military dictatorship.

The picture topped a critics’ poll by British film magazine Screen taken after 14 of the 19 competition films had been shown.

Another fierce performance, this time with a darker tinge, came in the Romanian drama

Hough

That would easily top the previous best opening for the “Die Hard” franchise, which was the $33 million three-day haul taken in by “Live Free or Die Hard” in 2007. In all, the “Die Hard” franchise has grossed $1.13 billion globally since the original film debuted in 1988.

The 20th Century Fox release

“Child’s Pose” by Calin Peter Netzer, about a wealthy and controlling mother who fights to get her son acquitted after he kills a poor teenager with his car.

Luminita Gheorghiu dazzled movie-goers in the role and was hotly tipped next to Garcia for a Silver Bear prize as best actress.

Panahi appears on screen in his haunting feature “Closed Curtain”, for which he flaunted a film-making ban imposed by the Iranian authorities to show the crushing effect state oppression is having on his life and work.

Poll The picture was the front-runner in a poll of German critics published by Berlin’s daily Tagesspiegel newspaper, which called the picture “harrowing” and “courageous”.

In a strong year for eastern European entries, Oscar-winning Bosnian director Danis Tanovic drew applause for “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker” which told the true story of a desperately poor Roma couple denied life-saving medical coverage. Tanovic said his rage over the scandal led him to seek out the protagonists, who play themselves in the ultra low-budget docu-drama.

Other crowd-pleasers included “On My Way”, an upbeat road movie with Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche’s turn in “Camille Claudel 1915” as Rodin’s ex-lover whose family confined her to an asylum, and what Steven Soderbergh called his last cinematic venture, the thriller “Side Effects”.

Quirky US buddy movie “Prince Avalanche”, bullying drama “Harmony Lessons” — the first Kazakh picture ever in competition in Berlin — and Austrian bad boy director Ulrich Seidl’s “Paradise: Hope” set at a teen diet camp also found fans.

Typical of the Berlinale, the first major European film festival of the year and a champion of politically charged movies, many pictures sharply divided critics.

“The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman” starring Shia LaBeouf in a

was produced for $92 million and finds Bruce Willis returning to his role as wiseacre cop John McClane in an adventure that transplants him from the United States to Russia.

“Safe Haven” boasts a pair of easy-on-the-eyes stars in Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough and a story by tearjerker author

romantic thriller set in Bucharest had many reviewers howling but picked up a few supporters.

The hotly anticipated woman’s Western “Gold” featuring German star Nina Hoss had a hometown advantage but many found the twohour Yukon trek stultifying.

And Canada’s “Vic+Flo Saw A Bear”, which the New York Times highlighted as “a determinedly odd mishmash of lesbian romance, melodrama and thriller” in a positive review, left director Denis Cote explaining his intentions to a baffled press pack.

The Berlinale, which wraps up Sunday with screenings of the most popular among its more than 400 films, last year awarded the Golden Bear to Italian veterans Paolo and Vittorio Taviani for the docu-drama “Caesar Must Die” about prison inmates staging Shakespeare.

Winners: Best film (Golden Bear) ■ “Child’s Pose”, directed by Calin Peter Netzer, Romania Jury Grand Prix (Silver Bear) ■ “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker”, directed by Danis Tanovic, Bosnia Best Director (Silver Bear) ■ US director David Gordon Green for “Prince Avalanche” Best Actress (Silver Bear) ■ Paulina Garcia for Chilean film “Gloria” Best Actor (Silver Bear) ■ Nazif Mujic for Bosnian film “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker” Best screenplay (Silver Bear) ■ Jafar Panahi and Kamboziya Partovi for Iranian film “Closed Curtain” Outstanding artistic contribution (Silver Bear) ■ Kazakh cameraman Aziz Zhambakiyev for “Harmony Lessons” Alfred Bauer Prize (honouring innovation) ■ “Vic + Flo Saw a Bear”, directed by Denis Cote, Canada.

Nicholas Sparks. It is expected to open the weekend to roughly $25 million and carries a production budget of $28 million.

“Beautiful Creatures,” an adaptation of a popular young adult book, opened to $2.5 million in 2,950 locations. Alcon Entertainment produced the film for $55 million, and Warner

Bros. is distributing the picture. Analysts project it will take in $20 million over the five days. Both “A Good Day to Die Hard” and “Safe Haven” earned a B+ grade from audiences, according to Cinemascore.

“Beautiful Creatures” received a B grade. (RTRS)

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

NEWS/FEATURES

22

People & Places Film ‘Miserable story’

US killer ‘still’ haunts living LOS ANGELES, Feb 15, (RTRS): Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer has been dead for more than 18 years, but the murders and dismemberments of the 17 boys and men he killed, and sometimes ate, still haunt the living.

Documentary “The Jeffrey Dahmer Files,” opened in limited release in US movie theaters on Friday, focuses on the lives of three people — Milwaukee Medical Examiner Jeffrey Jentzen, Police Detective Patrick Kennedy and Dahmer’s neighbor Pamela Bass — whose lives were indelibly changed.

Milwaukeebased filmmaker Chris James Thompson, 30, talked to Dahmer Reuters about making the film. Dahmer was beaten to death by another inmate in prison in 1994, while serving 15 life terms.

Question: Do you have a personal connection to the Dahmer case?

Answer: I grew up in Madison which is an hour outside of Milwaukee. When I was 10, my parents divorced, which was right around the time that Dahmer (was in the news). I used to take the bus back and forth (between the two cities) and I remember people talking about it in Milwaukee very different than they talked about it in Madison.

Q: How so?

A: In Milwaukee, they talked about it like it was a flood or a disaster. It was a horrific event that affected many people around you.

In Madison, people talked about it with a little bit of excitement, like it was entertainment. That stuck with me. It interested me how proximity works in something like this where the whole world is watching.

Being from Milwaukee, I thought it was important to give the people that actually lived the case an opportunity to tell their side. I wanted to tell a story of how (the Dahmer case) affected these people, and the ripple effect of what this guy did to the community.

Q: What did you discover?

A: Those that lived that disaster continue to live it. Our attention may go elsewhere, but they don’t get to escape and move on. With Pat, it contributed to the problems he was having with his wife and they got divorced. Pam told me that not a week goes by that she doesn’t think about this. Imagine being a neighbor to someone who is killing and eating people 40 feet away from where you sleep!

Q: Did it affect you as you were making the documentary?

A: The hardest part was being a year or two into (the shooting process) and realizing that I had set myself up to be focusing on a such a dark subject matter for so many hours in a day. I started to think, ‘Why am I doing this? I should stop. I’m perpetuating a really miserable story that affected a lot of people in a negative way.’

Q: What kept you going?

A: When Pat, Pam and Dr. Jentzen shared the stories of what they had to live with — and still live with — I realized they can’t just walk away. I owed it to them because they confided in me and trusted me and shared with me on my promise that I was telling their story in a broader perspective. To give up on that would be letting them down.

Q: Did you speak to Dahmer’s family?

A: I got an email from a family member of his that lives in Australia.

She wrote: ‘Is there anything I can do to get you to stop making this movie?’ She was worried that we were going to go on a continued smear campaign of his mom and dad as being the reasons Dahmer did what he did. I explained how we were telling the story through the perspective of these three people whose lives were changed because of it. Then she became receptive and wished us luck.

Q: What was the budget of the film?

A: I’ll tell you this: the median salary in Milwaukee is about $33,000. I spent every disposable dollar I could get my hands on for four years. I funded it myself with no outside funding. I owe an enormous thank-you to the film-making community of Milwaukee who helped me do everything from shooting to editing to producing to lighting for free.

Q: Is it true you are donating 100 percent of the profits from this film to charity?

A: Yes. Any money I’ll make I’m donating to a non-profit called Milwaukee Community Service Crops (which provides at-risk youth with tools necessary to be contributing members of the community.)

This undated publicity film image provided by Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc shows Jessica Chastain in ‘Zero Dark Thirty’. (AP)

Film ‘Film had an immediate impact’

‘War’ brings change to military In this Feb 4, 2013 file photo, Ang Lee, nominated for best picture and directing for ‘Life of Pi’, arrives at the 85th Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, in Beverly Hills, Calif. With 11 Academy Awards nominations, second only to ‘Lincoln’ with 12, and the sort of global box-office receipts normally reserved for superheroes, ‘Life of Pi’ is one of the most unusual megahits ever to hit the big-screen. (AP)

Sheen

Le Vell

Variety MILWAUKEE: There’s a 15-year-old Florida girl who didn’t really know much about Charlie Sheen before this week — but does now.

The actor wired $10,000 to Teagan Marti and her family on Thursday for a therapy dog to help in her rehabilitation from injuries sustained when she plummeted 100 feet from a Wisconsin amusement park ride in 2010.

“I think he’s a very kind person for helping me and my family and very generous,” Teagan said by phone Thursday from her home in Parkland, Florida.

Teagan suffered brain, spine, pelvis and internal injuries in July 2010 when nets and air bags that were supposed to catch riders on a free-fall ride were not raised.

She had convinced her family to make the trip from Florida to Extreme World in Wisconsin Dells after seeing the amusement park’s Terminal Velocity ride on the Travel Channel. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑

LOS ANGELES, Feb 16, (RTRS): If there were an award for Film With Greatest Impact On Public Policy, the military-rape documentary “The Invisible War” would appear to be a shoo-in.

Among this year’s other top entries for the documentary Oscar, “The Gatekeepers” can’t claim an immediate impact on the Israeli government — and “Searching for Sugar Man” didn’t force sudden moral upheaval in the music biz. But just two days after seeing “The Invisible War,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced a significant change in military policy.

That’s the documentary equivalent of a box office blockbuster.

Talking with TheWrap’s founder and editor-in-chief, Sharon Waxman at TheWrap Screening Series at the Sundance Cinemas, producer Amy Ziering acknowledged that “Invisible War” had already had an impact beyond just about any documentarian’s wildest dreams. But she was clearly unhappy that the changes her film has compelled don’t go nearly far enough toward ending the epidemic of sexual assault in the armed forces.

A series of Washington, D.C. salons and screenings for military commanders created a “pressure that led to Secretary Panetta seeing the film and holding the press conference announcing this first, initial somewhat-change — which is a good first step,” Ziering said. “We’re not thrilled with it, but it’s not bad. At least it’s something.”

The filmmakers are advocating for the prosecution of military rapes to be taken out of the military chain of command entirely, while Panetta only

charge. Prosecutors said Friday they had overturned that decision.

The 48-year-old actor, whose real name

announced that these prosecutorial decisions would no longer be left in the hands of victims’ and perpetrators’ immediate supervisors.

“Anecdotally, we were told over and over again while making the film that you’ll never get it [the decision to investigate and prosecute rape] out of the unit commanders,” Ziering pointed out. “So that at least was a promising first start.”

Victimized The statistics in “Invisible War” are staggering: Out of more than 3,000 cases of sexual assault in a given year in the US military — and those are just the ones that victimized service women (and men) were brave enough to report — fewer than 200 ended with a perpetrator doing time.

The documentary puts a tearstreaked face on those stats by focusing on five women whose lives were upended after their stories of rape (sometimes serial rape) by superiors or colleagues were dismissed. A crawl at the end of the film explains how their attackers not only were not prosecuted but in some cases were promoted or won honors like “airman of the year.”

The only comic relief comes when the filmmakers include footage from the defense department’s training films about sexual assault, which include advice to female soldiers not to walk alone, and catchy rock jingles saying that real men turn each other in.

You can imagine how much more effective mandatory screenings of “The Invisible War” itself would be before military audiences. As Ziering told it, that is just what has started to

is Michael Turner, is due in court Feb 27. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Invoked The film has received high profile on Capital Hill since premiering at the Sundance Film Festival just over a year ago. During the Senate confirmation hearings on Chuck Hagel’s nomination as secretary of defense, he was asked if he had seen “Invisible War,” and he answered that he had. More significantly, there have been House hearings on this very issue that frequently invoked the movie. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif, had been trying since 2005 to reverse the war-time waiver that had allowed recruits with sexual assult records to join up. “It just got passed two months ago. And Boxer said that the traction for that was because of the film,” the producer noted.

It helps that, although the film cer-

LOS ANGELES: A blacklisted US screenwriter who later named names to Communist hunters during the McCarthy

‘Entertainment zones’

Theme parks eyed

LONDON: Police have charged a longtime star of the British soap opera “Coronation Street” with child sex offenses including rape and indecent assault.

Michael Le Vell, who has played mechanic Kevin Webster on the show for 30 years, faces 19 charges. Police say the charges relate to offenses against a child between 2001 and 2010. The actor released a statement Friday saying he would vigorously contest the charges.

“I will now put all my efforts into clearing my name and proving my innocence,” he said.

He was originally arrested and questioned in 2011, but released without

happen.

“About a month ago, we went to DC, and (a lawyer seen in the film) said, ‘Did you guys hear? General (Mark) Welsh, the head of the air force, flew in all the wing commanders — 135 from around the globe — to watch your movie inside the Pentagon.’

And from what I heard, at the end two of the women stood up and said, ‘It happened to us and we never reported it.’ At which point he said, ‘Okay, everybody under you must either watch the entire film or watch excerpts.’ And the order is for everybody under the commanders to do the same, all the way down. That’s pretty remarkable. I don’t think it ever happened before or that it’ll ever happen again.”

Indian Bollywood film actors Neil Nitin Mukesh (left) and Sonal Chauhan pose during the showcasing of the music and trailer of upcoming horror thriller Hindi Film ‘3G’ directed by Sheershak Anand and Shantanu Ray Chibber in Mumbai on Feb 15. (AFP)

GLENDALE, California, Feb 16, (AP): DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. says it is licensing its characters to a developer of theme parks in Russia. The Regions Group of Companies plans to open parks in St Petersburg, Moscow and the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg in 2015.

DreamWorks said Friday that the parks will be Europe’s largest year-round indoor entertainment zones. The zones will be part of larger entertainment complexes, each featuring a mixed-use movie and concert hall, a movie theater, a hotel and a retail center.

Some franchises that are to be featured at the parks include “Shrek”, “Madagascar,” “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Kung Fu Panda”, as well as upcoming films such as “Turbo”, a movie set to debut in July about a snail that gets super speedy powers.

tainly tweaks the upper levels of the armed forces for their approach toward sexual assault, it hardly comes off as some leftist broadside. “I want to say most men and women in the military are horrified by this, and they’re thankful that we made the film,” Ziering said. “We appealed to their humanity, and we didn’t make an anti-military film. We pointed out ways that it can get better. This doesn’t have to happen.”

At The Wrap’s screening, during the audience Q&A, one attendee expressed her frustration that, although she appreciated the film, she felt angry that it hadn’t revealed the identities of the rapists who had turned the worlds of the main characters upside-down.

“You can make a movie that outs all the people you want and I wish you luck, but we chose this strategy,” Ziering responded. The filmmakers did think about including a storyline in which they would track down one of the attackers who has gone on to thrive in the military, but they thought better of it.

“We decided ...that we did not want to intentionally out four or five people, because then we ran the fear that the audience would feel sated and it would become like a Hollywood gotcha movie, and nothing would really happen,” she said. “Now that the joint chiefs have seen it, they know how to find these guys, if they want to. There weren’t that many ‘airmen of the year’ the year that Jessica was (raped). But it’s not about those few guys. We wanted the anger and the focus to stay on the commanders. era has died. Richard Collins was 98.

His son, Michael Collins, tells the Los Angeles Times that Collins died Thursday of pneumonia.

Collins was one of 19 writers and directors called by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in 1947 in a probe of supposed Communist subversion in Hollywood. He wasn’t asked to testify, but 10 who refused to answer questions about their beliefs were jailed in what has widely been called a witch hunt.

Collins was subpoenaed again in 1951 and identified more than 20 colleagues as Communist sympathizers. He later expressed regrets. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑

BOSTON: The co-creator of the cartoon “Underdog,” the mild-mannered shoeshine boy who turned into a caped superhero to rescue his girlfriend, Sweet Polly Purebred, has died. William Watts Biggers was 85.

Family friend Derek Tague says Biggers, who went by “Buck,” died unexpectedly at his Massachusetts home on Sunday.

Biggers worked for the New York City advertising firm DFS when he accepted an assignment from the agency’s largest client, General Mills, to create television cartoons to promote its breakfast cereals.

The most famous was “Underdog,” which debuted on NBC in 1964. (AP)

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

NEWS/FEATURES

23

Music Oscars rewind

Stormy tales of pop diva LOS ANGELES, Feb 16, (RTRS): The exceptionally robust roster of performances that Craig Zadan and Neil Meron have lined up for the 85th Academy Awards includes a tribute to movie musicals, Adele, Norah Jones and Barbra Streisand, returning to the Oscars for her first performance in 36 years. It will, no doubt, be an electric moment, but Zadan and Meron had better be prepared for some drama before she walks on stage — as always from stage left, because that’s her good side.

A few examples from the supreme pop diva’s fascinating and occasionally stormy Oscar history may give some idea Streisand why one crew member watched the elaborate precautions that were undertaken before Bart the Bear appeared on the show in 1998 — an electrified fence, a special enclosure behind the theater, an armed guard — and muttered, “A lot of special preparations. But nowhere near Streisand.”

1968: Appearing for the first time, Streisand gave the Best Original Song award to “Talk to the Animals”, which beat out a field that also included “The Look of Love” and “The Bear Necessities”. When asked afterward why she appeared so unenthusiastic, she said, “Quite honestly, I don’t think any of the nominated songs were worthy of an Oscar, so I couldn’t pretend any excitement I couldn’t feel.”

1969: Streisand was a Best Actress nominee for “Funny Girl” — and the object of grumbling because she’d been invited to join the Academy before the film was even released. “When an actress has played a great role on the stage and is coming into films for what will obviously be an important career,” explained AMPAS president Gregory Peck, “it is ridiculous to make her wait two or three years for membership.”

The vote ended in a tie between Streisand and Katharine Hepburn — so if Streisand voted for herself, she owed her Oscar to Peck’s earlyentrance policy. She accepted the award wearing what appeared to be see-through pajamas and greeted the statuette with her iconic line, “Hello, gorgeous!”

1974: Streisand received another Best Actress nomination, this one for “The Way We Were.” According to Academy president Walter Mirisch, she agreed to attend the ceremony but didn’t want people to know she was there unless she won. She didn’t (Glenda Jackson did), and she spent the entire ceremony backstage.

1977: Streisand sang the “A Star Is Born” theme “Evergreen,” then won her second Oscar for co-writing the song. “In my wildest dreams, I never thought I would win an Oscar for writing a song,” she said. Added her co-writer Paul Williams, “I was going to thank all the little people, and then I remembered I am the little people.”

1992: “The Prince of Tides” received seven nominations, including Best Picture. But director Streisand was overlooked, just as she had been seven years earlier when her previous directorial effort, Yentl, got five noms. “I’m trying not to take it too personally,” said Streisand, who nonetheless watched the show from a front-row seat.

1997: Nominated for co-writing “I Finally Found Someone” from “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” she again was passed over for directing and starring in the film. She declined to perform on the show, but when her sub, Natalie Cole, got sick two days before the Oscars, Streisand’s manager called producer Gil Cates and sent up a trial balloon: If Barbra was able to perform, could they clear enough rehearsal time to accommodate her? (They couldn’t ... and went with the lower-maintenance Celine Dion.) Streisand was not in her seat during Dion’s performance — her publicist said she was in the bathroom — but during that same segment, she was spotted watching from a tunnel inside the auditorium but outside of camera range.

2005: Appearing to present the Best Picture award with Dustin Hoffman, Streisand came in through the loading dock rather than walking the red carpet. As she ducked into a freight elevator that would take her downstairs to her dressing room, she shielded herself from photographers by holding a small dog in front of her face.

2010: After years of being snubbed by voters in the Directors Branch, she got revenge of sorts. At the 82nd Academy Awards, she was asked to present the Best Director award, which went to the first (and only) woman ever to win it, “The Hurt Locker’s” Kathryn Bigelow.

In this image released by PBS, Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess Grantham, is shown in a scene from the second season on ‘Downton Abbey’. The 78-year-old actress, who portrays Lady Grantham in the popular PBS series, told ‘60 Minutes’ that she hasn’t watched the drama because doing so would only make her agonize over her performance. She said she may watch it someday. (AP)

TV Series to end with a bang

Bonneville presides on ‘Downton’ finale Chris Cornell of Soundgarden performs during the band’s concert at the Wiltern, on Feb 15, in Los Angeles. (AP)

Gotye

Psy

Variety LOS ANGELES: Grammy performers did not go home with just trophies last weekend. Winning bands like indie-pop trio FUN. and British folk band Mumford & Sons saw sales of their singles and albums more than double after appearing on the music industry honors show.

Sales figures released on Friday by Nielsen showed a 182 percent increase in sales of FUN.’s hit single “We Are Young” following their Song of the Year and Best New Artist Grammy victories on Sunday.

Album of the Year winner’s Mumford & Sons saw sales of its “I Will Wait” single shoot up 116 percent, while Australian artist Gotye’s “Making Mirrors” album from 2011 increased 124 percent from the week before the annual music telecast.

Rising R&B star Frank Ocean, who took home two Grammys, saw sales of his album “Channel Orange” climb 140 percent.

The numbers mostly reflect a single night of sales increases from the prior week, predominantly digital downloads, immediately following the Grammy Awards show in Los Angeles on Feb 10.

Sales figures for the full week will be released as usual by Nielsen SoundScan on Wednesday and will include both digital and physical album sales. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑

NEW YORK, Feb 16, (AP): The third season of “Downton Abbey” ends this Sunday with a bang.

Exactly what that bang is, we’re not going to say, in deference to the maybe half-dozen “Downton” fans who still don’t know the shocking truth.

The larger point remains that after Sunday’s “Masterpiece Classic” (airing at 9 pm Eastern on PBS), viewers must suffer “Downton” withdrawal until next season.

But until then, we’ll have our memories.

And what a season this has been!

The beloved valet Mr. Bates was sprung from jail and a trumped-up murder charge to begin married life with his bride, the plucky lady’s maid Anna. Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, has gotten Downton Abbey back on its feet financially with an able assist from his son-in-law and presumptive heir, Matthew Crawley.

Matthew wed his true love, Lady Mary Crawley. But another of Robert’s daughters, Lady Sybil, died tragically during childbirth.

Through it all, Robert’s mother Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham (played by the sublimely scene-stealing, Emmy- and Golden-Globe-winning Maggie Smith) delivered a barrage of withering, hilarious rejoinders to virtually every narrative twist.

“I remember my very first scene with her in Season One,” says Hugh Bonneville, who plays Robert, lord of the manor. “She’s complaining about the new electric lights, and suddenly she put her fan up to her face to shield herself from ‘the glare,’ and spent the entire scene like that. It was so funny, and I was just, ‘All right! There’s no point in my even being here. She’s just

Harlem Shake videos posted from the start of the month to mid-week watched up to 44 million times.

Actress ‘perfectionist’

‘Downton’ star Smith never watches TV show LOS ANGELES, Feb 16, (RTRS): Maggie Smith’s sarcastic dowager Countess may be the star of British period drama “Downton Abbey,” but the award-winning actress says she has never watched the TV series.

Smith, 78, who has won two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for her role as the acid-tongued Lady Grantham, tells CBS in an upcoming TV interview that she is amazed by the popularity of the show both in Britain and the United States.

Asked whether she is proud of “Downton Abbey”, Smith said, “I haven’t actually seen it. So I don’t, I don’t sit down and watch it,” she told CBS reporter Steve Kroft in the inter-

view to be broadcast on Sunday.

“Never?” Kroft asked. “No, I haven’t watched it,” Smith replied, according to an advance excerpt released on Thursday.

Smith, known as a perfectionist, said that watching herself would make her worry about her performance. “It’s frustrating. I always see things that I would like to do differently and think, ‘Oh, why in the name of God did I do that?’”

“Downton Abbey,” a drama about the lives of aristocratic Britons and their servants in the early 20th century, attracted some 7.9 million viewers for its third season premiere in January on US television.

Smith’s snobbish Lady

Grantham and her withering remarks like “No-one wants to kiss a girl in black,” and “What is a weekend?”, have made her the show’s biggest star.

Smith also has two Oscars for her roles in 1969 film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and 1978 comedy “California Suite” but she said she had no interest in her recent fame. The actress is a rare face at Hollywood award ceremonies.

“I don’t feel any different to the way I felt before and I’m not quite sure what (being a star) means. I am familiar to people now, which is what I was not before,” she told Kroft. “That is entirely due to the television set.”

marched off with the scene!’”

Now, as then, “Downton” is a plush, penetrating peek into the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their household servants in an English castle of a century ago. With a cast that also includes Michelle Dockery, Elizabeth McGovern, Dan Stevens, Jim Carter and Brendan Coyle, the series this season has drawn an average 11 million viewers each week while spurring another surge of “Downton”-mania, even from first lady Michelle Obama, who pulled strings to get episodes of the new season before it premiered.

“Downton” has even been parsed

for its political underpinnings. Last month, Fox News host (and native Brit) Stuart Varney declared that “Downton” celebrates rich people, who “in America today are reviled.

They’re dismissed as fat cats who don’t pay their fair share.” Yet on “Downton” the rich people are “generous,” ‘’nice,” ‘’classy” and “they’ve got style,” he said, “which poses a threat to the left, doesn’t it?”

It is rare when public television is accused of threatening left-wing orthodoxy, especially on “Fox & Friends” (whose co-hosts Gretchen Carlson and Brian Kilmeade voiced surprise at learn-

ing the show isn’t called “Downtown Abbey”). But “Downton” has a way of engaging people, both the 99 percent and the 1 percent alike.

And, yes, as the wealthy, patriarchal Lord Grantham, Bonneville does indeed exude classiness and, at crucial moments, generosity.

“I don’t think I’d have a huge amount in common with Robert if I met him at a dinner party,” Bonneville says. “But I like the guy. I like the fact that while he does bluster and he’s pompous sometimes, and he makes mistakes, there’s a decency and a love for his family underneath it all.”

Harlem Shake has a way to go to top “Gangnam Style” which made history last December when it became the first ever

‘Lyrics vulgar’

Wonder not happy

LONDON: Hot on the heels of South Korean rapper Psy’s “Gangnam Style”, a new dance craze is sweeping offices, universities, and even a museum as it goes viral - the Harlem Shake.

The Harlem Shake began as a dance in the 1980s but the latest version featured on a flood of online videos is an electronic dance track by 23-year-old Brooklyn DJ Baauer who released the single last year with the record label Mad Decent.

The video starts with one person, often masked, dancing while everyone else in the room pays no attention but when the chorus kicks in they all join in, usually wearing crazy costumes or with props like blow-up giraffes or bicycles.

YouTube said the craze appeared to have started with a posting by a vlogger and spread quickly, with more than 12,000

video on YouTube to reach 1 billion views. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑

Singer Marc Anthony (left), performs with guest artist Tito ‘El Bambino’ during a concert at the Barclays Center, Feb 15, in New York. (AP)

ATLANTA, Feb 16, (AP): Stevie Wonder is not happy with Lil Wayne’s vulgar lyrics that reference Emmett Till, a black US teen whose murder in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman changed the national conversation on race and civil rights.

The R&B legend says the rapper’s disturbing verse should not have made it beyond the recording studio for the world to hear.

“You can’t equate that to Emmett Till,” Wonder said. “You just cannot do that. ... I think you got to have someone around you that — even if they are the same age or older — is wiser to say, ‘Yo, that’s not happening. Don’t do that.’”

Wonder, who says he is a fan and friend of Lil Wayne, made the comments when asked what he thought of the controversial lyrics in an interview Thursday.

LAGOS: Nigerian singer and reality star Goldie Harvey, who appeared on Big Brother Africa in 2012 and gained fame in various African nations, has died at the age of 31, her record label said Friday.

Kennis Music said the singer, known as Goldie, died on Thursday after arriving back in Lagos from the United States, where she had gone “to witness the Grammy Awards.”

“With a deep sense of loss, we announce the shocking death of our darling music star, Goldie Harvey,” it said.

The statement did not provide a cause of death, but said she had complained of a severe headache and died on the way to the hospital.

The singer had gained fame in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, with her R&B-inflected pop music. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

LOS ANGELES: The contested divorce of reality television star Kim Kardashian and NBA basketball player Kris Humphries will head to trial in May, more than a year and a half after the couple separated, a judge in Los Angeles ruled on Friday.

The couple, who broke up after just 72 days of marriage, have been unable to agree on the terms for a divorce.

Humphries instead has demanded an annulment, alleging that Kardashian had no intention of keeping the marriage.

(RTRS)

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

24

‘Glorious fabrics’ of Indian poor drape Rauschenberg UK art show

From lawyer to femme fatale in Australian exhibition SYDNEY, Feb 16, (RTRS): A buxom woman in a low-cut red dress brandishes a pistol, her finger poised to pull the trigger, but a closer look at the painting reveals the woman is model-turnednovelist Tara Moss.

In another painting a woman in a red beret and tight yellow, slit skirt with one hand on her hip and the other holding a cigarette is in fact one of Australia’s senior crown prosecutors, Margaret Cunneen.

The paintings in award-winning Australian artist Rosemary Valadon’s latest exhibition, “Wicked Women,” feature femmes fatale in the style of classic film noir movie posters and pulp fiction covers but the faces are of prominent Australian women.

The models for the 17 oil paintings in the exhibition include journalists, lawyers, a crown prosecutor, designers, actresses and three female staff members at Sydney’s Justice and Police Museum, where the exhibition is being held.

“I think that Rosemary was particularly interested in the ideas around women’s sexual ‘wickedness,’ and that was part of what she was interested in exploring,” curator Nerida Campbell told Reuters.

Creative The paintings by Valadon took two years to complete and use bold colours and strong lines that produce an almost 3D effect in some cases.

While some of the models had time for multiple sittings, others had as little as half an hour for Valadon to make a quick sketch. Replicas were made of original guns and weapons displayed at the museum for the women to use as they posed.

One room is devoted to the paintings themselves, while the other features sketches. A recording of Valadon’s voice leads visitors through her creative process, from photography and modeling to sketching in charcoals and pencil, and ultimately the finished work.

The models relished the chance to show another side to their character, at least for a couple of days. “”Wicked Women” is an exciting series of works because it explores the

perception of hot-blooded women in an era when women were expected to be more demure and compliant than they are today,” said senior crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen.

“These women, in my view, were portrayed as sassy, sexy and impulsive to the point of dangerousness. I think the work evokes a passionate, gutsy and high-spirited woman who has been strengthened, through hardship, to ultimate resilience.” ❑ ❑ ❑ Robert Rauschenberg’s fabrics in electric blues and rich reds pop from the sterile walls of the Gagosian Gallery in London in a show of one of the American artist’s lesser-known col-

lections which curators hope will lure a new generation to his work.

“Jammers”, named after the Windjammer merchant sailing ships, conjures the exotic with vibrant textiles draped, looped and layered across walls and around rattan poles.

The creation of the works marked a change in style from Rauschenberg’s best known collection “Combines”, built with detritus from the streets of New York, and followed the late artist’s trip to India in 1975 when he spent time with a family of textile dyers.

“Bob (Rauschenberg) said the combination of the poverty and the squalor in India combined with the absolute flamboyance of the colours was something that was a revelation to him,” David

White, senior curator of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, told Reuters this week.

“Amid the poverty there would be one of the lowest castes, poor people, with a sari of bright, bright pink and he said that gave him the permission to deal with just the fabrics and celebrate the gloriousness of them,” White said.

This combination is reflected in Rauschenberg’s palette of opulent fabrics and the austerity of the poles, string and tin cans that form each individual “jammer”, White said.

Squares of white pearlescent silk contrasted with matte, royal blue fabric are pinned loosely from the wall, next to tin cans suspended on strings from wooden poles.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

26

Fresh designs, creativity abound on and off catwalk

Explore London where food, fashion and fun meet LONDON, Feb 16, (RTRS): London’s Autumn/Winter 2013 Fashion Week runs from Feb 15 — Feb 19 and is one of the best times to visit the British capital, abuzz with fresh designs and creativity on and off the catwalk.

Reuters correspondents with local knowledge show how to make the most of a short visit to the British capital and where to find good food, fun and of course fashion.

sheekey.co.uk/) 8 pm: The Victoria and Albert Museum of art and design houses the world’s largest dress collection and is a must-see for fashion fiends. On Fridays visitors can enjoy live performances, installations, cutting-edge fashion, debates and guest DJs at the museum’s late-night exhibition opening.

Friday

9 am: Wake up bright and early to get nimble with a reformer pilates class at Ten Pilates in up-market Mayfair. There’s no subscription or joining fee, so it’s perfect for those passing through town. Don’t overdo it — make sure you choose the right class out of beginner, intermediate and advanced. (www.tenpilates.com) 11:30 am: Head to Liberty

6 pm: Whether you’ve just checked into your hotel or spent the day devouring designs from the catwalk, celebrate the first day of shows with oysters. A stone’s throw away from Somerset House — where most of the fashion action happens — you’re bound to run into a few fashionistas out on the town. (www.j-

Saturday

London, known locally as “Liberty’s”. The department store’s founder nurtured the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau scene and it is famed for its floral and graphic prints. Nowadays Liberty’s Tudorstyle beams are home to irresistible designer collections. Get a blow-dry and manicure worthy of London Fashion Week’s front rows in the atelier of celebrity colourist Josh Wood, recently launched in store. (www.liberty.co.uk) 4 pm: For more avant-garde designer pieces, sashay down to Dover Street Market near Green Park underground station. Brainchild of Comme des Garcons founder Rei Kawakubo, it stocks London Fashion Week favourites Christopher Kane, Erdem and Simone Rocha.

(london.doverstreetmarket.com) 5 pm: Around the corner is the Royal Academy of Arts where you can admire Japanese sculptor Mariko Mori’s critically acclaimed exhibition “Rebirth”. (www.royalacademy.org.uk) 6 pm: Tuck into a pre-theatre ceviche at the Peruvian restaurant of the moment Lima before catching Helen Mirren resume the role that won her an Oscar in 2006. In a limited season, she stars as Queen Elizabeth II in “The Audience” — a play about the monarch’s private meetings with British prime ministers. (www.limalondon.com) (www.theaudienceplay.com) 10:30 pm: The stunningly designed Sketch restaurant and bar on Conduit Street is sure to be a fashion

week hangout for those in the business. Go late doors to soak in the atmosphere. The gallery, created by Turner Prize winner Martin Creed, is one of Sketch’s five spaces and is at once an exhibition, an artwork and a restaurant. (www.sketch.uk.com)

Sunday 11:30 am: Join the long line of hipsters queuing at the inconspicuous door of the Breakfast Club tucked away on Artillery Lane in Spitalfields.

If you find yourself there in the evening, sneak behind the big SMEG fridge door — and you’ll be in basement speakeasy The Mayor Of Scaredy Cat Town. (www.thebreakfastclubcafes.com) 1 pm: The London fashion experience would not be complete without

a vintage find — Clerkenwell Vintage Fashion Fair (www.clerkenwellvintagefashionfair.co.uk) takes place on the Sunday of Fashion Week at the beautiful Old Finsbury Town Hall.

4 pm: Stop by the brutalist Barbican to experience what it’s like to control the rain in Random International’s popular art installation. (www.barbican.org.uk) 7 pm: Round off your trip with some modern British food at trendy Hix at the Tramshed, run by seasoned English chef and restaurateur Mark Hix. Not one for vegetarians, the menu is cheekily echoed in a large, specially commissioned art work by British artist Damien Hirst in the middle of the restaurant — a cockerel perched on a cow in a glass tank of formaldehyde.

Mohammed Merchant, Tel: 24815622, 24841158, 99612287. ❑ ❑ ❑

IBL registration: Indian Bowling League Season 4 will commence in March 2013. Kindly register your teams before that. It’s a mix of different nationalities and open to all. It’s fun and a good indoor sport. You will learn many things about it that you never knew. Email your applications to uly334@gmail.com IBL Season 3 – https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set =a.10151366929589939.510911..5125449 38&type=1&l=63ddf1e93d Feb 18

Sixth Form Intro at ESF: The English School Fahaheel will hold a special Introductory evening for prospective Sixth Form students and their parents on Feb 18 at the Lloyd Webber Theatre. The event has been organized by Sixth Form staff.

The evening will provide information on courses offered at ESF and the extensive counseling services offered to students when applying to Universities.

Guests will also view the impressive Sixth Form facilities ESF has to offer.

Students at ESF have always enjoyed considerable success in attaining places at top Universities around the world. You too can be part of ESF’s select students. ❑ ❑ ❑

KLT auditions: Auditions for the Kuwait Little Theatre’s (KLT) summer musical ‘Grease’ will be held at the theatre on Monday Feb 18, from 7-9pm. For more information log on to www.theklt.com Feb 19

KTAA meeting: The Kuwait Textile

John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono poses at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, central Germany. (AP)

Yoko Ono retrospective opens in Frankfurt The largest-ever retrospective of works of Yoko Ono, once described by her late husband John Lennon as “the most famous unknown artist in the world”, opened Friday in Frankfurt’s Schirn Kunsthalle.

Ono, who turns 80 next week, “is a unique, indeed perhaps even a mythical figure, not only in the art world, but in the field of music and the peace and feminist movements as well,” said the museum’s director Max Hollein.

Most people probably know Ono as the wife and widow of the Beatle, John Lennon who was shot dead outside his New York apartment in 1980.

And the two famously staged “BedIns” in 1969 as a non-violent protest against war.

But Ono, born on Feb 18, 1933, was an avant-garde conceptual artist in her own right long before she met Lennon and was associated with the likes of composer John Cage and the founder of the Fluxus contemporary art movement, George Maciunas.

“She is familiar to practically everyone, yet only very few people are fully aware of the outstanding artistic oeuvre she has created. Yoko Ono’s 80th birthday offers us an ideal opportunity to change that,” Hollein said.

The exhibition, entitled “Half-a-wind show. A retrospective”, surveys around 200 objects, films, spatial installations, photographs, drawings and textual pieces from the past 60 years of Ono’s career.

It pays particular attention to works from the 1960s and 1970s, featuring groundbreaking works such as the “Instructions for Paintings” first shown in 1961 and 1962 and the performance “Cut Piece” from 1964, in which the audience was invited to cut the clothes from the artist’s body with sharp scissors while she sat on the stage.

A number of large-scale installations and recent works are also on display and Ono has also developed a new work — the installation and performance “Moving Mountains” — specifically for the Frankfurt exhibition.

Curator Ingrid Pfeiffer said Ono’s work “often tends toward the immaterial, the substance of which consists to a lesser extent of objects and installations but to a significant degree of ideas and texts. It is not easily presented.”

Ono, wearing her trademark sunglasses, told a news conference that

Lennon “used to say to me: ‘bring me some truth’.”

“We artists have the dignity to tell the truth to the people, unlike politicians,” she said.

“But we only know half the truth.

The other half is invisible. You have to imagine it, you are the creator, you have to participate. You change the world by being yourself.”

The exhibition runs in Frankfurt until May 12 after which it will tour to Denmark and Austria and then move to the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao in Spain. (AFP) (http://www.schirn.de/en.html).

Golden Church, Afro-Brazilian Museum among must-see sights

48 hours in laid-back Salvador SALVADOR, Brazil, Feb 16, (RTRS): Salvador, the third-largest city in Brazil, is the country’s oldest metropolis, but it has a lower profile than party hot spot Rio de Janiero or the commercial nerve center Sao Paulo.

The laid-back coastal city, which lies on the All Saints Bay on the Atlantic Ocean, is the heart of Bahia, the Brazilian province know for its rich African culture.

Salvador is gearing up for an influx of sports fans, since it has been chosen as one of Brazil’s 12 host cities for the FIFA World Cup in 2014. The city is also known for having some of the wildest Carnival parties.

Reuters correspondents with local knowledge help visitors make the most of a short visit to the city.

Friday: 9 am: After breakfast at the hotel, spend the day in Salvador’s historic center Pelourinho, which is on UNESCO’s World Heritage list (whc.unesco.org/en/list/309). Its golden churches reflect Brazil’s colonial past, when Salvador served as the

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capital city for more than 200 years.

In the 1950s, the city center fell into disrepair, but thanks to a resurgence partly funded by the Brazilian government, boutique hotels, hostels, gift shops, galleries, museums and restaurants have opened in the old city. Visit the boutique hotel Casa Amarelindo. The 10-room hotel has a bar with a deck overlooking the All Saints Bay. Many modern hotels are also available a cab ride away from Pelourinho in the lower city.

Noon — Try the lunch buffet at the SENAC Hotel School, which also offers cooking classes.

Some must-see sights in the old city include the Golden Church and the Afro-Brazilian Museum, which illustrates the influence of the culture on the Bahia region. The slave trade was based in Salvador because of its port. More than a million Africans passed through the city over three centuries.

The town square may look familiar from the 1995 Michael Jackson video for “They Don’t Care About Us” that featured the city’s famous Olodum

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9 am: After a leisurely breakfast, visit the lower city or “cidade baixa,” which is connected to Pelourinho through a large elevator. Bonfim Church is the most well-known attraction.

The church, believed to have healing powers, has a special room filled with mementoes left by people who

say they have been cured.

Noon — Stop for lunch and then hop in a cab from the church to the waterfront neighborhood of Ribeira to the Sorveteria da Ribeira ice cream shop (www.sorveteriadaribeira.com).

A banana split will easily feed two people.

1 pm: Check out the “Dique do Tororo” park to see the giant statues from the local Candomble religion floating on a lake. Watch the frantic construction going on around-theclock for the eight-nation Confederation’s Cup this summer, the so-called dress rehearsal for 2014’s World Cup. The stadium, called Arena Fonte Nova, is wedged into a hill in front of a lake. The city tore down its old stadium to make way for the new one.

Watch the sun set on the bay at the Barra Lighthouse on the edge of the city.

7 pm: Head to Rio Vermelho, a district a few miles away on the water where restaurants and clubs light up late at night. For a more casual evening, Rio Vermelho boasts

join our online support group. Best way of dealing with this disease is providing support and share our experience with each other.

There are lot of things which even doctors can’t tell so be member of this website and start sharing your experiences which may help others. October is recog-

nized as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM). The primary purpose is to promote self examination and screening mammography as the most effective way to save lives by detecting breast cancer at early stage. For more information visit: http://fightingwithcancer.webs.com/

drummers. The colorful houses and cobblestone streets make it easy to imagine what Salvador was like in colonial times.

7 pm: For a casual dinner, dine at one of the restaurants in Pelourinho.

Mama Bahia in the old city serves authentic “moqueca” seafood stew, made with palm oil and coconut milk.

9 pm: A traditional one-hour dance show put on by the Bale Folclorico da Bahia Foundation in Pelourinho is an inexpensive and entertaining look at Bahian folklore and religious dances. Tuesday is the big party night in Pelourinho with outdoor concerts and bar stands. But watch your valuables at street parties when it gets dark.

Saturday

outdoor street stalls serving cachaca and local dishes.

For a more upscale evening, have dinner at modern restaurant Salvador Dali or one of the city’s meat churrascarias, such as Boi Preto or the chain Fogo de Chao. The nightclub Zen has live musical acts and a sushi restaurant on the roof.

Sunday 9 am: Take a break from the city and head out on a schooner ship to island hop. Tour operators in the old city sell affordable tours from the port for full-day excursions that include lunch and stops at nearby islands with remote beaches such as Frades or Itaparica island.

If you have a few extra days, sail to Morro de Sao Paulo for quality beach time.

2 pm: After your boat tour ends, walk across the street from the port to the stalls of Mercado Modelo. The outdoor stalls hawk local crafts but the good stuff is inside the complex, where there is an amazing array of local art, clothes and trinkets for sale.

Latest Bridge bi-weekly games: Bridge tournament is being held every Sunday and Wednesday at 20:00 hours. Played at the Graduates Club, next to Kuwait Engineering Society. Interested bridge pairs or individual players please contact

Arts Association under the auspices of the Sadu House cordially invites you to the presentation: “Al Bisht: the Elegant Traditional Men’s Cloak of the Gulf”.

In this month of celebrating Kuwait’s proud heritage and independence we are delighted to have Reyad Al Baghli speak about one of Kuwait’s oldest trades started by his family more than 150 years ago.

Come learn about the history of the bisht, how and when to wear one and how the delicate gold braiding “zari” is woven into every bisht.

Doors open on Tuesday, Feb 19 at the Sadu House at 6:00 pm for 6:30 pm start.

RSVP: wovenpieces@yahoo.com or SMS 97584757. Location: Al Sadu House, Gulf Road in front of the National Museum, Kuwait City, Kuwait. ❑ ❑ ❑

AWARE diwaniya: “The AWARE Center cordially invites you to its diwaniya presentation entitled, “History Of Kuwait’s Democracy,” by Albara Alwohaib on Tuesday Feb 19, at 7:00pm.

February is the time of national holidays in Kuwait. This year also, Kuwait will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its parliament. But the country had been going through some political crisis. So how did that happen? What are the roots of those crises. Albara Alwuhaib is going to answer these questions and many more in the next Diwanya.

Albara Alwuhaib is an engineer, who works for the ministry of interior & was sent to work as an assistant manager to the Kuwait Memorial Museum. He is also doing volunteer work to a number of nonprofit organizations including the Aware Center, Kuwaiti Human Rights foundations, & Kuwait Transparency Society.

He is also a founder of a book club, which is part of Aljalees project. In June 2012, he gave a presentation entitled, “The Kuwaiti Resistance,” to the American Army at Camp Arifjan.

For more information, please call 25335260/80 or log onto: www.aware.com.kw Feb 21

Bangladesh Embassy closure: The Embassy of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in Kuwait will remain closed on Thursday, Feb 21 on the occasion of the Shahid Dibash and International Mother Language Day. Feb 22

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom: Indian Youth Society brings another unique show “JhoomBarabarJhoom” featuring world famous ghazal and qawwali singer Sabri Brothers and his team on Feb 22 at 6:30 pm sharp at Kuwait Medical Association Auditorium, beside Mubarak Al Kabeer hospital, Jabriya, Kuwait.

Young talents from Kuwait will be another attraction of the evening. For more details, please contact: 66127231, 69674121, 66869007, 67738135 and 99225378.

Email iyskuwait@gmail.com; Web Page: www.iyskuwait.com Feb 25

India Embassy closure: The Continued on Page 28

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

27

Cleme nts Ri beiro

Fashio n

Cleme nts Ri beiro

Bora A ksu

LONDON: Once the most marginal of fashion capitals, London has finally grown up to be a style force to be reckoned with.

So say the organizers of London Fashion Week, which opened Friday with a buzz of anticipation for a blockbuster season of shows ‚Äî one of the event’s biggest lineups yet.

For the first time, celebrity designer Tom Ford is staging a womenswear catwalk show in London, while singer Rihanna has created a stir with her debut fashion collection to be shown on Sunday.

Those are major coups for the British capital, which has devoted increasing attention to its fashion industry — a 21 billion-pound ($33 billion) business that is getting growing global recognition.

“We’ve already cracked the hard part.

We have the talent,” said Natalie Above and below: Massenet, the British Fashion Council’s Models display new chairman and the American founder creations by of online retailer Net-A-Porter. Her job, Bora Aksu, she said, was to capitalize on that to make Jasper Conran, London “the most exciting fashion capital KTZ, Clements in the world.”

Ribeiro, Zoe While major players like Burberry, Jordan, Felder Mulberry and Vivienne Westwood still Felder and lead the British fashion scene, the most PPQ during the closely-watched design heroes of the 2013 moment ‚Äî the ones gushed about from Autumn/Winter London New York to Paris — are all under 40 Fashion Week in years old: Christopher Kane, Mary London, on Feb 15.

Katrantzou, Erdem. And they are just (AFP/AP) the most recognizable names among more than a dozen ambitious, emerging talents that have put London on the international style map.

“The buyers who come to London don’t go to just one or two shows ‚Äî they go to nearly every show, every day. You miss the show, you miss the hot new trend,” said Caroline Rush, the British Fashion Council’s chief executive.

Plenty of that talent was on show on Friday. Bora Aksu, the Turkish designer based in London, showed off a collection that contrasted tough leather with romance and ethereal silhouettes.

Central St. Martins, the storied art college from which superstars like John Galliano and Alexander McQueen graduated, put on a graduate show that may not be exactly wearable, but it was one that was bursting with youthful creativity.

“It was really a breath of fresh air. At this stage you should experiment as much as you can,” said Roksanda Illincic, who graduated from the college several years ago. She has gone on to dress women from Michelle Obama to actress Emma Stone.

Other notable designers Ribeiro showing at this season’s 5Clements day event include L’Wren Scott, the American partner of Mick Jagger; Julien Macdonald, a celebrity favorite, who is returning after a two-season break; and Jonathan Saunders, who an has wowed with his classy prints and patZoe Jord terns.

In all, almost 60 runway previews for Tuesday. autumn 2013 will run from Friday to

Jaspe r Conr an

LONDON KTZ

Central St Martins graduate show Jersey dresses with strange bulging shapes, head-to-toe blue outfits with stiff pleated wool, and baggy skirts and tulle capes for men are just some of the more outlandish creations showcased at Central St. Martins’ fashion graduate show on Friday.

But viewers don’t go to this showcase looking for wearable pieces ‚Äî they go looking for tomorrow’s star designer. The event was most famously the place where the late Alexander McQueen became recognized as a major talent, back in 1992 when he presented his graduate collection.

Aksu

Bora

PPQ

Standout pieces during Friday’s show included black dresses adorned with rope knots and super shiny PVC ensembles by Eilish Macintosh, who won the L’Oreal Professionnel Creative Award of the year. (AP)

Also: NEW YORK: New York fashion world

elder Felder F

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Bora Aksu

Severe-looking leather corsets, exaggerated shoulders, shades of muddy greens and gunmetal: Aksu’s latest wom-

sheer purple cape.

All the models wore delicate, metallic headpieces that framed the face, an accessory that managed to look modern and nodded at flapper style at the same time.

enswear collection may feature lots of tough design elements, but his signature

romantic style still shone through on the catwalk Friday.

The London-based designer opened his show with a series of ivory crocheted dresses worn with high, buttoned-up shirt collars, and followed with all-leather ensembles of capes, bomber and cropped jackets and pencil skirts.

Later, models wore sweet baby-doll dresses in clouds of light pleated chiffon, but the best pieces layered the contrasting textures in one outfit: a suede corset worn over an ethereal navy blouse, or a gunmetal leather dress under a billowing,

darlings Zac Posen and Marchesa are the latest designers to launch secondary “contemporary” collections, giving customers a bit of glamour at more affordable prices.

At fashion week in the Big Apple, which wrapped up on Thursday, several top names put both their primary and secondary collections on the catwalks, including Marc Jacobs, Prabal Gurung, Donna Karan and Victoria Beckham.

Although secondary lines are not new — Versace, Dolce and Gabbana, and Chloe have been doing them for years — the increasing number of designers getting into the game shows a need to win customers at lower price points. (AFP)

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

28

TSK mums take part in the tug of war with enthusiasm

TSK dads give us the old heave ho!

Sunshine Kindergarten holds its Annual Sports Day The Sunshine Kindergarten (TSK) in Salwa held its Annual Sports Days last week, with children aged between 3 and 4 taking part in a medley of events.

The Sports Days took place over 3 days in Marble Arch, the sports arena belonging to The British School of Kuwait, and were attended by numerous parents and family members of the TSK Pre-kindergarten and Kindergarten children.

Led out into the arena by TSK mascots Honey and Sunny, the children paraded in their House colours to the theme tune from Stars Wars, before warming up ready to take part in their events.

The TSK sports events were designed to test the children’s skills in balance, movement, stamina and agility. The events included a relay race,two obstacle courses, a bat and

beanbag race and a hoop agility test. For the older children there was also the cycling challenge, which was full of tricky maneuvers and daring dashes to the finish line!

The grand finale for each day was the parents’ tug-o-war event. Firstly,daddies were invited to flex their muscles and pull the rope with all their might and then came the mummies! This was a hugely entertaining event, enjoyed by the

children as much as the parents and a great way to round off each amazing day.

TSK Principal, Miss Joanne, would like to thank all the parents for their support and participation and all the children and staff at TSK for making the events so successful. Even the rain couldn’t dampen spirits and a great morning out was has by one and all.

Pinoys Hope for a bright new dawn

Distressed wards get beauty training course

By Michelle Fe Santiago

Dream

litzy and artsy nails were flashed during the graduation ceremony of the Nail Art, Spa and Massage Therapy training course for some of the over a hundred distressed wards at the Filipino Workers Resource Centre in Faiha on weekend.

“We are hoping that our little knowledge that is being shared to all these women will help them realize that there is more to being a household service worker. They can dream a little bit higher that tomorrow brings a bright new dawn to those who are willing to learn new things in the field of beauty or to enhance their existing skills,” disclosed Melanie Marquez Sordian, the owner of Mel Marquez Beauty Academy and Nail Lounge in the Philippines, to the wards who took the Nail Technician and Massage Therapy Training course.

She also thanked the Philippine Overseas Labour Office for giving her the opportunity to share her knowledge to the wards. “I’ve been dreaming of this for five years and finally with the help of Labour Attache Dicang, it has come to reality,” she stated.

Aside from the nail art lessons, the wards also had a short course on massage therapy and were introduced to Swedish, Shiatsu, Deep Tissue and Myofacial Therapy.

The graduation ceremony hosted by Philippine Welfare Officer Norlita Lugtu was also attended

by Philippine Labour Attache David Des Dicang and some Filipino community leaders. “We would like to thank Melanie Marquez Sordian as well as her sisters and daughter for initiating this training course for our wards.

This would greatly benefit them and they can use their knowledge to apply for better jobs when they go home to the Philippines or maybe they can put up their own spa business,” stated Dicang.

G

Some of the wards who completed the training course

Lessons

Nail training course

Maria Cecilia receives her certificate from Labor Attache David Des Dicang (second from right).

Sordian along with her sisters Maritess Madamba and Marissa Princeton volunteered to teach the distressed wards at the Filipino Workers Resource Centre (FWRC) in Faiha the basic manicure and pedicure techniques, how to do acrylic nails, gel nails as well as manicure and pedicure spa tips. Sordian’s daughter Megan Nathan also gave nail art lessons to the wards as she taught them various techniques on how to come up with nail art masterpieces that would definitely delight their future clients.

“Every Nail Technician should be able to provide a basic manicure service for her clients. Good Nail Technicians will be skilled in both manicure and pedicure. I always believe that in every woman, there’s a beautician in her that is waiting to be discovered and hopefully, they can use their newfound knowledge to look for better jobs in salons or health

their time, efforts and services for the society and humanitarian causes may please contact – 97542985.

March 6

KLT Box Office shows: The Kuwait

Some photos from the event

KNES holds annual Maths Quiz February 10th was the day this year on which Kuwait National English School held its annual Mathematics Quiz.

Every year group in the Secondary Department took part in the event and this year also saw representation from the primary section of Kuwait National English School with Year 6 pupils giving a very good account of themselves.

The purpose of the annual quiz is to foster the competitive spirit amongst students as well as to provide an opportunity for the many mathematically able pupils to display their skills and knowledge of the subject. This year the Year 9were particularly impressive in competition against themselves, while all pupils taking part showed an enthusiasm for the subject which is at the core of the British National Curriculum.

The winners for the Mathematics Quiz 2013 are:

click Latest Continued from Page 26 Embassy of India will remain closed on the following days during the month of

Year 6: Ahmed Al Kabi, Sama Abuazma, Abdelrahman Hosni and Ritaj Al Qallaf.

Year 7: Abdulaziz Al Shawwaf, Ayeh Shalchi, Mario Matta, Elza Morgan, Mishal Shereef and Mohammad Al Saffar.

Year 8: Menatalla Sherif, Salma Khodabocus, Omar Alnaoot, Alayna Tague, Khaled Al Barghouthi and Maroun Chdid.

Year 9:AlaHaidar, NourSabaneh, Amal Al Enezi, Mario Morgan and Seaton Stoffels.

Year 10: Faisal Al Adwani, Reem Al Zayab, Zeinab Chamkha, Ahmed Moustafa and Mayar Ezzat.

Year 11: Abdullah Can, Aly Aly, Saqer Al Rowaiei, Abdullah Al Najem, Hailah Al Saeidan and Nouran Abdelhalim.

‘Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas’.

February 2013: Feb 25, 2013 – Monday, National Day of Kuwait Feb 26, 2013 – Tuesday, Liberation Day of Kuwait ❑ ❑ ❑

HMWA organizes grand prog: Hyderabad Muslim Welfare Association is

going to organize a grand yearly programme on the life of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) titled “Prophet Mohammed Greatest Social Reformer on 25th feb 2013 soon after Friday prayer in Masjid-e-Abdullah Al Mehri next to famous Edi Stores and in front of Titanic building in Salmiya. Prominent scholars from kuwait will speak on the selected topics focusing life of Prophet (PBUH) and his message to whole humanity and in particular to Muslim Umma.

Dear Brothers it is yet again a great opportunity to learn more and more about Seerah of our beloved Prophet Mohammed (PBUH). And to show our Passion, love and respect to our beloved religion of Islam and enlightened our lives with good deeds preached by Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) HMWA executive committee request all the members and people from Hyderabad and other areas to participate in great numbers and bring your near and dear ones and get educated ourself with the message of Islam which is Peace, love and service to humanity.

For further details Contact 99481599, 50605074, 66605881 Feb 28

YMCA membership campaign: YMCA Kuwait is conducting membership

Campaign until Feb 28. Persons who wish to become a member of YMCA Kuwait and persons who would like to contribute

spas,” stated Sordian.

Arab Times Staff

Little Theatre Box Office is now open for ‘An Evening with Andrew Lloys Weber’.

The collection of songs for this show is dazzling, including numbers from well known shows such as Evita, Cats,

Certificates Dicang, Lugtu and Sordian distributed the certificates of completion to the wards who finished the training course. The wards also received starting kits and gift packs from Farida Al Halimi, owner of Al Rawan Salmiya Ladies Beauty Salon and some implements from the Skeptron International.

“We would like to thank Madam Mel and her family for taking time to teach us. This would be very helpful to us in finding a better future,” stated Maria Cecilia, one of the wards who completed the training course.

Sordian plans to continue conducting the training course for the wards as she thanked all those who supported her in this endeavor.

Phantom of the Opera, Sunset Boulevard and many more. There really is something for everyone’s musical taste in what is guaranteed to be an evening of beautiful music. Directed and produced by KLT regulars, Mike Ricketts and Helen Newton, it’s sure to be an evening you should not miss! Show dates are: Wednesday 6th March, Thursday 7th March and Thursday 8th March. Book now by logging on to www.theklt.com April 9

NPIS organizes annual fun fair: New Pakistan International School is going to organize annual fun fair at Sha’ab Park on March 9 from 8 :00 am to 4:00 pm. All are welcome. You can buy tickets from the school office during working hours.

April 12

Indian Parliament Member K. Sudhakaran MP has arrived in Kuwait for a short visit. Congress (I) leaders Jacob Channapetta, Kochapally Vijaya Bhanu and Simon Varghese Parakkadathu welcomed him at the Kuwait International Airport. K. Sudhakaran representing Cannanur (North Kerala) Parliament Constituency, was a former Kerala minister and KPCC General Secretary and a well-known social worker.

Konkani drama: Comedian Agostinho will present in Kuwait his new Konkani drama ‘Corruption Kabar?’ on Friday, April 12, 2013 at 4:30 pm at the Kuwait Medical Association Hall, Jabriya. The star cast includes veteran Sabina Fernandes, Jessica Gomes, comedian Janet, Jr Nelson, Salu de Loutolim, Jaju Fernandes, Filipe Almeida, Sylvester Vaz, comedian Selvy Correia, comedian Agostinho Temudo and above all the singing sensation Seby de Divar. For more details, contact tel 99923176, 99540232 or e-mail flexq8@yahoo.com Aug 30

Konkani Drama: M.A. Production is Continued on Page 29

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

29

Readership of magazine is aging

What’s the future of EW under Time Inc spin-off?

LOS ANGELES, Feb 16, (Agencies): What lies ahead for Entertainment Weekly, the once-sexy, now stodgy weekly magazine for entertainment fans with a bent for news?

The magazine is expected to be part of a deal to spin off the femaleoriented titles in the Time Inc. playbook to Meredith Corporation, news of which was leaked this week in Fortune magazine, also owned by Time.

Speculation on the media grapevine initially suggested that EW might remain at Time, but TheWrap has learned that EW is presumed to be part of the Meredith deal, lumping it into the Life and Style group once run by Martha Nelson.

Meredith is the Des Moines-based publisher of Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal, and it would have obvious synergies in absorbing People, InStyle and Southern Living — but what about

Entertainment Weekly?

Glossy That title is an outlier for Meredith — not a female-oriented glossy and thus not an advertising magnet for the fashion, beauty and luxury brands whose marketing dollars make, by contrast, a door-stopper out of InStyle.

How goes EW? Stability has been the hallmark under editor Jess Cagle, even as magazines and other print media have gone through convulsive change.

Subscriptions have been stuck at 1.79 million or so for the past decade — which in some circles might be a positive, as other magazines have nosedived. But it certainly isn’t growth, which is what a public company like Time Warner requires.

An insider acknowledged to TheWrap that iPad use of EW is not a major revenue driver, and neither is the 7 million-uniques website. And a

September 2011 report from the AAM said EW’s newsstand sales fell a precipitous 70 percent from 106,471 to 31,823 in the decade between 2001 and 2011.

Struggled As change has rocked the media landscape, EW has struggled to innovate in ways that make a difference.

The magazine recently announced plans for an interview show with writers on the Sundance Channel, and last year it hired film writer Geoff Boucher from the Los Angeles Times.

But these are not game-changers for most media observers, and EW has never captured the news agenda in the entertainment space in the way that more tabloid sites like Access Hollywood have.

The problem is not only has print declined, so have the movies. The attention of young people has shifted to Facebook and Twitter and videogames, so that thrill of being on

the cutting edge of the pop culture conversation — which is what EW had going for it in the ‘90s — is gone.

The readership of EW is aging — they continue to prefer print even as young readers consume content in small bites on their mobile devices.

And editorially even Conde Nast’s Wired does a more interesting job of creating engaging editorial around entertainment, sometimes cloaked in technology and sometimes only pretending to be cloaked in technology.

There is an undeniable feeling of a chapter closing around EW. Last week, film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum, a 22-year veteran at the 24-year-old publication, announced she was leaving. And on Wednesday morning, TV critic Ken Tucker, who helped found EW in 1989, announced he, too, was departing.

No one at Time Warner or Time Inc or EW would comment on the report of

the Meredith deal, which analysts tell TheWrap could be worth $2.9 billion.

Still, TheWrap spoke to an EW insider who said the prospect of being sold to Meredith was both “terrifying and exciting.” Both those impulses seem appropriate for a publication in the balance.

Also: LOS ANGELES: A “serious buyer” is talking with Time Warner to buy several magazines from it, including People, InStyle and Real Simple, according to a Fortune magazine report.

Wednesday’s report cited unnamed people familiar with the matter and comes two weeks after the magazine unit, Time Inc., said it’s cutting 6 percent of its global staff of 8,000, or about 500 people.

Companies sometimes lay off workers before selling assets to make them more profitable and attractive to buyers.

Fortune is also owned by Time Inc.

Books

and says it might not be part of a sale.

The magazine said the talks are early and may fall apart. It said one of the advisers involved was Chicago merchant bank BDT Capital Partners, which is run by former Goldman Sachs executive Byron Trott.

A Time Warner spokesman declined comment. A message left at BDT Capital was not immediately returned.

Time Warner Inc CEO Jeff Bewkes told CNBC last week that the company was considering separating Time magazines from the rest of the company but that no decision had been made.

“There’s tremendous resilience in the national magazine publishing business, but advertising demand is secularly not so strong. It’s down a bit,” Bewkes said. “The question of whether we ought to put that into a different frame is one we’ve been asking.”

Books Cusk’s memoir review wins award

Ephron to be honored

by Writers Guild East

Author Roger Baum laughs while being photographed inside his North Las Vegas home. Baum is the great-grandson of L. Frank Baum, the original creator of the ‘Oz’ series. Since 1989, Roger Baum has carried on his great-grandfather’s legacy, publishing 15 of his own Oz books, with a 16th — ‘The Oz Enigma’ — expected to arrive in March. His first book, ‘Dorothy of Oz’, also is in production to become an animated film starring Lea Michele, Dan Aykroyd and Kelsey Grammer, among others. (AP)

Profile of a distinguished author through his reflection

❑

Readers get rare peek into author’s life

By Rima A. Mneimneh Special to the Arab Times

U

pon probing the current book market which is teeming with stocks of books in all genres in fiction and other areas addressing a plethora of topics readers tend to be in disarray especially in what to choose and by what author.

In the book publishing industry, certain writers tend to be preferred over others sometimes due to the well-defined and appealing propaganda that is associated with their books’ publications, or perhaps because of the established fame of the author himself or herself that was acquired over the years. There could be a number of factors affecting readers’ choices or preferences of books thus steering the purchasing trends in one country juxtaposed another yet it appears that the entire world seems to have several similar preferred choices as all media disseminate the same identical news.

Ian McEwan” which brings the readers closer to one of the much-appreciated authors McEwan unfolding clues about his life and writing career.

The book “Conversations with Ian McEwan” has sixteen interviews, conducted over three decades, with the author who was born in 1948 and has written highly lauded tales such as “Enduring Love”, “Atonement”, “Saturday” and “On Chesil Beach”.

Some of his novels have been adapted into successful films. In this useful and resourceful compilation of conversations, for readers and writers alike, McEwan discusses his views on the diverse and intricate world writers draw on and the successive stages in the writing process stressing the essential themes

Compiled Certain books also seem to have familiar narratives and facts but compiled or displayed differently. One of those books in which a bestselling author is depicted in a new manner mainly through many interviews he has had with interviewers through which a biographical profile of the author himself is established in the reader’s mind.

The book is titled “Conversations with

click Latest Continued from Page 28 all set to present a Konkani Drama (Tiatr) “MOJE DHUVENCHEM KAZAR” to be staged on 30 August 2013 with an emotionally charged storyline, humour and music, written by M.Dias and directed by Sylvester Vaz & M.Dias to be held at Kuwait Medical Association Auditorium (near Blood Bank), Jabriya. Popular

The book cover of ‘Conversations with Ian McEwan’ actors and singers will be flown from India including Seby de Divar – Goa’s singing sensation, John D’Silva – Goa’s best known comedian and character artiste, Yvonne – new sensation in comedy, Fr Nevel Gracias (Vell’lekar) – well known actor and writer, Sylvester Vaz – Hitman of Konkani stage, besides a few prominent well established actors and singers from the tiatrist fraternity in Kuwait. The proceeds of this drama will be sent to Old Goa Retreat Centre. Please make note in your diary to attend this must-to-see by all parents and children, and support this noble cause.

he has handled in his opulent literary oeuvre. The book expounds further about his personal interests in areas other than writing and reading such as music, politics, global politics, sciences and others. Some of the interviews included in this book have been conducted by Ian Hamilton, Antony Gormley, David Remnick, and Steven Pinker. An interview — among many — with McEwan is available on http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/video/ 2012/apr/03/ian-mcewan-interviewvideo.

Revolves Upon probing two of McEwan’s prize-winning novels “Amsterdam” published in 1998 for which he won the 1998 Booker Prize and “Atonement” published in 2001: the first addresses morality topics and his other novel “Atonement”, which is widely considered as one of McEwan’s best works, tackles a sin followed by a yearning to atone. The latter was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize for fiction, Time magazine classified “Atonement” in its list All-Time 100 Greatest Novels. It was adapted into a film starring James McAvoy and Keira Knightley and directed by Joe Wright. “Amsterdam” begins with the funeral of Molly Lane with mourners including a foreign secretary, a newspaper editor and an eminent composer. The three of them thought highly of themselves and were Molly’s lovers.

Each one carries on with his life as the story proceeds. McEwan’s “Atonement”, Await for more details how to obtain your entry passes or email: dias_q8@yahoo.com Tel: +965 66698257, 99616965, 65095345. http://goablog100.blogspot.com/2013/02/mo je-dhuvenchem-kazar.html

Sports Football Coaching Course: The next P.G.A. Everton Football Coaching Course at the new location by Abdullah Al-Rujaib High School, Bayan Block 7, Masjed Al-Aqsa Street. Courses are available for boys and girls aged from 3 to 18 years. For further details see

LOS ANGELES, Feb 16, (RTRS): Nora Ephron helped craft the modern romantic comedy, leaving an indelible mark on the genre by chronicling love-lorn, mildly neurotic urbanites in hits like “When Harry Met Sally” and “Sleepless in Seattle.”

The director and screenwriter was hailed as a latter-day Ernst Lubitsch for her sparkling dialogue when she died last June after battling cancer.

Now the Writers Guild of America, East will add its own tribute.

The guild will honor Ephron, a member of its union, at its 2013 awards ceremony Feb 17 in New York City.

Author Meg Wolitzer, whose novel, “This Is My Life,” was adapted and directed by Ephron in 1992 will head up the tribute, which will include of Ephron’s work and interviews, the guild said.

“Nora Ephron’s life and body of work were those of a quintessential New Yorker, but not only did she embody the sophistication, wit and energy of our city, she was also a loyal union member who walked the picket line and talked the talk on behalf of all her fellow writers,” Michael Winship, president of the Writers Guild of America, East, said in a statement.

In addition to her films, Ephron was a journalist and memoirist. Her novel “Heartburn” was a thinly disguised roman a clef about the dissolution of her marriage to reporter Carl Bernstein; her play, “Lucky Guy,” stars actor Tom Hanks and debuts on Broadway in March 2013.

on the other hand, is a family saga of four parts. The story revolves around a woman who is seeking atonement for a crime she has committed. In an excerpt from a reader’s review that sums up beautifully the four time zones the main protagonist Briony passes through as well as highlighting central literary qualities of the author himself, it reads: “McEwan reiterates major themes such as honesty, truth, justice guilt, punishment and atonement. In the first part the main protagonist Briony commits her crime.

In the second part, five years later, depictions of retreating soldiers from the French countryside with crimes of war among adversaries and against civilians are recounted. In the third part, the protagonist is atoning for her crime by working as a nurse instead of studying to become a writer. The last part occurs in 1999 at her 77th birthday.” About this exceptional novel the review adds: “It is totally absorbing, fully developed novel, the kind one always yearns for and so rarely finds. The characters, the atmosphere, the lush descriptions, the sensitively treated themes, the intriguing and unusual plot, and the rare entrée into the mind of a writer, both Briony and McEwan, give this novel a fascination few others achieve.” Thus with books including compiled conversations with talented authors such as McEwan the reader delves into the lives of their favourite writers through their candid personal reflections about their lives and their literary careers. http://www.pga-kuwait.com.kw/ or contact academy Director Mike on 99981327 or Executive Director Baker on 66918666. ❑ ❑ ❑

KLL registration: Kuwait Little League (KLL) has kicked off registration for the 2012-2013 baseball and softball season. The various divisions and corresponding age groups are as follows: Tee Ball: Boys and Girls — 5 to 7 years old; Minors: Boys and Girls — 8 to 10 years old; Majors: Boys and Girls — 11 to 12 years old; Juniors: Boys and Continued on Page 30

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A review belitting award-winning British novelist Rachel Cusk’s memoir of her bitter divorce as “poetic whimsy and vague literary blah” has won an annual prize for most competently trashing a literary work.

The “Hatchet Job of the Year”, run by British literary criticism website The Omnivore, was set up to promote integrity and wit in literary jouralism and is awarded to the “angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review”.

Literary heavyweights are as game for a public mauling as lesser known writers with reviews of works by novelists Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie and former poet laureate Andrew Motion among the shortlist for the 2013 award.

But a panel of three journalists and writers chose Sunday Times journalist Camilla Long over seven others as the winner for the second annual award for her review of “Aftermath”.

Long, who wins a year’s supply of potted shrimp, described the book as bizarre and “a needy, neurotic mandolin solo of reflections on child sacrifice and asides about drains”.

“I thought what was wonderful about Camilla’s review was that it totally hatcheted the book, but in such an intriguing way that I then thought I must read “Aftermath” — and did, and loved it because it was just as weird as Camilla said,” said judge Lynn Barber, a Sunday Times journalist, in a statement.

“So a hatchet job isn’t necessarily a turnoff.”

Among those with the harshest verdicts over the last year were Ron Charles of the Washington Post for his review of Amis’s “Lionel Asbo”, and Zoe Heller for her critique of Rushdie’s memoir “Joseph Anton” in the New York Review of Books.

Heller took Rushdie to task for what she called his “magisterial amour propre.”

Also: LOS ANGELES: Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, is writing a memoir about her years at the social net-

US bestsellers

‘End of Time’ still tops list NEW YORK, Feb 16, (RTRS): Danielle Steel’s newest book, “Until the End of Time,” held on to the top spot on Publishers Weekly’s bestseller list on Thursday for the second consecutive week.

The list is compiled using data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide.

Hardcover Fiction 1. “Until the End of Time” by Danielle Steel (Delacorte, $28.00) 2. “Private Berlin” by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan (Little, Brown, $27.99) 3. “Touch & Go” by Lisa Gardner (Dutton, $26.95) 4. “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn (Crown, $25.00) 5. “A Memory of Light” by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor, $34.99) 6. “Tenth of December: Stories” by George Saunders (Random House, $26.00) 7. “Suspect” by Robert Crais (Putnam, $27.95) 8. “The Fifth Assassin” by Brad Meltzer (Grand Central, $27.99) 9. “A Deeper Love Inside”

by Sister Souljah (Atria, $26.99) 10. “The Racketeer” by John Grisham (Doubleday, $28.95)

Hardcover Nonfiction 1.

“Shred: The Revolutionary Diet” by Ian K. Smith, M.D. (St. Martin’s, $24.99) 2. “My Beloved World” by Sonia Sotomayor (Knopf, $27.95) 3. “Killing Kennedy” by Bill O’Reilly (Henry Holt, $28.00) 4. “Pursued: God’s Divine Obsession With You” by Jud Wilhite (FaithWords, $21.99) 5. “The Future” by Al Gore (Random House, $30.00) 6. “I Declare: 31 Promises to Speak” by Joel Osteen (FaithWords, $21.99) 7. “The Legend of Zelda” by Shigeru Miyamoto (Dark Horse, $34.99) 8. “Francona” by Terry Francona (HMH, $28.00) 9. “The Way” by Adam Hamilton (Abingdon, $18.99) 10. “No Easy Day” by Mark Owen (Dutton, $26.95) Week ended Feb. 10, 2012, powered by Nielsen BookScan ©2012 The Nielsen Company.

work website where she was once director of marketing, publisher HarperCollins said on Thursday.

Zuckerberg, 30, signed a twobook deal with HarperCollins that will include her memoir “Dot Complicated,” and a children’s picture book, scheduled to be released in the fall.

“Technology has changed virtually every part of our lives, resulting in a modern, digital society that feels a lot like the wild, wild West,” Zuckerberg said in a statement.

“I am thrilled to be working with HarperCollins to share some of my own crazy experiences on the front lines of social media, and to inspire people of all ages to embrace technology, as well as the new set of social norms that come along with it.”

“Dot Complicated” will cover Zuckerberg’s six-year role in marketing at Facebook and her decision to leave the social media site to set up her own company, Zuckerberg Media, an entertainment production studio.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

30

Horoscope

By Jacqueline Bigar Happy birthday for Sunday, Feb 17, 2013: This year you move away from some of your firmly held positions. You see the power of being flexible and giving others their space. Your imagination is nothing less than a gift. Use it positively rather than make assumptions. If you are single, Cupid’s arrow could hit the bull’s-eye this year. A passionate bond could be in the offing. If you are attached, there might be times when no one can find the two of you.

You act like newfound lovers. Enjoy! GEMINI can make your mind work overtime.

The Stars Show the Kind of Day You’ll Have: 5Dynamic; 4-Positive; 3-Average; 2-So-so; 1Difficult

Capricorn - (Dec 22 - Jan 19) **** Express your enjoyment of a loved one by spending time with him or her. The two of you often act like two kids playing in a sandbox together.

Share a fun hobby or pastime. Schedule time for yourself late this afternoon in order to relieve some stress. Tonight: Play it easy.

This Week: Friends dominate the scene, and your

Aries - (Mar 21 - Apr 19)

mood reflects it.

Aquarius - (Jan

20 - Feb 18)

**** You might not feel awake until midafternoon, but once you are, there is no stopping you.

Whether you’re seeking out a loved one, hanging with a child or laughing with friends, you simply have a great time. See what a little R and R can do?

Tonight: Do your own thing.

This Week: Your ingenuity comes into play when dealing with a boss.

Pisces - (Feb 19 - Mar 20) **** Keep asking important questions. Make calls in the morning to loved ones and friends.

Inevitably, you will change your plans a few times because of your conversations. Enjoy the moment, but do not feel like you have to say anything.

Tonight: Happiest at home.

This Week: If you really want to stay home, do.

Perhaps you need several days off.

home decor

*** You might be weighing the pros and cons of using a certain method to handle your finances.

Others will push heavily for you to choose their method. Be sure to choose the right method for you, regardless of who it upsets. It is your life, after all.

Tonight: Hang out with friends.

This Week: Use care with partners and money dealings.

Taurus - (Apr 20 - May 20) **** Others appreciate your impulsiveness, as it rarely is experienced. You can be creative, but putting that gift into action is uncommon for you. Get together with friends for a ballgame, to play some cards or to do whatever else the gang wants to do.

Tonight: Out on the town.

This Week: Defer to others.

Gemini - (May 21 - June 20) *** Get some extra sleep if that would make you happy. You need some time to yourself. Your

uniqueness separates you from others, and it is intriguing many people. Use your imagination when relating to an older relative or friend. Tonight: As you like it.

This Week: Nip a problem in the bud.

Cancer - (June 21 - July 22) **** Go to a movie or someplace else where you will be entertained. You’ll enjoy the energy that surrounds the crowd, as well as the pastime itself. You have a way of drawing other people close, and you’ll do it again very soon. Tonight: Get some extra R and R. This Week: Make time for a loved one.

Leo - (July 23 - Aug 22) **** You seem to assume your natural role as the leader. Instead, why not let go of this responsibility and join friends? You always have a good time with this group. Be careful, as tension between you and a partner could emerge. Tonight: Maximize the moment.

This Week: Meetings and get-togethers with oth-

indoor gardening

ers dominate your plans.

Virgo - (Aug 23 - Sept 22): *** Reach out to someone at a distance, as you have not visited this person in a while. Someone you care a lot about could add some confusion to your plans. Go with the flow, but verify that you are on the same page as others. Tonight: Touch base with an older friend.

This Week: You need to step up to the plate.

Follow your inner voice.

Libra - (Sept 23 - Oct 22) **** Defer to others in the morning — it simply is easier. Use the afternoon for getting together with someone at a distance. Meet this person halfway.

Confirm the time and meeting place, as confusion drifts through your day. Go with something different. Tonight: Dinner for two.

This Week: Reach out for new ideas. You’ll find a solution.

Scorpio - (Oct 23 - Nov 21)

beauty tips

**** Listen to what others suggest. Before you know it, you could have some interesting plans. A little spontaneity might bring you good luck. Make the most of every situation you encounter today.

Tonight: Say “yes” to someone, and you will love the outcome.

This Week: Your mood could change quickly.

Step back if need be.

Sagittarius - (Nov 22 - Dec 21) **** Do something just for you this morning, whether it be sleeping in or reading the Sunday paper. By afternoon, you will have plans. Whatever you choose to do, you’ll have a good time. Make sure there is not a misunderstanding as to when and where. Tonight: To the wee hours.

This Week: Find out where others stand.

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Born today: Basketball player Michael Jordan (1963), TV personality Paris Hilton (1981), political activist Huey P. Newton (1942)

taste buds

teacup candle

celosia plumosa

sugar bad for skin

coconut pie

Supplies: Wax Fragrance oil Double boiler Wicker Candle dye Teacups Instructions: Melt the wax using a double boiler. The wax should be heated to approximately 175 degrees. Once the wax is melted you can add the fragrance oil. You can use candle dye to add colour to your candle. Add the wick to the mold and slowly pour in the melted wax in the teacups.

This compact annual has big, bright blooms that last from spring through fall. You have lots of colors to choose from — vivid shades of red, yellow, purple and pink are the most common. Soft, deeply veined leaves cover the fleshy stems that hold the feathery plumes upright, above the foliage.

Site: provide average room humidity with bright light to full sun Temperature: Average room temperatures 6075°F, 16-24°C. Water: Keep the soil evenly moist.

Sugar is bad for our teeth and weight, that we know, but few of us realise how damaging this commodity can be for our skin.

Glycatin occurs when too many sugar molecules in the blood makes the skin more vulnerable to wrinkles and bags.Too much sugar in your diet can create a loss of radiance, an increase in pore size and dark circles.

Ingredients: 3 beaten eggs; 1-1/2 cup sugar ; 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted; 4 tsp lemon juice; 1 tsp vanilla; 1-1/3 cup flaked coconut; 1 unbaked 9 inch pastry shell Method: Combine the eggs, juice, butter or margarine, lemon juice and vanilla. Stir in the coconut. Pour the filling into shell, unbaked pastry shell. Bake in moderate oven 350 degrees F. for 40 to 45 minutes but no more. Cool well before serving.

Dear Abby Marriage rocky after man steps out of line

By Abigail Van Buren Dear Abby: I recently married a loving man who works full-time and is studying for his MBA online.

A few months ago, he received a promotion and was transferred to another state, so after our wedding I moved here to be with him.

While he was living here alone before our wedding, he got into some trouble with the law and he’s now on probation. He was never in trouble before. I have no family or friends here, and he can’t go out and socialize to meet new people now that he’s under those strict guidelines.

I have always been popular and have many friends back home, but I’m lonely and depressed now. I moved here because I love him, but I can’t get over the fact that this has dampened our first year as husband and wife. How should I handle the future of our marriage and our life here with all these unsettling issues he has put me in?

— Hurt wife in Michigan Dear hurt wife: Unless your husband is under Abigail Van Buren house arrest — which probation is not — he can socialize. He can make friends through work, and look for volunteer opportunities if he has the time.

Both will help him to make connections with constructive people. The same is true for you to help you connect with the community.

I know this is a big adjustment for you, but in time you can both put this unfortunate chapter behind you. I wish you both a future filled with success. ❑ ❑ ❑ Dear Abby: Help! My husband won’t wear clothes. When our children were young, he walked around naked because he wanted to make sure they didn’t have the same hang-ups about nudity that he grew up with. (His father was ultra-conservative and uptight.)

My husband began wearing clothes again when the kids got older, but now they have all moved out and he has quit. He sits naked in his recliner to watch TV. The recliner is right next to the front door, and there’s only the storm door between him and the world. Abby, he literally strips all his clothes off to do the dishes!

We live in a neighborhood. It’s not like we’re out in the country. If I say anything to him, he says I can go into a different room if I don’t like it. Is this normal?

— Nudie’s wife in Florida Dear nudie’s wife: It appears to be normal for your husband. Some — not all — families are very relaxed about nudity. As long as your living room isn’t visible to the neighbors and you don’t have drop-in visitors, your husband is harming no one. If you don’t want to look at him, take him up on his suggestion.

P.S. I hope you thank him for doing the dishes. Not all husbands are so helpful. ❑ ❑ ❑ Dear Abby: My daughter was a bridesmaid recently. The bride chose a designer dress that my daughter had to put a nonrefundable deposit on. A month later, the bride changed her mind about the color and canceled the order, so all six bridesmaids had to purchase another dress.

Am I wrong in thinking the bride should reimburse her bridesmaids for the first dress that she insisted they buy ASAP — the one she canceled without talking to any of them?

— Bridesmaid’s mom in Elkhorn, Wis. Dear bridesmaid’s mom: Not in my book you aren’t. And shame on the bride for not volunteering to do so.

(Source: Universal Uclick)

Some photo from the event.

Navachethana Yuvaka Mandala holds annual general meeting Navachethana Yuvaka Mandala Kuwait’s (NCYMK) second Annual General Meeting was held recently at Folk Hall, Mangaf. The function started with the pooja of Shri Ayappa Swamy and the bhajans from the devotees and members. After the mahapooja, members were served with prasada and delicious lunch. AGM was ini-

tiated by the prayer from Shri Puroshotam Kukyan Kodimbaadi. After the annual report from the Secretary, President Shri Praveen Rai Maroli thanked the old committee for their immense support over the whole year.

The new committee for 2013 containing President as Shri Praveen Rai Maroli,

Vice-president as Shri Ashok Kumar Kodikkal, Secretary as Shri Purushottam Kukyan Kodimbaadi, Joint-secretary as Shri Yadav Sanil Elinje, Cultural Secretary as Anil Kumar Shetty Kanakapadi, Treasurer as Dhanraj Talapady, Welfare Officer as Suman Puthran Bolar, Sports Secretary as Dhiraj Salian Mala, Public

what’s on today ■ Jewelry exhibition: FA Gallery presents collectible jewelry exhibition by Lama Hourani until Feb 23. The exhibition will feature her latest collections of handmade artto-wear pieces and timeless classics.

Lama Hourani is a Jordanian jewelry designer residing between Amman, Barcelona and Shanghai. Hourani was recently honored as a global leader for 2012 by the World Economic Forum for her contribution to society, winner of the best innovative Design Award under the Young Arab Designers category by The Middle East Watches, Jewellery & Pens Awards. For details log on to www.thefagallery.com ❑ ❑ ❑ ■ Turkish language course: The Embassy of the Republic of Turkey announces that a new classes of Turkish Language for beginners will start at the Embassy’s Tourism, Culture and Information Office on Feb 17, 2013. The lessons will be two times in a week for six weeks, for further details and registration please contact:

■ the Embassy at Tel: 22277405 (only from 9 am to 3 pm).

■ or fill the application form on http://kuveyt.be.mfa.gov.tr and send it to the e-mail: embassy.kuwait@mfa.gov.tr ❑ ❑ ❑ ■ AWARE eighth diwaniya: You are cordially invited to AWARE’s eighth monthly diwaniya presentation entitled, “The meaning of “As-Shakour = ready to appreciate service,” which is among the 99 names and attributes of Allah on Sunday February 17, 2013 at 7:00pm.

Knowing Allah necessitates knowing the meanings of His names, being affected by them and applying those meanings in your daily life. Knowing and understating those beautiful names and attributes will have a strong impact on your life in this ephemeral world. It will also determine your destiny in the Hereafter. The more you delve into the names and attributes of Allah, the more you love Him, which leads to exerting your utmost efforts in getting closer to Him in wor-

Items for the What’s On page can be sent directly to the Arab Times, P.O. Box 2270, 13023, Safat or faxed to 24818267 or e-mail to arabtimes@arabtimesonline.com.

All items on this page are published as a courtesy to the public. These announcements can include birthday greetings, weddings, social functions or any other noncommercial events. Photographs of all events are welcome. ship. Among Allah’s 99 attributes is AsShakur is translated into “The Appreciative”.

What are the other meanings of AsShakour?

What are the implications of understanding and putting into action this realization?

Kwt-Brits football supporters: A new

click Sports Continued from Page 29 Girls — 13 to 14 years old; Seniors: Boys and Girls —15 to 18 years old; Softball: Girls only — 11 to 18 years old.

Challenger* – Boys and Girls — 7 to 12 years old (for children with special needs).

Persons who deem themselves eligible as volunteer baseball coaches, umpires or team parents are also welcome to register.

For registration and more information please visit www.Q8LL.ORG. ❑ ❑ ❑

football supporters website for British expats living and working in Kuwait has been set up by an Everton supporter, Trevor Powell. The Kuwait Brits Football Supporters Association (KBFSA) site aims to provide contact information for supporters of each others’ whereabouts and also in the future hopes to organise social events such as quizzes and even five-a-side matches on a home international teams basis. We need expats to register their support and hence we can then start to cast around for a suitable meeting venue. The site can be accessed at www.kbfsa.co.uk. ❑ ❑ ❑

Kuwait Cricket for schools: Kuwait Cricket, the apex body of cricket in Kuwait would like to invite school cricket teams to participate in their tournaments which are planned to be held at the turf ground at Sulaibiya. Kuwait

Happy birthday to dear Diya Winny. May God bless you always and keep you safe, keep smiling. Love from Thambu and Shambu — Srambical

Relation Officer as Prashanth Shetty Mijar, gave their self-introduction to the gathered people. Program concluded with the vote of thanks from the secretary and by singing the National Anthem by the gathered crowd. The whole program was beautifully compered by Shri Anil Kumar Kanakapady.

emergency number 112

How does Allah thank us yet He is our creator, cherisher and sustainer? Everything we enjoy is given to us by Him. To learn more about this beautiful attribute of Allah (SWT), you are welcome to the AWARE Center on February 17, at 7:00pm. The speaker will be Hassan Twaha (AWARE Education Manager.)

For more information, please call 25335260/80 or e-mail: Htaware.hassan@gmail.com ❑ ❑ ❑ ■ Redeemed Christian Church: The Redeemed Christian Church of God (HOD Parish) worship in English.

Celebration Service: Friday 9 am – 11 am; Divine encounter: Sunday, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm; Digging Deep (Bible studies): Tuesday, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm; Night vigil every last Friday of the month from 10 pm.

Venue: New Mishref. For more information and direction please call 9927-6603, 6557-7482. Email: rccghouseofdavidq8@gmail.com

Cricket intends to conduct two cricket tournaments for U-15 and U-18 school children who should have valid Kuwait residence and be a student of their respective school. Physical Education officials or Managers of various schools in Kuwait are hereby requested to contact Murali Kutticode on 99542107 for more information. The tournaments will be played on Saturdays at Sulaibiya grounds and the matches will be 30 overs.

Participation of school cricket teams will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in ensuring the success of the open cricket tournament and we look forward to your confirmation of attendance.

Any inquiries may be directed to the contact phone numbers or email addresses mentioned below: A meeting of School representatives will be arranged shortly and please feel free to contact Kuwait cricket with your positive feedback.

Continued on Page 31

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

31

Top artists to perform

Azerbaijan Symphonic Orchestra to regale Kuwait on Feb 20 KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: The National Council for Culture, Arts & Letters in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Azerbaijan will hold ‘Azerbaijan State Symphonic Orchestra’ on Wednesday, Feb 20, 2013 at 8:00 pm at the Kuwait National Museum.

Azerbaijan State Symphonic Orchestra was organized in July 1920.

Experienced expert M.I. Chernyakhovski was appointed the first conductor of the orchestra. The orchestra conducted by him began to consistently hold concerts with rich music programs since it had been organized M.I. Chernyakhvski was awarded People’s artist of the Republic and hero of Labor in 1928.

Since 20-30 years of the last century till the beginning of the Great Patriotic War he performed together with world-wide conductors such as O. Klemiperer (Germany), R. Baton (France), F. Shtidre (Austria), Q.Mravinski, N. Qolovanov, A. Hauk, A. Pavlov-Arbenin, S. Stolerman and others. The orchestra was reorganized in 1938.

Then famous expert N.P. Anosov, People’s Artist of Russi federation SSR, professor of Moscow conservatory was appointed to the position of general conductor of the orchestra by the initiative of U. Hajibeyli. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the orchestra ceased its performances.

The orchestra continued its perform-

Azerbaijan State Symphonic Orchestra

ances in the middle of 1944 related with decade of South Caucasian Republics in Tbilisi and was named after U. Hajibeyli.

High skilled L. M. Ginzburg, honored Art Worker of Russia Federation SSR, Professor of Moscow conservatory, who has great repertoire worked general conductor of the orchestra in 1945-1948. Since 1948 Niyazi, People’s Artist of USSR, Hero of the Socialist Labor conducted the orchestra. He worked in that position till 1984 when he died with short interruptions.

Many works of Azerbaijan, Russian

and foreign compositors was successfully performed for the first time during the period when Niyazi conducted the orchestra. After successful activity in Zerbaijan State Opera and Ballet Theatre for 16 years professor R. D. Abdullayev, People’s Artist of the Republic and State Award Laureate was appointed to the position of the general conductor of the Symphonic Orchestra in 1984. He continues in this position honorably up to date.

The orchestra performed works of Q. Qarayev, Arif Malikov, F. Qarayev, A. Alizadanaand many others. The orchestra has been in tours to

Germany, Turkey, Switzerland, Egypt, USA, France, Great Britain, Italy, UAE and other foreign countries and gained success under direction of R. Abdullayev. Authors of many great works of world music such as Q. MAler, I. Stravinski, K. Debussi, A. Brukner and others occupy honorable place in the repertoire of the orchestra.

Since 2007 the orchestra always participates in summer festivals held in Italy.

The conductor ‘Fakhraddin Kerimov’ was born in Baku. In 19731978 he studied in Moscow Conservatory named by Tchaikovsky

(violin), and he was graduated with master degree from that Conservatory.

During 1982-1988 he had been at MA program on opera and symphony conducting in St Petersburg Conservatory named after Rimski-Korsakov. He had been invited to the St Petersburg Mariinksy Opera and Ballet where he successfully completed higher courses (PhD) on conducting under the lead of worldwide known conductor Valery Gergiev in 1989-1991. From 1991 to 2005 F. Kerimov was a chief conductor of the symphonic orchestra of Istanbul municipality, chief conductor of Izmir State Opera. He was on tour

stay fit – Take the dive, with salsa and jive, two left feet won’t stop the beat. Join

NYF – yoga classes: Yoga classes available for all age groups and different

health problems, weight reduction, depression etc by well experienced Indian female yoga teacher near Al-Rashid Hospital, Salmiya. Separate workshop, meditation, advanced breathing exercise classes, healing courses available according to the requirements of different schools, hospitals and organizations at

your place. For more details contact 99838117, 99315825. ❑ ❑ ❑

Salsa & jive classes: If you want to

now as individual or couple. Unleash your potential.

Individual attention to all students guaranteed. For details contact: 97979816/94445711. ❑ ❑ ❑

Tel: 99542107 or kutticode@yahoo.com

click Sports Continued from Page 30 Contact details: Murali Kutticode, Director, Junior & Corporate cricket

Courses

TIES Russian Classes: TIES Center Russian Club is glad to announce the start of Russian Language Courses. We offer classes for all levels, from beginners to advance level. TIES Russian Courses are

in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Poland, Romania, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, France, Turkey and Japan.

The Conductor Yalchin Adigozalov graduated from the Azerbaijan State Conservatory as a major in piano.

From 1984d to 1989, Adgozalov studied in the St Petersburg State Conservatory in the conducting class.

From 1991 to 1992, he studied at the Vienna Academy of Music and Fine Arts and received his master’s degree in conducting. In 1991, Adigozalov was appointed the music director and chief conductor of the Baku city “Gaya” Chamber Orchestra. From 1991 till 1998, Adigozalov was the music director of the Azerbaijan State Symphony Orchestra. Since 1991, Maestro Adigozalov has been invited as a guest conductor in Ukraine, Austria, Russia, Hungary, Belgium, Turkey, Romania, Spain, and the United States of America.

Azer Rzazadeh was born in Baky, Since 2008, he was studying at Baku Music Academy and since 2009 working at Academic Ballet and Opera Theatre. His debut was a J. Bizen’s “Carmen”. He has played role in “Rigoletto”, “Trubadur”, “Payatsi”, “Traviata”, “Bohemia” and “Suicide”.

He has got 4th place in 5th International Bulbul Festival of Vocalists. At present he is continuing his studies at Music Academy in Pezaro, Italy. intended for all Arabic speakers who wish to learn Russian as a second language or simply as a hobby. Throughout the course the students will learn how to read and write in a friendly, relaxed and welcoming environment.

For more information/registration kindly contact us 97226650.

Cinema Cinema programme from Thursday 14/2/2013 to Wednesday 20/2/2013

Bullet To The Head (Dig)

A Good Day To Die Hard (Dig)

(Silvester Stallone, Jason Momoa)

(Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney)

Sharqia 1

13:30, 00:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) Muhalab 1 13:30, 00:15 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 15:30 (Daily) Fanar 1 18:00, 22:00 (Daily) Marina 2 00:15 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) Avenues 1 12:45 (Thu, Sat, Mon, Tue) 17:15, 21:45 (Daily) 00:05 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 360° 7 14:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 16:15, 18:30, 20:45, 22:45 (Daily) 00:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) Al-Kout 4 20:00 (Daily) 00:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) Grand cine 4 13:30, 15:30, 17:30, 20:30, 22:30 (Daily)

Safe Haven (Dig) (Julianne Hough, Josh Duhamel) Sharqia 1 Muhalab 1 Fanar 3

15:45, 20:00 (Daily) 17:30, 19:45, 22:00 (Daily) 13:30, 23:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 19:30 (Daily) Marina 1 16:30, 20:45 (Daily) Avenues 5 13:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 18:30 (Daily) Avenues 10 13:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 16:00, 18:15, 20:30, 22:45 (Daily) 01:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 360° 9 17:15 (Daily) 360° 11 12:45 (Thu, Sat, Mon, Tue) 15:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 17:15, 19:30, 21:45 (Daily) 00:05 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) Al-Kout 4 13:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 17:30, 22:15 (Daily) Bairaq 2 16:15, 20:30 (Daily) Grand cine 3 14:00, 17:30, 20:00, 22:30 (Daily)

Gambit (Dig) (Colin Firth, Cameron Diaz) 18:00, 22:30 (Daily) 13:45, 00:05 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 20:00 (Daily) Marina 2 15:45, 22:15 (Daily) Avenues 2 13:15 (Thu, Sat, Mon, Tue) 15:15, 01:15 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 17:15, 19:15, 21:15, 23:15 (Daily) 360° 2 14:15 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 16:15, 18:15, 20:15, 22:15 (Daily) 00:15 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) Al-Kout 3 13:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 17:45, 22:00 (Daily) Bairaq 3 13:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 17:30, 21:45 (Daily) Grand cine 2 13:00, 15:00, 17:30, 20:00, 22:15 (Daily) 00:30 (Thu, Fri)

14:15, 00:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 20:15 (Daily) Muhalab 3 14:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 18:30, 22:45 (Daily) Fanar 4 16:45, 20:30, 22:30 (Daily) 00:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) Marina 3 18:30, 20:30 (Daily) 00:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) Avenues 4 12:30, 23:45 (Thu, Sat, Mon, Tue) 14:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 17:00, 19:15 (Daily) 21:30 (Sun to Fri) Avenues 11 13:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 15:45, 18:00, 20:15, 22:30 (Daily) 00:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 360° 10 13:15 (Thu, Sat, Mon, Tue) 15:30, 17:45, 20:00, 22:15 (Daily) 00:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 360° 12 12:30 (Thu, Sat, Mon, Tue) 14:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 17:00, 21:30 (Daily) 19:15 (Sat to Thu) 23:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 360° 13 13:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 16:00, 18:15, 20:30, 22:45 (Daily) 01:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) Al-Kout 2 13:00 (Thu, Sat, Mon) 15:00, 01:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 21:00, 23:00 (Daily) Bairaq 2 14:00, 00:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 18:30, 22:45 (Daily) Laila 16:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 22:30 (Daily) Grand cine 6 13:00, 15:30, 18:00, 20:15 22:30 (Daily) 00:45 (Thu, Fri) Grand cine GC 15:00, 17:30, 20:00, 22:00 (Daily) 00:15 (Thu, Fri)

3Ala Gosety (Dig) (Ahmed Helmi, Ghada Adel, Edward, Hasan Hosny) Sharqia 2 Muhalab 3 Fanar 5

Marina 2 Avenues 5 Avenues 6

360° 1 360° 9

(Ivan Okhlobystin, Nyusha) 12:30 (Thu, Sat, Mon) 16:15 (Daily) Muhalab 3 13:00 (Thu, Sat, Mon) 16:45 (Daily) Fanar 4 13:00 (Thu, Sat, Mon) 15:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 18:45 (Daily) Marina 3 13:15 (Thu, Sat, Mon) 16:45 (Daily) Avenues 9 13:00 (Thu, Sat, Mon, Tue) 15:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 17:00, 19:00 (Daily) 360° 5 13:15 (Sat) 360° 6 14:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 16:00, 18:00, 20:00, 22:00 (Daily) Al-Kout 1 12:45 (Thu, Sat, Mon) 14:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 16:30 (Daily) Bairaq 1 12:30 (Thu, Sat, Mon) 14:15 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 16:00 (Daily) Grand cine 5 13:00, 14:00 (Daily)

How to find us

Sharqia 2

Sharqia 1 Fanar 1

The Snow Queen (Dig-3D)

Grand cine 5 17:00, 20:30, 22:30 (Daily)

Sharqia 2

Al-Kout 1 Bairaq 1 Plaza Laila Ajial 2

18:00, 22:30 (Daily) 20:30 (Daily) 00:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 13:00 (Thu, Sat, Mon) 15:15, 00:15 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 17:30, 19:45, 22:00 (Daily) 13:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 17:45, 20:00 (Daily) 16:00, 21:00 (Daily) 23:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 12:30 (Thu, Sat, Mon, Tue) 15:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 17:30, 20:00, 22:30 (Daily) 01:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 13:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 16:15, 18:45, 21:15 (Daily) 23:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 12:30 (Thu, Sat, Mon, Tue) 14:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 19:45, 22:15 (Daily) 00:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 18:15, 22:30 (Daily) 17:45, 20:00, 22:15 (Daily) 00:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 15:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 21:45 (Sat, Sun, Tue, Wed) 18:00 (Daily) 19:45, 22:00 (Daily)

Jayanta Bhai Ki Luv Story (Dig-Hindi)

1. 360°

Zahra’a Area, South Surra, 6th Ring Road, corner of King Faisal Highway

2. Ajial

Ajial Complex, Fahaheel

3. Al Bairaq

Between Jaber Al Ali East & Al Agalia West

20:30 (Daily) 23:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon)

Mirchi (Dig-Telugu)

Al Fanar Complex, Salem Al Mubarak Street, near Sultan Center, Salmiya

Plaza

5. Al Kout

Al-Kout Complex, at the end of the Coastal Road, Fahaheel

Ajial 1

6. Al Muhalab

Al Muhalab Complex, Behind Hawalli Clinic, Hawalli

Metro 2

7. Al Sharqiya

Arabian Gulf Street, Souq Sharq, near the Amiri Hospital

8. Granada

Abraq Khaitan, off the Old Airport Road

9. Laila Gallery

Salem Al Mubarak Street, near Sultan Center, Salmiya

10. Marina

Marina Mall, Between Salem Al Mubarak Street & Arabian Gulf Street, Salmiya

11. Metro

Metro Complex, Farwaniya, near Crowne Plaza Hotel & Farwaniya Garden

12. Plaza

Salem Al Mubarak Street, near Sultan Center, Salmiya

13. The Avenues

The Avenues Mall, Al Reggai near Al Rai, 5th Ring Road & Ghazali Road Intersection

Muhalab 2 Fanar 2 Marina 1

(Mohanlal, Kavya Madhavan) Ajial 4 Metro 1

Grand Al-Hamra, tel: 22270333, www.grandcinemas.com

14:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 16:15, 18:30, 20:45, 23:00 (Daily) 01:15 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 360° 8 13:00 (Thu, Sat, Mon, Tue) 00:15 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 15:15 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 17:30, 19:45, 22:00 (Daily) Al-Kout 1 20:30 (Daily) 00:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) Bairaq 3 19:30 (Daily) 23:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) Grand cine 1 15:00, 17:30, 20:00, 22:15 (Daily) 00:30 (Thu, Fri)

Broken City (Dig) (Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe) Sharqia 3 Muhalab 2 Fanar 2

16:30, 22:45 (Daily) 15:45, 22:15 (Daily) 16:00, 20:15 (Daily) 00:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon)

22:30 (Daily) 13:00 (Thu, Sat, Mon, Tue) 15:30, 21:30 (Daily) 00:05 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 360° 4 13:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 16:00, 18:30, 21:00 (Daily) 23:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) Al-Kout 3 15:30, 19:45 (Daily) 00:05 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) Laila 20:15 (Daily) Grand cine 7 13:30, 16:00, 19:45, 22:00 (Daily) 00:15 (Thu, Fri)

Marina 3 Avenues 7

Save Your Legs! (Dig) (David Lyons, Brenton Thwaites) Sharqia 3 Muhalab 2 Fanar 3 Marina 1 Avenues 8 360° 5

18:45 (Daily) 18:00 (Daily) 17:30, 21:45 (Daily) 18:45 (Daily) 18:15, 20:15, 22:15 (Daily) 15:15 (Fri, Sat)

Al-Kout 2

17:15 (Tue to Sun) 19:15, 21:15, 23:15 (Daily) 01:15 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 19:00 (Daily)

The Guilt Trip (Dig) (Barbra Streisand, Seth Rogen) 16:00 (Daily) Fanar 1 Marina 1 Avenues 1

14:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 15:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 19:30 (Daily) 360° 15 13:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 15:45, 18:00, 22:30 (Daily) Al-Kout 2 17:00 (Daily) Grand cine 8 14:00, 16:00, 18:00, 20:15, 22:15 (Daily)

Snowflake, The White Gorilla (Dig) (Claudia Abate, Pere Ponce) 15:45 (Daily) Fanar 3 Marina 3 Avenues 8 360° 3 Al-Kout 4 Bairaq 3 Ajial 2

15:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 14:15 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 16:15 (Daily) 13:00 (Thu, Sat, Mon, Tue) 15:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue) 17:00, 19:00 (Daily) 15:45 (Daily) 15:30 (Daily) 16:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 18:00 (Daily)

Special 26 (Dig) (Hindi) (Kajal Agarwal, Manoj Bajpai) Avenues 7 18:30 (Daily) 360° 14 Ajial 3

17:30 (Daily) 16:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 19:00, 22:00 (Daily)

Warm Bodies (Dig) (Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer) Avenues 8 00:15 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 360° 15

20:15 (Daily) 00:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon)

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (Dig-3D) (Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton) Avenues 9 20:45, 22:45 (Daily) ‘Mama’ starring Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier is now showing in Kuwait cinemas.

Imax film programme at The Scientific Centre

Sunday

NB: Friday no show before 1:30 pm On Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday no show before 3.30 pm and after 11.15 pm in Sharq, Mohalab, Fanar, Marina, Al Kout, Bairaq, 360 and Avenues.

On Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday no show before 5:30 pm in Plaza, Laila, Ajial, Metro and Granada.

Regular show KD3:000; 3D-Digital — KD3.500; VIP show — KD6.000. ‘On Monday, price is KD1.500 except Digital movies.

Movies inquiries and Fax Back hotline 1803456

Avenues 3

15:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 18:45, 21:45 (Daily) 15:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 18:30, 21:30 (Daily)

IMAX

14. The Scientific Center Opp Holiday Inn, Salmiya, Gulf Road IMAX

15. Grand Cinemas

18:30 (Daily) 21:45 (Thu, Fri, Mon) 15:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 18:30, 21:30 (Daily) 15:45, 22:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 18:45 (Daily) 21:45 (Sun, Tue, Wed)

Lokpal (Dig-Malayalam)

Mama (Dig) 12:30 (Thu, Sat, Mon) 14:30, 01:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 20:45 (Daily) 13:45, 00:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 20:15 (Daily) 14:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 18:15, 22:45 (Daily) 12:30 (Thu, Sat, Mon) 23:00 (Daily) 01:00 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon)

(Prabhas, Anushka Shetty)

4. Al Fanar

(Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) Sharqia 3

(Vivek Oberoi, Neha Sharma) 360° 14 14:30 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon, Tue)

360° 3 360° 6

00:45 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon) 21:00, 23:00 (Daily) 00:05 (Thu, Fri, Sat, Mon)

Showtime Available for Groups 09:30 am Tornado Alley 3D 10:30 am, 2:30 pm, 5:30 pm, 7:30 pm, 9:30 pm To The Artic 3D 11:30 am, 3:30 pm Flight of Butterflies 3D 12:30 pm, 6:30 pm Born to be Wild 3D 4:30 pm, 8:30 pm

Monday Showtime Available for Groups 09:30 am Born to be Wild 3D 10:30 am, 3:30 pm, 9:30 pm Tornado Alley 3D 11:30 am, 5:30 pm, 7:30 pm Flight of Butterflies 3D 12:30 pm, 2:30 pm 8:30 pm To The Arctic 3D 4:30 pm, 6:30 pm

Tuesday Showtime Available for Groups 09:30 am Tornado Alley 3D 10:30 am, 3:30 pm 6:30 pm, 8:30 pm Flight of Butterflies 3D 11:30 am, 5:30 pm, 9:30 pm To The Arctic 3D 12:30 pm, 7:30 pm Born to be Wild 3D 2:30 pm Journey to Mecca 4:30 pm

Wednesday Showtime Available for Groups 09:30 am To The Arctic 3D 10:30 am, 2:30 pm, 6:30 pm Tornado Alley 3D 11:30 am, 5:30 pm, 7:30 pm, 9:30 pm Flight of Butterflies 3D 12:30 pm, 3:30 pm, 8:30 pm Born to be Wild 3D 4:30 pm

Thursday Showtime Available for Groups 09:30 am Flight of Butterflies 3D 10:30 am, 2:30 pm 6:30 pm To The Arctic 3D 11:30 am, 8:30 pm Tornado Alley 3D 12:30 pm, 3:30 pm, 5:30 pm, 7:30 pm, 9:30 pm Born to be Wild 3D 4:30 pm

Friday Fires of Kuwait 2:30 pm Tornado Alley 3D 3:30 pm, 5:30 pm, 8:30 pm To The Arctic 3D 4:30 pm, 7:30 pm Born to be Wild 3D 6:30 pm Flight of Butterflies 3D 9:30 pm

Saturday Showtime Available for Groups 09:30 am Flight of Butterflies 3D 10:30 am, 1:30 pm, 8:30 pm Tornado Alley 3D 11:30 am, 2:30 pm, 5:30 pm, 7:30 pm, 9:30 pm To The Arctic 3D 12:30 pm, 6:30 pm Born to be Wild 3D 3:30 pm Journey to Mecca 4:30 pm Notes: All films are in Arabic. For English, headsets are available upon request. “Fires of Kuwait” is in English. Arabic headsets are available upon request. Film schedule is subject to changes without notice.

For information call 1848888 or visit www.tsck.org.kw

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

32

Couch slouch

TV Land greenlights ‘Kirstie’s New Show’ starring Kirstie Alley LOS ANGELES, Feb 16, (RTRS): Kirstie Alley’s TV Land pilot, “Giant Baby”, has been ordered to series under the new name, “Kirstie’s New Show”, the network said on Friday. The sitcom, which will premiere this fall with 12 episodes, revolves around Alley, playing Broadway star Madison Banks. Her luxurious lifestyle is upended by an unexpected reunion with the son she gave up at birth.

Marco Pennette (“Ugly Betty”, “Desperate Housewives”) will write and executive produce Alley’s “New Show”, which co-stars fellow “Cheers” alumni

Rhea Perlman, “Seinfeld” veteran Michael Richards and Eric Peterson.

“This cast is a TV Land dream team of stars. Seeing them all together is truly mind-blowing,” TV Land president Larry W. Jones said. “This series pick-up reaffirms our commitment to making broadcast quality original programming for a network whose brand stands for timeless entertainment.”

“Kirstie’s New Show” will be Alley’s first major starring role since cha-chacha-ing her way back into the national spotlight with two stints on “Dancing

With the Stars” and she’s very excited about it. And so is TV Land.

“We’ve been after Kirstie for two years, and now we found the perfect show for her and the perfect writer in Marco Pennette,” said Keith Cox, executive vice president, development and original programming. “We are so excited to give a home to Kirstie and this amazing cast with a show that TV Land fans will love.”

Alley is also executive producing her new sitcom with Jason Weinberg, while network execs Jones and Cox will serve

as executive producers for TV Land. ❑

❑

❑

NBC’s “Hannibal” adaptation will occupy the Thursdays at 10 pm time slot, starting April 4.

Writer/executive producer Bryan Fuller made the announcement online, writing, “#Hannibal Requests the Honor of your Presence for Dinner Thursday April 4 10PM@NBC — Saving you a place at the table.”

The announcement was accompanied by a photo of actor Mads Mikkelsen,

who’ll be playing the titular doctor/cannibal, in character.

The time slot that “Hannibal” will assume was most recently occupied by the split-personality drama “Do No Harm”, which lasted just two episodes.

The series, which has received a 13episode order from the network, will feature Lecter and his protege, FBI agent Will Graham, in the beginning stages of their relationship. ❑

❑

❑

Lifetime may walk like an Egyptian

with its latest project, a miniseries about famed female pharaoh Cleopatra.

And have we got an actress in mind.

Lindsay Lohan might seem an odd fit for the role, due to her lack of being Egyptian and decidedly un-regal behavior. But think about it.

But she’s already played Cleopatra — sort of — while tackling the role of movie legend Elizabeth Taylor, tackling the role of Cleopatra, in the Lifetime biopic “Liz & Dick.”

Look, it makes as much sense as any of the trailers for “The Canyons.”

tv highlights Animal Planet 05:55 Animal Cops Houston 06:45 Wildest Arctic 07:35 Wildlife SOS 08:00 Meerkat Manor 08:25 Dogs 101: Specials 09:15 Crocodile Hunter 10:10 Michaela's Animal Road Trip 11:05 Monkey Life 11:30 Dick 'n' Dom Go Wild 12:00 Extraordinary Dogs 12:25 The Really Wild Show 12:55 Wildest India 13:50 Wild France 14:45 Wild France 15:40 Shamwari: A Wild Life 16:05 Shamwari: A Wild Life 16:35 Wildlife SOS 17:30 Too Cute! 18:25 My Cat From Hell 19:20 Call Of The Wildman 19:45 Call Of The Wildman 20:15 Venom Hunter With Donald Schultz 21:10 Into The Dragon's Lair 22:05 Wildest India 23:00 Amba The Russian Tiger 23:55 Wild Things With Dominic Monaghan 00:50 Untamed & Uncut 01:45 Into The Dragon's Lair 02:35 Animal Cops Houston 03:25 Wildest India 04:15 Amba The Russian Tiger 05:05 Wild Things With Dominic Monaghan 05:55 Animal Cops Houston

BBC Lifestyle 06:25 New Scandinavian Cooking 06:55 The Hairy Bikers USA 07:20 The Hairy Bikers USA 07:45 MasterChef 08:35 MasterChef 09:00 MasterChef 09:55 MasterChef 10:50 Rick Stein's Spain 11:45 New Scandinavian Cooking 12:10 The Hairy Bikers USA 12:40 The Hairy Bikers USA 13:05 Come Dine With Me: Supersize 14:40 Come Dine With Me: South Africa 15:35 Antiques Roadshow 16:30 Bargain Hunt 17:15 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Specials 18:35 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Specials 20:00 Come Dine With Me: Supersize 21:30 Gok's Fashion Fix 22:20 Antiques Roadshow 23:15 Bargain Hunt 00:00 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Specials 01:20 Gok's Fashion Fix 02:05 Design Rules 02:25 Design Rules 02:50 MasterChef 03:15 MasterChef 04:10 MasterChef 05:00 MasterChef 05:25 Design Rules 05:55 Design Rules

General

Boomerang 06:00 Bananas In Pyjamas 06:25 Jelly Jamm 07:00 Ha Ha Hairies 07:20 Baby Looney Tunes 07:45 Cartoonito Tales 08:10 Gerald McBoing Boing 08:35 Lazy Town 09:00 Krypto The Superdog 09:25 Bananas In Pyjamas 09:40 Cartoonito Tales 09:55 Ha Ha Hairies 10:10 Jelly Jamm 10:25 Gerald McBoing Boing 10:45 Lazy Town 11:05 Krypto The Superdog 11:30 Baby Looney Tunes 11:55 Ha Ha Hairies 12:20 Jelly Jamm 12:45 Gerald McBoing Boing 13:10 Lazy Town 13:35 Krypto The Superdog 14:00 The Garfield Show 14:50 Pink Panther And Pals 15:15 Pink Panther And Pals 15:40 Tom And Jerry Tales 16:30 Taz-Mania 16:55 Taz-Mania 17:20 Johnny Bravo 18:10 Dexter's Laboratory 19:00 Looney Tunes 19:30 Sylvester And Tweety Mysteries 19:55 Taz-Mania 20:20 The Looney Tunes Show 20:45 Tom & Jerry 21:00 The Garfield Show 21:25 Pink Panther And Pals 21:50 What's New Scooby-Doo? 22:15 Sylvester And Tweety Mysteries 22:40 Puppy In My Pocket 23:05 The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop 23:30 The Addams Family 23:55 Droopy: Master Detective 00:20 Yogi's Treasure Hunt 00:45 Duck Dodgers 01:10 Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries 01:35 Dastardly And Muttley 02:00 Popeye 02:25 Wacky Races 02:50 Scooby Doo Where Are You! 03:15 The Flintstones 03:40 The Jetsons 04:00 What's New Scooby Doo? 04:20 Taz-Mania 04:45 The Looney Tunes Show 05:10 Tom & Jerry Tales 05:35 Dexter's Laboratory 06:00 Bananas In Pyjamas

Cartoon Network 06:05 Ben 10 06:30 Ben 10 06:55 Angelo Rules 07:00 Casper's Scare School 07:30 Casper's Scare School 08:00 Grim Adventures Of... 08:45 Total Drama Action 09:10 Total Drama Action 09:35 Ben 10: Ultimate Challenge 09:55 Level Up 10:15 Transformers Prime 10:35 Ben 10: Omniverse 11:00 Thundercats 11:25 Mucha Lucha 11:50 Adventure Time 12:40 Regular Show 13:35 The Amazing World Of Gumball 14:20 Johnny Test 15:10 Total Drama Island 15:35 Total Drama Island 16:00 Level Up 16:25 Level Up 16:50 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 17:15 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 17:40 Transformers Prime 18:30 Hero 108 18:55 Hero 108 19:20 The Amazing World Of Gumball 19:45 Adventure Time 20:35 Regular Show 21:00 Mucha Lucha 21:25 Total Drama Action 21:50 Total Drama Action 22:15 Grim Adventures Of... 23:00 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 23:25 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 23:50 The Powerpuff Girls 00:40 Chowder 01:30 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 01:55 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 02:20 Foster's Home For... 02:45 Foster's Home For...

03:10 Courage The Cowardly Dog 04:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball 04:25 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 04:50 Adventure Time 05:15 The Powerpuff Girls 05:40 Generator Rex 06:05 Ben 10

Crime & Investigation 06:00 I Didn't Do It 07:00 Crime Stories

News

OSN News 06:00 Live ABC 20/20 07:00 ABC World News Now With David Muir 07:30 Live NBC Nightly News (Sat-Sun) 08:00 ABC World News Now With David Muir 08:30 Live NBC Nightly News (Sat-Sun) 09:00 MSNBC Investigates 10:00 ABC World News Now With David Muir 10:30 Live NBC Nightly News (Sat-Sun) 11:00 MSNBC Martin Bashir 12:00 MSNBC Hardball With Chris Matthews 13:00 MSNBC The Ed Show 14:00 Live ABC 20/20 15:00 MSNBC Hardball Weekend 15:30 MSNBC Your Business 16:00 Live NBC Sunday Today Show 17:00 Live NBC Meet The Press 18:00 ABC This Week With G Stephanopoulos 19:00 MSNBC Melissa Harris-Perry 20:00 Live NBC Meet The Press 21:00 ABC This Week With G

Movies

MBC Action 09:00 Cold Case 09:45 CSI 10:30 Bones 11:15 Most Daring 12:00 Most Shocking 13:00 CSI 13:45 Cold Case 14:30 Bones 15:30 Action Ya Dawry 17:30 Most Shocking 18:00 WWE Superstars 19:00 Batman Begins 20:35 WWE Main Event 22:00 WWE Afterburn 23:00 Driven 00:00 The Bourne Ultimatum 02:00 Driven 03:00 WWE Afterburn 04:00 Batman Begins 05:30 WWE Main Event 06:30 Eureka 07:45 Bones 08:15 Human Target

MBC 2 08:00 Just Married 09:30 Accepted 11:00 A Beautiful Mind 13:30 Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery 15:00 The

tv today 08:00 The FBI Files 09:00 Psychic Detectives 09:30 Psychic Detectives 10:00 Crime Stories 11:00 Manhunters: Fugitive Task Force 11:30 Manhunters: Fugitive Task Force 12:00 Manhunters: Fugitive Task Force 12:30 SWAT 13:30 Crimes Of Passion 14:00 The Devil You Know 15:00 The Devil You Know 16:00 The FBI Files 17:00 Psychic Detectives 17:30 Psychic Detectives 18:00 Crime Stories 19:00 Snapped: Women Who Kill 19:30 Snapped: Women Who Kill 20:00 Snapped: Women Who Kill 20:30 Snapped: Women Who Kill 21:00 Crime Stories 22:00 Evil Up Close 23:00 Paranormal State 23:30 Paranormal State 00:00 Ed Gein: The Real Psycho 01:00 Jack Unterweger: Poet Of Death 02:00 Snapped: Women Who Kill 02:30 Snapped: Women Who Kill 03:00 Ed Gein: The Real Psycho 04:00 Paranormal State 04:30 Paranormal State 05:00 Jack Unterweger: Poet Of Death 06:00 Evil Up Close

Discovery Channel 06:05 How Do They Do It? 06:35 How It's Made 07:00 Fast N' Loud 07:50 Jesse James Outlaw Garage 08:45 American Chopper 09:40 Gold Rush 10:30 Gold Divers 11:25 Around The World In 80 Ways 12:20 How It's Made 12:45 How It's Made 13:15 How It's Made 13:40 How It's Made 14:10 How It's Made 14:35 Auction Kings 15:05 Auction Kings 15:30 Auction Kings 16:00 Auction Kings 16:25 Auction Kings 16:55 Border Security 17:20 Border Security 17:50 Border Security 18:15 Border Security 18:45 Border Security 19:10 Mythbusters 20:05 Mythbusters 21:00 Magic Of Science 21:30 Time Warp 21:55 How We Invented The World 22:50 Protecting Washington DC 23:45 Mythbusters 00:40 Mythbusters 01:35 Mythbusters 02:30 Mythbusters 03:25 Mythbusters 04:20 Mythbusters 05:15 Mythbusters 06:05 Mythbusters

Disney Channel 06:00 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 06:30 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 06:40 Suite Life On Deck 07:05 A.N.T. Farm 07:30 Wizards Of Waverly Place 07:55 Phineas And Ferb 08:05 Phineas And Ferb 08:20 Prank Stars 08:30 Prank Stars 08:45 Good Luck Charlie 09:10 Shake It Up 09:35 Jessie 10:00 Austin And Ally 10:25 A.N.T. Farm 10:50 Gravity Falls 11:15 High School Musical 2 12:55 Wizards Of Waverly Place 13:20 Suite Life On Deck 13:45 Good Luck Charlie 14:10 Gravity Falls 14:35 Phineas And Ferb 15:00 Prank Stars 15:10 Prank Stars 15:25 Shake It Up 15:50 Austin And Ally 16:15 Jessie 16:40 A.N.T. Farm 17:00 Geek Charming 18:30 Phineas And Ferb 18:45 Phineas And Ferb 18:55 Phineas And Ferb 19:10 Wizards Of Waverly Place 19:35 Shake It Up 20:00 Austin And Ally 20:25 Prank Stars 20:35 Prank Stars 20:50 A.N.T. Farm 21:15 Jessie 21:40 Jessie 22:05 Good Luck Charlie 22:30 Good Luck Charlie 22:55 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody 23:20 The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody 23:45 Stitch 00:10 Stitch 00:35 A Kind Of Magic 01:00 A Kind Of Magic 01:25 Replacements 01:50 Replacements 02:15 Emperor's New School 02:40 Emperor's New School 03:05 A Kind Of Magic 03:30 A Kind Of Magic 03:55 Replacements 04:20 Replacements 04:45 Emperor's New School 05:10 Emperor's New School 05:35 A Kind Of Magic 06:00 Phineas And Ferb

Disney Junior 06:00 Jungle Junction 06:15 Jungle Junction 06:30 Little Einsteins 06:50 Special Agent Oso 07:05 Special Agent Oso 07:15 Jungle Junction 07:30 Jungle Junction 07:45 Handy Manny 08:00 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 08:25 Minnie's Bow Toons 08:35 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 09:00 Minnie's Bow Toons 09:10 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 09:40 Minnie's Bow Toons 09:45 Timmy Time 09:55 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 10:20 The Hive 10:30 Doc McStuffins 10:45 Zou 11:00 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 11:15 Cars Toons 11:20 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 11:45 Art Attack 12:10 The Adventures Of Disney Fairies 12:35 Lilo And Stitch 13:10 Timmy Time 13:20 The Hive 13:30 Doc McStuffins 13:45 Doc McStuffins 14:00 Zou 14:15 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 14:30 Mouk 14:45 Lilo And Stitch 15:15 Cars Toons 15:20 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 15:40 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 16:05 The Hive 16:20 Mouk 16:35 Zou 16:50 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 17:05 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 17:20 Doc McStuffins 17:35 Doc McStuffins 17:45 Art Attack 18:10 Lazytown 18:40 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 19:05 Mouk 19:20 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 19:35 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 20:00 Cars Toons

Stephanopoulos 22:00 MSNBC Weekends With Alex Witt Sunday 23:00 MSNBC News 01:00 Live NBC Meet The Press 02:00 ABC World News Now With David Muir 02:30 Live NBC Nightly News (Sat-Sun) 03:00 ABC World News Now With David Muir 03:30 Live NBC Nightly News (Sat-Sun) 04:00 Live NBC Sunday Today Show 05:00 ABC This Week With G Stephanopoulos 06:00 Live NBC Meet The Press

Al-Jazeera 00:00 NEWSHOUR 01:00 News 01:30 Earthrise 02:00 NEWSHOUR 03:00 News 03:30 Inside Syria 04:00 The Cafe 05:00 NEWSHOUR 06:00 News 06:30 Counting the Cost 07:00 News 07:30 South2North 08:00 News 08:30 News 09:00 Revolution

The Astronaut's Wife 17:00 Just Married 19:00 Step Up 3 21:00 Scoop With Raya 21:30 Cellular 23:30 Sherlock Holmes 02:00 White Noise 2: The Light 03:30 Pathfinder 06:00 Babel

OSN Movies Action HD 06:00 Goal! 08:00 True Justice: Lethal Justice 10:00 Biker Boyz 12:00 Metro 14:00 True Justice: Lethal Justice 16:00 Burden Of Evil 18:00 Metro 20:00 AVP: Alien vs Predator 22:00 The Rite 00:00 Army Of Darkness 02:00 AVP: Alien vs Predator 04:00 True Justice: Lethal Justice 06:00 Metro

OSN Cinema 05:00 A Dog Named Duke 07:00 33

Sports TV listings — See Page 44 — 20:05 Timmy Time 20:15 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 20:25 Doc McStuffins 20:40 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 20:55 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 21:10 Zou 21:30 Mouk 21:45 Handy Manny 22:00 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 22:25 The Hive 22:35 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 23:00 Timmy Time 23:10 Animated Stories 23:15 A Poem Is... 23:20 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 23:30 Jungle Junction 23:45 Handy Manny 23:55 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 00:20 Little Einsteins 00:50 Special Agent Oso 01:00 Special Agent Oso 01:15 Lazytown 01:40 Jungle Junction 01:55 Jungle Junction 02:10 Handy Manny 02:20 Handy Manny 02:30 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 03:00 Lazytown 03:25 Special Agent Oso 03:40 Special Agent Oso 03:50 Imagination Movers 04:20 Handy Manny 04:30 Handy Manny 04:40 Special Agent Oso 04:50 Special Agent Oso 05:00 Timmy Time 05:10 Lazytown 05:35 Little Einsteins 06:00 Jungle Junction

Disney XD 07:00 Pokemon: BW Rival Destinies 07:20 Rated A For Awesome 07:45 Phineas And Ferb 07:55 Phineas And Ferb 08:10 Almost Naked Animals 08:35 Lab Rats 09:00 Ultimate Spider-Man 09:30 Fort Boyard - Ultimate Challenge 09:55 Kickin It 10:20 Crash & Bernstein 10:45 Pair Of Kings 11:10 Mr. Young 11:35 Scaredy Squirrel 12:00 Slugterra 12:30 Phineas And Ferb 12:40 Phineas And Ferb 13:00 Lion King 2 14:20 Scaredy Squirrel 14:35 My Babysitter's A Vampire 15:00 My Babysitter's A Vampire 15:25 Scaredy Squirrel 15:50 Lab Rats 16:15 Slugterra 16:40 Mr. Young 17:05 Almost Naked Animals 17:30 Crash & Bernstein 17:55 Pair Of Kings 18:20 Kickin It 18:45 Kickin It 19:10 Kickin It 19:35 Lab Rats 20:00 My Babysitter's A Vampire 20:25 Zeke & Luther 20:50 Mr. Young 21:15 Phineas And Ferb 21:25 Phineas And Ferb 21:40 Phineas And Ferb 21:50 Phineas And Ferb 22:05 Almost Naked Animals 22:30 Rekkit Rabbit 22:55 Kick Buttowski 23:20 The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes 07:00 Kickin It

E! Entertainment 006:00 THS 07:50 Behind The Scenes 08:20 E! News 09:15 Extreme Close-Up 09:45 Extreme Close-Up 10:15 E!es 11:10 Opening Act 12:05 E! News 13:05 Married To Jonas 13:35 Married To Jonas 14:05 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 15:00 THS 16:00 Fashion Police 17:00 Behind The Scenes 17:30 Behind The Scenes 18:00 E! News 19:00 Married To Jonas 19:30 Giuliana & Bill 20:30 Giuliana & Bill 21:30 Ice Loves Coco 22:00 Ice Loves Coco 22:30 Opening Act 23:30 Opening Act 00:30 Dirty Soap 01:25 Too Young To Kill 03:15 E! Investigates 04:10 THS 05:05 Extreme Close-Up 05:30 Extreme CloseUp 06:00 THS

Food Network 05:40 Chopped 06:30 Iron Chef America 07:10 Unwrapped 07:35 Unwrapped 08:00 Food Network Challenge 08:50 Kid In A Candy Store 09:15 Unwrapped 09:40 Food Crafters 10:05 Barefoot Contessa Back To Basics 10:30 Barefoot Contessa Back To Basics 10:55 Cooking For Real 11:20 Easy Chinese 11:45 Easy Chinese 12:10 Mexican Made Easy 12:35 Mexican Made Easy 13:00 Iron Chef America 13:50 Tyler's Ultimate 14:15 Unique Sweets 14:40 Unique Sweets 15:05 World Cafe Asia 15:30 Easy Chinese 15:55 Easy Chinese 16:20 Food Crafters 16:45 Chopped 17:35 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 18:00 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 18:25 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 18:50 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 19:15 Andy Bates American Street Feasts 19:40 Charly's Cake Angels 20:05 Guy's Big Bite 20:30 Chopped 21:20 Chopped 22:10 Iron Chef America 23:00 Iron Chef America 23:50 Iron Chef America 00:40 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 01:05 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 01:30 Andy Bates American Street Feasts 01:55 Andy Bates American Street Feasts 02:20 Unwrapped 02:45 Iron Chef America 03:35 Iron Chef America 04:20 Kid In A Candy Store 04:50 Unique Sweets 05:15 Charly's Cake Angels 05:40 Chopped 06:30 Iron Chef America

Fox TV 06:00 Modern Family 06:30 Flash Forward 07:00 Baby TV 08:00 Ghost Whisperer 09:00 AlMaw3ed Al3emyani 10:00 Flash Forward 11:00 CSI Miami 12:00 The Block 13:00 Al Qalb Al Maftooh 14:00 Happy Endings 14:30 Happy Endings 15:00 MasterChef Australia 16:00 Modern Family 16:30 Modern Family 17:00 Scrubs 17:30 CSI Miami 18:30 The Block 19:15 Al Qalb Al Maftooh 20:00 MasterChef Australia

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BBC World 06:00 BBC World News 06:10 World Features 06:30 Equestrian World 07:00 BBC World News 07:10 World Features 07:30 Dateline London 08:00 BBC World News 08:10 World Features 08:30 Changing Fortunes 09:00 BBC World News 09:10 World Features 09:30 BBC

Postcards 09:00 Something Borrowed 11:00 Golden Christmas 3 13:00 Muhammad And Larry 14:00 Once Brothers 15:30 Kung Fu Dunk 17:00 Win Win 19:00 S. Darko 21:00 30 Minutes Or Less 23:00 Martha Marcy May Marlene 01:00 Kung Fu Dunk 03:00 Muhammad And Larry 04:00 Once Brothers 05:30 Golden Christmas 3

OSN Movies Comedy 06:00 Desperately Seeking Santa 08:00 The Tooth Fairy 2 10:00 Baby Geniuses 12:00 Morning Glory 14:00 Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate 16:00 Baby Geniuses 18:00 Good Boy! 20:00 Tamara Drewe 22:00 The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou 00:00 Zero Effect 02:00 Tamara Drewe 04:00 Good

21:00 Junior Masterchef Australia 22:00 Scrubs 22:30 CSI Miami 23:30 MasterChef Australia 00:30 Al Qalb Al Maftooh 01:30 Lost 02:30 Junior Masterchef Australia 03:30 Ghost Whisperer 04:30 CSI Miami 05:30 Lost 06:30 Flash Forward

Investigation Discovery 06:20 Dr G: Medical Examiner 07:10 Disappeared 08:00 Killer Outbreaks 08:50 Street Patrol 09:15 Street Patrol 09:40 Real Emergency Calls 10:05 Who On Earth Did I Marry? 10:30 True Crime With Aphrodite Jones 11:20 Murder Shift 12:10 Disappeared 13:00 Killer Outbreaks 13:50 Street Patrol 14:15 Street Patrol 14:40 Forensic Detectives 15:30 True Crime With Aphrodite Jones 16:20 Real Emergency Calls 16:45 Who On Earth Did I Marry? 17:10 Disappeared 18:00 Murder Shift 18:50 Forensic Detectives 19:40 True Crime With Aphrodite Jones 20:30 Disappeared 21:20 Nightmare Next Door 22:10 Couples Who Kill 23:00 Who On Earth Did I Marry? 23:25 Who On Earth Did I Marry? 23:50 Fatal Encounters 00:40 Most Evil 01:30 Ghost Lab 02:20 Dr G: Medical Examiner 03:05 Who On Earth Did I Marry? 03:30 Who On Earth Did I Marry? 03:55 Fatal Encounters 04:45 Most Evil 05:30 Ghost Lab 06:20 Dr G: Medical Examiner

ITV Granada 06:00 Coach Trip 08:00 Seven Dwarves 09:00 Emmerdale 11:00 Coronation Street 13:00 Dancing On Ice & Skate Off 15:00 Coach Trip 17:00 Come Dine With Me Ireland 19:00 Britain's Best Dish - Celebrity Special 20:00 Cirque Du Soleil Zaia 21:00 Murdoch Mysteries 22:00 Dirk Gently 23:00 Monroe 00:00 The Jonathan Ross Show 2013 01:00 Come Dine With Me Ireland 03:00 Britain's Best Dish - Celebrity Special 04:00 Cirque Du Soleil Zaia 05:00 Murdoch Mysteries 06:00 Dirk Gently

Nat Geo Adventure HD 06:15 On Surfari 06:40 On Surfari 07:10 Don't Tell My Mother 08:05 Don't Tell My Mother 09:00 Bite Me With Dr. Mike Leahy 09:55 By Any Means 10:50 Market Values 11:15 Market Values 11:45 Into The Drink 12:10 Into The Drink 12:40 Ultimate Traveller 13:35 David Rocco's Dolce Vita 2 14:00 David Rocco's Dolce Vita 2 14:30 One Man & His Campervan 14:55 Street Food Around The World 15:25 Cruise Ship Diaries 15:50 Destination Extreme 16:20 Don't Tell My Mother 17:15 Bite Me With Dr. Mike Leahy 18:10 By Any Means 19:05 Amish: Out of Order 20:00 On Surfari 20:30 On Surfari 21:00 Don't Tell My Mother 22:00 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 22:55 David Rocco's Dolce Vita 3 23:20 Food Lover's Guide To The Planet 23:50 David Rocco's Dolce Vita 1 00:15 David Rocco's Dolce Vita 1 00:45 Ultimate Traveller 01:40 Walking The World 02:35 Roam 03:00 The Ride: Alaska To Patagonia 03:30 The Green Way Up 03:55 Graham's World 04:25 The Frankincense Trail 05:20 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 06:15 David Rocco's Dolce Vita 3

Nat Geo Channel HD 06:00 Naked Science S2.5 07:00 World's Deadliest Animals 08:00 Great Migrations 09:00 Megastructures 10:00 Engineering Connections 11:00 Jurassic C.S.I. 12:00 Shark Men 13:00 Bite Me With Dr. Mike Leahy 14:00 Naked Science S2.5 15:00 World's Deadliest Animals 16:00 Great Migrations 17:00 Megastructures 18:00 Engineering Connections 19:00 The Border 20:00 My Brilliant Brain 21:00 Shark Men 22:00 The Border 23:00 Engineering Connections 00:00 Family Guns (Aka Family Combat) 01:00 Secrets of The Great Escape Revealed 02:00 Machines Of War 03:00 The Border 04:00 My Brilliant Brain 05:00 Shark Men 06:00 The Border

Nat Geo Wild HD 05:35 Kenny And Zoltan's Venom Quest 06:30 Dangerous Encounters 07:25 Dangerous Encounters 08:20 The Incredible Dr. Pol 09:15 Snake Wranglers 09:40 Snake Wranglers 10:10 Secret Brazil 11:05 California's Wild Coast 12:00 Monster Fish 13:00 Shane Untamed 14:00 Ultimate Animal Countdown 15:00 Catching Giants 16:00 World's Deadliest GPU 17:00 Kenny And Zoltan's Venom Quest 18:00 Asia's Deadliest Snakes 19:00 Monster Fish 20:00 Shane Untamed 21:00 Ultimate Animal Countdown 22:00 Catching Giants 23:00 World's Deadliest GPU 00:00 Kenny And Zoltan's Venom Quest 01:00 Asia's Deadliest Snakes 01:55 Journey Into Amazonia 02:50 Kenny And Zoltan's Venom Quest 03:45 Secrets Of The King Cobra 04:40 Outback

World News 10:00 BBC World News 10:10 World Features 10:30 Newsnight 11:00 BBC World News 11:30 The Bottom Line 12:00 BBC World News 12:15 Sport Today 12:30 Click 13:00 BBC World News 13:30 Horizons 14:00 BBC World News 14:10 My Country 15:00 BBC World News 15:30 India Business Report 16:00 BBC World News 16:30 BBC World News 17:00 BBC World News 17:30 The Ideas Exchange 18:00 BBC World News 18:15 Sport Today 18:30 Equestrian World 19:00 BBC World News 19:10 World Features 19:30 Changing Fortunes 20:00 BBC World News 20:30 Horizons 21:00 BBC World News 21:30 Our World 22:00 Newsday 22:30 Asia Business Report 22:45 Sport Today 23:00 Newsday 23:30 India Business Report 00:00 Newsday 00:30 Asia Business Report 00:45 Sport

Boy! 06:00 Baby Geniuses

OSN Movies Festival 05:00 The King's Speech 07:00 Restless 09:00 Relative Stranger 11:00 Boy 13:00 The Game Of Their Lives 15:00 Relative Stranger 17:00 Page Eight 19:00 Resolution 819 21:00 The Fighter 23:00 The Butcher Boy 01:00 Ironclad 03:00 The Fighter 05:00 Resolution 819

OSN Movies HD 06:00 Unmatched 07:00 Backwash 09:00 Every Jack Has A Jill 11:00 Source Code 13:00 The Dragon Chronicles: Fire & Ice 15:00 Kung Fu Panda 2 17:00 Every Jack Has A Jill 18:30 Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol 21:00 Moneyball 23:15

Wrangler 05:35 The Megafalls Of Iguacu 06:30 Journey Into Amazonia

NDTV Good Times 06:00 Tele Shopping 06:30 Yogacity 07:00 Chakh Le India 07:30 Gadget Guru 08:00 2 For The Road 08:30 I am Too Sexy For My Shoes 09:00 Highway On My Plate 09:30 Heavy Petting 10:00 A Whole New World 10:30 A Whole New World 11:00 Vicky Goes Foreign – Canada Tadka 11:30 Royal Reservation Project Living 12:00 CCL Glam Night 2013 12:30 Fat Man And 13 Brides 13:00 Chakh Le India – Kacha Rasta 13:30 Highway On My Plate 14:00 Yoga City 14:30 Great Drives 15:00 Tech Grandmasters 2 15:30 Ten Things To Do Around The World 16:00 A New Whole World 16:30 A New Whole World 17:00 Highway On My Plate 17:30 Highway On My Plate 18:00 Love Bites With Joey 18:30 I am Too Sexy For My Shoes 19:002 For The Road 19:30 Making Of The Kingfisher Calendar 2013 20:00 Life Is A Beach 20:30 Model TV classic

OSN Comedy 06:00 Seinfeld 06:30 Hope & Faith 07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 08:00 Less Than Perfect 08:30 Less Than Perfect 09:00 Parks And Recreation 09:30 The Neighbors 10:00 Modern Family 10:30 Hope & Faith 11:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:00 Seinfeld 12:30 Less Than Perfect 13:00 Less Than Perfect 13:30 Hope & Faith 14:00 Baby Daddy 14:30 Modern Family 15:00 The Neighbors 15:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report 16:30 Seinfeld 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 The Simpsons 18:30 Baby Daddy 19:00 Two And A Half Men 19:30 Modern Family 20:00 The Cleveland Show 20:30 Breaking In 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Saturday Night Live 23:00 Veep 23:30 The Cleveland Show 00:00 Breaking In 00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 Saturday Night Live 02:30 Veep 03:00 The Simpsons 03:30 Baby Daddy 04:00 Less Than Perfect 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Less Than Perfect 06:00 Seinfeld

OSN First 06:00 Good Morning America 08:00 Emmerdale 08:30 Coronation Street 10:00 Jane By Design 12:00 Criminal Minds 13:00 Top Gear (US) 14:00 Jane By Design 15:00 C.S.I. Miami 16:00 Live Good Morning America 18:00 Emmerdale 18:30 Coronation Street 19:00 Top Gear (UK) 20:00 Eureka 21:00 Grimm 22:00 Scandal 00:00 Eureka 01:00 Grimm 02:00 Scandal 03:00 Top Gear (UK) 05:00 Jane By Design 06:00 Good Morning America

OSN Aksyon TV 06:30 Pinoy Explorer 07:30 Sagupaan!

UFL Philippines Playoff Series 11:30 PBA Games 16:30 Balitang 60 17:30 USI (Under Special Investigation) 18:00 Rescue 5 18:30 PBA Games 23:00 PBA Games 23:30 Pilipinas News 00:00 Love Notes 02:00 Balitang Alas Singko 03:45 Cocktales 04:15 Love Notes 06:15 Healing Galing

OSN GMA Life TV 06:40 Reel Life 08:30 Aha! 08:55 Life Tunes 09:20 Let's Fiesta 10:05 My Chubby World 10:30 Balitanghali 11:10 Life And Style With Ricky Reyes 11:55 Ang Pinaka 12:35 Taste Buddies 13:05 Home Base 13:35 Fashbook 14:00 Pop Talk 14:25 Follow That Star 14:50 Balitanghali 15:30 Midnight Prayer Helps 16:00 Diyos At Bayan 17:00 Maynila 17:35 I Love Pinas 18:00 Go Negosyo 18:25 Aha! 19:00 PJM Forum 19:30 Adyenda 20:00 Life And Style With Ricky Reyes 20:45 Pop Talk 21:10 Follow That Star 21:35 Weekend Getaway 22:15 Today With Francis 22:45 I Love Pinas 23:15 Pinoy M.D. 00:00 Balitanghali 00:40 Adyenda 01:10 The 700 Club Asia 02:10 Maynila 02:45 Today With Francis 03:10 Taste Buddies 03:35 Weekend Getaway 04:15 Go Negosyo 04:35 When All Is Gone Weekend Catch-Up 06:40 Life And Style With Ricky Reyes

GMA Pinoy TV 05:25 Temptation Of Wife Marathon 07:55 Pepito Manaloto, Ang Tunay Na Kuwento 08:25 Design Para SA Lahat 09:00 Party Pilipinas 11:25 Celebrity Bluff 12:05 Pinoy Adventures 12:55 GMA Pinoy Blockbuster 14:55 Imbestigador 16:00 Teen Gen 17:00 24 Oras Weekend 17:30 Party Pilipinas 19:40 H.O.T. TV 21:30 Magpakailanman 22:40 Family TV Mass 23:40 Celebrity Bluff 00:35 24 Oras Weekend 01:15 Design Para SA Lahat 01:50 H.O.T. TV 03:30 Teen Gen 04:35 Born To Be Wild 05:10 Unang Hirit

OSN Kapatid TV5 07:45 Pilipinas News 08:15 Chef vs. Mom

Today 01:00 BBC World News 01:30 Asia Business Report 01:45 Sport Today 02:00 BBC World News 02:30 Asia Business Report 02:45 Sport Today 03:00 BBC World News 03:30 Hardtalk 04:00 BBC World News 04:30 World Business Report 04:45 BBC World News 05:00 BBC World News 05:30 World Business Report 05:45 BBC World News 06:00 BBC World News

CNN International 06:00 CNN Newsroom 07:00 Business Traveller 07:30 Inside Africa 08:00 World Sport 08:30 Inside The Middle East 09:00 World Report 09:15 CNN Marketplace Middle East 09:30 Talk Asia 10:00 World Report 10:15 CNN Marketplace Europe 10:30 Eco Solutions 11:00 World Sport 11:30 Living Golf 12:00 African Voices

Straw Dogs 01:15 A Mother's Choice 03:00 Every Jack Has A Jill 05:00 The Dragon Chronicles: Fire & Ice

OSN Movies Kids 06:00 Princess Lillifee 08:00 A Very Fairy Christmas 10:00 Despicable Me 11:45 Olentzero Christmas Tale 13:15 Emilie Jolie 14:30 The Adventures Of Don Quixote 16:00 Ploddy Police Car 18:00 Despicable Me 20:00 The Search For Santa Paws 22:00 Emilie Jolie 23:30 Ploddy Police Car 01:00 A Very Fairy Christmas 02:30 The Search For Santa Paws 04:30 Emilie Jolie 06:00 Despicable Me

OSN Premiere 06:00 Three Inches 08:00 Miles From

08:45 Untold Stories 09:30 Kanta Pilipinas 10:30 Game 'n Go All Stars 12:30 Video Incredible 13:30 Wowowillie 15:30 Istorifik!

Pidol's Kwentong Fantastik 16:30 Pinoy Explorer 17:15 Kung May Hirap, May Ginhawa 18:15 Loko Moko U 19:15 Talentadong Pinoy 20:15 Game 'n Go All Stars 22:15 Pilipinas News 22:45 Balwarte 23:00 Rescue 5 23:15 Ang Latest 23:45 Untold Stories 00:30 Never Say Goodbye 03:15 Rescue 5 03:45 Cocktales 04:15 Chef vs. Mom 04:45 Video Incredible 05:45 Ang Latest 06:15 Wow Mali Vignettes

OSN MnITV 06:30 Ikaw SA Puso Ko 07:00 Especially For You 07:30 The Daily Top 10 08:30 Sabarday Night 09:30 Sha Mismo 10:30 Popstar Diaries 11:00 Soundcheck 11:30 Kalipay SA Kasakit 12:00 Honorabol 12:30 Ikaw SA Puso Ko 13:00 Bida Cinema Gold 15:00 My Last Refrain 16:00 The OPM Show 16:30 Stop, Talk And Listen 17:30 Kalipay SA Kasakit 18:00 Honorabol 18:30 Mipahiyum 19:30 Ikaw SA Puso Ko 20:00 Pinoy Movie Fiesta 22:00 Especially For You 22:30 The Daily Top 10 23:30 The OPM Show 00:00 Prototaloy 01:00 Stop, Talk And Listen 02:00 Pinoy Movie Fiesta 04:00 Kalipay SA Kasakit 04:30 Honorabol 05:00 The Daily Top 10 05:30 Mustard Seed 06:30 Ikaw SA Puso Ko

OSN Pinoy Extreme 05:00 Greatest Games MVP 07:00 Inside Grand Prix 07:30 Motoring Canada 08:00 PBA Classics 10:00 Road To Bakbakan 11:00 Greatest Games MVP 13:00 PBA Greatest Games 15:00 Kamao Kontra Kamao 16:00 Inside Grand Prix 16:30 Motoring Canada 17:00 Greatest Games MVP 19:00 Greatest Games MVP 21:00 Stoplight TV 22:00 Kamao Kontra Kamao 23:00 Greatest Games MVP 01:00 Greatest Games MVP 03:00 Oras Ng Himala 05:00 Tukaan 06:00 Greatest Games MVP

The History Channel 06:00 American Restoration 06:30 American Restoration 07:00 American Restoration 07:30 American Restoration 08:00 Pawn Stars 08:30 Pawn Stars 09:00 American Restoration 09:30 American Restoration 10:00 Storage Wars 10:30 Storage Wars Texas 11:00 Mankind The Story Of All Of Us 13:00 Mankind The Story Of All Of Us 15:00 Mankind The Story Of All Of Us 17:00 Mankind The Story Of All Of Us 19:00 Mankind The Story Of All Of Us 21:00 Mankind The Story Of All Of Us 23:00 Miracle Rising: South Africa 01:00 The Real Face Of Jesus? 03:00 Miracle Rising: South Africa 05:00 The Real Face Of Jesus?

The Style Network 06:10 Married Away 07:05 Open House 07:30 Open House 08:00 Videofashion News 08:30 Videofashion News 09:00 Videofashion Daily 10:00 Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane 10:55 Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane 11:50 How Do I Look? 12:50 How Do I Look? 13:50 Big Rich Texas 14:45 Big Rich Texas 15:45 Tia And Tamera 16:40 Tia And Tamera 17:35 Tia And Tamera 18:30 Tia And Tamera 19:25 Giuliana & Bill 20:25 Giuliana & Bill 21:20 Giuliana & Bill 22:15 Giuliana & Bill 23:10 Chicagolicious 00:05 Chicagolicious 01:00 Jerseylicious 02:00 Videofashion Specials 02:25 Videofashion Specials 02:55 Videofashion Daily 03:50 Big Boutique In The City 04:20 Jerseylicious 05:15 Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? 06:10 Married Away

TFC Kapamilya Channel 2 06:00 The Healing Eucharist 07:00 Kabuhayang Swak na Swak 07:30 Salamat Dok 08:30 The Avengers Season 2 09:00 Marvel Knights 09:30 Matanglawin 10:15 NBA 12:15 ASAP 18 15:15 Luv U 16:00 The Buzz 18:00 TV Patrol Weekend 18:30 Goin' Bulilit 19:15 Rated K 20:15 Gandang Gabi Vice 21:30 Sunday's Best

Travel Channel 06:00 Eden Eats 07:00 Eden Eats 08:00 Globe Trekker 09:00 Off Limits 10:00 Off Limits 11:00 Airport 24/7: Miami 11:30 Airport 24/7: Miami 12:00 Departures 13:00 Bizarre Foods America 14:00 Bizarre Foods America 15:00 International House Hunters 15:30 International House Hunters 16:00 International House Hunters 16:30 International House Hunters 17:00 Cruising Around Cape Horn 18:00 Planet Golf 18:30 Xtreme Waterparks 19:00 Xtreme Waterparks 19:30 Bert The Conqueror 20:00 Bizarre Foods America 21:00 Hotel Impossible 22:00 Hotel Impossible 23:00 Bizarre Foods America 00:00 Globe Trekker 01:00 Inside Luxury Travel-Varun Sharma 02:00 Off Limits 03:00 Off Limits 04:00 Bizarre Foods America 05:00 Inside Luxury TravelVarun Sharma 06:00 Bizarre Foods America

12:30 The Brief 13:00 CNN Presents 14:00 World Report 14:30 News Special 15:00 Fareed Zakaria GPS 16:00 World Report 16:30 Cnngo 17:00 State Of The Union 18:00 International Desk 18:30 Backstory 19:00 Global Exchange 19:15 CNN Marketplace Africa 19:30 Global Exchange 19:45 CNN Marketplace Middle East 20:00 World Sport 20:30 Mainsail 21:00 International Desk 21:30 African Voices 22:00 International Desk 22:30 Inside The Middle East 23:00 Fareed Zakaria GPS 00:00 World Report 00:30 World Sport 01:00 CNN Newsroom Live From Hong Kong 01:30 Living Golf 02:00 CNN Newsroom Live From Hong Kong 03:00 World Report 03:30 World Sport 04:00 Backstory 04:30 Talk Asia 05:00 Fareed Zakaria GPS 06:00 CNN Newsroom

Nowhere 10:00 Hitch 12:00 Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes 14:00 Rio 16:00 Miles From Nowhere 18:00 Big Miracle 20:00 Never Let Me Go 22:00 Extract 00:00 Sleeping Beauty 02:00 Miles From Nowhere 04:00 Hitch 06:00 Rio

TCM 06:05 Mr. Imperium 07:30 TCM Presents Under...-U 08:00 Ziegfeld Follies 09:50 Ivanhoe 11:37 Captains Courageous 13:35 The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre-U 16:00 The Younger Brothers-U 18:00 Cheyenne Autumn 20:29 Where Eagles Dare 23:00 Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid 00:55 East Of Eden 02:45 Blossoms In The Dust 04:20 Young Cassidy 06:10 White Heat

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

HEALTH

33

Health Monster changes label

Menu labels sway the ‘least healthy’ NEW YORK, Feb 16, (Agencies): Showing diners how many calories are in restaurant food items may influence how much they eat — especially among the least health-conscious people, a new study suggests.

“It’s encouraging because the information may help the people who will need it the most,” said Lorien Urban, who has researched menu labeling at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Boston’s Tufts University.

Previous studies have found that people tend to eat less when they are told how many calories are in their food, but scientists have not looked at how that breaks down across different types of diners.

For the new study, researchers randomized patrons at a restaurant on the Oklahoma State University campus to use one of three menus during a twoweek period in late 2010.

One group of diners received standard menus without calorie information, another group got menus showing each item’s calorie count and the last group got a menu featuring traffic light symbols representing calorie counts.

A green light was printed next to foods with less than 400 calories, yellow lights next to foods with between 401 and 800 calories and red lights next to foods with over 800 calories.

Counts By the end of the meal, diners ordering off the standard menu ate — on average — 817 calories. That compared to the 765 calories people ate when they ordered off the menu with printed calorie counts and the 696 calories they ate when ordering from the traffic light menu.

Although that is only a difference of 52 calories and 121 calories between the standard and experimental menus, the study’s lead author said that can add up over time.

Depending on the person, cutting 121 calories per day would lead to about a one-pound weight loss over a month.

“It could be substantial if that reduction persists every time you went out to eat, but as a one term reduction it might not be effective,” said Brenna Ellison, of the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign.

Based on customer surveys, Ellison and her colleagues from the Oklahoma State University found that the least health-conscious people seemed to cut the most calories in response to the experimental menus.

Those people, the researchers write in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, are “precisely the people that menu labeling laws are often trying to influence.”

Ellison told Reuters Health that health-conscious people might not pay as much attention to calorie information because they’re already well informed about nutrition.

Strongest Regardless of how health-conscious people were, the researchers found the traffic light menu seemed to have the strongest calorie-cutting influence.

“I think it’s in line with what we’ve seen that interpretive information is helpful,” said Urban, who was not involved in the new study.

Under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, certain chain restaurants must list their foods’ calorie information on their menus.

Previous research has found restaurants that are forced to disclose how many calories they’re serving customers end up changing their menus.

Ellison said listing calories is just one approach policymakers are looking at to encourage diners to lighten their load.

“The way it’s looking is it’s going to take several methods,” she said. ❑ ❑ ❑ Energy drink: Monster Beverage Corp is changing the labeling on its cans so that its energy drinks will no longer be considered dietary supplements, a move that changes the federal guidelines the drinks must follow.

Monster’s CEO told the industry tracker Beverage Digest that the cans will now list “Nutrition Facts” rather than “Supplement Facts,” as well as disclosing caffeine content.

The change reflects the intensifying scrutiny energy drinks have come under over the past year, with lawmakers calling on the Food and Drug Administration to look into the safety of the caffeine levels and other ingredients used in the drinks.

It also highlights the confusion consumers may encounter when it comes to the labeling of energy drinks, with companies having the discretion to categorize them as either dietary supplements or traditional drinks.

While Monster is currently categorized as a dietary supplement, for example, the No. 2 energy drink Red Bull is categorized as a traditional beverage.

Generally speaking, companies have more leeway in the ingredients they can add to dietary supplements.

With products considered to be food or drinks, companies can only use ingredients that are approved food additives or that are “generally recognized as safe,” said Elizabeth Campbell, a senior adviser at EAS Consulting Group, which specializes in FDA regulatory matters. ❑ ❑ ❑ Diet: Weight Watchers International

Study cites impact

Smoke bans cut ‘pre-term’ births LONDON, Feb 16, (RTRS): Banning smoking in enclosed public places can lead to lower rates of preterm birth, according to Belgian researchers who say the findings point to health benefits of smoke-free laws even in very early life.

It is well known that smoking during pregnancy can stunt the growth of unborn babies and shorten gestation, and that second-hand smoke exposure can also effect births, but little was known about the impact of smoking bans on preterm birth rates.

So a team of researchers led by Tim Nawrot of Belgium’s Hasselt University investigated trends in preterm births — before 37 weeks gestation - from 2002 to 2011 covering a period before, during and after the introduction of smoke-free laws.

They found the risk of preterm birth after the introduction of each phase of Belgium’s smoking ban, which was implemented in three phases - in public places and most workplaces in January 2006, in restaurants in January 2007, and in bars serving food in January 2010.

No decreasing trend in preterm was evident in the years or months before the bans, the researchers said in their study in the British Medical Journal on Friday.

“Our study shows a consistent pattern of reduction in the risk of preterm delivery with successive population interventions to restrict smoking,” the researchers wrote.

“It supports the notion that smoking bans have public health benefits even from early life.”

Smoking causes lung cancer, often fatal, and other chronic respiratory diseases.

It is also a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, the world’s number one killers.

According to the World Health Organization, tobacco already kills around 6 million people a year worldwide, including more than 600,000 non-smokers who die from exposure to second-hand smoke. By 2030, if current trends continue, it predicts tobacco could kill 8 million people a year.

Public health experts hope that as more and more countries in Europe and around the world adopt stricter legislation on smoking in public places, the health benefits will start to become evident fairly swiftly.

A study from England published last month found that the introduction of smoking bans there led to swift and dramatic falls in the number of children admitted to hospital suffering asthma attacks.

And research published in 2009 also found the ban on smoking in public places in England led to a swift and significant drop in the number of heart attacks, saving the national health service 8.4 million pounds ($13.1 million) in the first year.

The Belgian researchers analyzed 606,877 live, single-born babies delivered at between 24 and 44 weeks of gestation in Flanders from 2002 to 2011.

Inc forecast full-year earnings below Wall Street expectations as attendance at its diet meetings remained low so far this year, sending its shares down more than 15 percent after the bell.

The weight management company expects mid- to high-teen declines in attendance in the first quarter.

The company said its marketing strategy has not been effective in an increasingly competitive environment with its diet meetings business losing steam in North America and the United Kingdom.

“Consumers saw their paychecks shrinking by mid-January. Suffice it to say the timing was less than ideal for us,” Chief Executive David Kirchoff said on a conference call with analysts.

He said a new program launched in early December failed sustain momentum in 2013.

Patients rest at Sitanala Leprosy Hospital in Tangerang, Indonesia, Feb 13. Indonesia has the third-highest number of leprosy cases in the world after India and Brazil. (AP)

Synthetic marijuana tied to kidney damage

Thorough dialysis cuts deaths

In this Jan 24, 2013 photo, Winchester Elementary School teacher Dawn Voelker carries a robot up the stairs that is being operated by Devon Carrow while he is attending school at in West Seneca NY. Carrow’s lifethreatening allergies don’t allow him to go to school. But the 4-foot-tall robot with a wireless video hookup gives him the school experience remotely, allowing him to participate in class, stroll through the hallways, hang out at recess and even take to the auditori um stage when there’s a show. (AP)

NEW YORK, Feb 16, (Agencies): A more thorough dialysis technique may help prevent deaths due to heart conditions and infections in people with advanced kidney disease, according to a new study.

Known as hemodiafiltration, that method is better able to clean the kidneys of larger toxins than standard dialysis, which mainly removes small molecules.

When not removed from the kidneys, larger toxins could play a role in inflammation and cholesterol buildup, researchers said.

People on dialysis are most likely to die of complications such as heart disease and infection, according to Dr Francisco Maduell, the study’s lead author from the University of Barcelona in Spain.

Maduell said hemodiafiltration has been available in Europe for almost two decades and more recently in Asia and Canada as well. The Food and Drug Administration gave the okay for the first hemodiafiltration devices to be marketed in the United States less than a year ago.

About 350,000 people in the US are on dialysis. Dialysis machines do the work of healthy kidneys for people with end-stage renal disease, filtering clean fluid into the kidneys and toxins out. Many people stay on dialysis for months or years while waiting for a kidney transplant.

Regimen

Sweeney

Teeguarden

Health NY wraps up condoms drive: New York City this week marked the fifth anniversary of a groundbreaking free condom program that has distributed tens of millions free rubbers, under the racy slogan “NYC Condoms — Get Some!”

NYC brand Condoms, launched on Valentine’s Day 2007 by the city’s health department, were the first to be produced by a municipality.

The program started out by handing out condoms throughout the city’s subway, in what was hailed as a bold initiative to try to conquer sexually-transmitted illnesses.

Officials say the widely-imitated program has been a great success at helping reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted disease and AIDS and HIV. “Since 2007 launch, the NYC Condom has helped pave the way for other cities to brand their own condoms, cities like Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Vancouver to name just a few,” said Monica Sweeney, Assistant Commissioner of the New York City Health Department.

Sweeney said that while NYC brand condoms have only been in existence a half-decade, the city has been giving out the prophylactics for much longer.

“I’m very proud to say that the Health Department has been distributing free male condoms since 1971,” she said.

For half a decade, New York has doled out packages of premium, lubricated latex condoms at some 3,500 distribution points, from hospitals to bars, designated stores, businesses, community organizations bars, night clubs and health clinics. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

For the new study, Maduell and his colleagues randomly assigned 906 people currently on dialysis in Spain to remain on their normal regimen or switch to hemodiafiltration.

Over the next two years, just under 40 percent of those participants left the study because of a kidney transplant, a change in dialysis unit or another reason.

Of the remaining kidney disease patients, 207 died.

Death rates over three years were 27 percent among patients on standard dialysis, compared to 18 to 19 percent for those on the more thorough filtration method.

In particular, people getting hemodiafiltration were less likely to die of infections. That group also had fewer deaths from cardiovascular disease, although the finding could have been due to chance, the researchers wrote Thursday in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

They calculated that eight people would have to switch from regular dialysis to hemodiafiltration to prevent one death each year.

Dr Katrin Uhlig, a kidney disease researcher from Tufts Medical Center in Boston, said she welcomed the new research.

“Our survival numbers are not great for this population,” said Uhlig, who wasn’t involved in the new research.

Hemodiafiltration “has some benefits in terms of the size of the molecules that you can remove, so there is some theoretical benefit that you might be removing stuff that might otherwise be harmful,” she told Reuters Health. covered during initial tests on a poultry farm in the eastern state of Brandenburg in Germany could not be confirmed in final

Higher-than-expected percentage to be replaced

J&J recalls faulty hip implants TRENTON, New Jersey, Feb 16, (AP): Johnson & Johnson has again recalled thousands of its hip implants, 2-1/2 years after the problem-plagued health care giant issued a recall of two other types of its artificial hips.

Spokeswomen for J&J’s DePuy Orthopaedics unit said Thursday that the company recalled the “Adept” brand allmetal total hip replacement system starting last month because a higher-thanexpected percentage of them had to be replaced. Such replacements, called revision surgeries, usually are needed when an artificial joints starts causing pain, difficulty walking or other problems.

The recall involves only the top part of the hip replacement system, the ball at the top of the thigh bone that fits into the hip’s socket.

New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J said it’s recalled all 7,500 Adept implants shipped worldwide between 2004 and September 2011. That’s when it sold the product back to the company that had developed Adept and had sold the rights to it to the DePuy business in 2009.

According to J&J, the implants were sold in Germany and 20 other countries, but not in the US J&J said it notified surgeons and hospitals about the recall on Jan. 14 after reviewing data from national registries on joint replacements in two countries. A registry in the United Kingdom found that 12.1 percent of patients needed their implants replaced within seven years, while a registry in Australia found 7.1 percent of patients needed replacements within three years.

The DePuy spokeswomen did not know how many of the recalled implants were implanted in patients. Any who have the implants and are having problems with them should contact their doctor.

The recall was reported Thursday by the German newspaper Handelsblatt.

J&J noted the recall does not involve a product called Adept Hip Resurfacing Femoral Components.

Johnson & Johnson, the world’s biggest provider of health care products, has issued more than 30 product recalls since 2009. Most have involved nonprescription medicines such as adult and children’s Tylenol and Motrin, but other recalls were for prescription drugs for conditions such as epilepsy or for contact lenses. Reasons have included wrong levels of active ingredients in medicines, glass or metal shards in liquid medicines and nauseating packaging smells.

The company is operating under increased scrutiny from the US Food and Drug Administration, while it completely rebuilds one nonprescription medicine factory from the ground up and upgrades other factories. The recalls and lost product sales have cost J&J well over $1 billion.

In August 2010, the company recalled two types of DePuy ASR metal hip implants after they were linked to high failure rates. Those recalls have led to thousands of lawsuits by US patients.

In the first of those cases to reach trial, a jury in Los Angeles three weeks ago began hearing testimony in a lawsuit brought by a former North Dakota prison guard who got one of the implants to relieve arthritic pain, but had to have it replaced.

Lawyers for Loren Kransky told jurors that black pieces of metal flaked off the implant and caused a type of metal poisoning that could have killed him if the material had not been removed. But a Johnson & Johnson lawyer said the 64year-old Kransky had many pre-existing medical ailments.

J&J shares rose 15 cents to close at $75.81 on Thursday after rising as high as $76.09 earlier in the session. FactSet said that was an all-time high for the stock.

However, she said, the cards may have been stacked against the group of people getting standard dialysis in the study, in that those patients were a bit older, on average, and more of them had diabetes.

Standard dialysis costs between $200 and $250 per session in the US, and even for younger adults is covered by Medicare. Maduell said hemodiafiltration is usually slightly more expensive, but not by much.

Patients in his study tended to feel better, and had fewer symptoms such as low blood pressure during treatments with that technique.

“The tolerance is equal or better with hemodiafiltration,” he told Reuters Health.

thetic marijuana has been linked to kidney damage in some teens and young adults.

Sixteen people who smoked synthetic marijuana were hospitalized with kidney problems last year in six states. All recovered, but five of them needed dialysis.

Synthetic marijuana is plant material sprayed with chemicals that can mimic the high from marijuana. It’s been tied to such health problems as a rapid heartbeat and seizures. This is the first report of kidney problems.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it’s not known exactly what caused the kidney damage. Federal and state laws ban some of the chemicals used for synthetic marijuana.

A CDC report Thursday details the 16 cases in Oregon, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, New York and Rhode Island

Also: NEW YORK: US health officials say syntesting, the state agriculture ministry said on Saturday.

The H5N1 virus mainly affects birds but

Bird flu hits 582,000 chickens: Mexico’s animal health agency says a bird flu outbreak at seven farms in central Mexico has affected as many as 582,000 chickens.

The Agriculture Department says more than a half million birds were exposed, but the number that will have to be slaughtered has yet to be determined.

An outbreak of the H7N3 bird flu virus in western Mexico in 2012 led to the slaughter of more than 22 million hens and caused price increases in chicken and egg products.

But the department said Friday that the current outbreak has not affected the supply of chicken products. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑

‘Bird flu not confirmed’: A case of suspected H5N1 bird flu that had been dis-

occasionally jumps to people. Experts fear it might mutate into a form that could spread easily among humans, who have no natural immunity to it. Bird flu is present in Asian countries including China, Cambodia and Indonesia. It has also been reported in wild birds in parts of Europe.

Currently, bird flu can be transmitted from birds to birds, and birds to humans, but not from humans to humans. When it does pass from birds to humans, it is usually fatal. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑

BPA may not affect human health:

In this image released Feb 15, 2012 Larry King. Larry King Cardiac Foundation (LKCF), (left), and Robert Superko, M.D, Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), announce a partnership to help improve access to cardiac health care for individuals with heart disease on Feb 8, in Glendale, Calif. (AP)

A total of 150 scientific studies have shown that bisphenol A (BPA), a controversial component of plastic bottles and canned food linings, may be used in quantities too small to negatively affect human health.

The analysis, presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting here by toxicologist Justin Teeguarden of the Department of Energy, shows that BPA in the blood of the general population is many times lower than blood levels that consistently cause toxicity in animals. The result suggests that animal studies might not reflect the human BPA experience appropriately, the study said in Boston. (AFP)

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

HEALTH

34

FDA warns of flu protection claims by supplement sellers

New virus hits twelve globally with new British case LONDON, Feb 16, (RTRS): A fourth person in Britain has contracted a potentially fatal SARS-like virus which was unknown in humans until a few months ago, but health officials said on Friday the risk to the population remained very low.

Confirming the third British case this week of infection the new virus - known as novel coronavirus, or NCoV — the Health Protection Agency said the patient was one of a cluster of three in the same family.

This latest case brings the total number of confirmed cases globally to 12, of which four have been diagnosed in Britain, the HPA said. Of the total, five have died. Most of the infected lived or had recently been in the Middle East.

NCoV was identified when the World Health Organization (WHO) issued an international alert in September 2012 saying a virus previously unknown in humans had infected a Qatari man in Britain who had recently been in Saudi Arabia.

The virus belongs to the same family as SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome — a coronavirus that emerged in China in 2002 and killed about a tenth of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide. Symptoms common to both viruses include severe respiratory illness, fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.

The HPA, which earlier this week said the other two patients from the same

‘Trial will show trend towards efficacy’

High-stakes cholesterol study could lift Merck cloud NEW YORK, Feb 16, (RTRS): Favorable results from a huge heart study could help redeem investors’ faith in Merck & Co and its two biggest cholesterol drugs, Vytorin and Zetia, and potentially add billions of dollars in annual revenue.

Investors have soured on the No 2 US drugmaker since late December, following setbacks to a closely watched experimental drug for osteoporosis and a newer cholesterol medicine.

Those concerns come on top of investor anxiety over the outcome of the study of 18,000 heart patients

called IMPROVE-IT that has contributed to Merck’s shares lagging rival large drugmakers by about 10 percentage points in that short period.

An independent monitoring board is expected to complete an interim analysis of the study in March, and decide whether it should continue as planned until September 2014.

Sales of Vytorin and Zetia have fallen since 2008 because of concerns about their effectiveness and safety.

“If the data are extremely good, and statistically significant, that would be a big win for Merck, and there’s no rea-

son combined sales of Vytorin and Zetia couldn’t climb by billions” of dollars, said Morningstar analyst Damien Conover.

The IMPROVE-IT study involves patients with already well-controlled cholesterol who had heart attacks or the kind of chest pain that can precede heart attacks. It looks to determine if Merck’s $1.75 billion-a-year Vytorin pill can significantly reduce heart attacks, strokes and heart-related deaths compared with the company’s older, generically-available Zocor.

Vytorin, approved in 2004, combines

Zocor with Zetia, so the study is a measure of the clinical benefit of adding Zetia, which lowers bad LDL cholesterol by blocking the liver’s production of the blood fat.

Zetia, which is also sold separately and has annual sales of almost $2.6 billion, is prescribed by doctors as a standalone treatment or to add to the cholesterol-lowering power of statins, such as Zocor or Lipitor.

The monitoring board, based upon data only it has the right to see, could order an early halt to the trial if it believes the data already show Vytorin

is more heart protective than Zocor, if it deems Vytorin to be clearly no better than Zocor or if safety problems arise with Vytorin.

Blinded studies have independent safety monitoring boards to make sure drugs are not harmful, or are so effective that it would be unethical not to offer the meds to the placebo group.

“If the trial stops because it shows efficacy, Merck shares could rise a great deal — 10 or 15 percent, or even more,” as the overhang on Merck shares is lifted, said Barclays Capital analyst Tony Butler.

family were being treated in intensive care units in separate hospitals in northern and central England, said the third case in the cluster was mild.

“The patient ... is recovering from a mild respiratory illness and is currently well,” it said in a statement.

John Watson, the HPA’s head of respiratory diseases said that despite this, the HPA was advising the patient to self-isolate and limit contact with other people.

Health officials are currently following up other household members.

Coronaviruses are typically spread like other respiratory infections such as flu, travelling in airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

“We would like to emphasize that the risk associated with novel coronavirus to the general UK population remains very low,” Watson said.

When a second case in this cluster was found on Wednesday, Tom Wilkinson, a senior lecturer in respiratory medicine at Britain’s University of Southampton, said that if NCoV turned

out to be like the previous SARS outbreak, it may prove quite slow to spread from one human to another.

“But it’s early days to make any definite statements because viruses can change and mutate very rapidly, so what is right today may be wrong tomorrow,” he said.

Among the 12 laboratory-confirmed cases of NCoV to date, five are in Saudi Arabia, with three deaths; two are in Jordan, where both patients died; four are in Britain, where three are receiving

treatment and the latest one is described as well; and one was in Germany in a patient from Qatar who has since been discharged from medical care.

website late Thursday in an effort to steer consumers away from a variety of herbal products that the distributors claim reduce the duration or severity of the flu.

In a letter to a company called Supplementality LLC, for example, FDA said the distributor was improperly offering products intended to diagnose, mitigate, prevent, treat or cure the flu virus, and demanded the company “immediately cease marketing” in this way.

Also: WASHINGTON: US health regulators have sent letters to nine Internet distributors of dietary supplements warning them against making false claims about their products’ ability to fight the flu.

The US Food and Drug Administration posted the letters on its

NBK launches ‘Hasala around Kuwait’ on Instagram National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) launched its social activity on Instagram “Hasala around Kuwait”, posting the best photos of NBK’s money box (Hasala) taken by fans in Kuwait, on the occasion of Kuwait’s independence and the anniversary of liberation.

The concept behind this social activity is to interact with fans and introduce different touristic and old places in Kuwait. NBK Hasala visited Kuwait Towers and many other places that will

NBK Hasala seen at the Kuwait Towers during the tour.

Market Movements HONG KONG S. KOREA PHILIPPINES

- Hang Seng - KRX 100 - All Shares

Change +31.31 +1.07 +10.06

Closing pts 23,444.56 4,247.18 4,101.44

be shared with the fans on Instagram during the entire month of February.

NBK`s Hasala attracted thousands of people since last Ramadan`s TV commercial. Many photos have been posted and shared by followers.

Participants can send their photos to social@nbk.com or to NBK official page on Instagram @NBKPage,” Al Reshaid added.

NBK greatly values social media as an easy mean of communicating with

15-02-2013 INDIA JAPAN AUSTRALIA GERMANY FRANCE EUROPE

-

Sensex Nikkei All Ordinaries DAX CAC 40 Euro Stoxx 50

Change -29.03 -133.45 -2.60 -37.68 -9.23 -20.09

Closing pts 19,468.15 11,173.83 5,054.60 7,593.37 3,660.37 2,615.26

customers and also building a strong and lasting relationship. NBK is among the first regional banks to establish a strong social media presence, with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Foursquare and Google + pages. For more information regarding banking transactions, events and competitions check out National Bank of Kuwait official facebook page NBK - Official Page or follow NBK on Twitter @NBKPage, and on Instagram @NBKPage.

Saudi gains 0.35 pct Saudi stocks end slightly higher, with the all-share index closing 0.35 percent up at 7,088 points.

The heavyweight Al Rajhi Bank ends up 0.37 percent, while Kingdom Holding Co closes 2.36 percent higher after the international investment firm of Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said it and a consortium of investors had bought a 1.5 billion rial ($400 million) stake in Chinese online retail firm 360buy Jingdong. (RTRS)

Business

Average daily turnover decreases by 13.2 pct to KD 36.33 mln

KSE price index gains as KSX-15 sheds 0.3 pct least growing as its index closed at 985.49 points with a 0.15% increase. On the other hand, the Oil & Gas sector was last week’s only loser as its index declined by 4.79% to end the week’s activity at 1,062.14 points.

By Bayan Investment uwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended K last week with variance on its indices.

The price index ended last week with an increase amounted to 1.73%, while the weighted index increased by 0.11% compared to the closings of the week before, whereas KSX-15 Index decreased by 0.30%. Furthermore, last week’s average daily turnover decreased by 13.20%, compared to the preceding week, reaching KD 36.33 million, whereas trading volume average was 532.06 million shares, recording decrease of 19.89%.

Last week, Kuwait Stock Exchange indices continued to fluctuate for the third consecutive week, as small-cap stocks kept its support to the Price Index, which in turn closed the week at its highest level since May 2012, supported by the purchasing power executed on such stocks.

Moreover, quick speculative operations continued to control the market trading activity during last week, which explains the indices unstable state witnessed in some trading sessions, as operations concentrated on small-cap stocks, especially in real estate and financial services sectors, thus positively reflected

Sectors’ Activity

on the Price Index to close the week in the green zone. On the contrary, the KSX-15 Index could not match the Price Index, and closed in the red zone especially after the profit collection operations performed on the large-cap stocks.

In addition, the market is currently living a watch and cautious states to the listed companies’ financial results, which did not announce its financial data for the 2012 financial year, especially after pass-

ing half of the authorized legal period for companies to announce its results, where many traders are expected to build on their investment decisions for the next period.

For the annual performance, the price index ended last week recording 7.81% annual gain compared to its closing in 2012, while the weighted index increased by 2.85%, and the KSX-15 recorded 2.23% increase.

By the end of the week, the price index closed at 6,397.64 points, up by 1.73% from the week before closing, whereas the weighted index registered a 0.11% weekly gain after closing at 429.55 points. Moreover, the KSX-15 index closed at 1,031.60 points, decreasing with 0.30%.

Sectors’ Indices All of KSE’s sectors ended last week

in the green zone except for one sector.

Last week’s highest gainer was the Technology sector, achieving 12.46% growth rate as its index closed at 1,050.02 points. Whereas, in the second place, the Health Care sector’s index closed at 990.18 points recording 7.94% increase. The Insurance companies sector came in third as its index achieved 4.15% growth, ending the week at 986.30 points.

The Consumer Goods sector was the

The Real Estate sector dominated total trade volume during last week with 1.08 billion shares changing hands, representing 40.53% of the total market trading volume. The Financial Services sector was second in terms of trading volume as the sector’s traded shares were 32.98% of last week’s total trading volume, with a total of 877.41 million shares.

On the other hand, the Financial Services sector’s stocks were the highest traded in terms of value; with a turnover of KD 52.27 million or 28.78% of last week’s total market trading value. The Real Estate sector took the second place as the sector’s last week turnover of KD 44.97 million represented 24.76% of the total market trading value. ❑ ❑ ❑ For further details, please visit our web site: www.bayaninvest.com

Kuwait economic brief National Bank of Kuwait

CPI ticks up 2.6 percent y/y as inflation averages 2.9% in ’12 Food prices up 2.1% y/y in December

A promo picture of Viva’s ‘Win a car every week’ campaign.

Mohammad, Abdulhameed win KD 10,000 each

Viva announces winners of ‘Win a car every week’ KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: VIVA, Kuwait’s fastest-growing telecom operator, announced today the winners of the ‘Win a car every week’ campaign. The lucky draw winners were Ms Huda Mahtouk Hashemi and Ms Sarah Abdulhussain Ahmad who each won a Dodge Challenger SE and Mohammad Merri and Abdulhameed Mohammad who each won KD 10,000.

The winners drawn on 21 January 2013 will have until 20 February 2013 to claim their prize, and winners drawn on 4 February 2013 will have until 3 March 2013 to claim their prize, otherwise the prize will be given to the alternate winner.

VIVA congratulated the lucky winners and invited its customers to participate in the longest on-going campaign of its kind. With the continuous success this campaign is witnessing, VIVA is keen to further engage its customers and therefore developed further means to facilitate the process of entering the draw.

Entering the draw can be done through one of the following options. The first option is to subscribe with 500 Fils per day giving customers infinite minutes and SMS to any VIVA line. This option entitles the customer to one chance to enter the draw each week. The second option is to subscribe to the BlackBerry KD3.9 service, which gives customers full and unlimited BlackBerry Services. This option provides

customers with 7 automatic chances to enter the draw each week.

The third option is to purchase the KD 2 prepaid line. Upon activating the line, customers should simply send ‘GO’ to 535, and will be presented with four chances to enter the draw each week.

The fourth option is to recharge for 500 Fils or more, and this entitles the customer to one chance to enter the draw for every 500 Fils.

Bundle In addition, customers can also enter the draw by subscribing to the 500 fils local bundle which presents customers with 60 local minutes per day. This can be done by sending ‘3’ to ‘232’, and entitles the customer to one chance, or by subscribing to the 500 fils international SMS bundle, which presents customers with 100 international SMS to any country for the duration of seven days. This also entitles the customer to one chance.

Last but not least, customers who choose to enjoy the prepaid internet service will receive either one chance upon subscribing to the 500 fils ‘Surf On’ service, which offers 500 MB for a day, or two chances upon subscribing to the 1 KD ‘Surf On’ service, which offers 500 MB for five days, automatically upon activation.

Etisalat in talks over $8 bln loan for Maroc Telecom bid LONDON, Feb 16, (RTRS): Abu Dhabi telecom firm Etisalat is talking to banks about a syndicated loan of up to $8 billion to finance a bid for Vivendi’s 53 percent stake in Maroc Telecom, banking sources said on Friday.

An $8 billion acquisition loan would be the largest Gulf merger and acquisition loan in six years.

Etisalat has asked banks to bid for the roles of M&A and financing advisor, one banker said.

French media and telecoms group Vivendi is under pressure from share-

holders to bolster its flagging share price and reduce its debt, which stands at 15.7 billion euros.

Etisalat was not immediately available for comment.

The sale has attracted interest from other bidders that are also lining up financing.

Qatar’s QTel is talking to its relationship banks, including JP Morgan, about financing for a possible bid for Maroc Telecom, bankers said. JP Morgan could easily underwrite an acquisition loan, alone or with the support of one or two banks, they said.

KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: The Consumer Price Index (CPI) recorded a 2.6% year-on-year (y/y) increase in December, slightly up from 2.3% in November. The uptick in December came on the back of price increases in the housing and household goods and services segments, but was partly offset by a m/m decrease in food prices. Inflation also averaged 2.9% y/y in 2012, down from 4.8% in 2011.

Core inflation, which excludes food and beverage prices, went up by 2.7% y/y. (Chart 1.) This was the first time in recent history where inflation in the core measure outpaced inflation in the general index. This highlights the changing makeup of the sources of inflationary pressure, as inflation in food prices had decelerated in 2012, while other components saw more potent increases.

Food prices were up 2.1% y/y in December, their smallest such increase since late 2009. (Chart 2.) Prices were also down 0.7% m/m, largely thanks to price decreases in some major subcomponents such as meat, poultry, and fish as well as cereals and bread.

Inflation in food prices averaged 5.6% in 2012, with smaller increments in the second half of the year. The 2012 average was also noticeably lower than the 2011 average of 9.7%.

Trend Prices for clothing and footwear increased by 3.9% y/y in December, similar to their 4.0% y/y average for 2012. Also similar to the general trend in 2012, the December increase was largely pushed by prices of readymade garments (i.e. store-bought clothing), which went up by 5.6% in December.

Clothing and footwear prices have occasionally been a source of upward pressure on general inflation during 2012, but these prices are often determined by international factors (clothing and footwear being primarily imports), rather than local ones.

The housing services component, which makes up almost 27% of the general index and is made up almost wholly of rent, saw a 2.4% y/y increase, the first and only rise in that rate in 2012. (Chart 2.) Rental inflation could prove to be a source of upward pressure in the future, having dipped as low as 0.7% y/y in September last year.

Continued on Page 37

Al-Jallal receiving the award from Head of Civil Service Commission.

‘Over 25% of bank employees are females’

KFH wins award for recruiting Kuwaitis KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: The Civil Service Commission and Manpower Restructuring Program granted Kuwait Finance House (KFH) an award for recruiting Kuwaiti employees in 2012, since KFH topped all other local banks and the private sector in that field. The award was granted on the sideline of the 8th Recruitment Forum that was held under the patronage of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah. This award cements KFH’s leadership in recruiting young Kuwaiti employees, which allows them to gain practical experience in the field of work.

KFH Human Resources and Services Department Manager

Mohammed Al-Jallal received the award on behalf of KFH, and stated that KFH will continue to support Kuwaitis working in the banking, financing, and investment fields. He added that KFH is keen to recruit and train Kuwaiti youths, and stressed that employees are the pillars for any economic development.

He revealed that KFH had launched a program to recruit Kuwaiti employees eight years ago in conjunction with Restructuring Program. He went on to say that during those years, 1075 employees were trained, where 165 of them were trained last year. This led to a stable 62% of Kuwaiti employees at KFH.

Moreover, he said that over 25% of KFH employees are females, which underlines KFH’s keenness to support female employees and clients through offering them their own branches. He noted that the bank offered over 6500 training opportunities through over 350 programs, including e-learning programs that were launched six years ago.

Furthermore, he explained that KFH work environment is diverse, which makes KFH a step ahead of other banks in the field of training and investment in its employees. He stressed that KFH is keen to take part in job fairs that are held every year to recruit Kuwaiti youths.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

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foreign holdings of US debt hit $5.56 trln Foreign demand for US Treasury securities rose to a record level in December, evidence that overseas investors remained confident in US debt despite on-going budget battles in Washington.

The Treasury Department said Friday that foreign holdings of US Treasurys rose 0.3 percent in December from November to $5.56 trillion. It was the 12th consecutive monthly gain.

China, the top foreign holder, increased its holdings 1.7 percent to $1.2 trillion. Japan, the second largest holder, boosted its investment 0.2 percent to $1.12 trillion.

Demand kept rising in December even as Congress approached a deadline to raise the government’s $16.4 trillion borrowing limit. In January, Congress approved a measure to temporarily suspend the borrowing limit until May 19. (AP)

Wataniya Telecom posts KD 75.5m net profit Revenue and customer growth continue KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: Wataniya Telecom (National Mobile Telecommunications Company K.S.C. - Ticker: NMTC) today announced its financial results for the year 2012.

Operational Highlights: ■ Total customer base increased to 19.2 million at the close of 2012, versus 17.8 million at the same period in 2011, amounting to growth of 7.8%.

■ Revenues for the year 2012 amounted to KD 742.5 million ($2.64 billion), compared with KD 726.6 million ($2.58 billion) for the same period in 2011, amounting to growth of 2.2%.

■ EBITDA for the year 2012 was KD 299.4 million ($1.06 billion), compared to EBITDA of KD 314.2 million ($1.12billion) for the same period in 2011.

■ The consolidated Net Profit was at KD 75.5 million ($268.5million), compared to Net Profit for the same period in 2011 of KD 362.1 million ($1.29 billion). Net Profit for the year 2011 includes a fair value gain of KD 265.3 million ($943.5 million) recorded due to revaluation of existing held interest in Tunisiana following the increase in the shareholding from 50% to 75%. The Net Profit for the year 2011 without the fair value gain was KD 96.8 million ($344.2 million).

■ Net Profit for 2012 was adversely impacted by various factors including competitive pressure in Kuwait, foreign exchange movements in Algeria and Tunisia and an impairment charge for a Build-

CPI ticks Continued from Page 38

Price inflation in household goods and services recorded a 2.9% y/y increase, alongside a 1.3% m/m uptick. (Chart

Consolidaated Revenue (KD m) EBITDA (KD M) EBITDA margin (%) Net Profit* (KD m) Net Profit (KD m) – (excluding) fair value gain) Consolidated Customers (m)

Quarterly Analysis Q4 2012 Q4 2011 % change 183.4 186.4 -1.6% 68.2 79.4 -14.1% 37% 43% — 12.6 17.1 -26.6% 12.6 19.2

17.3 17.8

-27.3% 7.8%

2012 742.5 299.4 40% 75.5 75.5 19.2

Full Year 2011 % change 726.6 2.2% 314.2 -4.7% 43% — 362.1 -79.1% 96.8 17.8

-22.0% 7.8%

* Note: In 2011 a fair value gain (non-cash) of KD 265.3 million (USD 943.5 million) was recorded due to a revaluation of the existing interest in Tunisiana following the increase in the shareholding from 50% to 75%.

Operate-Transfer (“BOT”) operation in 2012.

■ The consolidated Earnings per Share was 151fils ($54 cents), compared to723fils ($2.6) per share earned for the same period last year.

Excluding revaluation gain the Earnings per Share in 2011 was 193 fils ($69 cents) a decrease in 2012 by 21.8% compared with 2011.

H.E. Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Thani, Chairman of Wataniya Telecom commented: “From a strategic standpoint, 2012 has been a successful year as we position ourselves for the future.

Wataniya Telecom increased our stake in Tunisiana from 50% to 75% and we have seen continued efforts of network modernization across our markets with LTE planned for Kuwait and 3G and fixed services roll-out in Tunisia.” He added: “While operationally during this period, Wataniya Telecom has seen stable revenue growth of2.2%, foreign exchange impacts again impacted profitability and competitive dynamics in Kuwait remain challenging. I look forward to 2013 as efforts already underway in our markets will begin to drive positive and sustainable results for Wataniya Telecom.”

Sheikh Abdullah Al Thani also declared that that after a board meeting last Thursday, 14 Feb, the Board recommended a cash dividend increase of 125% of the nominal value of shares, of which one hundred and twenty-five fils (125%) per share for one, putting into consideration that this recommendation is subject to the approval of the shareholders and the competent authorities.

Review of Operations The Group’s operational performance can be summarized as follows: Wataniya — Kuwait Wataniya Kuwait’s customer base increased to 2.03 million customers at the end of 2012, an increase of 3.8% onthe same period 2011.

Revenues for the year 2012 were KD 220.8 million ($785.3 million), decrease of 9.4% compared torevenues for the same period in 2011 of KD 243.6 million ($866.4 million).

EBITDA for the year 2012 was KD 84.4 million ($300.2million) compared to EBITDA for the same period in 2011 of KD 111.1 million ($394.9 million), a decrease by24.0%. Net Profit was at KD 46.4 million ($164.9million), compared to Net Profit for the same period in 2011 of KD 328.1million ($1.2billion).

3.) Domestic services, a sub-component that had remained unchanged throughout 2011 and 2012, went up in December by 7.8% y/y.

Overall, inflation in 2012 was more subdued than initially anticipated at the start of the year, largely thanks to the sharp deceleration in food price infla-

tion. A modest pick-up in rents and food inflation - combined with a robust consumer sector in general - could see inflation move higher in 2013.

Nonetheless, given the low starting point, we expect inflation to remain modest in 2013, averaging 3.5% for the year as a whole.

the

bottomline

KUWAIT CITY: Price of Kuwait crude oil was down 15 cents on Friday to $113.16 pb, compared with $113.31 pb the previous day, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said on Saturday.

The decline of oil prices, in general, is attributed to predominant concerns regarding the European economy.

Various data show that the euro zone states got deeper into recession in the last quarter of the past year. (KUNA) ❑ ❑ ❑ ABU DHABI: Kingdom Holding Co, the international investment firm of Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, and a consortium of investors have bought a 1.5 billion rial ($400 million) stake in Chinese online retail firm 360buy Jingdong, the company said.

Kingdom Holding’s investment in the deal came to 470 million rials, the firm said in a statement on Saturday. It said Qatari bank QInvest had advised on the deal.

“Our deal solidifies the strategic relationship between Saudi Arabia and China,” Prince AlWaleed was quoted as saying in the statement, which did not mention the identities of the other investors in the consortium.

According to its website, 360buy Jingdong is China’s leading online retailer of consumer electronics. Kingdom Holding already has investments in China’s entertainment and hotel sectors. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑

ABU DHABI: UAE budget carrier Air Arabia reported a 6 percent rise in fourth quarter net profit on Saturday, helped by a rise in passenger numbers but still short of forecasts.

Air Arabia earned a net profit of 83 million dirhams ($22.6 million), up from 77.5 million dirhams in the same period last year, the airline said in a statement.

The earnings fell short of estimates of analysts polled by Reuters who expected an average profit of 91.7 million dirhams.

Revenues for the quarter rose 18 percent year-on-year to 755 million dirhams, Air Arabia said.

In 2012, Air Arabia carried more than 5.3 million passengers, compared with 4.7 million in 2011.

Sharjah-based Air Arabia is the only publicly listed carrier operating out of the United Arab Emirates, which is also home to Dubai government-owned Emirates and Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways.

It competes with other budget carriers like flydubai and Kuwait’s Jazeera Airways in challenging market conditions in the region. Bahrain Air announced plans to shut down on Tuesday, blaming political unrest in Bahrain and continuing debt woes.

Air Arabia also has hubs in Egypt and Morocco. (RTRS)

Net Profit for the year 2011 includes a fair value gain of KD 265.3 million ($943.5 million) recorded due to revaluation of existing 50% held interest in Tunisiana following the increase in the shareholding from 50% to 75%.

The Net Profit for 2011 without the fair value gain, and after amortization of intangibles arising from the Tunisiana acquisition was KD 62.8.million ($223.2 million).

Tunisiana — Tunisia The Tunisiana customer base at the end of2012 stood at 7.19million customers, an increase of 8.6% on the same periodin 2011. Revenues for the year2012 were KD 201.9 million ($718.1 million), compared to revenues for the same period in 2011 of KD 210.0 million ($746.7 million).

EBITDA for the year 2012was KD 108.0 million ($384.2 million) from KD 118.8 million ($422.5 million) for the same period last year representing a decrease of 9.1%.

The total Net Profit stood at KD 46.7 million ($166.2 million) a decrease of 11.4% when compared with KD 52.7million ($187.6 million) for the same period in 2011. The Net Attributable Profit to Wataniya Telecom for theyear2012 was KD 35.2 million ($125.1 million), compared to KD 39.6 million ($140.7 million) for the same period in 2011.Foreign exchange movement in 2012 had an adverse impact on Tunisiana’s performance with the TND/$rate 11.1% unfavourable compared to 2011.

Nedjma-Algeria The Nedjma customer base at the end of 2012 was9.06 million customers, an increase of 6.5%compared to the same period last year.

Revenues for the year 2012 were KD266.9 million ($949.1 million), an increase of 19.3% compared with revenues of KD 223.7 million ($795.6 million) for the same period in 2011. EBITDA for the year 2012 was KD 105.4 million ($374.7 million), an increase of 26.7% on KD 83.2 million ($295.8 million) for the same period in 2011.

The total Net Profit for the year 2012 was KD 27.6 million ($98.1 million) compared to a total Net Profit of KD 14.4 million ($51.4 million) for the same period in 2011. The Net Attributable Profit to Wataniya Telecom for 2012 was KD 19.6 million ($69.6 million) compared to a Net Attributable Profit of KD 10.3 million ($36.5million) for the same period in 2011. Foreign exchange movements in 2012 impacted Nedjma’s performance with the DZD/$rate 6.5% unfavorable compared to 2011.

Wataniya — Palestine The total customer base at end of 2012 was 0.61 million, an increase of 31.2% from the same period of 2011.

Revenues for the year 2012 were KD 23.5 million ($83.6 million),an increase of 13.9% compared to the revenues of KD 20.6 million ($73.4 million) in the year 2011. EBITDA for 2012 was KD 1.7 million ($6.2 million) in the year 2012, compared to an EBITDA of KD 1.0 million ($3.7 million) for the same period in 2011.

The total Net Loss for the year 2012 was KD 6.7 million ($23.7 million) compared to a total Net Loss of KD 7.2 million ($25.6 million) for the same period in 2011. The Net Attributable Loss for the year 2012 was KD 3.2 million ($11.5 million)

compared to a Net Attributable Loss of KD 3.5 million ($12.4 million) for the same period in 2011.

Bravo – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Bravo’s customer base was 0.16 million at the end of 2012, 5.2%increase from the same period of 2011. Revenues for the year 2012 decreased to KD 18.2 million ($64.6 million) from KD 19.3 million ($68.6 million) for the same period in 2011.

The total Net Profit for the year 2012 was KD 0.6 million ($2.1 million) compared to the total Net Loss of KD 10.7 million ($38.2 million) for the same period in 2011. The Net Attributable Profit to Wataniya Telecom for 2012 was KD 1.3 million ($4.6 million), compared to a Net Attributable Loss of KD 6.0 million ($21.3 million) for the same period in 2011.

Wataniya — Maldives The total customer base at end of 2012 was0.18 million, an increase of 22.5% from the same period of 2011.

Revenues were KD 11.2 million ($39.8 million) for the year 2012 compared to KD 9.4 million ($33.4 million) for the same period 2011.

EBITDA for the year 2012 was KD 2.6 million ($9.2 million) compared to an EBITDA of KD 1.6 million ($5.8 million) for the same period in 2011. The Net Attributable Loss for 2012 was KD 2.2 million ($7.9 million) compared to the Net Attributable Loss of KD 2.7 million ($9.7 million) for the same period in 2011. ❑

❑

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For more information please visit www.wataniyatelecom.com

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

BUSINESS

38

Gulf Bank announces winners of Al Danah daily draws Gulf Bank held its Al Danah daily draws on February 10th, 2013, announcing the names of its winners for the week of February 3rd to 7th. The Al Danah daily draws include draws each working day for two prizes of KD 1000 per winner.

The Al Danah Daily Winners are: (Sunday 3/2): Dalal Khaled Bader Al-Omar, Adel Yousef Al-Nafisi (Monday 4/2): Ali Raza Abdulrasheed, Faisal Mohammed

Faleh Al-Dosari (Tuesday 5/2): Redha Ali Abdulrazag Al-Sairafi, Ahmed Ibrahim Rayyan (Wednesday 6/2) Beskals Eskarous Beskals Eskarous, Hassan Mustafa Shkora (Thursday 7/2) Iftekhar Ali Safar Ashkanani, Ahmed Saleh Ahmed Mohammed Ali Al-Shawaf.

Gulf Bank’s new Al Danah 2013 draw lineup includes daily draws (2 winners per working day each receive KD 1000), as well as two

additional prizes per quarter. Al Danah’s 1st Quarterly draw will be held on 28 March (KD 200,000, KD 125,000, and KD 25,000), 2nd Quarter — June 27 (KD 250,000, KD 125,000, and KD 25,000), 3rd Quarter — Sept 26 (KD 500,000, KD 125,000, and KD 25,000) and the final draw held on Jan 9, 2014 announcing winners of KD 50,000, KD 250,000 and the Al Danah Millionaire.

Gulf Bank’s Al Danah allows customers to win cash prizes and simultaneously encourages them to save money. Chances increase the more money is deposited and the longer it is kept in the account.

Al Danah also offers a number of unique services including the Al Danah Deposit Only ATM card which helps account holders deposit their money at their convenience.

BMW recalls nearly 570,000 cars BMW is recalling almost 570,000 cars in the U.S. and Canada because a battery cable connector can fail and cause the engines to stall. The recall affects the popular 3-Series sedans, wagons, convertibles and coupes from the 2007 through 2011 model years.

Also included are 1-Series coupes and convertibles from 2008 through 2012, and the Z4 sports car from 2009 through 2011.

The cable connectors and a fuse box terminal in the cars can degrade over time, and that can break the electrical connection between the trunk-mounted battery and the fuse box at the front. If that happens, the cars could lose electrical power, causing the engines to stall unexpectedly, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in documents posted on its website Saturday. (AP)

Obama calls for reviving US manufacturing

Deals stipulate repayment in oil, gas

China plays by its own rules while going global This story is part of “China’s Reach,” a project tracking China’s influence on its trading partners over three decades and exploring how that is changing business, politics and daily life.

— Editor

❑ ❑ ❑ MEXICO CITY, Feb 16, (AP): When Venezuela seized billions of dollars in assets from Exxon Mobil and other foreign companies, Chinese state banks and investors didn’t blink.

Over the past five years they have loaned Venezuela more than $35 billion.

Elsewhere around the Caribbean, as hotels were struggling to stay afloat in the global economic slowdown, the Chinese response was to bankroll the biggest resort under construction in the Western Hemisphere — a massive hotel, condominium and casino complex in the Bahamas just a few miles from half-empty resorts.

All over the world, from Latin America to the South Pacific, a cashflush China is funding projects that others won’t, seemingly less concerned by the conventional wisdom of credit ratings and institutions such as the World Bank.

The Chinese money is breathing life into government infrastructure projects that otherwise might have died for lack of financing. For commercial projects such as the Caribbean resort, China is filling a gap left by Western investors retrenching after the 2008 financial crisis.

But some in the Bahamas worry what will happen if the sprawling Baha Mar project fails. They picture an economy saturated with hotels, dragged down by an expensive Chinese white elephant. Likewise, the infrastructure loans are loading financially shaky countries with more debt and letting them avoid economic reforms that other lenders would likely have demanded.

“The Chinese play by other rules,” said Kevin Gallagher, a Boston University international relations professor who has studied Chinese lending to Latin America. “We’ll give you financing with no conditions, and we’ll finance things the International Monetary Fund won’t fund, things others won’t fund anymore, like big infrastructure projects.

It allows countries to shop around, which has good and bad sides.”

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez talked up his independence last year while highlighting another $4 billion in Chinese loans, part of a wave of money that has translated into new railways, utilities and other projects.

Deposit “In a few days, they’re going to deposit 4 billion little dollars more from Beijing,” Chavez told reporters, holding up four fingers for emphasis.

“Fortunately, we don’t depend on the dreadful bank. What’s that one called that you mentioned? The World Bank. Poor are those countries that depend on the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund.”

Venezuela’s Oil and Mining Minister Rafael Ramirez says China has loaned his country $36 billion since 2008, and others put the figure even higher. The Spanish-language version of a report co-authored by Gallagher, “The New Banks in Town: Chinese Finance in Latin America,” estimates it at $46.5 billion.

The loans have added to Venezuela’s $95.7 billion in public foreign debt as of mid-2012, which has risen even as the country rakes in record-high oil revenue. Some analysts say the spending helped Chavez win re-election in October, despite battling cancer.

China has emerged in recent years as the largest provider of development loans not only to Venezuela but also to Ecuador and Argentina, according to the Gallagher report. All three are junk bond countries, ratings agencies say. In contrast, the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank remain larger lenders in Brazil and Mexico, both countries with higher bond ratings.

In cases such as the tiny South Pacific islands of Tonga, China is lending enormous sums to countries few expect will be able to repay.

What has surely given the Chinese banks courage is the trillions of dollars in reserves the country holds in US Treasury bonds, investments that pay almost nothing in interest. Making that money work harder for a return overseas has become nothing less than a national priority, part of China’s trumpeted “going out” strategy.

China’s economy is the second largest after the US, and many of the deals stipulate repayment in oil and natural gas, locking in the commodities China will need to sustain its growth for decades to come.

In 2009 and 2010 alone, the China Development Bank extended $65 bil-

lion in such loans to energy companies and government entities from Ecuador to Russia and Turkmenistan, according to a report by Erica Downs, a China expert at the Brookings Institution, a US think tank.

“If you’re lending tens of billions of dollars to a borrower ..., you want to make sure that loan is secured against something,” she said. “In the case of Venezuela, it’s the most valuable thing they can offer. It’s just one way to ensure they get paid.”

In dozens of cases, the Chinese have also demanded that their own companies build the infrastructure that will help governments extract and ship the commodities used to pay back the loans. In Argentina, that means agreements to bring in Chinese companies to revamp the country’s decrepit rail system, which would speed up shipments of soy to Chinese consumers.

“The money goes from one account in the China Development Bank into the hands of small- and medium-sized businesses in China,” Gallagher said, while noting the majority involve big state companies.

The Chinese also hold a valuable trump card: They’re betting that Chavez and other financial pariahs won’t dare alienate their last source of affordable money by defaulting on Chinese loans or seizing Chinese assets.

“The Chinese have the upper hand,” Downs said. “The China Development Bank sees this country that’s thumbed their nose at the IMF. And if they borrowed from the IMF and had to be subjected to IMF conditionality, the regime would fall.”

Binder Perhaps with that in mind, more than 30 Chinese consultants toured Venezuela in 2011 and handed Chavez a thick binder with recommendations on everything from exchange rate reform to agriculture.

While news cameras clicked, Chavez held up the book, thanked his Chinese benefactors and pledged to study the prescriptions. Unlike IMF loans, however, the Chinese recommendations weren’t a requirement, and Chavez has shown no sign of curbing public spending.

The investments and loans have contributed to a substantial shift in commerce toward China. Venezuela, for example, saw its trade with the US drop from 26 percent of its GDP in 2006 to 18 percent in 2011, according to an Associated Press analysis of IMF databases.

Meanwhile, Chinese trade grew from virtually nothing in 2001 to nearly 6 percent a decade later, much of it in the form of oil to repay loans.

But the money doesn’t necessarily save countries from their own bad financial bets.

Zimbabwe, which has received generous Chinese financing, saw inflation peak at 79.6 billion percent a month in November 2008. At one point, a loaf of bread reportedly cost 500 million Zimbabwe dollars.

Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, suggested one possible remedy: Adopt the Chinese yuan as the official currency.

(Zimbabwe eventually overcame the crisis by switching to a mix of Western and African currencies.)

Argentina is fighting off an economic reckoning despite receiving more than $12 billion in Chinese loans, according to the Gallagher report. In 2001, the country defaulted on some $100 billion in loans. It struck a deal with most of its lenders, but over the past year, a group of creditors is insisting on payment in full.

“It’s extremely concerning,” said Margaret Meyers, a China expert at the US think tank the Inter-American Dialogue. “Chinese financing won’t be able to sustain these economies unless they go through substantial macroeconomic reforms.

For Argentina, that means open markets, reforming institutions, reforming the banking system, fiscal accountability, ending lots of misspending.”

Some in the borrowing countries have watched with worry as the Chinese bets play out.

Opposition politicians in Venezuela have slammed the deals for locking in contracts for everything from Chinese-made refrigerators to Chinese construction workers while giving Chavez free rein to spend billions of dollars.

“There’s no doubt we’re going to need China, they are an economic powerhouse,” opposition leader Henrique Capriles said last year. “But many of the agreements the government has signed involve political loyalties that don’t interest us.”

On the beaches of New Providence in the Bahamas, hundreds of Chinese construction workers are toiling around the clock to ready the Baha Mar project for a scheduled grand opening in late 2014.

Lawmaker, CBO spar over taxing corporate profits WASHINGTON, Feb 16, (Agencies): A top Republican lawmaker has challenged the widely respected congressional forecaster on budget issues, the Congressional Budget Office, accusing it of a slanted report on taxing corporate profits, according to documents released on Friday.

A 36-page January CBO report concluded that tens of billions of dollars in new government revenue could be raised over a decade by limiting corporations’ ability to defer taxes on foreign profits, a tax change favored by President Barack Obama.

The change, which would raise companies’ tax bills, would boost efficiency and raise about $114 billion over 10 years, CBO estimated.

The prediction didn’t sit well with Dave Camp, the Republican chairman for the US House of Representatives’ taxwriting Ways and Means Committee, who backs moving to a territorial tax system and is working on legislation to overhaul the entire US tax code.

Under the territorial approach companies could bring foreign profits home with little or no corporate income tax imposed on a permanent basis, not just during a temporary, one-year holiday.

In an unusual move, Camp wrote to non-partisan CBO requesting an explanation of the report’s methods, calling it “heavily slanted and biased in favor of one particular approach,” according to a copy of the letter dated Jan. 24 and released by Camp’s office on Friday.

The Michigan lawmaker released his original letter after the CBO released an official response on Friday.

CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said he believes the report presents “key issues fairly and objectively and that its findings are well grounded in economic theory and are consistent with empirical studies in this area.”

Still, the CBO director said that “because of the complexity of the subject and the diverse views of experts in the

field, we agree that it would have been desirable to seek comments from more outside reviewers.”

One of the experts cited by CBO was a former Obama administration official.

Another academic has written critically of corporations skirting taxes abroad.

CBO said new revenues generated by the White House’s approach would exceed new revenues available under the territorial system, favored by many corporations.

The territorial system, as promoted by corporate lobbyists and Republicans in Congress, would raise $76 billion over a decade, under one estimate cited by the CBO.

Also: WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama called Saturday for quick congressional action designed to grow the US economy, create jobs and making America a magnet for manufacturing.

“After shedding jobs for more than 10

years, our manufacturers have added about 500,000 jobs over the past three,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

“What we need to do now is simple,” he continued. “We need to accelerate that trend. We need to launch manufacturing hubs across the country that will transform hard-hit regions into global centers of high-tech jobs and manufacturing.”

In his State of the Union address last Tuesday, the president called for a $1 billion investment to establish 15 new “manufacturing innovation institutes” around the country in partnership with businesses.

Three of these facilities will be launched this year under executive authority.

He also renewed his push for more spending on infrastructure development in order to boost the economy and generate jobs, proposing to spend $40 billion for “the most urgent upgrades” like 70,000 aging bridges around the country.

G20 finmins pledge to hold back from currency warfare Officials ‘determined’ to halt corporate tax avoidance MOSCOW, Feb 16, (AFP): G20 finance ministers on Saturday moved to calm fears of looming “economic warfare” on the currency markets, pledging they would not target specific forex rates or devalue currencies to make them more competitive.

The jitters — similar to previous disputes with China — have been set off

by Japan’s plan of monetary easing to boost inflation and activity by reducing

the value of the yen under new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “We will refrain from competitive devaluation. We will not target our exchange rates for competitive purposes,” said the communique after the G20 finance meeting in Moscow under Russia’s presidency.

It echoed a similar recent statement by the G7 richest nations which like the G20 statement was also approved by Japan, whose monetary policy has been vehemently criticised by the West in recent weeks.

The G20 statement set a commitment to move “more rapidly toward more marketdetermined exchange rate systems and exchange rate flexibility to reflect underlying fundamentals.”

Striving to give the impression of a united front among the world’s top 20 economies, the G20 ministers vowed to “work more closely with one another so we can grow together.

The statement on currencies differed from the G7 communique by aiming to move towards market-set forex rates, to take account of G20 member states like China which have a more managed economy. The G7, by contrast, had declared a simple commitment to “market-determined exchange rates.”

International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde, who attended the meeting, described the statement as a “heartening” display of international cooperation.

Conflict

US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke attends a meeting of G20 states finance ministers and central bank governors’ deputies in Moscow, on Feb 16. (AFP)

Britain’s business minister urges rethink of lending scheme

‘Sterling may need to weaken further’ LONDON, Feb 16, (RTRS): Sterling may need to weaken further in order to rebalance Britain’s economy, senior Bank of England policymaker Martin Weale said on Saturday, as finance ministers met in Moscow to discuss exchange rates.

Britain’s economy has been stagnant for the past two years and efforts to focus more on exports have had little effect, despite a 25 percent depreciation of the country’s currency between 2007 and 2008, Weale said.

“The ... perhaps most natural means of resolving the problem is for the nominal exchange rate to fall,” he said in the text of a speech to be delivered to an economics conference at the University of Warwick later on Saturday.

The Bank of England has appeared supportive of sterling weakness before, but Weale’s comments come at a sensitive time.

The pound has fallen almost 5 percent since the start of the year. Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 group of major economies are currently meeting in Moscow, where unfair currency competition is high on the agenda.

Japan is facing particular scrutiny due to policies that have led to a 20 percent fall in the yen since November as it seeks to reflate its moribund economy.

Britain shares many of Japan’s problems, including extremely weak growth.

Earlier this week BoE Governor Mervyn King defended stimulus policies that weakened a country’s currency as a side effect.

Weale did not say Britain should actively pursue such a policy. But he did say the BoE should consider disregarding

the inflation impact of future sterling weakness, just as it has recently with the pound’s fall since the start of 2013.

“I certainly see that there would be a strong case for treating the effects of any further depreciation similar to that experienced in the last few weeks in the same way,” he said.

“But I should stress that this point is quite different from saying that I would be unconcerned about the effects of a sharp depreciation on prospects for inflation.”

Weale said sterling’s nearly 5 percent fall since the start of the year was likely to add around 1 percent to British prices over the next three years.

Revised The central bank revised up its inflation forecasts earlier this week, and now does not expect inflation to fall below its 2 percent target until early 2016, 18 months later than it forecast in November.

Meanwhile, Britain’s business minister called on the Bank of England on Saturday to consider new ways to unblock the flow of credit to small companies in order to help the country’s sluggish economy.

Vince Cable said he had written to the number two at the central bank, Paul Tucker, seeking a discussion of possible changes to the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) which was launched last year.

The FLS is central to efforts by the British government and the Bank of England to snap the UK economy out of two years of stagnant growth after the financial crisis enfeebled many banks.

So far, the scheme has boosted mortgage

lending but has not been a big help for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

“One of the questions for the immediate future is how Funding for Lending perhaps could be adapted to deal with the needs of SMEs,” Cable said.

“It’s quite a tricky technical issue and I have written to the deputy governor of the Bank of England to seek a meeting to see how we can address that, if we can.”

The scheme allows banks and building societies to access more than £80 billion ($124.19 billion) in cheap finance if they maintain or increase net lending to households and businesses.

Cable, speaking to reporters after delivering a speech at an economics conference organized by the University of Warwick in the English Midlands, said any changes would have to be compatible with European Union rules that prohibit unfair state aid.

Cable said ideas proposed by former top BoE policymaker Adam Posen should be looked at, including the possibility of the central bank buying bundles of corporate loans which could help revive lending to companies, and not just government bonds.

“The governor has taken the view that anything other than rock-solid gilts are not appropriate to have as part of the balance sheet of the Bank of England,” said Cable, who is a senior member of the Liberal Democrats, which forms Britain’s ruling alliance with the Conservatives.

“I understand where he is coming from but that’s quite a rigorous — some critics might say rigid — view. More openminded thinking about that would be helpful.”

“We think that talk of currency wars is overblown... The good news is that the G20 responded with cooperation rather than conflict today,” she said.

British Finance Minister George Osborne had earlier warned against “economic warfare” if states were to seek to outdo each other with competitive devaluations of currencies.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in a concluding news conference that “only the market determines the level of this or that currency”, while insisting that the G20 had a “uniform” opinion on the matter.

The G20 group of the world’s top economies expressed determination Saturday to crack down on companies who duck their full taxation responsibilities with elaborate schemes.

The call came after the finance ministers of Britain, France and Germany said it was time for coordinated action to halt the practice of shifting profits from a firm’s home country to pay less tax under another jurisdiction.

Cash-strapped governments are seeking to use every means to inject new funds into their budgets and have run out of patience with big firms shifting profits to be registered in tax havens like the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda.

“We are determined to develop measures to address base erosion and profit shifting” the G20 said in a communique after a two-day meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in Moscow.

They vowed to “take the necessary collective action” and awaited an action plan which is set to be put forward later this year by the Organisation for Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD).

Online retailer Amazon, Internet giant Google as well as coffee shop chain Starbucks have been under the spotlight for their tax strategies in Britain and other EU countries in recent months.

Starbucks came under particular pressure in Britain following the revelation last year that it has paid just £8.6 million ($13.8 million) in British corporation tax since 1998, despite generating £3 billion in revenues. It has now pledged to voluntarily pay back millions in extra tax.

“We are talking about something that is fundamentally legal. We need to modify the law,” admitted the OECD secretary general Angel Gurria. “Avoiding double taxation has become a way of having double non-taxation.”

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

BUSINESS

39

Firms eye gains from US-EU trade talks Pact could save producers $1.5 bln annually, says chemical industry leader WASHINGTON, Feb 16, (RTRS): US chemical companies, already riding a wave of lower production costs because of the United States’ natural gas boom, see additional gains from proposed US trade deals with the European Union and Asia-Pacific countries.

Cal Dooley, president of the American Chemical Council, said a free trade pact that eliminates EU tariffs on US chemical exports would

save US producers $1.5 billion per year.

“The potential savings from regulatory cooperation would be significantly greater than that,” although the industry group does have an estimate yet, Dooley told Reuters on Thursday.

US and EU leaders this week announced plans to negotiate an agreement that would cut remaining tariffs across the Atlantic and address regulatory barriers that hamper trade.

American chemical companies have complained for years about an EU regulation, known as REACH, which imposes extensive registration, testing and data requirements on tens of thou-

sands of chemicals.

The US chemical industry does not expect those rules to be overturned as a result of the U.S.-EU talks, but sees opportunities for reform that could significantly reduce the cost of compliance, Dooley said.

However, to get those and other concessions from the EU, the White House needs to push Congress to renew legislation known as “trade promotion authority,” Dooley said.

That law, which expired in 2007, allows the White House to submit trade pacts to Congress for a straight up-ordown vote without any amendments.

It long has been considered essential

to persuading countries to put their best offers on the table in trade talks with the United States.

Dooley said he hoped the White House would announce plans in coming weeks to pursue the legislation.

The US-EU trade talks are expected to begin by June and could take at least 18 to 24 months to complete.

Western Europe is already the largest regional export market for US chemical companies, taking in $52.8 billion worth of products in 2012. The Asia-Pacific region was a close second at $51.8 billion, while Canada and Mexico imported a combined $49.6 billion of US chemical products.

The United States, Canada, Mexico, Vietnam, Australia and six other countries in the Asia-Pacific region hope to finish talks on a proposed “TransPacific Partnership” (TPP) pact by the end of the year.

That agreement could boost US chemical exports by $1.2 billion annually, Dooley said.

Both the EU pact and the TPP would help US chemical producers capitalize on a dramatic fall in production costs over the past five years because of lower prices for natural gas.

“Natural gas is to the US chemical industry as flour is to a bakery” because about 85 percent of chemicals

manufactured in the United States use natural gas as a feedstock, Dooley said.

Globally, chemical producers are indifferent to using natural gas or naptha, a hydrocarbon derived from oil, as a feedstock when prices for natural gas and oil are at a ratio of around one to four, Dooley said.

The price ratio in the United States currently is closer to 1 to 20 or 1 to 25 in favor of natural gas, which has made the US chemical industry probably the lowest cost producer in the world, with the possible exception of the chemical industry in the Middle East, he said.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

BUSINESS

40

Japan PM guru defends monetary ‘independence’ An economic adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday defended a policy of monetary “independence” as Tokyo fends off charges that it is manipulating the yen.

The yen’s value has fallen sharply since Abe was elected in December, a depreciation that has come under scrutiny as finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 major economies meet in Moscow.

Koichi Hamada, a Yale University profes-

China holiday retail sales jump 15%

try is assigned to its own country and not for others,” he said, warning against the socalled “beggar thy neighbor” effect in which one nation’s economic policy hurts other countries.

Under pressure from Abe, the Bank of Japan has aggressively expanded buying of assets, a policy of “monetary easing” that has led to a fall in the yen’s value. A weaker yen benefits Japanese exporters by making their products less expensive overseas. (AFP)

sor who helped craft the premier’s “Abenomics” philosophy, stood by his advocacy of “international monetary independence” in which top priorities include job growth — not exchange rates.

“Monetary policy should be assigned to its own price level, not the exchange rate, but the price level and unemployment, and then the world will be led to a kind of better state,” Hamada said at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “Monetary policy of one coun-

China on Saturday said retail sales jumped nearly 15 percent on-year during the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, as consumers splurged on jewellery, clothes and food.

Lunar New Year marks the biggest festival of the year in China as hundreds of millions of people journey across the country to celebrate the season with their families and consumer spending typically soars during the period.

China’s commerce ministry said sales during the holiday period — which ran from February 915 — rose 14.7 percent compared with last year

to 539 billion yuan ($86.5 billion).

The pace of growth, however, did not match up to last year when sales increased 16.2 percent compared to 2011.

This year’s sales of jewellery, food and beverages rose 38.1 percent, 9.8 percent and 11.2 percent respectively, while sales of clothes increased 6.3 percent, the commerce ministry said.

“Across the country, products were abundant, supplies were sufficient and sales lively,” the ministry said. (AFP)

Consumer purchasing power will likely erode by 7.2 pct this year: economist

Devaluation of bolivar expensive for some US firms NEW YORK, Feb 16, (AFP): The recent devaluation of the Venezuelan bolivar was a blow to some major US companies, highlighting the importance of financial ties between the two nations despite their political disagreements.

Venezuela devalued the bolivar by 32 percent against the US dollar earlier this month, feeding public fears that prices would rise further amid already soaring inflation.

The change in the official exchange rate from 4.3 bolivars to the dollar to 6.3, was published in the Official Gazette.

Economist Jose Luis Saboin of the consultancy Econalitica said consumers’ purchasing power will likely erode by 7.2 percent this year.

Devaluation will make imports more expensive in Venezuela, where inflation stands at 20.1 percent —

the highest in Latin America, based on official data.

President Hugo Chavez’s government put in place an exchange rate control mechanism in 2003 seeking to throw the brakes on capital flight. In January 2011 it set the rate at 4.3.

But the hunger for dollars and euros fuels a black market with a much higher exchange rate which by law cannot be published.

The United States is the main purchaser of Venezuelan oil and thus its largest trading partner.

Despite political disagreements between the two countries’ governments, trade relations between the United States and Venezuela have blossomed in recent years, thanks to rising oil prices over the past 10 years.

Some 500 US companies operate

in the country, according to the US State Department.

Win Thin, a senior economist at Brown Brothers Harriman, said Venezuela does not produce much of anything except oil — and imports most other products. That is why, he explained, US multinationals are broadly represented in many sectors of the economy: pharmaceuticals, energy, cosmetics, etc.

But they are not in a position to keep pace with inflation as prices of certain categories of products are strictly controlled.

Because of that, economists say, the devaluation of the bolivar has negatively affected their earnings.

This was evident in financial reports published by some of these companies in recent days.

US hygiene and cosmetics products manufacturer Procter & Gamble

(P&G) lowered its earnings forecast Thursday, taking into account of the devaluation of the bolivar.

P&G will have to absorb in fiscal 2012-13 an exceptional after-tax loss of $200 million ro $275 million, and its competitor, Colgate-Palmolive, announced an anticipated an exceptional after-tax loss of $120 million in the first quarter.

Pharmaceutical company Merck, for its part, warned Wednesday that its stock will be adversely affected by the devaluation of the bolivar in the first quarter.

The anticipated loss — five cents a share.

Automakers Ford and GM have also been affected, along with cosmetics giant Avon, among others.

Analysts point out that multinationals have been affected by other devaluations in history, citing those

of the Russian ruble, Brazilian real and Asian currencies in the 1990s or the Argentine peso in the early 2000s.

David Gilmore, an analyst at FX Analytics, said the “devaluation hits the firms,” and there was “not much chance to see the bolivar reevaluate.”

“You’d really need a regime change,” he argued.

Meanwhile, Caracas is going through a political crisis sparked by President Chavez’s health.

The president underwent cancer surgery in Cuba in early December and has not been seen in public since, giving rise to speculations about his ability to govern effectively.

Supporters of Chavez displayed new confidence Saturday after pictures were released showing he 58year-old leader smiling in a Havana

hospital.

Chavez was first diagnosed with cancer in 2011. After surgery and treatment he declared himself free of the disease and went on to win another term in elections last October.

But he suffered a relapse, and after the latest surgery he was still too sick to come back to Venezuela for his scheduled inauguration on January 10. It has been postponed indefinitely, and Vice President Nicolas Maduro has essentially been running Venezuela.

Thin noted that inflation remained high in Venezuela, averaging 2025%, which bodes ill for the fate of the bolivar.

“They are going to have to devalue again at some point,” he predicted.

investment funds Funds Fund Manager Valution Valued date Currency Net Asset Prev NAV Prev NAV Dated Value (NAV) ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

National Bank of Kuwait

Private Equity Funds

Money Market Funds

Watani KD Money Market Fund NBK Global Asset Management Co. Ltd. Weekly Feb 5, 2013 KD 1.377 1.377 Jan 29, 2013 Watani KD Money Market Fund (Islamic) NBK Global Asset Management Co. Ltd. Weekly Feb 5, 2013 KD 1.161 1.161 Jan 29, 2013 Watani Foreign Currency Money Market Fund NBK Global Asset Management Co. Ltd. Weekly Feb 5, 2013 USD 1.284 1.284 Jan 29, 2013 Watani Foreign Currency Money Market Fund (Euro) NBK Global Asset Management Co. Ltd. Weekly Feb 5, 2013 Euro 1.236 1.237 Jan 29, 2013 Watani USD Money Market Fund (Acc NBK Global Asset Management Co. Ltd. Weekly Feb 5, 2013 USD 1.091 1.090 Jan 29, 2013 to Islamic Shariah principles) Equity Funds NBK Gulf Equity Fund NBK Weekly Jan 31, 2013 USD 1.049 1.038 Jan 23, 2013 NBK Kuwait Equity Fund NBK Weekly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.656 0.653 Jan 23, 2013 NBK Qatar Equity Fund NBK Weekly Jan 31, 2013 USD 1.357 1.342 Jan 23, 2013 Islamic Ijara Fund IX Wafra Capital Partners L.P Cayman Islands Monthly Dec 31 2012 USD 10.000 10.000 Nov 30, 2012 Islamic Ijara Fund X Wafra Capital Partners L.P Cayman Islands Monthly Dec 31 2012 USD 10.000 10.000 Nov 30, 2012 Islamic Ijara Fund XI Wafra Capital Partners LP Cayman Islands Monthly Dec 31 2012 USD 10.000 10.000 Nov 30, 2012 Thahabi Ijara Fund V Wafra Capital Partners L.P Cayman Islands Monthly Dec 31 2012 USD 10.000 10.000 Nov 30, 2012 Thahabi Ijara Fund VI Wafra Capital Partners L.P Cayman Islands Monthly Dec 31 2012 USD 10.000 10.000 Nov 30, 2012 Thahabi Ijara Fund VII Wafra Capital Partners L.P Cayman Islands Monthly Nov 30, 2012 USD 10.000 10.000 Oct 31, 2012 Islamic KD Ijara Fund I Wafra Capital Partners L.P Cayman Islands Monthly Dec 31 2012 KD 10.000 10.000 Nov 30, 2012 Islamic KD Ijara Fund II Wafra Capital Partners L.P Cayman Islands Monthly Dec 31, 2012 KD 10.000 10.000 Nov 30, 2012 Islamic KD Ijara Fund III Wafra Capital Partners L.P Cayman Islands Monthly Dec 31, 2012 KD 10.000 10.000 Nov 30, 2012 Islamic KD Ijara Fund IV Wafra Capital Partners L.P Cayman Islands Monthly Dec 31 2012 KD 10.000 10.000 Nov 30, 2012 Islamic KD Ijara Fund V Wafra Capital Partners L.P Cayman Islands Monthly Dec 31 2012 KD 10.000 10.000 Nov 30, 2012 Alternative Funds Watani US Real Estate Income & Growth Fund NBK Global Asset Management Co. Ltd. Monthly Sept 30, 2012 USD 1,000.000 1,000.000 June 30, 2012 Watani European Real Estate Fund NBK Global Asset Management Co. Ltd. Quarterly Sept 30, 2012 Euro 1,000.000 1,000.000 June 30, 2012 Central European Real Estate Fund NBK Global Asset Management Co. Ltd. Quarterly Sept 30, 2012 Euro 10,000.000 10,000.000 June 30, 2012 Islamic European Real Estate Fund – A Wafra Capital Partners L.P Cayman Islands Quarterly Sept 30, 2012 USD 1,000.000 1,000.000 June 30, 2012 Islamic European Real Estate Fund – B Wafra Capital Partners L.P Cayman Islands Quarterly Sept 30, 2012 USD 1,000.000 1,000.000 June 30, 2012 Islamic Asian Real Estate Fund Wafra Investment Advisory Group Inc Quarterly Sept 30, 2012 USD 1,000.000 1,000.000 June 30, 2012 Islamic China India Real Estate Fund Wafra Capital Partners L.P Cayman Islands Quarterly Sept 30, 2012 USD 1,000.000 1,000.000 June 30, 2012 R.Estate Security Funds Islamic Global RE Securities Fund Class A Wafra Capital Partners L.P. Monthly Dec 31, 2012 USD 1,062.376 1,048.180 Nov 30, 2012 Islamic Global RE Securities Fund Class B Wafra Capital Partners L.P. Monthly Dec 31, 2012 USD 1.017.974 1.013.814 Nov 30, 2012 Islamic Turkey Real Estate Fund Wafra Capital Partners L.P. March 19, 2008 USD 1,000.000 Multi Asset Funds Thahabi Multi Asset Fund – Con Portfolio Frontier Capital Management (Jersey) Ltd Monthly Dec 31, 2012 USD 93.044 92.730 Nov 30, 2012 Thahabi Multi Asset Fund – Mo Portfolio Frontier Capital Management (Jersey) Ltd Monthly Dec 31, 2012 USD 82.671 82.140 Nov 30, 2012 NBK Frontier Multi Asset Fund – Con Portfolio Frontier Capital Management (Jersey) Ltd Monthly Nov 30, 2012 USD 92.730 92.410 Oct 31, 2012 NBK Frontier Multi Asset Fund – Mo Portfolio Frontier Capital Management (Jersey) Ltd Monthly Nov 30, 2012 USD 82.140 81.586 Oct 31, 2012 NBK Frontier Multi Asset Fund – Plus Portfolio Frontier Capital Management (Jersey) Ltd Monthly Nov 30, 2012 USD 66.330 65.623 Oct 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Gulf Bank Al Basha’er GCC Equity Fund Kwt. Fin. & Inv. Co. & Gulf Fin. House Monthly Jan 31, 2013 USD 7.270 6.9878 Dec 31, 2012 Coast Fund Coast Investment Co. Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.644 0.643 Dec 31, 2012 Sanaya Dow Jones Kuwait Index Fund Industrial & Financial Investment Co. Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.629 0.614 Dec 31, 2012 Markaz Capital Preservation Programs 1 Monthly Nov 30, 2012 KD 0.959 0.959 Oct 31, 2012 Markaz Capital Preservation Programs 2 Monthly Nov 30, 2012 KD 0.960 0.995 Oct 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Commercial Bank Tijari Islamic Fund Commercial Bank of Kuwait Tw. Monthly Feb 7, 2013 KD 0.325 0.325 Jan 23, 2013 Tijari Indian Fund Commercial Bank of Kuwait Weekly Feb 11, 2013 KD 0.840 0.841 Feb 5, 2013 ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Al Ahli Kuwaiti Fund Al Ahli Bank Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.943 0.928 Dec 26, 2012 Al Ahli Gulf Fund Al Ahli Bank Monthly Jan 28, 2013 KD 0.824 0.794 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Boubyan Bank Boubyan KD Money Market Fund Boubyan Bank Weekly Feb 12, 2013 KD 1.022 1.021 Feb 5, 2013 Boubyan Sukuk Fund Boubyan Bank Daily Dec 25, 2013 USD 770.110 1,001.180 May 11, 2011 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Burgan Bank Burgan Financial Fund Burgan Bank Daily Jan 2, 2013 KD 1.009 1.009 Dec 31, 2012 Burgan Equity Fund Burgan Bank Monthly Jan 27, 2012 KD 1.845 1.828 Dec 23, 2012 ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Local Fund

Al Raed Fund Kuwait Investment Co Monthly Feb 7, 2013 KD 0.991 0.998 Jan 31, 2013 Kuwait Investment Fund Kuwait Investment Co Weekly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.651 0.624 Dec 31, 2012 Al Hilal Fund Kuwait Investment Co Monthly Feb 4, 2013 KD 0.583 0.583 Jan 31, 2013 KIC Bond Fund Kuwait Investment Co Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.930 0.929 Dec 31, 2012 Al Atheer Fund Kuwait Investment Co Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 1.072 1.044 Dec 31, 2012 International Global Bond Fund Kuwait Investment Co Weekly Feb 6, 2013 USD 22.730 22.400 Jan 30, 2013 Diversified Fund Kuwait Investment Co Weekly Feb 6, 2013 USD 17.500 17.440 Jan 30, 2013 European Fund Kuwait Investment Co Monthly Jan 31, 2013 Euro 15.800 15.500 Dec 31, 2012 Pacific Equity Fund Kuwait Investment Co Monthly Feb 6, 2013 USD 32.520 32.550 Jan 30, 2013 Al-Awaed Fund Kuwait Investment Co Monthly Jan 31, 2012 KD 0.917 0.914 Dec 31, 2012 North American Equity Fund Kuwait Investment Co Tw. Monthly Jan 31, 2013 USD 13.870 13.210 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

lnternational Financial Advisors Local Fund

IFA Islamic Fund International Financial Advisors Monthly Oct 21 2012 KD 0.200 0.195 Sept 30, 2012 IFA Investment Fund International Financial Advisors Monthly Oct 22, 2012 KD 0.284 0.275 Sept 18, 2012 International IFA International Guaranteed Fund International Financial Advisors Monthly Dec 31, 2010 KD 9.040 0.703 Nov 30, 2010 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

National Investment Co. (NIC) Equity Funds

Al- Wataniya Fund NIC Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.617 0.599 Dec 31, 2012 Al-Safwa Fund NIC Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.461 0.457 Dec 31, 2012 Al-Darji Fund NIC Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.461 0.453 Dec 31, 2012 Mawarid Fund NIC Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.555 0.537 Dec 31, 2012 Zajil Fund NIC Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.745 0.733 Dec 31, 2012 Al Mada Investment Fund NIC Monthly Jan 31, 2013 USD 0.650 0.615 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Al Mal Investment Al Huda Islamic Fund Al Mal Investment Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.399 0.395 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Coast Investment Co. Coast Investment Fund Coast Investment Co Daily Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.664 0.643 Dec 31, 2012 Coast Pearl Fund Coast Investment Co Dec 31, 2012 KD 0.790 0.789 Nov 30, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz) Mumtaz Fund Kuwait Financial Center Weekly Feb 07, 2013 KD 4.164 4.250 Jan 31, 2013 MIDAF Kuwait Financial Center Weekly Feb 07, 2013 KD 3.080 3.116 Jan 31, 2013 Islamic Fund Kuwait Financial Center Weekly Feb 07, 2013 KD 1.633 1.657 Jan 31, 2013 Markaz Arabian Fund Kuwait Financial Center Weekly Feb 07, 2013 USD 2.829 2.860 Jan 31, 2013 FORSA Financial Fund Kuwait Financial Center Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 3.996 0.963 Dec 31, 2012 Energy Fund Kuwait Financial Center Quarterly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.772 0.772 Dec 31, 2012 Real Estate Fund Kuwait Financial Center Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 1.374 1.375 Dec 31, 2012 Markaz Fixed Income Fund Kuwait Financial Center Weekly Jan 31, 2013 USD 10.740 10.750 Jan 24, 2013 Markaz Idikhar Fund Kuwait Financial Center Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.447 0.446 Dec 31, 2012 Markaz Islamic Income Fund Kuwait Financial Center Weekly Oct 31, 2012 KD 0.219 0.218 Sept 30, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Kuwait & Middle East Financial & Inv. Co. Al Rou’yah Fund KMEFIC Monthly Jan 21, 2013 KD 1.423 1.367 Dec 31, 2012 Gulf Gate Fund KMEFIC Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.857 0.824 Dec 31, 2012 Al Awsat Money Market Fund (USD) KMEFIC Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.688 0.688 Dec 31, 2012 Al Awsat Money Market Fund (USD) KMEFIC Monthly Jan 31, 2013 USD 4.787 4.784 Dec 31, 2012 Amwal Islamic Money Market Fund KMEFIC Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.549 0.549 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Global Investment House

Money Market Funds Islamic Real E. Funds

Kuwait Finance & Investment Co (KFIC) Al Wasm Fund KFIC Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.396 0.384 Nov 30, 2012 Al Basha’er GCC Equity Fund KFIC & Gulf Finance House Quarterly Jan 31, 2013 USD 7.270 6.988 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

KAMCO KAMCO Investment Fund KAMCO Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.977 0.940 Dec 31, 2012 Kuwait Private Equity Opportunities Fund KAMCO Quarterly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.678 0.678 Dec 31, 2012 Kuwait Education Fund KAMCO Quarterly Jan 31, 2013 KD 1.428 1.428 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Al Madar Finance Shuwaikh Real Estate Fund Al Madar Bi-weekly Dec 31, 2012 KD 1.438 1.486 Sept 30, 2012 US Index Fund Al Madar Monthly Jan 25, 2013 KD 1.825 1.653 Nov 23, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Al Madina Finance & Investment Co. India Fund Al Madina Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.873 0.845 Dec 31, 2012 Al Madina Fund Al Madina Quarterly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.473 0.473 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Wafra International Investment Co. Wafra Equity Fund Wafra Co. Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.855 0.819 Dec 31, 2012 Wafra Bond Fund Wafra Co. Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 1.001 0.998 Dec 31, 2012 Fajir Islamic Fund Wafra Co. Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.619 0.589 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Shuaa Capital Co. Saudi Gateway Fund Shuaa Capital Weekly Jan 28, 2013 USD 8.470 8.470 Dec 20, 2012 The Arab Gateway Fund Shuaa Capital Monthly Feb 05, 2013 USD 24.180 24.160 Jan 29, 2013 Emirates Gateway Fund Shuaa Capital Monthly Feb 05, 2013 AED 7.340 7.270 Jan 29, 2013 Qatar Gate Fund (Q) Shuaa Capital Monthly Jan 31, 2013 QAR 94.840 89.110 Dec 31, 2012 Qatar Gate Fund (N) Shuaa Capital Monthly Jan 31, 2013 QAR 93.200 87.830 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Investment Dar Co. Al Dar Real Estate Fund Tharwa Investment Co Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 1.134 1.133 Dec 31, 2012 Al Dar Funds of Fund Al Dar Asset Management Weekly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.470 0.470 Dec 31, 2012 Al Dar Money Market Fund Al Dar Asset Management Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.872 0.868 Jan 21, 2013 Al Dar Securities Fund Al Dar Asset Management Weekly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.550 0.524 Dec 31, 2012 Al Nokhba Fund Al Dar Asset Management Monthly Dec 31, 2012 KD 0.406 0.408 Nov 30, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Global Umbrella Fund - US Global Umbrella Fund - Asia/Japan Global Distressed Fund Zenith Fund Mayur Hedge Fund Global KD Bond Fund GCC Large Cap Index Fund Al-Mamoun Fund A Al-Mamoun Fund B GCC Large Cap Fund Al-Noor Fund Global Saudi Equity Fund Global KD Money Market Fund Global USD Money Market Fund Global US Real Estate Fund GCC Real Estate Fund Global Asia Real Estate Fund Global Real Estate Ijarah Fund

Al Aman Islamic Fund Al Aman Investment Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.471 0.452 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Housing Finance Co (ISKAN) Masaref Investment Fund ISKAN Weekly Feb 7, 2013 KD 0.911 0.906 Jan 31, 2013 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Gulf Investment Corp.

Gulf Bond Fund Gulf Investment Corp Weekly Jan 31, 2013 USD 13.910 13.950 Jan 25, 2013 Gulf Premier Fund Gulf Investment Corp Weekly Jan 31, 2013 USD 21.630 21.460 Jan 27, 2013 Gulf Islamic Fund Gulf Investment Corp Weekly Jan 31, 2013 USD 6.700 6.650 Jan 24, 2013 GIC KD Bond Fund Gulf Investment Corp Monthly Jan 31, 2013 USD 0.980 0.980 Jan 24, 2013 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Ahli United Bank (formerly BKME)

Kuwait Investment Co.

Fixed Income Funds Index Funds Equity Funds

Global Opportunistic Fund Global Quarterly Sept 30, 2009 USD 106.060 107.180 Global Opportunistic Fund II Global Quarterly Sept 22, 2009 USD 110.920 110.390 June 30, 2009 Private Equity Fund Global Quarterly Sept 30, 2009 KD 0.829 0.859 June 30, 2009 Global Buyout Fund Global Monthly Sept 30, 2009 USD 564.740 603.390 June 30, 2009 Country Fund Palestine Dedicated Fund Global Monthly Dec 31, 2012 USD 86.740 91.810 Sept 30, 2011 Global Egypt Fund Global Monthly Jan 31, 2012 USD 38.740 38.110 Dec 31, 2011 Sectoral Funds EPADI Fund Global Weekly Jan 29, 2013 USD 108.550 107.870 Jan 22, 2013 Islamic Funds Global GCC Islamic Fund Global Weekly Jan 29, 2013 USD 89.250 88.450 Jan 22, 2013 Al-Durra Islamic Fund Global Monthly Feb 07, 2013 KD 1.168 1.190 Jan 31, 2013 Global Islamic Fund of Funds Global Weekly Dec 31, 2012 USD 67.276 76.860 Aug 31, 2011 Global Islamic Fund Global Monthly June 28, 2012 KD 1.271 1.286 March 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Al Aman Investment

Al Ahli Bank

Hedge Funds

Funds Fund Manager Valution Valued date Currency Net Asset Prev NAV Prev NAV Dated Value (NAV) ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global

Monthly Monthly Monthly Monthly Weekly Monthly Weekly Weekly Weekly Bi-weekly Bi-weekly Bi-weekly Weekly Monthly Quarterly Quarterly Quarterly

Nov 30, 2012 Nov 30, 2012 Nov 30, 2012 Nov 30, 2012 Dec 31, 2012 Jan 31, 2013 Feb 07, 2013 Feb 07, 2013 Feb 07, 2013 Jan 29, 2013 Feb 10, 2013 Feb 10, 2013 Feb 10, 2013 Feb 05, 2013 June 30, 2012 June 30, 2009 June 30, 2009 Dec 31, 2008

USD USD USD USD USD KD KD KD KD USD SAR SAR KD USD USD USD USD USD

148.640 114.260 168.060 94.840 94.020 0.824 1.319 0.534 0.534 120.160 168.016 166.442 1.114 134.320 0.265 0.675 0.850 850.790

152.630 117.130 167.850 94.910 92.180 0.819 1.331 0.539 0.539 118.210 168.573 166.016 1.114 134.440 0.378 0.710 0.857

Sept 30, 2012 Sept 30, 2012 Sept 30, 2012 Oct 30, 2012 Nov 30, 2012 Dec 31, 2012 Jan 31, 2013 Jan 31, 2013 Jan 31, 2013 Jan 22, 2013 Feb 05, 2013 Feb 05, 2013 Feb 05, 2013 Jan 29, 2013 March 31, 2009 March 31, 2009 March 31, 2009

Al Awasat Money Market Fund Ahli United Bank Monthly April 30, 2012 KD 1.132 1.104 Sept 30, 2010 Al Amin Islamic Market Fund Ahli United Bank Jan 31, 2013 KD 1.142 1.142 Dec 30, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Bayan Investment Co Ea’mmar and Estethmar Fund Bayan Investment Co Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.442 0.411 Dec 31, 2012 Al Themar Securities Fund Bayan Investment Co Weekly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.452 0.445 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Tharwa Investment Co. Tharwa Investment Fund Tharwa Investment Co Weekly Jan 31, 2013 KD 1.212 1.193 Jan 10, 2013 Tharwa Islamic Fund Tharwa Investment Co Monthly Jan 31 2013 KD 0.683 0.682 Jan 10, 2013 Tharwa Arab Investment Fund Tharwa Investment Co Monthly Jan 31, 2013 USD 1.422 1.251 Jan 10, 2013 Tharwa World Fund Tharwa Investment Co Weekly Jan 31, 2013 USD 1.073 1.042 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Bank Al-Bilad Al Seef Fund Bank Al-Bilad Daily Feb 3, 2013 KD 0.524 0.528 Jan 27, 2013 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Commercial International Bank Commercial Int’t Bank Fund I CI Asset Management Weekly Feb 12, 2013 EGP 196.760 196.730 Feb 11, 2013 Commercial Int’t Bank Fund II (Istethmar) CI Asset Management Weekly Feb 07, 2013 EGP 62.940 61.600 Jan 31, 2013 CIB and Faisal Islamic Bank of Egypt Fund CI Asset Management Weekly Feb 07, 2013 EGP 43.270 42.450 Jan 31, 2013 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Noor Financial Inv. Co. Noor Islamic Fund Noor Financial Investment Co Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 1.678 0.676 Dec 31, 2012 Noor Real Estate Income Fund Noor Financial Investment Co Monthly July 31, 2013 KD 1.124 1.126 June 30, 2012 Noor Kuwait Islamic Equity Fund Noor Financial Investment Co Monthly June 30, 2013 KD 0.633 0.636 May 31, 2011 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Kuwait Real Estate Investment Consortium Kuwait Real Estate Fund Kuwait Real Estate Investment Consortium Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 1.692 1.685 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Manafae Investment Co. Manafae First Fund Manafae Investment Co Monthly Dec 31, 2012 KD 0.665 0.665 Dec 26, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Al Zumorroda Investment Co. Zumorroda GCC Fund Al Zumorroda Investment Co Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.558 0.528 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Al Safat Investment Co. Al Safat Local Shares Equity Fund Al Safat Investment Co. Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.201 0.204 Nov 30, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Al-Imtiaz Investment Co. Al-Imtiaz Investment Fund Al-Imtiaz Investment Company Quarterly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.847 0.847 Dec 31, 2012 Al-Imtiaz Real Estate Fund Al-Imtiaz Investment Company Quarterly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.889 0.889 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

BankMuscat BankMuscat MSCI Kuwait Fund BankMuscat Daily Feb 6, 2013 USD 0.429 0.431 Feb 5, 2013 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Al-Muthana Investment Co. Muthanna Islamic Index Fund (MUDX) Al-Muthana Investment Company Daily Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.384 0.376 Dec 31, 2012 Muthanna GCC Islamic Banks Fund Al-Muthana Investment Company Weekly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.636 0.615 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

CapCorp Investment Co. CapCorp Local Fund CapCorp Investment Company Weekly Feb 7, 2013 KD 0.924 0.936 Jan 31, 2013 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Amar Finance & Leasing Co. Amar Real Estate Fund Amar Finance & Leasing Company Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.901 0.901 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Al-Dhow Investment Co.

Waed Real Estate Fund Al-Dhow Real Estate Company Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.906 0.922 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Al-Fouz Investment Co.

Al-Fouz Real Estate Fund Al-Fouz Investment Company Annual Sept 30, 2012 KD 0.997 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Securities House Co.

Diyar Real Estate Investment Fund Securities House Company Monthly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.949 0.991 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

A’ayan Leasing & Investment Company

Awa’ed Real Estate Fund A’ayan Leasing & Investment Co. Quarterly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.680 0.680 Dec 31, 2012 Makaseb Estate Fund A’ayan Leasing & Investment Co. Quarterly Jan 31, 2013 KD 0.716 0.724 Dec 31, 2012 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Industrial & Financial Investment Company Direct investment Fund

Industrial and Financial Investment Co. (IFIC)

Jan 31, 2013

KD

1.193

1.179

Dec 31, 2012

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

BUSINESS

41

Boeing stands by lithium-ion batteries US aerospace giant Boeing said Friday it will continue to use lithiumion batteries, despite rival Airbus saying it would avoid them following two incidents on the Boeing 787.

“Boeing is confident in the safety and reliability of lithium-ion batteries,” said Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel. “Our years of experience and deep expertise confirm that, like other technologies, when the appropriate battery, system and air-

787 at Boston’s Logan airport on Jan 7, apparently leading to the fire.

Boeing competitor Airbus plans to avoid using lithium-ion batteries in the A350 long-range liner under development, a company source told AFP on Friday.

“The first planes will be delivered with cadmium, not lithium batteries,” the source said, adding that the airliner’s first test flights will nevertheless take place with lithium-ion batteries. (AFP)

plane protections are in place, lithium-ion batteries deliver significant benefits,” Birtel said.

Boeing’s 787 Dreamliners were grounded indefinitely worldwide in January worldwide after battery smoke forced an emergency landing of one plane and a battery fire was reported on a parked plane.

US air safety investigators have yet to determine what caused a short circuit in a single cell on the eight-cell lithium-ion battery in a Japan Airlines

Berkshire and 3G were acquiring Heinz in a $28 billion deal.

The SEC said it believed the traders had knowledge of the takeover ahead of the announcement early Thursday morning in New York.

The trades were “a serious red flag that traders may be improperly acting on confidential nonpublic information,” said SEC enforcement official Daniel Hawke in a statement.

US regulators Friday obtained an emergency court order to freeze a Swiss bank account they suspect was used for insider trading ahead the Berkshire Hathaway-3G Capital buyout of HJ Heinz.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said unknown traders earned $1.7 million in profits through “irregular and highly suspicious” options trades on Heinz shares booked on Wednesday, one day before the announcement that

The acquisition announcement sent Heinz shares up nearly 20 percent from $60.8 per share to $72.50, the takeover offer price.

The value of the specific call options traded from the Swiss account jumped 1,700 percent in the same time frame, the SEC said.

Among the red flags cited by the SEC: the Swiss account had engaged in no trading of Heinz securities since Sept 1, 2012. (AFP)

US markets edge up, butt against stubborn ceiling for another week

Commodities Weekly Gold prices hit six-month low

Brent crude retreats from 9-month highs LONDON, Feb 16, (AFP): Oil and metals prices retreated this week amid quiet trading owing to Asia’s Lunar New Year holiday celebrations, while dealers also paused for breath ahead of a key G20 meeting.

A billion-plus Asians have enjoyed a week of festivities to mark the Year of the Snake, dampening demand for raw materials in China, the world’s second biggest economy after the United States.

Meanwhile finance ministers from G20 states gathered Friday in Moscow for a meeting aimed at reassuring markets that the world’s economic powers would not slug it out in “currency wars” to boost national growth.

The troubles of the debt-ridden eurozone weren’t centre stage for the first time in several international meetings, with the main concern Japan’s controversial plan for “monetary easing” that weakens the yen.

Oil: Brent crude retreated from nine-month highs above $119 a barrel reached a week ago on healthy economic data in the United States and China — the world’s two biggest energy consuming nations.

“Brent has been unable to achieve the nine-month high of a good $119 per barrel it recorded last week,” said Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch.

“The price has been stopped in its tracks by the International Energy Agency’s unexpected downward revision of its demand forecast.”

The IEA, representing oil consumers, trimmed its world oil demand forecast for 2013 on Wednesday.

It said the marginal cut of 85,000 barrels a day was in line with the prospect for a slowdown forecast by the International Monetary Fund, which last month cut its world growth estimate for 2013 to 3.5 percent from 3.6 percent. On Tuesday, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) raised its estimates for global oil demand this year, citing signs of a recovery in the global economy.

OPEC, which accounts for more than a third of global oil supplies, expects 89.68 million barrels of oil to be sold a day, up from 89.55 million estimated a month ago. By Friday on London’s Intercontinental Exchange, Brent North Sea crude for April stood at $117.69 a barrel compared with $118.96 for the March contract the previous week. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) or crude for delivery in March rose to $96.77 a barrel from $96.15 a week earlier.

Precious metals: The price of gold hit a six-month low point at $1,598.23 an ounce on Friday, while palladium struck $777 an ounce, the highest level in 17 months, amid falling production in South Africa.

Gold “prices have encountered a fragile floor in the absence of demand from China,” said Barclays analyst

SEC alleges Swiss insider trading on Heinz buyout

S&P and Dow strike fresh five-year highs during week NEW YORK, Feb 16, (Agencies): US markets butted against a stubborn ceiling for another week, ending up Friday where they were a week earlier after five days of jerky but finally inconclusive trade.

Suki Cooper.

Meanwhile global demand for gold fell last year in its first tumble since 2009 as demand in leading market India slid, narrowing the gap with second-biggest buyer China, the World Gold Council said Thursday.

Demand for the precious metal was 4,405.5 tonnes for the full year, down 3.85 percent from 4,582.3 tonnes a year earlier, the WGC report said.

But in value terms, gold demand in 2012 increased to a record high of $236.4 billion, as the average price for the precious metal rose. A decline in consumer demand offset an increase in demand from institutional investors and central banks, the report said.

For the full year, India’s gold demand fell 12 percent from a year earlier — despite improved demand in the final quarter — to 864.2 tonnes.

By late Friday on the London Bullion Market, gold dropped to $1,612.25 an ounce from $1,668.25 a week earlier. Silver fell to $30.18 an ounce from $31.52. On the London Platinum and Palladium Market, platinum slid to $1,676 an ounce from $1,714. Palladium rose to $754 an ounce from $746.

Base metals: Base or industrial metals mostly fell.

Three-month aluminium grew to $2,154 a tonne from $2,116.

Three-month lead eased to $2,404 a tonne from $2,419.

Three-month tin slid to $24,850 a tonne from $24,955.

Three-month nickel retreated to $18,220 a tonne from $18,398.

Three-month zinc dipped to $2,168 a tonne from $2,202.

Cocoa: Cocoa futures hit fresh multi-month lows owing to an ample supply situation.

On New York’s NYBOT-ICE exchange, cocoa for May traded at $2,149 a tonne compared with $2,243 for the March contract a week earlier.

Coffee: Coffee prices dropped despite tight supply concerns.

On NYBOT-ICE, Arabica for delivery in May traded at 140.50 US cents a pound compared with 140.80 US cents for the March contract a week earlier.

Sugar: Sugar futures hit 2.5-year lows in New York.

On NYBOT-ICE, the price of unrefined sugar for May traded at 17.85 US cents a pound compared with 18.19 cents for the March contract the previous week.

Grains and soya: Maize, wheat and soya prices all fell.

March-dated soyabean meal — used in animal feed — decreased to $14.24 a bushel from $14.52.

Wheat for March dropped to $7.41 a bushel from $7.56.

Rubber: Prices slid on weak demand from tyre makers, traders said.

The Malaysian Rubber Board’s benchmark SMR20 dropped to 305.75 US cents a kilo from 310.15 cents the previous week.

The S&P 500 could claim a seventh straight weekly gain — by adding just 0.1 percent — but that just underscored the stall of the bull run since December.

Mixed corporate earnings — with more modest forecasts for this year — offset the excitement generated by new mega-deals.

Those included the long-expected merger of American Airlines and US Airways, and the surprise $28 billion buyout of ketchup icon HJ Heinz, by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and the Brazilian-led 3G Capital.

Meanwhile economic data was positive enough to support stocks at these levels, but with enough weak signs to discourage a push higher. On Friday the Federal Reserve said industrial production shrank slightly in January — but it also said the fourth quarter of 2012 was much better than earlier reported.

At the end of trade Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 13,981.76, less than 0.1 percent below its level a week earlier.

The S&P 500 was at 1,519.79, up 0.1 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite was at 3,192.03, also down less that 0.1 percent.

Highs The S&P and Dow both struck fresh five-year highs during the week. The S&P closed just above 1,521 on Thursday, a level last hit in October 2007. And the Dow topped 14,018 on Tuesday, its best since October 2007.

But traders could not find enough reason to keep them buying at those levels.

The domestic political battle over austere budget cuts continued, and eurozone data showed a fourth quarter recession deeper than expected.

Friday’s trade added a dose of potential weak-economy reality: stocks sank after a media report cited internal emails from retail giant Walmart calling its early February sales a “total disaster.”

That sent Walmart and other retailers tumbling: the emails cited the increase in paycheck deductions for social security from the beginning of the year. The big corporate deals of the week, encouraged by the still rock-bottom interest rate environment, however suggested that more mergers and acquisition action could deliver fresh life into stocks.

The takeover of Heinz, with shareholders being offered a 20 percent premium over the company’s share price prior to the announcement, suggested that the buyers, known as canny longterm investors, see at least some sectors

Market bumps into strong technical resistance

Stocks could struggle to extend rally largest retailer, is due to report results, unofficially closing out the earnings period. Investors will be keen to see its quarterly numbers, especially after the Friday’s news report that rattled investors.

The S&P 500 has gained 4.3 percent since Alcoa kicked off the earnings season on Jan 8.

The approaching March 1 deadline for across-the-board federal budget cuts unless Congress reaches a compromise adds another reason for caution, especially with recent economic data indicating the recovery remains bumpy.

NEW YORK, Feb 16, (RTRS): US stocks could struggle to extend their seven-week winning streak as the quarterly earnings period draws to a close and the market bumps into strong technical resistance.

Many analysts say the market could spend the next few weeks consolidating gains that have lifted the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 by 6.6 percent since the start of the year.

The S&P 500 ended up 0.1 percent for the week, recovering from a late sell-off on Friday after a Bloomberg report about slow February sales at Wal-Mart triggered a slide in the retailer’s shares. It was the index’s seventh week of gains. Odds of a pullback are increasing, with the market in slightly overbought territory, said Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist at Delta Global Asset Management in Boston.

“I do suspect the closing of the earnings season will lead to at least a pause and possibly a pullback,” Zaro said.

The S&P 500 could shave 3 to 5 percent between now and early April, he said.

Fourth-quarter earnings have mostly beaten expectations. Year-over-year profit growth for S&P 500 companies is now estimated at 5.6 percent, up from a Jan. 1 forecast for 2.9 percent growth, and 70 percent of companies are exceeding analyst profit expectations, above the 62 percent long-term average, according to Thomson Reuters data.

On Thursday, Wal-Mart, the world’s

Resistance Manufacturing output fell 0.4 percent last month, the Federal Reserve said on Friday, but production in November and December was much stronger than previously thought.

The S&P 500 has been trading near five-year highs, and it notched its highest level since November 2007 this week. But the gains have pushed the benchmark index almost as far as it is likely to go in the near term, with strong resistance hovering around 1,525 and 1,540, one analyst said.

As a result, the index is set to move sideways, said Dave Chojnacki, market technician at Street One Financial in Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania. “We just don’t have the volume or the catalyst right now” to go above those levels, he said.

At the same time, other analysts say, at FTN Financial.

“So the sequester is likely to happen, though it could be amended later in the year when the budget is written.”

The yen slid against the euro and dollar on Friday after investors piled on bearish bets, while U.S. and European stocks edged higher on surprising U.S. consumer sentiment and optimism that a surge in dealmaking suggests valuations aren’t too pricey.

of the market as undervalued.

That could lead to an acceleration in mergers and acquisitions, experts said.

“M&A is among the last financial market categories to recover from the financial crisis because it requires particular conviction and clarity about macro economic dynamics,” said Marshall Sonenshine, chairman of the New York investment bank Sonenshine Partners.

“It won’t snap back, but it is improving.”

Still hanging over the markets is the “sequester” — $85 billion in automatic government spending cuts programmed for March 1 — if feuding politicians cannot find a milder alternative to trim the deficit. With the sequester cuts likely to lead to layoffs especially in the defense industry, President Barack Obama has offered an alternative that includes more revenue increases, but Republicans reject that.

“It appears most Congressional Republicans would rather go through with the sequester as written than agree to another tax increase,” said Chris Low

Data Also lifting Wall Street were data that showed manufacturing in New York state expanded in February for the first time in seven months, boosted by a surge of new orders, and a survey that reported improved U.S. consumer sentiment in February.

The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary reading on the overall index of consumer sentiment rose to 76.3 from 73.8 in January, topping economists’ forecasts of 74.8.

“This is unexpected given the increase in gas prices and payroll taxes. It reflects

the market has not shown significant signs of slowing, including a break below 15- and 30-day moving averages.

Such moves would be needed to show that momentum is slowing or that the market is at risk of a correction, said Todd Salamone, director of research for Schaeffer’s Investment Research in Cincinnati, Ohio. The S&P 500’s 14-day moving average is at 1,511 while the 30-day is at 1,494. The index closed Friday at 1,519.

Recent M&A activity, including news this week of a merger between American Airlines and US Airways Group, helped provide some strength for the market this week and optimism that more deals may be on the way.

In the coming days, the market will focus on minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting, due to be released on Wednesday, which could provide support if they suggest the Fed will remain on its current course of aggressive monetary easing.

The Fed minutes released in January spooked markets a bit when they revealed that some Fed officials thought it would be appropriate to consider ending asset purchases later in 2013. US Treasury yields rose on that news, though market worries about a near-term end to quantitative easing have since faded.

Among other companies expected to report earnings next week are Nordstrom, Hewlett-Packard and Marriott International. the recovery in housing prices and the stock market. This is a welcome event and it should be embraced by the market,” said Jim Awad, managing director at Zephyr Management in New York.

U.S. and European markets advanced on the report, while a measure of global equity activity, MSCI’s all-country world index traded slightly lower at 355.87. A surge in merger and acquisition activity, with more than $158 billion in deals announced in the first 45 days of the year, has supported the equity market as it indicates healthy valuations and a bright economic outlook.

“No retracement of this move is positive; it shows underlying support for this market,” said Art Hogan, managing director of Lazard Capital Markets in New York.

A flurry of deal-making, highlighted by news on Thursday that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and Brazilian private equity group 3G would buy ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Co for $23.2 billion, is good for the market, he said.

exchange rates – Feb 16 US dollar BEC Muzaini Dollarco Commercial Bank Gulf Bank NBK Burgan Bank ABK Oman KBE

Sterling pound

Transfer .280450 .282600 .282800 .282550 .281400 .283500 .281150 .283250 .281400 .283500 .281200 .283300 .281400 .283500 — — .282600

Cash .432440 .441440 — .442000 .434000 .447000 .435613 .449446 .435200 .444240 .434500 .443530 .431460 .444000 — .467000 —

Muzaini Dollarco Commercial Bank Gulf Bank NBK Burgan Bank ABK Oman KBE

BEC Muzaini Dollarco Gulf Bank ABK KBE

Euro Cash .372817 .379817 — .381000 .376000 .384000 .373307 .385570 .376560 .385160 .339010 .347320 .373450 .384750 — — —

Japanese yen

Buy Sell Sell Sell Buy Sell Buy Sell Buy Sell Buy Sell Buy Sell Buy Sell Sell

Buy Sell Sell Sell Buy Sell Buy Sell Buy Sell Buy Sell Buy Sell Buy Sell Sell

Cash .465560 .515560 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Cyprus Pound

Yemeni riyal

Thai baht

Buy Sell Sell Sell Buy Sell Buy Sell Sell

Transfer Cash Draft — — — — — — — — — .693000 .693100 .693100 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Cash Draft Transfer .128400 .127400 .127400 .136400 .137400 .137400 — .001320 .001320 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Cash Draft Transfer .091210 .090660 .090660 .096710 .096660 .096660 — .094900 .094900 — — — — — — — — — — – — — — – — — —

Draft .280450 .282600 .282800 .282550 .281400 .283500 .281150 .283250 .281400 .283500 .281200 .283300 .281400 .283500 .287900 .287900 .282600

Danish kroner BEC

Transfer .431440 .440440 .441450 .439385 .436916 .440176 .439521 .446295 .436700 .441240 .436000 .440530 .435900 .440990 — .475000 —

Cash .278700 .282850 .281600 .283000 .274000 .284000 .278650 .285250 .276400 .285000 .276200 .274800 .278900 .285000 — — —

Draft .465660 .515560 — — .050686 .051065 .050446 .051360 .050620 .051130 .046462 .046997 .050340 .051750 — — —

Indian rupee

Transfer .465660 .515560 — — .050686 .051065 .050446 .051360 .050620 .051130 .046462 .046997 .050340 .051750 — — —

travellers cheques BEC Commercial Bank Gulf Bank Al-Ahli Bank

Draft .431440 .440440 .441450 .439385 .436916 .440176 .439521 .446295 .436700 .441240 .444600 .436000 .435900 .440990 .444400 .475000 —

Cash .004919 .005320 – .005450 .004000 .006750 — — — — — — — — — — —

US dollar .2828000 .2840000 .2854580 .2831500

Draft .005160 .005230 .005245 .005237 — .005286 — .005324 — — .005094 .005093 .005182 .005270 — — .005252

Transfer .005160 .005230 .005245 .005237 — .005286 — .005324 — — .005094 .005093 .005182 .005270 — — .005252

Sterling .4445000 .4510000 .4549210 .4444000

Draft .372817 .380317 .381070 .378245 .378216 .381038 .376656 .382866 .378060 .382160 .380190 .340510 .377330 .382110 .378620 .382570 .385600

Transfer .372817 .380317 .381070 .378245 .378216 .381038 .376656 .382866 .378060 .382160 .380190 .344320 .377330 .382110 .378620 .382570 .385600

Pakistani rupee Cash .002605 .002885 — .003100 — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Euro — .3870000 .3853120 .3836200

Draft .002850 .002890 .002879 .002872 — .002900 — .002915 — — — — — .002949 .002951 .003175 .002889

Cash .294000 .312000 — .004550 — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Draft .294000 .312000 .003025 .004050 .003009 .003032 .003010 .003060 .030051 .030422 .003588 .003636 .029975 .030464 — .003200 —

Transfer .294000 .312000 .003025 .004050 .003009 .003032 .003010 .003060 .030051 .030422 .003588 .003636 .029975 .030464 — .003200 —

Sri Lanka rupee

Transfer .002850 .002890 .002879 .002872 — .002900 — .002915 — — .003233 — — .002949 — 003175 .002889

Cash .001953 .002533 — .002950 .002000 .003500 — — — — — — — — — — —

Draft .001932 .002237 .002232 .002227 — .002250 — .002266 — — .002546 — — .002307 — .002510 .002245

Transfer .001932 .002237 .002232 .002227 — .002250 — .002266 — — .002546 — .002307 — .002510 .002245

South African rand Cash — — — — — — — — —

Draft Transfer — — — — — — — — — — .032051 .032051 — — — — — —

local gold BEC Muzaini Exchange

Swiss franc Cash .300797 .310297 — .310000 .305000 .315000 — — .302400 .312710 .279180 .289100 — — — — —

Draft .301797 .308797 .309580 .306815 .306820 .309110 .304703 .310810 .306400 .310210 .283180 .286600 .305470 .310530 — — —

Transfer .301797 .308797 .309580 .306815 .306820 .309110 .304703 .310810 .306400 .310210 .297119 .299506 .305470 .310530 — — —

Bangladesh taka Cash .003287 .003887 — .003850 — — — — — — — — — — — .004250 —

Draft .003531 .003586 .003567 .003562 — .003602 — .003615 — — — — — — — .004170 .003574

Transfer .003531 .003586 .003567 .003562 — .003602 — .003615 — — .004017 — — — — .004170 .003574

Korean won Cash — — — — — — — — —

Draft — — — — — — — — —

Gold 999 kg — 15,060.000

Transfer — — — — — — — — —

Canadian dollar Cash .276397 .284897 — .288000 .279000 .290000 — — — — .277897 .282890 — — — — —

Draft .274397 .283397 .283370 .285900 .280965 .283061 .279140 .284472 .280640 .284010 .286988 .277020 .279980 .284320 — — .287900

Transfer .274397 .283397 .283370 .285900 .280965 .283061 .279140 .284472 .280640 .284010 .286988 .277020 .279980 .284320 — .267000 .287900

Philippine peso Cash .006944 .007224 — .007200 — —

Draft .006503 .006973 .006958 .006946 — .007031 — — .007070 — — — — — .006449 — — — — — .007289 .006000 .006467 — — — .006995

Transfer .006503 .006973 .006958 .006946 — .007031 — .007070 — — .006449 — — .007289 .006467 — .006995

Swedish kroner Cash .407070 .457070 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Draft .407070 .457070 — — .044735 .045069 .043978 .044793 .044660 .045140 .041155 .041482 .044444 .045600 — — —

Transfer .407070 .457070 — — .044735 .045069 .043978 .044793 .044660 .045140 .041155 .041482 .044444 .045600 — — —

Saudi riyal Cash .074777 .075360 — .077000 .072000 .076000 .074148 .076208 .073970 .076660 .073684 .075774 .074060 .076150 — — —

Australian dollar Cash .283268 .294768 — — .298900 .300000 — — — — — — — — — — —

Draft .281268 .293268 — — .291249 .293423 .289725 .295155 .291080 .294530 .284712 .286988 .290190 .294710 .237000 — —

Transfer .281268 .293268 — — .291249 .293423 .289725 .295155 .291080 .294530 .284712 .289490 .290190 .294710 .237000 — —

Draft .074827 .075467 .075444 .075310 .075060 .075620 .074880 .075674 .074970 .075660 .075640 .072340 .074820 .075630 — — .075518

Transfer .074827 .075467 .075444 .075310 .075060 .075620 .074880 .075674 .074970 .075660 .074280 .075640 .074820 .075630 — — .075518

Hong Kong dollar Cash .034388 .037138 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Draft .033888 .036988 .036468 — .036286 .036556 .036118 .036706 — — — — .036290 .036560 — — —

Transfer .033888 .036988 .036468 — .036286 .036556 .036118 .036706 — — — — .036290 .036560 — — —

UAE dirham Cash .076014 .077163 — .077100 .076325 .077092 .075720 .077830 .076390 .077160 .075223 .077374 .076325 .077092 — .078600 —

Draft .075514 .076964 .077036 .076905 .076644 .077216 .076467 .077285 .076560 .077240 .077237 .074510 .076340 .077250 .078390 — .077045

Transfer .075514 .076964 .077036 .076905 .076644 .077216 .076467 .077285 .076560 .077240 .075832 .077237 .076340 .077250 — .078390 .077045

Singapore dollar Cash .225421 .231421 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Draft .224421 .230421 .230290 — .227688 .229387 .226168 .230050 .227430 .229680 .216673 .218433 .227020 .230120 — — —

Transfer .224421 .230421 .230290 — .227688 .229387 .226168 .230050 .227430 .229680 .222630 .216673 .227020 .230120 — — —

Syrian pound

Iranian tuman

Lebanese pound

Malaysian ringgit

Cash Draft Transfer .003153 .003153 .003153 .003373 .003373 .003373 — — — — — — — .003073 .003073 — — — — — — — — — — — —

Cash Draft Transfer .000078 .000079 .000079 .000079 .000079 .000079 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Cash Draft Transfer .000138 .000173 .000173 .000238 .000193 .000193 — .189800 .189800 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Cash Draft Transfer .088949 .087492 .087492 .094949 .094493 .094493 — — — .093500 .091250 .091250 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Gold 999 10 tola 1,802.3400 1,772.000

Gold ounce — 483.000

Gold gm 22k — 13.785

Gold gm 21k — 13.150

Gold gm 18k — 11.275

100 gm 999 – —

10 gm 999 – 157.000

Bahraini dinar Cash .743677 .751577 — .750000 .743611 .751084 .737559 .758083 .744270 .751750 — — — — — — —

Draft .743177 .751677 .751430 .748045 .746716 .752289 .748380 .752723 .745920 .752690 .740873 .750398 .744450 .752830 — — .751300

Transfer .743177 .751677 .751430 .748045 .746716 .752289 .748380 .752723 .745920 .752690 .740873 .750398 .744450 .752830 — — .751300

Jordanian dinar Cash .393466 .400966 — .400000 .390000 .405000 — — — — — — — — — .415000 —

Transfer .393010 .400510 .399520 .398295 — .400990 — .401203 — — .394853 .398939 .395500 .402090 .401670 .415000 —

Transfer .393010 .400510 .399520 .398295 — .400990 — .401203 — — .394853 .398939 .395500 .402090 .401670 .415000 —

Indonesian rupiah Cash .000024 .000030 — — — — — — —

Draft .000024 .000029 — — — .000030 — — .000029

Transfer .000024 .000029 — — — .000030 — — .000029

Omani riyal Cash .728513 .734193 — — .728978 .736304 .722171 .742451 .729620 .736960 .735741 — — — .752000 — —

Draft .723013 .734013 .734830 — .731194 .736651 .729298 .737246 .730430 .736940 .734440 .722120 .728850 .738170 .748000 — —

Transfer .723013 .734013 .734830 — .731194 .736651 .729298 .737246 .730430 .736940 .734440 .719020 .728850 .738170 .759930 — —

Egyptian pound Cash .039401 .042100 .042100 .042500 .042000 .047000 — — — — — — — — — .056000 —

Draft .039917 .041947 .041929 .041930 — — — .042363 — — .047830 .049026 — .042660 — — .041937

Transfer .039917 .041947 .041929 .041930 — — — .042363 — — .047830 .049026 — .

042620 — — .041937

New Zealand dollar Cash .233080 .242580 — — — — — — —

Draft .231080 .241080 — — .235406 .240350 .237270 .241440 —

Transfer .231080 .241080 — — .235406 .240350 .237270 .241440 —

All rates in KD per unit of foreign currency

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

INTERNATIONAL

42

Fears grow countries using currencies as economic weapon

Currency … latest threat to global economy LONDON, Feb 16, (AP): The world economy faces a new threat. Instead of a banking collapse or too much debt, fears are growing that countries are using their currencies as an economic weapon.

History suggests that’s never a good thing.

If too many countries try to weaken their currencies for economic gain — sparking a “currency war” — that could stifle business confidence and investment, sow turmoil in financial markets and derail a fragile global economy.

Following their meeting in Moscow this weekend, financial representatives from the world’s leading 20 industrial and developing countries warned that “excess volatility of financial flows and disorderly movements in exchange rates have adverse implications for economic and financial stability.”

Question: Why is everyone talking about currencies?

Answer: Since the start of the financial crisis, central banks around the world have been trying to stimulate their economies by keeping interest rates extremely low. The goal is to encourage consumers and businesses to borrow and spend more. One way central banks drive down rates is to use their power to print money to buy up large quantities of bonds. But by boosting the amount of currency in circulation, there is a side effect:

it can drive down the value of that currency relative to others.

As a country’s currency falls, its exports become cheaper, while those of its neighbors become relatively more expensive.

Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, is currently under the harshest spotlight. To get its economy motoring again after a two-decade bout of stagnation, the government has said it would like to see inflation move higher. Markets have interpreted this as a signal that Japan’s central bank is prepared to take actions that would result in driving down the yen, to boost exports and also put upward pressure on prices. Earlier this week, the yen fell to a 21-month low against the dollar and a near three-year trough against the euro.

Q: So is Japan actively trying to weaken the yen?

A: Yes and no. Though it’s not directly intervening in the foreign exchange markets by selling yen and buying other currencies, strong comments from the new Japanese government have convinced markets that the Bank of Japan will create more money. Japan’s Finance Minister Taro Aso insists the government isn’t focused on exchange rates, but he has noted that the weakening yen has “brought huge benefits to the export sector” and that the world “has been awed”

‘Bill to naturalize

Larijani indulged in a verbal duel in the assembly during the impeachment of a minister which was broadcast live by state media.

“This is bad. This is wrong and against the law and sharia (Islamic law) and morals, and violates the rights of people,” said Khamenei in remarks reported by state television on Saturday.

“One head of a branch (Ahmadinejad) uses an accusation that is unproven in court and accuses the other two branches — parliament and the judiciary.”

Khamenei, who has the final say on all key national affairs, was referring to the tense parliamentary session in which Ahmadinejad accused Larijani’s influential political family of financial corruption.

The public squabble occurred against the backdrop of a parliamentary decision to impeach Ahmadinejad’s labour minister for refusing to sack Tehran’s ex-prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi as head of the wealthy social welfare organisation.

In that session, Ahmadinejad played a video recording which allegedly incriminates Fazel Larijani, a brother of the parliament speaker and judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, who is a direct appointee of Khamenei.

Fazel is shown in the clip as allegedly trying to bribe Mortazavi in exchange for political support from the parliament and the judiciary.

Larijani in response charged that Ahmadinejad was impeding justice by shielding his inner circle from judicial investigation.

On Saturday Khamenei criticised Larijani’s handling of the session, saying he had “gone too far in defending himself” against Ahmadinejad.

He criticised the impeachment itself as a “bad decision” since Ahmadinejad will leave office in the summer when his term is over.

Khamenei also criticised the judiciary for “inaction” against corruption.

His remarks come as Iran is struggling to fight banking and oil sanctions imposed by the West against its nuclear programme, which have led to serious economic and social difficulties.

“People need calmness, psychological and moral security in their lives,” Khamenei said.

The rift between Ahmadinejad and parliament, dominated by conservatives and critical of his administration, first surfaced in April 2011 after he challenged a ruling by Khamenei.

Iran is gearing up for a presidential election on June 14 to elect a successor to Ahmadinejad, whose victory in 2009 sparked deadly street protests against the results which the opposition claimed were rigged.

Continued from Page 1 If the bill passes its second reading, it is likely the government will return it back to the Assembly for amendments, after which 44 votes in favor of the bill is needed so it can be re-adopted.

Meanwhile, in a statement to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), Chairman of the Central System for Remedying the Status of Illegal Residents (CSRSIR), Saleh AlFadhala said that “granting nationality is a state sovereign issue and external powers have no right to meddle in such internal affairs of a sovereign and independent country”.

“International law grants states legislation right and freedom of setting terms and restrictions for granting the citizenship, in harmony with the state political, economic and social interests,” he said.

Al-Fadhala stressed that “Citizenship is subject to the state’s judgment, in line with the country’s higher interests, thus external parties cannot intervene in such purely internal issues”.

According to KUNA, Al-Fadhala was responding to remarks made by a recently visiting delegation belonging to an international organization. They called on to grant the Kuwaiti nationality to a segment of residents who are not legally eligible to hold the Kuwaiti identification card.

Al-Fadhala elaborated the (CSRSIR) is ready to discuss the humanitarian aspect of this issue with these foreign agencies, but indicated “they should not meddle in the other dimensions that fall within jurisdictions of the State of Kuwait”.

Saudi urges Continued from Page 1 In August 2009, a suicide bomber from Yemen failed in an attempt to kill Saudi security chief Prince Mohammed bin Nayef al-Saud.

Iran not Continued from Page 1 Decisions about the disputed nuclear drive rest with Khamenei, who has declared possession of atomic weapons a “sin” banned by religion.

On Saturday, Khamenei repeated that claim and said Iran’s stance on weapons of mass destruction was not taken “because the US is unhappy, but because it is based on a religious belief that nuclear weapons are a crime against humanity.”

He accused Washington of “deceit” in its approach towards the Iranian nuclear drive, saying: “They want to keep us from our legitimate rights of uranium enrichment and peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

Provocative declarations on what Iran considers as a non-negotiable “right” to pursue a nuclear energy programme are not unprecedented.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said in 2012 that if Iran wanted to build the bomb, “it would not be afraid to announce” its decision to the world.

Tehran has spurned UN Security Council demands to abandon its uranium enrichment programme, a process that can be used for peaceful atomic purposes as well to make the core of a nuclear bomb.

The UN atomic watchdog, meanwhile, says “overall, credible” evidence exists that until 2003, and possibly since, Iran conducted nuclear weapons research despite its repeated denials.

Israel, the sole but undeclared nuclear state in the Middle East, and the United States have refused to rule out a military strike against Iran.

Tehran has warned against an attack on its nuclear facilities, but at the same time argues that its programme would not be stopped even if it was bombed.

Its defiance is also reflected in other key challenges to the Islamic regime, with Iranian officials regularly dismissing an economic and diplomatic embargo and asserting that such efforts fail to isolate the country.

Repeated declarations about how the Jewish state’s days are numbered despite Western efforts to shore up Israel are also common in Tehran.

In other news, Khamenei on Saturday expressed disappointment at intense public infighting between senior officials, calling for “calm” amid Western economic sanctions.

On February 3, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and parliament speaker Ali

by the recent surge in share prices.

Q;Why is that bad?

A: A falling yen will help exporters, such as Sony and Toyota, and boost Japan’s economy. And it will it tend to push prices - and ultimately wages — higher. But if other countries respond to the falling yen by devaluing their currencies — to maintain the competitiveness of their own exports — Japan will be back to square one and the world economy could suffer.

Sharp fluctuations in the value of currencies can hurt business confidence and investment. Prices for imported raw materials and components would be volatile, profits will be hard to come by as prices fluctuate wildly and the value of any investment a company makes in another country could quickly be wiped out.

Q: Who’s been feeling the effect of Japan’s actions so far?

A: The euro, the currency used by the 17-strong group of European Union countries, has seen the biggest move on the foreign exchange markets. As the region moved on from its crippling debt crisis last summer, the euro has slowly gained in value. But since the change of government in Japan, its value against leading currencies such as the yen and US dollar has shot up — last December it was worth 113.19 yen and $1.29 and now it’s at 124.93 yen and $1.33.

A rise in the value of the euro will do little to help the eurozone’s businesses — and will hardly help getting it growing again. Figures Thursday showed that the economic output of the region shrank at an annualized rate of around 2.5 percent in the last quarter of 2012.

Q: What’s been the reaction from other major economies?

A: Politicians have voiced concerns about the euro’s rise versus other major currencies — most notably French President Francois Hollande, who indicated he was open to calls for a more managed exchange rate. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said last week that the bank will monitor the economic impact of the euro’s rising value.

Several analysts took that to mean the ECB could cut interest rates to bolster growth, which in theory could weaken the euro — an indirect tit-for-tat response to the yen’s fall, some say.

Earlier this week, the volatility in the currency markets prompted the Group of Seven leading industrial nations, which includes the U.S, Germany as well as Japan, to warn about the effects of volatile movements in exchange rates.

Q: Might other countries try to manipulate their currencies in response to Japan?

A: There is no sign of that — so far.

Speaking in Moscow Saturday,

In this photo released by an official website of the Iranian supreme leader’s office, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaks to the crowd in Tehran, Iran on Feb 16.

Iran’s Supreme Leader said Saturday that his country is

International Monetary Fund Director Christine Lagarde dismissed the possibility of an international currency conflict, saying that she was witnessing “currency worries, not currency wars.”

But a country fixing the value of its currency is not without precedent.

In Sept. 2011, Switzerland took action to arrest the rise of its currency, the Swiss franc. The rise was triggered by the debt crisis in the eurozone — investors were looking for somewhere safe to park their cash and the Swiss franc has traditionally fulfilled that role. The Swiss intervention was viewed as an attempt to protect the country’s exporters.

US politicians have for years accused China of keeping its currency, the renminbi, artificially weak in order to industrialize fast. And many countries believe the US long ago abandoned the “strong dollar” policy in a dash for growth.

Q: How bad could a currency war get?

A: Since World War II, one of the key objectives of international economic policymaking has been to avoid a repeat of the 1930s, when countries around the world engaged in a tit-for-tat battle with their exchange rates. That decimated global trade, accentuating the depression and providing another catalyst to war.

Assuming the world doesn’t descend into a similar abyss, a currency war can still harm the global economy. For exam-

not seeking nuclear weapons, but that no world power could stop Tehran’s access to an atomic bomb if it intended to build one. (AP)

‘I do it with full authorization’

US hacker helps Ecuador secure vote QUITO, Feb 16, (AFP): Kevin Mitnick, who once gained notoriety as America’s most wanted computer hacker, now heads a thriving Internet consultancy tasked with helping keep Sunday’s presidential elections in Ecuador secure.

“Eighteen years ago I was busted for hacking. I do the same thing today but with full authorization. How cool is that?” Mitnick wrote on his kevinmitnick Twitter account on the eve of the vote.

Mitnick, 49, was behind a spree of break-ins of hundreds of corporate, university and personal computers on the Internet during the 1990s, with blue chip targets that included the Apple Computer, Motorola and the FBI. After being caught and convicted for 15 years of cybercrimes, he was imprisoned between 1995 and 2000.

Today his company, Mitnick Security Consulting, helps to reinforce the very same security vulnerabilities that he once used his considerable hacking skills to exploit.

On Sunday, his company will focus on protecting the Net Lock computer system tasked with tabulating Ecuador’s elections.

The incumbent president, Rafael Correa, is the prohibitive favorite to win re-election — assuming no foul play from exactly the sort of malicious actors that Mitnick has been hired to guard against.

Mitnick is rueful about his youthful days as a cyber outlaw. He says his hobby of hacking had its roots in his childhood.

“When I was a young kid I was really fascinated with magic, which I found, was similar to hacking. And I was a prankster as well, so I combined

both,” he said.

Mitnick started with simple gags: breaking into the phone lines of friends, hacking the self-service line at the local fast food restaurant so that automated voice would chide overweight customers to steer clear of the fattier menu items.

Later, as Mitnick graduated to more sophisticated hacking activities, he came to love the thrill of the chase, as he managed time and again to elude the authorities who tried to track his online exploits.

Eventually he targeted the biggest fish of all — the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“It became kind of cat and mouse with the FBI. I was a fugitive from the FBI for a long time, when they were trying to get me I would track them through the cellular system and outsmart them,” he told AFP.

Hackers hit Continued from Page 1 it was not alone in the attack, and that “others were attacked and infiltrated recently as well,” although it did not specify who.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to comment, while the US Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

In its blog post, Facebook described the attack as a “zero-day” attack, considered to be among the most sophisticated and dangerous types of computer hacks.

Zero-day attacks, which are rarely discovered or disclosed by their targets, are costly to launch and often suggest government involvement.

While Facebook said no user data was compromised, the incident could raise consumer concerns about privacy and the vulnerability of personal information stored within the social network.

Facebook has made several privacy missteps in the past because of the way it handled user data. It settled a privacy investigation with federal regulators in 2011.

According to one person familiar with the situation, the type of information on the employee laptops that were compromised included “snippets” of Facebook source code and employee emails.

Facebook said it spotted a suspicious file and traced it back to an employee’s laptop. After conducting a forensic examination of the laptop, Facebook said it identified a malicious file, then searched company-wide and identified “several other compromised employee laptops”.

Another person briefed on the matter said the first Facebook employee had been infected via a website where coding strategies were discussed.

The company also said it identified a previously unseen attempt to bypass its

built-in cyber defenses and that new protections were added on Feb 1.

Because the attack used a third-party website, it might have been an early-stage attempt to penetrate as many companies as possible.

If they followed established patterns, the attackers would learn about the people and computer networks at all the infected companies. They could then use that data in more targeted attacks to steal source code and other intellectual property.

Another fear for such a popular website is that hackers could use central controls to infect wide swathes of its user base at once.

In January 2010, Google reported it had been penetrated via a “zero-day” flaw in an older version of the Internet Explorer Web browser. The attackers were seeking source code and were also interested in Chinese dissidents. Google reduced its operations in China as a result.

Syrian rebels Continued from Page 1 from mostly Sunni opposition towns were captured.

Most of the rebels fighting the Damascus regime are Sunni, while the ruling clan and many of its most fervent supporters are members of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Kidnappings driven by a hunger for ransom but often tinged with sectarianism have multiplied in Syria during the revolt that the United Nations says has killed more than 70,000 people.

On the diplomatic front, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at a security forum in Abu Dhabi called for urgent action to bring about a power transfer that excludes Syria’s President

Bashar al-Assad.

Le Drian said the change should be “a transition in which President Assad would no longer keep his place,” and accused Assad and his family “of clinging to power by multiplying the daily massacres and atrocities.”

His remarks came after the umbrella opposition National Council on Friday refused to accept Assad in any talks on ending the 23-month conflict, as part of a “framework” it has drawn up for a political solution.

The council singled out the regime’s most powerful backers, Russia and Iran, calling on the former to ensure there are “adequate safeguards” to make the peace process possible, together with the United States.

It also urged Iran to recognise that Tehran’s support for Assad “is pushing the region towards sectarian conflict.”

The leader of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, meanwhile, said on Saturday that while Syria may be weakened by its bloody conflict and unable to fight against Israel, his organisation was capable of defending Lebanon.

“Those who think Syria is no longer a player and cannot help the resistance (Hezbollah) ... and that the resistance is going through a period of weakness and confusion are mistaken,” key Damascus ally Hassan Nasrallah told a Beirut crowd.

“We have everything we need in Lebanon. We don’t need to transport (arms) from Syria or Iran.”

In Syria’s southern province of Daraa on Saturday, considered the “cradle of the revolution,” rebels seized a border post near the town of Zaizun, less than 1.5 kms (one mile) from the Jordanian border, the Observatory said.

Loyalist troops, meanwhile, shelled the Abbasid district of Daraa city and rebel strongholds in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, the central province of Homs,

the northern province of Raqa and the eastern outskirts of Damascus.

Saturday’s clashes come a day after 170 people were killed nationwide according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, medics and lawyers on the ground for its information.

No increased Continued from Page 1 Indeed, previous studies linked IVF early in life to heightened risks of breast cancer and borderline ovarian tumors.

But other studies found little connection between fertility treatments and cancer. The association has been difficult to untangle, experts said, in part because it’s hard to know whether unmeasured factors not related to IVF itself may affect the risk of cancer in women who have trouble conceiving.

And so far, there haven’t been a lot of women who developed cancer after fertility treatment included in studies.

“We all want answers, but it’s a very difficult exposure to study, particularly when we don’t have the numbers we would really like,” Brinton told Reuters Health.

To boost those study figures, she and her colleagues examined the medical records of 67,608 women who underwent IVF treatments between 1994 and 2011 and 19,795 women who sought treatment but never received IVF. The researchers linked those women’s files to a national cancer registry and found 1,509 of them had been diagnosed with cancer through mid-2011.

There was no difference in women’s chances of being diagnosed with breast or endometrial cancer based on whether they were treated with IVF.

ple, central banks, particularly in the developing world, may resort to controlling the amount of capital that can be moved out of a country to affect exchange rates.

“Increasing impediments to the free flow of capital might be thought to lower the potential growth of the world economy,” said Stephen Lewis, chief economist at Monument Securities.

Q: Can the world’s leaders and central bankers calm the situation?

A: As many analysts had expected, this weekend’s G-20 meeting in Moscow finished on Saturday with a warning on the dangers of competitive devaluations and a pledge that it will “not target our exchange rates for competitive purposes, will resist all forms of protectionism and keep our markets open.” µThe G20 communique — and the G7 statement earlier this week — failed to single out one country’s actions for criticism.

Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at the Martin Smith School of Business at California State University, said that should come as no surprise.

“Many countries including China, Japan and the United States all have issues related to exchange rates,” he said.

“People in glass houses should not throw stones.”

See Also Page 38 The researchers did find a woman’s risk of ovarian cancer slightly increased the more rounds of treatment she received, they wrote in the journal Fertility and Sterility. But that finding could have been due to chance.

Brinton said her study was too small to conclusively link IVF and ovarian cancer – and that it remained very rare, with 45 cases in the entire study.

A similar association was found in a study headed by Dr Bengt Kallén, director of the Tornblad Institute at Lund University, Sweden.

Kallén, who was not involved in the current research, said any increased ovarian cancer risk might be due to the dysfunctional ovaries themselves.

“Infertile women have a primary problem with their ovaries and IVF has nothing to do with it,” Kallén told Reuters Health. “It’s a rather difficult thing to disentangle if there is an effect from the hormones or from the IVF procedure.”

Dr Sherman Silber of the Infertility Center of St Louis warned these types of studies have several biases that could make the results difficult to interpret.

For example, women undergoing IVF are watched extra closely, which would likely increase the chance that ovarian cancers are detected, said Silber, who also was not involved in the new study.

“You have to be extraordinarily cautious about this kind of a study,” Silber told Reuters Health. “If anything, it’s reassuring. One doesn’t see any real increase in cancer.” Researchers said future studies would require larger groups of IVF-treated women to tease out potential long-term risks.

“What is surprising all of us who are working in this area is how almost every study gets a different answer,” Brinton said. “There’s a need for monitoring, but we also shouldn’t get too alarmed at this early stage.” ❑ ❑ ❑ Source: bit.ly/VkUVAO Fertility and Sterility, online Jan 30, 2013.

Newswatch Continued from Page 1 appears to have claimed another victim.

Less than two years after its unofficial spokesman, 575-pound Blair River, died of health-related causes, another loyal customer succumbed to a heart attack while standing at a bus stop in front of the establishment.

John Alleman, 52 — who like River served as a public face of the restaurant — was taken off life support earlier this week, three days after suffering his heart attack, according to the Las Vegas Sun newspaper.

(AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

ANCHORAGE, Alaska: An Alaska man was arrested Friday in last year’s shooting deaths at a Coast Guard air station on Kodiak Island that left two employees dead, the US attorney said.

James Michael Wells of Kodiak is accused in a federal murder complaint of killing Petty Officer 1st Class James Hopkins and retired Chief Boatswain’s Mate Richard Belisle on April 12.

Another Coast Guard member found the victims shortly after the two would have arrived for work at the station, which monitors radio traffic from ships and planes and is home to cutters, helicopters and rescue swimmers that aid mariners in the Bering Sea and Pacific Ocean. Their bodies were found in the rigger building, where antennas are repaired. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑ ARUSHA, Tanzania: Tanzanian police have arrested five men in connection to a brutal attack on an albino woman whose arm was hacked off earlier this week, presumably to sell the limb for use in witchcraft.

Police said they seized the men after discovering the decomposing limb in a field on Friday, and after intercepting a telephone call between two men in which they allegedly discussed its sale.

“We have every reason to believe that they are the leaders,” local police chief Peter Ngusa said Saturday. (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑ ABIDJAN: Police fired tear gas to disperse a banned protest Saturday by supporters of former president Laurent Gbagbo, just days before the International Criminal Court is to decide whether he will go on trial for crimes against humanity.

Fifty young people shouting “Free Gbagbo” were pushed back while they tried to charge a barrier set up by police in the country’s economic capital of Abidjan.

Riot police fired tear gas, sending the protestors fleeing before they could reach Yopougan square, in a part of Abidjan that has long been a pro-Gbagbo stronghold.

(AFP)

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

LEISURE

43

Sherman’s Lagoon — By J. P. Toomey

N E W

Y O R K

T I M E S

CROSSWORD

Mutts — By Patrick McDonnell

Hagar The Horrible — By Chris Browne

Beetle Bailey — By Mort Walker

Scratch pad

odds ’n’ ends PARIS: A simple diamond and sapphire engagement ring that Napoleon Bonaparte offered to his first wife Josephine goes on auction near Paris next month, the auction house Osenat said on Friday.

The gold ring is topped by two pear-shaped stones and is estimated to fetch up to 12,000 euros ($16,000) at the March 24 auction in Fontainebleau, south of Paris.

“At the time, Napoleon had very little money. The ring is a very ordinary one,” JeanChristophe Chataignier, who head Osenat’s department of historical objects, told AFP. Napoleon married Josephine, the widow of French aristocrat Alexandre de Beauharnais, on March 9, 1796 just days after announcing their engagement.

The marriage was not well received by Napoleon’s family who were shocked he had married an older widow with two children. Two days after the wedding Napoleon left to lead the French army in Italy. (AFP)

Garfield — By Jim Davis

Baby Blues — By Rick Kirkman & Jerry Scott

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PARIS: Late polar bear Knut is on display at the Natural History Museum in Berlin, on Feb 15.

Adorable in life, still attracting admirers in death: Knut the polar bear’s hide has been mounted on a polyurethane body and is going on display in a Berlin museum. The Natural History Museum on Friday unveiled the statue prepared by taxidermists featuring the famous Berlin Zoo bear’s fur and claws, with the synthetic body and glass eyes. Knut was hand-raised after his mother rejected him. He rose to stardom in 2007 as a cuddly cub, appearing on magazine covers, in a film and on mountains of merchandise. He died in 2011 after suffering from encephalitis. (AP)

Conceptis Sudoku

Challenger

By Steve Becker

The grid must be so completed that every row, column and 3x3 box has every digit from 1 to 9 inclusive.

DIRECTIONS: Fill each square with a number, one through nine.

■ Horizontal squares should add to totals on right.

■ Vertical squares should add to totals on bottom.

■ Diagonal squares through center should add to total in upper and lower right.

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Yesterday’s solution

Today’s Challenge Time 4 Minutes 11 Seconds Your Working Time __ Minutes __ Seconds

Word by Word

Cloud

(Sahaba)

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Lekul sahaba betana men feda.

Numbers

6046

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AMHERST, New Hampshire:

THERE MAY BE MORE THAN ONE SOLUTION.

Answer to yesterday’s puzzle

contract b r i d g e

A French auction house has cancelled the sale of a historic Chinese seal for 1.1 million euros ($1.4 million) after threats of legal action alleging it may have been stolen from Beijing’s Forbidden City in 1860.

Artcurial cancelled the December sale due “to the emotions provoked in China,” a spokesman told AFP on Friday, adding: “We have conveyed our decision to the buyer and the seller.”

The green jade seal, which dates from the Qianlong period (1736-95) and had been expected to fetch up to 200,000 euros, went for over five times that amount to an unidentified telephone bidder.

The Association for the Protection of Chinese Art in Europe (APACE) had urged Artcurial to withdraw it from the sale saying it was taken by AngloFrench troops when they pillaged the Summer Palace. (AFP)

Six thousand and forty six Setat alaaf wa seta wa arbaoun

The legal contract for the American debut of the English punk rock band The Clash is being offered by a New Hampshire auction house, among other band items.

The Clash documents dated Jan 23, 1979, were drafted for a performance at New York’s Palladium the following month.

They include a diagram of the stage and a proposed advertising layout.

The band, known for “London Calling,” ‘’Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Rock the Casbah,” would play the Palladium several more times that year. (AP)

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

SPORTS

44

Brandon leads No. 6 Cal women past No. 15 UCLA

Georgetown rallies for win over Cincy

In this May 21, 2005 file photo, Charlotte Sting guard Dawn Staley (right), drives past Washington Mystics guard Temeka Johnson during the first half of a WNBA basketball game at the Charlotte Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina. Staley is one of 12 finalists up for election into the Basketball Hall of Fame, the hall of fame announced on Feb 15.

The 2013 class will be announced at the Final Four in April. (AP)

Olympiakos beat Khimki

Barca ‘march’ on as Tomic delivers MADRID, Feb 16, (RTRS): Euroleague favourites Barcelona moved a step closer to the playoffs halfway through the second group stage of the competition after Croatia centre Ante Tomic shone in a 82-77 win at Maccabi Tel Aviv.

The result left 2010 winners Barca at the top of their group with a 6-1 record and poised to reach the best-of-five quarterfinal playoff series, whose winners will advance to the May 1012 Final Four in London.

The Catalan club’s fans had even more to cheer about on Thursday after Anadolu Efes Istanbul edged Barcelona’s traditional Spanish rivals Real Madrid 74-72 to go joint top with Madrid in the other group.

The top 16 stage features two pools of eight teams playing each other home away on a round-robin basis.

Holders Olympiakos Piraeus boosted their hopes of advancing into the last eight with an 87-82 win at Khimki Moscow on Friday thanks to a furious finish as playmaker Vassilis Spanoulis and centre Kyle Hines rifled in 19 points each.

A strong third quarter in Tel Aviv’s jam-packed Nokia Arena gave Barcelona a 67-53 lead heading into the final period, when they survived a late onslaught from the hosts and came out on top after 18 points from Tomic, who joined Barca from Real during the close season.

Veteran guards Juan Carlos Navarro and Sarunas Jasikevicius chipped in with 14 points apiece for Barca, netting a pair of three-pointers each to cancel out a valiant solo effort by Maccabi forward Ricky Hickman, who amassed 19 points.

Spanoulis The victory put the icing on the cake for Barca after winning the Spanish Cup on Sunday and while their coach Xavier Pascual acknowledged its importance, he also heaped praise on the atmosphere in Tel Aviv.

“It is always a pleasure to come back to this place because the Nokia Arena is a great venue and Maccabi also has great fans,” he told the competition’s official website (www.euroleague.net).

“It was a tough game for us and one not easy to focus on after winning the Copa Del Rey last weekend. We were not at our best in the first half but improved in the second and are very happy with this win.”

Maccabi, on the other hand, have a mountain to climb after slipping to a 2-5 record and their coach David Blatt, who steered Russia to the 2007 European Championship, was not optimistic about his team’s chances.

“We are in a difficult situation now. We need five more wins and I am not sure where we are going to get them,” he said.

“Our season isn’t over though, we still have a chance and as long as we’ve got one we will keep fighting.”

Six-time winners CSKA Moscow bounced back from two successive defeats with an 86-69 home win over Panathinaikos Athens, who also have six titles, after Serbia playmaker Milos

BASKETBALL Teodosic produced a telling performance with 20 points and seven assists.

The inconsistent point guard was at his best this time as he nailed four three-pointers from six attempts, some of which created open shots for former Toronto Raptors forward Sonny Weems and Russia centre Sasha Kaun, who scored 19 and 13 points respectively.

“After losses to Unicaja Malaga and Real Madrid we played a really good game following an excellent week of practice, probably the best week this season, so I am happy for my team,” CSKA’s Italian coach Ettore Messina said.

“Kaun was like Bill Russel under the basket tonight, he had 10 deflections and that’s not including the five blocked shots,” he said referring to the former NBA centre who won a record 11 titles with the Boston Celtics from 1956-69.

CSKA boosted their chances of reaching the last eight after improving to a 5-2 record behind Efes and Real, ahead of Panathinaikos who have four wins and three defeats and Zalgiris Kaunas breathing down their necks after a dramatic 8887 overtime win at Brose Baskets Bamberg.

The Lithuanians, who won Europe’s premier club competition in 1999, moved up to 3-4 after Croatia guard Marko Popovic showed steely composure to bury three free-throws on the buzzer after he was fouled while taking a desperate, lastgasp shot from behind the arc.

“Now we have this monkey off our back after one-point losses at Panathinaikos and Madrid as well as a four-point defeat at Efes, we worked hard and finally enjoyed a close win,” said.

Zalgiris coach Joan Plaza.

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CINCINNATI, Feb 16, (AP): Otto Porter Jr. scored 16 points while playing in foul trouble, and No. 15 Georgetown wasted a 12-point lead in the second half before rallying for its seventh straight win, 62-55 over Cincinnati.

Markel Starks hit a go-ahead 3-pointer and made five free throws in final minute, helping the Hoyas (19-4, 9-3) stay atop the Big East. They were tied with Syracuse and Marquette heading into the weekend games.

Starks finished with 17 points. Freshman D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera added 14.

Cincinnati (19-7, 7-6) has lost three of its last four games with poor shooting. The Bearcats shot only 31.5 percent from the field and went 4 of 24 behind the arc. JaQuon Parker led with 15 points.

Point guard Cashmere Wright established a Cincinnati record for career steals, but went only 5 of 14 from the field while scoring 12 points.

The Hoyas had lost their last four games against the Bearcats and hadn’t won in Cincinnati since the 200607 season.

Now, the Hoyas have the longest active win streak in the Big East, winning with a patient but low-scoring offense - only 64.3 points per game - and a defense that allows only 55.7 points per game, seventh nationally.

After pulling ahead for the last time with 6:53 left,

the Bearcats managed only one more field goal the rest of the way.

Georgetown’s surge has been led by Starks, a junior guard, and Porter, a sophomore forward who leads the Hoyas in scoring and rebounding. Both were in foul trouble in the second half, limiting Georgetown’s offense. The 6-foot-8 Porter helped the Hoyas get off to a 13-9 lead, hitting two baskets and a free throw while the Bearcats’ long-standing shooting problems continued. They missed 11 of their first 14 shots from the field and 5 of 8 from the free-throw line.

BASKETBALL Smith-Rivera hit a 3-pointer - the first by either team after 12 combined misses - and had two free throws, and Nate Lubick scored a couple baskets inside off passes for a 29-20 advantage, the biggest lead by either team in the half.

The Bearcats shot only 31 percent from the field and went 1 of 11 from behind the arc in the half. The Hoyas led most of the way despite going 1 for 9 on 3point tries. Georgetown was more aggressive at attacking the basket in the second half. Porter had four points during an 8-0 run that built the lead to 43-31 while the Bearcats struggled to make even a close-up

shot, drawing groans from the season-high crowd of 12,842. Parker got the Bearcats going. He scored 11 consecutive points, including a driving back shot that gave Cincinnati a 51-50 lead with 6:53 to go.

Porter picked up his fourth foul during Parker’s scoring spurt and went to the bench, temporarily costing the Hoyas their leading scorer and rebounder.

Porter got back into the game and made a pair of free throws for a 57-53 lead with 1:16 left. The Bearcats never threatened again.

Wright has been struggling to score since spraining his right knee and aggravating his left shoulder in the last few weeks. He’s only 10 of 49 from behind the arc in the last seven games, his shot thrown off by the injuries.

California 79, UCLA 51 In Los Angeles, something had to give.

No. 6 California had won nine in a row and had not lost in more than a month. No. 15 UCLA had won six in a row and had not lost a Pac-12 home game all season.

However, it wasn’t much of a contest as the Bears built a big early lead and made it stand up, beat the Bruins 79-51 Friday night. Gennifer Brandon scored 16 points to lead a balanced offense to help California (22-2, 12-1) extend its win streak to 10 straight.

Brittany Boyd and Layshia Clarendon had 14 points each and Reshanda Gray added 10.

Chuck rolls over Shaq Rising Stars MVP Faried shines HOUSTON, Texas, Feb 16, (AFP): Denver Nuggets secondyear forward Kenneth Faried had 40 points Friday as Team Chuck routed Team Shaq 163135 in the National Basketball Association’s Rising Stars Challenge game.

Payton, Hardaway among Hall noms

Faried also had 10 rebounds and shot 18of-22 from the field to collect MVP honours and kick off the NBA’s all-star weekend festivities at the Toyota Center arena.

Faried finished off a couple of windmill dunks in the final minute that he said was a taste of what people can expect from him in Saturday night’s Slam Dunk contest.

“I had fun. I enjoyed myself,” Faried said.

“This was just a sneak preview. There is going to be a lot of competition tomorrow but I think I can rise up and get the trophy.”

With the exception of Ricky Rubio every player reached double-figures in scoring for the winning team, put together by former NBA star Charles Barkley.

Tristan Thompson and Kawhi Leonard each scored 20 points and Isaiah Thomas finished with 18 points with 10 assists in the win.

For the second-straight year, the squad chosen

BASKETBALL by former Laker legend Shaquille O’Neal was not up to the task in the contest, which features the league’s top rookies and sophomore players.

The 62nd all-star game takes place Sunday and it marks the first time the showdown has been played in Houston since 2006. It will be televised live in more than 200 countries and in more than 40 languages.

Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant was the top vote getter this year, earning him a record 15th straight all-star selection.

Bryant beat out Miami Heat’s LeBron James, collecting 1.591 million votes to 1.583 million for James.

Bryant breaks a tie with Jerry West, Karl Malone and O’Neal for the most consecutive allstar selections.

Four time all-star MVP Bryant said he is going to enjoy himself Sunday but also wants to put on a good show.

Kevin Durant of Oklahoma City, Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers, Dwight Howard of the Lakers and Chris Paul of the Clippers join Bryant as starters for the West team.

James, Carmelo Anthony of New York, Kevin Garnett of Boston, Rajon Rondo of Boston and Dwyane Wade of Miami were voted starters for the Eastern Conference.

James is coming off a superb seven-game stretch where he averaged 32 points a game and shot 69 percent from the field. This is James’ ninth straight all-star selection.

James says he is pleased that he can share this weekend with his Miami teammates Wade and Chris Bosh. ❑

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Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss has been hospitalized for several months with an undisclosed form of cancer, USA Today reported on Friday, citing an unnamed source.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday that Buss, 79, has spent time in the intensive care unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, according to his son Jim. Officials at Cedars declined to comment, citing privacy laws. The Lakers team office also declined to comment.

Buss purchased the National Basketball Association team in 1979. The team has won 10 NBA championships since then.

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Kemba Walker #15 of the Charlotte Bobcats and Team Shaq goes up to dunk the ball in the BBVA Rising Stars Challenge 2013 part of the 2013 All-Star Weekend at the Toyota Center on Feb 15, in Houston, Texas. (AFP)

HOUSTON, Feb 16, (RTRS): Nine-time NBA All-Star guard Gary Payton, two-time NBAwinning coach Tom Heinsohn and smooth shooting point guard Tim Hardaway were named on Friday among the 12 finalists for induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Among those also named as first-time finalists were three-time National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Coach of the Year Sylvia Hatchell, WNBA All-Star guard Dawn Staley and six-time NBA All-Star Mitch Richmond.

Payton, a point guard and defensive specialist for 18 NBA seasons, ranks in the top 10 all time in assists and steals.

“A guy coming from Oakland, California, I never dreamed of this,” said Payton, who played 13 seasons with the Seattle SuperSonics and five with the Miami Heat before retiring after the 2006-07 campaign.

“The things I did at the NBA, I never dreamed of that. I would be honored to be a first ballot.”

Previous finalists again being considered for induction into the Springfield, Massachusetts, hall are former NBAAll-Stars Maurice Cheeks, Spencer Haywood, and Bernard King, and college coaches Guy Lewis, Rick Pitino and Jerry Tarkanian.

The Class of 2013 will be unveiled at the NCAA Final Four on April 8 and the enshrinement will take place Sept 8.

Already a Hall of Famer as a player, Heinsohn is up for enshrinement as a coach, having led the Boston Celtics to titles in 1974 and 1976. Hardaway, who had a stellar, 13-year NBA career with five teams, scored 5,000 points and had 2,500 assists faster than any other player, except Oscar Robertson.

The announcement of the finalists was made during the festivities leading up to the NBA All-Star game on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Brazilian legend Oscar Schmidt, a three-time Olympic scoring champion and 1980s Italian league star, was among five people announced Friday as 2013 inductees to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

The announcement of five selections by special committees and 12 finalists for general induction to the sporting shrine came at the start of NBA All-Star Game festivities in Houston ahead of Sunday’s showdown of elite superstars.

Game-changing hoops icon Jordan turns 50 CHICAGO, Feb 16, (AFP): Michael Jordan, the basketball superstar who won six NBA crowns and boosted the sport’s worldwide appeal, celebrates his 50th birthday on Sunday with a powerful legacy 10 years after his final game.

Jordan, cut from his high school team as a sophomore, used that slight and every other he faced as inspiration to ignite a career like no other, becoming in the eyes of many the greatest player to ever dribble a basketball.

“It’s simple,” Miami Heat star guard Dwyane Wade said. “There will never be another Michael Jordan. He was the first to do a lot of things. Whenever you are the first, there can never be another.”

Jordan turned high-leaping slam dunks, clutch game-winning baskets and defensive

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determination into performance art for the Chicago Bulls, leading them to NBA titles from 1991-1993 and 1996-1998 with a retirement in between.

When US college stars proved unable to win Olympic gold in 1988 at Seoul, Jordan led a “Dream Team” all-star squad of NBA icons to Barcelona in 1992 and launched a new era for the sport with a dominant effort and rock-star treatment by fans.

“Air Jordan” sneakers remain among the best sellers today, Jordan’s impact on sports marketing thanks to Nike and others being as groundbreaking as his efforts on the court.

The memory of Jordan’s feats is so great and recent that 28-year-old LeBron James, the NBA’s current top playmaker whose acrobatic leaps and spectacular moves draw comparisons to Jordan, has become weary of

the linkage.

“Happy birthday to him. I wish him the best,” James said. “No comparison. People always want to find ways to compare someone to someone. But Mike is Mike and I’m LeBron and I’m trying to make my own name, make my own statement.”

Asked whether he would pick Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant or James as more successful at this point, Jordan told NBA TV he would pick Bryant.

“Five beats one every time I look at it,” Jordan said, referring to Bryant’s five NBA championships to only one for James.

More than 22 million people have “liked” Jordan’s Facebook page and more than 1,700 have left him “Happy Birthday” messages — technology that did not even exist when Jordan was in his prime 20 years ago.

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Note: All timings local Other TV Listings Page 32

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

SPORTS

45

USA’s Noelle Pikus-Pace takes part in the first run before going on to take the first place in the Women’s Skeleton competition in the FIBT Bob & Skeleton World Cup at the Sanki Sliding Center, some 50 kms from Russia’s Black Sea resort

Rush shines

Humphries wins bobsled WC title SOCHI, Russia, Feb 16, (AP): Reigning Olympic and world champion Kaillie Humphries of Canada claimed her maiden overall title in the bobsled World Cup on Friday after finishing third at the seasonending event.

The 2006 Olympic champion Sandra Kiriasis of Germany and her brakewoman Franziska Bertels clocked a combined time of 1 minute, 57.19 seconds from two heats to win the first bobsled test event at the Sanki Sliding Center - the 2014 Sochi Olympics venue for bobsled, skeleton and luge.

It was a 45th career victory fo Kiriaisis, who dominated the World Cup from 2003 to 2011 with nine consecutive overall victories.

Americans Elana Meyers and her pusher Aja Evans were second in 1:57.32, while Humphries and her brakewoman Chelsea Valois clocked 1:57.33.

Humphries finished top of the women’s bobsled rankings with 1,960 points from nine events. Kiriasis was 162 points behind in second, while her fellow German Cathleen Martini was third with 1,691 points. The World Cup continues Saturday with women’s skeleton and men’s bobsled events.

Meanwhile, Canadian pilot Lyndon Rush won his first two-man bobsled World Cup overall title after finishing fourth at the season-ending race on Saturday.

Rush, a runner-up last season at the world championships, won two titles and had two more podiums this season with his brakeman Jesse Lumsden to finish 54 points clear of Oskars Melbardis of Latvia.

Germany’s Manuel Machata was third, 152 points back.

of Sochi, on Feb 16. With a year to go until the Sochi 2014 Winter Games, construction work continues as tests events and World Championship competitions are underway. (AFP)

Brumbies rout disappointing Reds Perpignan gatecrash Nove’s 1,000th Toulouse game CANBERRA, Feb 16, (AFP): Fullback Jesse Mogg scored two tries for the ACT Brumbies as they downed a disappointing Queensland Reds 24-6 in their Super 15 rugby match in Canberra on Saturday.

In a match that rarely reached any great heights, the Brumbies dominated the Reds at the breakdown to claim a well-deserved win.

The Reds, who finished 2012 as the top Australian side, were let down by a lack of discipline and were punished by referee Andrew Lees.

The winning margin could have been even greater but the Brumbies kickers had an off night, missing four penalty attempts and failing to convert Mogg’s first try.

“They beat us twice last year and you

matched them there tonight,” he said.

The Reds opened the scoring with a 51metre penalty to Mike Harris in the third minute, but the Brumbies hit back soon after with a try in the corner to Mogg.

In a tight and somewhat dour first half, Harris kicked his second penalty to put the Reds back in front.

However, on the stroke of halftime, ACT halfback Nic White booted a penalty to send the Brumbies into the break leading 8-6.

The second half was almost a carbon copy of the first, but the Brumbies gradually took control and crept ahead on the

scoreboard with three more penalties.

Queensland only started to look dangerous in the last 15 minutes but they never really threatened the ACT tryline and Mogg rubbed salt into the Reds’ wounds when he intercepted a Quade Cooper pass to score under the posts.

Also: PARIS: South African centre Gavin Hume scored the only try as Perpignan defeated Toulouse 19-18 on Friday to shatter Guy Noves’ dream of celebrating his 1,000th match with the French champions with victory.

RUGBY try not to carry things over between seasons, but that really hurt us and we weren’t happy,” Brumbies captain Ben Mowen said.

“We left a lot of opportunities out there but I’m really happy with that.”

Mowen said the ACT forward pack, which has been bolstered by the recruitment of Wallaby flanker David Pocock, had laid the foundation for the win.

“The breakdown is obviously a huge strength for the Reds and I think we

Hume scored with 10 minutes left with Welsh fly-half James Hook kicking the crucial extras as Perpignan came back from 18-12 down to condemn Toulouse to a first loss at their Stade Ernest-Wallon home in almost three years.

Former All Black Luke McAlister kicked all of Toulouse’s points with Hook equally accurate as the defending champions, stripped of seven international players away on Six Nations duty, slumped to a second successive domestic defeat.

“It’s a bitter defeat because I feel we dominated the match until the last 10 minutes,” said manager Noves, who insisted he would trade the 1,000-match mark for a win. “I’d prefer to have 100 fewer matches and have won tonight.”

Noves has been associated with Toulouse since 1975 when he made his debut as a player before progressing to coach and manager.

The 59-year-old, who has led the club to a record four European Cups and been involved in 10 national titles, even turned down the opportunity to take the reins of the French national team in 2011 to remain loyal to his long-time employers.

After his 259-game playing career ended in 1988, he had overseen 740 matches as coach and manager — including 540 in the Top 14 and a record 131 in the European Cup — up until Friday. ❑ ❑ ❑

Perpignan players (left), celebrate their victory 19-18 at the end of the French Top 14 rugby union match Toulouse vs Perpignan on Feb 15, at the Ernest Wallon Stadium in Toulouse, southern France. (AFP)

Prop forward Joe Marler has said England would back themselves to win the World Cup if it started tomorrow but

stressed there was plenty of work to be done before they play host to the next edition in 2015.

England are on a fine run of form at present, having beaten world champions New Zealand in December, and they lead the Six Nations with two wins out of two.

Victories at home to Scotland and away to Ireland have left England as the only country in this season’s Six Nations capable of winning a Grand Slam ahead of the visit of France a week on Saturday.

After England’s record-breaking 38-21 win over New Zealand at Twickenham in December, All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said Stuart Lancaster’s side were capable of winning the World Cup. And Marler said Friday: “If it was to start tomorrow, we’d back ourselves to win it. It’s a little bit of an English thing in most sports, getting ahead of ourselves somewhat.

“We’re on a journey as a team and each time we pull on that shirt it’s another step towards that ultimate goal of a home World Cup in front of your own fans.

“That’s our main goal. But we’ll be focusing on the process in between then and now because it’s still two-and-a-half years away, so we’ve got lots to do before then.”

Meanwhile, England fly-half Owen Farrell, whose recent performances in the white shirt have seen him touted as a starting No 10 for the British and Irish Lions in Australia later this year, was also cautious about a repetition of the Red Rose brigade’s 2003 World Cup triumph.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

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Black Caviar returns with 23rd straight victory MUMBAI, Feb 16, (RTRS): Australian champion sprinter Black Caviar broke the 1,000 metres track record at Flemington

in Melbourne on Saturday as the unbeaten mare enjoyed a comfortable return to action by romping home in a race named

in her honour.

Making her first start since picking up an injury in a narrow victory at Royal

Ascot last June, the six-year-old won the Black Caviar Lightning Stakes to maintain her perfect record with a 23rd win

from as many starts.

Black Caviar led from the start and widened the gap from the chasing pack to

win by 2-1/2 lengths in a time of 55.42 seconds, 0.08 faster than the previous best set by Special in 1988.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

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Miu, Mima stun Seok, Yang as Kasumi, Misaki upset No. 1 seeds Cheng, Huang

Japan’s Ai triumphs over S. Korea’s Young

By Iddris Seidu Arab Times Staff

KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: Japan’s Ai Fukuhara triumphed 4-2 over Young Sook Park, stunning the South Korean with jaw-dropping servings that made the crowd applaud in a thunderous manner at the Kuwait sports Club in Kaifan on Saturday.

The first serve went to Park but Ai warmed her way into the game to win the second and third serves.

Park came roaring back to take the forth, tying the scores at 2-2 at that point. But as the killer instinct in Ai Fukuhara awakened, the Japanese women’s singles champion who had earlier in the day in partnership with compatriot Hirano Sayaka, lost a

women’s doubles round one match, reached for all her tricks in the bag to decisively win the final two rounds, finishing at 4-2 of the women’s single round one encounter.

Meanwhile, Japan’s Miu Hirano and Mima Ito caused the biggest shock in the first round of the Women’s Doubles event at the ITTF

TABLE TENNIS 2013 World Tour Kuwait Open event when they surely etched a place in the history of the program that is now in its 18th year.

The duo partnered to beat Korea’s Seok Hajung and Yang Haeun, the no.6 seeds, thus becoming what

must be the youngest quarter-finalists ever at an ITTF World Tour tournament at age twelve. The twelve year olds played free-flowing table tennis without the slightest inhibition, approaching each contest like seasoned veterans, causing elder adversaries problems and headaches.

Another upset was in the making when another Japanese Women’s Doubles duo, Kasumi Ishikawa and Misaki Morizono easily accounted for their Chinese Taipei opponents, Cheng I-Ching and Huang Yi-Hua, the no.1 seeds, winning in a full distance five games duel 11-4, 8-11, 711, 11-3, 11-5.

Also in the Women’s Doubles, the combination of Russia’s Yana

Ai Fukuhara

Noskova and Elizabeta Samara beat Korea’s Lee Eunhee and Park

Youngsook, the no.4 seeds, 11-8, 118, 12-10 while China’s Feng Yalan and Liu Shiwen ousted Hong Kong’s Guan Meng Yuan and Ng Wing Nam, the no.8 seeds, 9-11, 11-9, 11-6, 11-9, with Jeon Jihee and Yoo Eunchong, also from Korea, defeating Singapore’s Feng Tianwei and Yu Mengyu, the no.5 seeds 11-9, 12-10, 10-12, 11-9.

Only two seeded pairs survived the first round of the Women’s Doubles event. China’s Ding Ning and Li Xiaoxia, the no.2 seeds, beat Hong Kong’s Doo Hoi Kem and Li Ching Wan (9-11, 11-7, 11-9, 11-5) with the latter’s colleagues, Jiang Huajun and Lee Ho Ching, the no.3 seeds, accounting for Alice Abbat and Carole Grundish of France (6-11, 11-

4, 11-7, 11-8).

China’s Ma Long and Zhang Jike, the no.1 seeds, beat Chinese Taipei’s Chen Chien-An and Chang ChihYuan 11-9, 11-9, 6-11, 11-8 while Singapore’s Gao Ning and Li Hu, the no.2 seeds, accounted for Japan’s Seiya Kishikawa and Jun Mizutani (4-11, 11-8, 11-8, 11-7), wwith Xu Xin and Yan, also from China showing no mercy, accounting for Korea’s Cho Eonrae and Jung Youngsik (1210, 14-12, 14-12).

Game day four, Sunday will see women’s singles round 2 and men’s singles round 3 as well as quarter finals and semi finals for men’s doubles, Men’s singles and women’s singles and women’s doubles.

Williams faces Azarenka in Qatar final showdown Del Potro reaches 2nd Rotterdam final DOHA, Feb 16, (AFP): Serena Williams celebrated her recapture of the world number one ranking with her best performance of the year in a 6-3, 6-2 trouncing of Maria Sharapova to reach the Qatar Open final on Saturday.

Spectacularly heavy hitting carried the 15-time Grand Slam title-winner into Sunday’s final against top seed and defending champion Victoria Azarenka.

WTA Qatar – Final Aljazeera Sport +10 (15:00 Local)

(Top & above) photos taken during the event.

Martinez named MVP

Habtoor beat Dubai to clinch Silver Cup DUBAI, Feb 16: Habtoor Polo won the Silver Cup, Dubai Polo Gold Cup Series 2013, after defeating Abu Dhabi by 10 goals to 9 in overtime. It was a tremendus match, keeping the crowd on the edge of the seats in suspense.

With the score tied at 9 goals, Abu Dhabi had the chance to win the game but Mohammed Al Habtoor saved the goal and his team from defeat. In the extra chukka, Ezequiel Martínez made a great move from his own side and scored the goal that gave Habtoor Polo the victory and the Silver Cup. Both teams played a great match, full of action, nice goals and suspense.

In the first half of the game Habtoor Polo took the lead. In the second half, Abu Dhabi had a great comeback and tied the game after being three goals behind.

Faris Al Yabouni´s team missed two chances to win the game in the last minute of the fifth chukka.

Despite of that, Habtoor Polo remained calm and took the opportunity to win the match with the great move by Ezequiel Martínez, named the MVP of the final and the tournament.

Faris Al Yabouni was the best amateur player of the tournament and Ghantoot, after defeating Bin Drai by 6 goals to 2.5, won the Subsidiary Final.

Six teams took part of the Dubai Polo Gold Cup Series: Habtoor Polo; Mahra Polo; Zedan Polo; Bin Drai Polo; Abu Dhabi Polo and Ghantoot Polo.

POLO Held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, the tournament has grown in tandem with the city of Dubai.

With its exciting mix of top-class sportsmanship and glamour, it has earned a reputation as one of the most prestigious events on the international polo calendar. It’s also one of the most important annual tournaments in the region and always attracts a high profile crowd. This year it looks set to be more popular than ever and some of the most respected names from the world of polo have confirmed their participation.

As always the Dubai Polo Gold Cup series promises the very best in sportsmanship, entertainment of the highest level and an atmosphere unlike any other polo event.

“I am proud to see Dubai playing host to yet another top polo event,” said Mohammed Al Habtoor, the Chairman of the Dubai Polo Gold Cup Series during the presentation of the tournament last sunday 27th January. “Each year the event reaches new heights. Dubai has quickly gained popularity and found its place on the Polo world stage. In 2012 the Dubai Gold Cup

Best of the Rest Palermo, Chievo draw: Palermo drew 1-1 at Chievo Verona in Serie A on Saturday to provisionally move off the bottom spot in the table.

The Sicilian side, the only Serie A team not to have won away from home this season, took a surprise lead in the fifth minute.

Chievo defender Francesco Acerbi headed down a long pass from Jasmin Kurtic, but the ball fell straight to Mauro Formica who drilled it into the bottom right corner for his first goal in Italian football since arriving on loan from Blackburn. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑ Getafe beat Celta Vigo: Adrian Colunga scored one goal and set up another to lead Getafe to a 3-1 win at home over relegation-threatened Celta Vigo in the Spanish league on Saturday.

The Getafe striker collected a ball lost by Celta’s Gustavo Cabral and shot into the far side of the net to give the hosts the lead 10 minutes in.

Augusto Fernandez’s header 10 minutes later leveled for Celta, but Getafe forward Diego Castro scored from a rebound in the 34th before Federico Fernandez headed Colunga’s corner into the net in the 42nd. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Saturday’s defeat for French Open champion Sharapova was the Russian’s first in Doha where she had won the title in both her previous appearances.

Williams showed few signs of the back and ankle injuries or of the cold which had been bothering her, and it was as if regaining the top spot, as she will on Monday, had removed the shackles from her mind and body.

It also earned Williams a final against Australian Open winner Azarenka and gives her a chance to prove she is indeed better than an opponent who will hold the top spot for just one more day.

Williams’ standard was a revelation.

Gone was the heavy movement which weighed her down during her narrow escape against Petra Kvitova in Friday’s quarter-finals, and in its place was dynamic early ball hitting to follow up the best serve in the women’s game.

The 31-year-old, who will be chasing a 48th career title on Sunday, also served far better than previously this week, and once Sharapova had delivered a double fault to drop serve in the sixth game Williams got on top and never looked back.

“Maria always plays well and consistently and I am just trying to be consistent as well,” said Williams, who will become the oldest woman to hold the top ranking on Monday.

“Tomorrow will be a great match. You guys hopefully will come out and cheer for me.”

Sharapova too hit the ball a mighty blow, and the weight and fierceness of some of the rallies between them can rarely have been equalled.

But hard as the Russian tried to give back as much as she got, she never looked like preventing her 10th consecutive loss to the American.

Azarenka, the only leading player in the world who remains unbeaten this year, also looked impressive, achieving her 13th successive win of 2013.

The top-seeded Belarusian did that with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, a thumping result against the fourth best player in the world and one which might lead to back-toback defence of titles.

Azarenka successfully defended the

Cellino questioned: Cagliari President Massimo Cellino has been questioned for nearly nine hours after being arrested in an ongoing investigation into the construction of Is Arenas stadium.

Cellino was arrested on Thursday along with public works commissioner Stefano Lilliu and Mauro Contini, the mayor of Quartu, where the stadium is located. The trio are suspected of attempted embezzlement and fraud. (AP)

Series was recognised by the World Polo Tour (WPT). We have been privileged to attract some big names to the event year after year. Of course it is lovely to see many familiar faces (players, officials and spectators), but it is also great to see new faces on and off the field. This year we have upped the stakes by increasing the handicap from 15 to 16 goals. This means the Dubai Polo Gold Cup Series (Dubai Open) is now the highest handicapped tournament in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. A great achievement! Last year I was fortunate to lead my team to victory.”

US Serena Williams serves to Russia’s Maria Sharapova during their WTA Qatar Open semifinal tennis match on Feb 16, in the Qatari capital, Doha. Williams won 6-3, 6-2. (AFP)

Australian Open last month.

“I’ve grown up a little bit,” said Azarenka. “It’s maturity and a little more experience. The beginning of last year was a kick start for me to find more rhythm and step up my game.

“I also love it here (in Doha) and it feels like home, so I am glad I am in the final again.” ❑ ❑ ❑ Juan Martin del Potro dispatched Bulgarian youngster Grigor Dimitrov 64, 6-4 on Saturday to move into his second straight Rotterdam World Tennis event final.

The Argentine winner, seeded second and now the top-ranked player left after Friday’s shock elimination of Roger Federer by Julien Benneteau.

ATP 500 Rotterdam – Final Aljazeera Sport +8 (16:30 Local)

Belarus’ Victoria Azarenka serves to Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland in the semifinal of the WTA Qatar Ladies Open tennis tournament in Doha, Qatar, Feb 16. (AP)

Del Potro, who lost the final to Federer here a year ago, lifted a pair of indoor titles last autumn in Vienna and Basel.

“Anything can happen in the finals, I have to play at my best and not give my opponent any chance to break,” the Del Potro. “I’m a little surprised not to see Federer in the final, But Benneteau plays well on hardcourt and Roger can have a bad day like anyone.

“Benneteau deserved to win the match.

Playing someone like Roger is always a pleasure but I’m focused on the match in front of me.

“This is my second final here, so I’ll try to win it for the first time.”

The Argentine fired six aces in his 75minute win, breaking once per set in his tidy victory in a first meeting with the 21year-old Dimitrov.

“I’m glad I was able to beat him, he’s a newcomer with a lot of potential,” said the winner, bidding for his 14th career title as he plays Rotterdam for the second time.

“I used my serve well today.”

Del Potro will be playing in his 19th final at the ATP level.

He reached the final hurdle after holding serve in 40 games without a loss.

“I improved my game since the quarter-finals, but if I want to win the title I have to get that little bit better. I need to play at 100 per cent.”

Dimitrov had been looking for his second career ATP final after losing in Brisbane last month to Andy Murray.

The Argentine improved to 6-1 this season while Dimitrov dropped to 9-5. ❑ ❑ ❑ Rafael Nadal overcame a poor start and a difficult third set to defeat Carlos Berlocq of Argentina 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 on Friday, advancing to the semifinals of the Brazil Open.

Nadal jumped and thrust both of his arms into the air after he closed the match against the 78th-ranked Berlocq in 2

hours, 24 minutes, staying on track to win his first tournament after a long layoff to recover from a left knee injury.

Earlier, two-time defending champion and second-seeded Nicolas Almagro fell to David Nalbandian in three sets at the indoor clay-court tournament in South America’s biggest city.

With the crowd behind him, Nadal broke Berlocq’s service in the final game of the match to secure the victory and a spot in the semifinals. ❑ ❑ ❑ Milos Raonic and John Isner stayed on track for a meeting in the final of the SAP Open by blasting their way past their quarterfinal opponents in quick time on Friday.

Canada’s Raonic, a two-time defending champion in this tournament and top seed, sent down 14 aces in his 7-6 (0), 6-3 win over Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin.

His semifinal opponent will be American Sam Querrey, who outlasted Colombia’s Alejandro Falla 6-3, 4-6, 7-5.

Isner made it to the San Jose final four for the first time in his career, overpowering Belgian veteran Xavier Malisse 7-6 (8), 6-2 with his booming serve.

Next for Isner is another experienced campaigner in Germany’s Tommy Haas, who beat local wild-card Steve Johnson 6-4, 6-2. The four semifinal berths are filled by the tournament’s top four seeds.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

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Langer shoots 62 to take ACE Group Classic lead

S. Korea’s Bae, Sweden’s Jacobson share Riviera lead LOS ANGELES, Feb 16, (Agencies): South Korea’s Sang-moon Bae birdied nine holes en route to a sixunder 65 on Friday that left him tied with Sweden’s Fredrik Jacobson in the second round of the Northern Trust Open.

Bae, a 26-year-old in his second full season on the US PGA Tour, got off to a blazing start at sunsplashed Riviera Country Club, opening with four straight birdies from the 10th as he positioned himself for a run at a first PGA Tour title.

GOLF Bae’s nine-under par total of 133 stood up as the lead for much of the day, but Jacobson briefly overtook him with his seventh birdie of the day at the 13th before dropping back with his only bogey of the day at 15 and also finishing with a 65 for 133.

They were one stroke in front of Americans John Merrick and John Rollins. Merrick carded a 66 and Rollins posted a 65 highlighted by an eagle at the 11th for eight-under 134.

World number three Luke Donald carded a 66 for 135, one stroke better than former Masters champion Charl Schwartzel of South Africa (67), reigning US Open champion Webb Simpson (66) and England’s Lee Westwood

(68).

Bae took a conservative approach at the classic par-71 Riviera course in the Pacific Palisades west of downtown Los Angeles.

Bae also missed a couple of short ones — that included a two-footer that failed to drop at the fifth hole, where he made one of his three bogeys.

Jacobson, sidelined late last year with a back injury, came in with some confidence after finishing with a share of seventh up the coast at Pebble Beach last week.

The most unlikely of his seven birdies came at the par-four ninth, where he rolled in a 54-foot putt from about five feet off the green to launch a burst of three birdies in a row.

“That putt was pretty spectacular,” Jacobson said. “I was just short left of the green and there was a lot of slopes and bumps along the way there to get it there but managed to trickle over the edge.”

Jacobson said he was pleased that his back was holding up well to both competition and practice, but said he hadn’t changed his expectations after his top10 finish at Pebble Beach.

“I haven’t really played any rounds with any expectations other than I’m going to go out and do my absolute best,” he said. “I don’t really have any numbers in mind or anything like that.

I just go out and try my hardest and try

Ko in sight of sensational 2nd win SYDNEY, Feb 16, (AFP): New Zealand amateur Lydia Ko moved within sight of a historic second US LPGA win at the age of just 15 when she shot 70 to share the Women’s Australian Open third round lead with Shin Ji-Yai on Saturday.

Ko, who became the tour’s youngest winner at last year’s Canadian Women’s Open, and Shin, South Korea’s world number eight, opened up a commanding six-shot lead with matching three-under-par rounds at Royal Canberra Golf Club.

Coincidentally, the two were also paired in the last round of the Canadian tournament in August, when Korean-born Ko smashed US star Lexi Thompson’s record by winning at the age of just 15 years, four months and two days.

Thompson was 16 years and eight

to work as hard as I can.”

Donald, making his first competitive start of 2013, was pleased with his game.

His cause was aided by three birdie putts from the fringe, a 41-footer at the par-four 15th, a 22-footer at the parfour third and a 71-footer at the par-

months when she won the 2011 Navistar Classic, meaning victory on Sunday would make Ko the only player to win twice on the LPGA Tour before her 16th birthday, which is in April.

If not for two bogeys among her five birdies, Ko could have held the outright lead and despite scores of 63, 69 and 70 for her total of 17under-par 202, she felt she had played better on her way to victory in Canada.

“I think when I played the best was at the Canadian Open,” she said, according to the US LPGA website.

“That week it felt like it went easily.

That week I didn’t really feel the pressure of wanting to win, because it was an LPGA event.

“So even up until the last hole I didn’t know that I would win, so in that kind of situation it was pretty much

three fourth.

Also: NAPLES, Florida: Bernhard Langer holed out from the fairway for an eagle on the par-4 10th and finished with a 10-under 62 on Friday to take a threestroke lead in the Champions Tour’s

when I was hitting the best.”

Shin trailed in five shots behind Ko in Vancouver last year, but she was hopeful of a better result as she seeks her third win in her past seven LPGA appearances, and 11th overall.

“Well, I really look forward to tomorrow because I really enjoyed the last three rounds,” said Shin. “And then I know I’ll play a really young golfer.

“But I have more experience than her. I have a really good feeling with my swing and tempo, so I just give focus to each of my shots.”

Spain’s Beatriz Recari was alone in third spot behind the two leaders, with Taiwan’s world number one Tseng Yani among a group two shots further back and eight off the pace on a total score of 210.

ACE Group Classic.

Langer hit a 9-iron from 141 yards that went right in the cup on the 10th.

“Just heard a lot of noise when it hit the flag and cup,” he said. “Sometimes they bounce out and go all over the place, but this one stayed in, so that

was nice.”

Langer had three birdies on the front nine on TwinEagles’ Talon Course, then played the back nine in 7-under 29 with the eagle and five birdies — including four in a row on Nos. 13-16.

Langer got off to a slow start with four straight pars, but was hitting the ball well.

“It was just a matter of being patient, and it can happen in golf,” he said.

Langer needed an eagle and birdie on the last two holes to get to 59, and eagled No. 17 all three times he played it last year.

“I was thinking even though it’s wet and the course is playing much longer, if I really hit a great tee shot down there, might get there (in two) with a 3wood, but slightly mis-hit my tee shot, and that was just about 10 yards too far away to go for it,” he said.

The 55-year-old German star, a 16time winner on the 50-and-over tour, won the event in 2011 at The Quarry.

Bob Tway was second after a 65, and Tom Pernice Jr, Jay Don Blake and John Huston shot 66.

Tway, who has had two top-10 finishes in his last 44 events, spent the offseason working on his short game.

“I haven’t been very pleased with how I’ve been playing, so I spent a lot of time at it,” he said.

Light rain fell throughout the morning, with a brief heavier shower.

Shiffrin wins slalom ‘gold’ Austria’s Kirchgasser 2nd SCHLADMING, Austria, Feb 16, (AFP): US teenage sensation Mikaela Shiffrin was crowned women’s slalom world champion Saturday.

The 17-year-old - known as the slalom princess - clocked an aggregate time over both runs of 1min 39.85sec to finish first in a nail-biting last women’s race of these championships.

United States’ Mikaela Shiffrin clears a gate during the first run of the women’s slalom, a the Alpine skiing world championships in Schladming, Austria, Feb 16.

American teenager Mikaela Shiffrin became the youngest women’s slalom world champion in 39 years on Saturday. (AP)

Austria’s Michaela Kirchgasser shocked the home crowd by topping her much-favoured compatriots for second place at 0.22sec, while Sweden’s Frida Hansdotter was third at 0.26sec.

Shiffrin’s win consolidated the US team’s dominant run at these championships, after Ted Ligety’s three gold medals and Julia Mancuso’s super-G bronze.

Despite a couple of small mistakes, the teenager again demonstrated the incredible form which has seen her take three slalom wins this winter, her second season, to top the World Cup rankings in that discipline.

Evans in 3rd overall

SKIING

Froome holds off Contador, wins Oman Tour

Third after the first run, she put in a blazing second run to take the win.

But she had yet to realise her achievement, she said after her victory.

“I don’t know if I ever will. It was crazy, there are so many emotions today.

“I thought I skied solid but probably not to my potential, my legs were tired.

“I was nervous up until I went out of the start... but when I got in the start, I felt alive and ready to race,” said the American, who was competing in her first ever world ski championships.

“It’s been a pretty amazing experience.”

Shiffrin added: “I was thinking so many things. It was one of those times when everything was a blur and that’s when you know it’s good.

“I’ve been taking it day by day and right now I’m just taking it second by second.”

Among the Austrians, defending champion Marlies Schild and 2011 silver medallist Kathrin Zettel had been the favourites to take a medal but Kirchgasser outshone them and screamed with joy when she found out she had won her first medal in a major event.

“I’m so happy. It’s so great. I was standing there thinking I’d be fourth. I didn’t even realise I was second,” she said.

Hansdotter, who was fastest after the first run, was happy with her bronze.

“I did two good runs and I have a medal so I’m satisfied,” said the Swede.

The women’s slalom was set up as a duel between Shiffrin and returning slalom queen Schild.

The four-time slalom World Cup winner and Olympic silver medallist finished ninth at 1.58sec but showed she was back on the scene with a combative run in her first competitive race since a knee injury in late December.

The 31-year-old was then feared out for the season but made a surprise comeback for the world championships.

Olympic champion Maria HoeflRiesch missed out on a fourth medal at these championships — after supercombined gold and bronzes in the downhill and team event — going out

MUSCAT, Oman, Feb 16, (Agencies): Tour de France runnerup Christopher Froome won the Tour of Oman Saturday, holding off Alberto Contador and Cadel Evans to claim his first stage-race victory.

Froome, a Team Sky rider who grabbed the lead after the fourth stage, crossed the Matrah Corniche in Muscat as part of the peloton to safely protect his 27-second lead of Contador, the two-time Tour de France winner who rides for Team Saxo.

Evans, who won the Tour de France in 2011, was a further 12 seconds back in third.

CYCLING “It wasn’t just a straight forward finish, it had a little bit of a climb on the final circuit which made it a test right down to the last couple of kilometers,” Froome said.

Team Saxo Sporting Director Lars Michaelsen said Froome deserved the win after holding off Contador’s challenge.

“An overall second place is not exactly a dream position but that’s often the feeling when you’re so close to the top spot,” Michaelsen said. “However, we did what we could to get the win and Alberto fought hard and gave everyone a spectacular race. But Froome demonstrated more than once that’s he can keep coming back after several fierce moves from Alberto and we respect that.”

French national champion Nacer Bouhanni won the 144-kilometer (89.5 mile) sixth stage, which started in Hawit Nagam Park southeast of the capital, in 3 hours, 24 minutes, 20 seconds. He sprinted to victory ahead of Matthew Goss of Orica GreenEdge and Taylor Phinney of BMC Racing.

With 25 kilometers (15.5 mile) to go, a trio of riders led by Katusha’s Gatis Smukulis had more than a minute’s lead ahead of a pack of about 80 riders. The trio was caught on the final circuit on the Matrah Corniche, with the remaining riders bunched all the way to the final stretch.

Results Results after the sixth and final stage of the Tour of Oman on Saturday, a 144 kilometre stage from Hawit Nagam park to Muscat: Stage 1. Nacer Bouhanni (FRA/FDJ) 3hr 24min 20sec, 2. Matthew Goss (AUS) s.t., 3. Taylor Phinney (USA) s.t., 4. Elia Viviani (ITA) s.t., 5. Borut Bozic (SLO) s.t., 6. Daryl Impey (RSA) s.t., 7. Tom Boonen (BEL) s.t., 8. Danny Van Poppel (NED) s.t., 9. Blaz Jarc (SLO) s.t., 10. Marco Coledan (ITA) s.t.

Selected 18. Cadel Evans (AUS) s.t., 31.

Christopher Froome (GBR) s.t., 51.

Alberto Contador (ESP) s.t., 58.

Joaquim Rodriguez (ESP) s.t., 81.

Fabian Cancellara (SUI) at 38, 126.

Bradley Wiggins (GBR) 4:00.

Overall standings 1. Christopher Froome (GBR/Sky) 23hr 28min 33sec, 2. Alberto Contador (ESP) at 27s, 3. Cadel Evans (AUS) 39, 4. Joaquim Rodriguez (ESP) 50, 5. Rinaldo Nocentini (ITA) 1:13, 6. Johann Tschopp (SUI) s.t, 7.

Vincenzo Nibali (ITA) 1:19, 8. Kenny Elissonde (FRA) 1:34, 9. Domenico Pozzovivo (ITA) 1:44, 10. Maxime Bouet (FRA) 1:57.

Selected 21. Philippe Gilbert (BEL) 3:04, 42. Fabian Cancellara (SUI) 11:46, 68. Taylor Phinney (USA) 19:30, 74.

Bradley Wiggins (GBR) 22:46, 83.

Tom Boonen (BEL) 26:17.

Britain’s cyclist of Sky Procycling Team Christopher Froome poses on the podium after receiving the leader’s red jersey at the end of the sixth and last stage of the cycling Tour of Oman, on Feb 16, in the Omani capital Muscat. The final stage was a 144 kms ride from Hawit Nagam park in the south of the emirate to Muscat along the Matrah corniche. Froome won the Oman Tour. (AFP)

Junhui eases into Welsh Open semis NEWPORT, United Kingdom, Feb 16, (AFP): Defending champion Ding Junhui made light work of reaching the last four of the Wales Open with a 5-1 quarterfinal win over England’s Robert Milkins on Friday.

The Chinese cueman has not won a major title since defeating Mark Selby in last year’s final in south Wales.

But he looked somewhere near his best form as breaks of 50, 104 and 74 allowed him to sprint into a 4-0 lead.

Milkins stopped the rot with a break of 108 in the fifth frame and made 52 in the next. But his failure to post a frame-winning contribution was punished by Ding, who sealed victory with a clearance of 63.

“I have been working hard,” Ding told worldsnooker.com.

“I have just been a bit unlucky in a few tournaments,” he added ahead of a semifinal against another Englishman in Stuart Bingham, who beat Ireland’s former world champion Ken Doherty on Friday.

Earlier, Indian potter Pankaj Advani’s history-making run came to an end with a 5-2 quarter-final defeat by Judd Trump.

The 27-year-old from Pune had become the first Indian to reach the last eight of a snooker ranking event when he defeated Graeme Dott 4-1 on Thursday.

But Advani, a former world billiards champion, saw his hopes of further progress dashed by world number two Trump.

The Englishman, looking to make amends after first round losses at the UK Championship, Masters and German Open, raced into a 4-0 lead.

Advani then gamely prevented a whitewash and overcame a 58-point deficit in the sixth frame before Trump sealed victory.

“I felt a lot more confident today and I’m steadily improving throughout the tournament which is what the likes of John Higgins and Ronnie O’Sullivan do,” Trump said.

Gold medal winner Ted Ligety of the US poses with his medals on the podium during the medal awards ceremony for the men’s Giant slalom at the 2013 Ski World Championships in Schladming on Feb 15. (AFP)

US Ligety faces Hircher ‘hurdle’ SCHLADMING, Austria, Feb 16, (AFP): Austrian tyro Marcel Hirscher has been installed as the bookmakers’ favourite for the men’s slalom at the World Ski Championships on Sunday.

But the 23-year-old, who won a silver in the giant slalom on Friday, has a potentially monumental obstacle that could block his way to the top of the podium: American Ted Ligety.

Ligety has so far claimed three gold medals here (super-G, super combined, giant slalom), the first time a male skier has achieved that feat since France’s Jean-Claude Killy in 1968.

The 28-year-old American will now be seeking to become the first man to win the technical double at the worlds since Italian Alberto Tomba in 1996, and few would bet against him given his electric form on the snow of Schladming.

“I don’t think I have a very good chance of winning a medal on Sunday,” said a modest Ligety.

“I don’t have the speed or consistency that Marcel or Felix Neureuther or Alexis Pinturault have. If I put together two really great runs, I think I have some chance of maybe sliding onto the podium but that will take some luck.”

Ligety added: “I’d like to think I could possibly get a medal. But my expectations aren’t necessarily that high.”

Hirscher, who has admitted to struggling to deal with carrying the weight of an expectant nation on his young shoulders, again tried to downplay his chances in the championships-ending slalom.

“My target has been reached.

Whatever comes now is an added bonus,” said the Salzburg native who also won gold as part of the Austrian squad that claimed victory in the team event.

“My goal on Sunday is to enjoy the last race.”

France’s injury-plagued defending world champion Jean-Baptiste Grange said Hirscher’s style had left him in no doubt over his commitment.

near the bottom of the course even as she had the fastest split times.

Slovenia’s Tina Maze also failed in her bid to improve on her medal haul of one gold and two silvers, coming in fifth.

The closing race of the two-week event will be the men’s slalom on Sunday.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

SPORTS

49

Samuel outplay Movenpick 79-69

39-point Dimaano powers Cheese Cake over Kharafi

By Iddris Seidu Arab Times Staff

KUWAIT CITY, Feb 16: Rex Dimaano’s 39-point haul for Cheese Cake earned him the “Player of the Game” vote as he powered his side to an 80-64 victory against Kharafi in the opening game of the Filipino Basketball League (FBL/BAP) on Friday.

Dimaano’s long 3-pointer sling signaled the start of a long battle for honors pitting his side, Cheese Cake against the Kharafi team. Beltran also

BASKETBALL opened Kharafi scoring with a 2-pointer of his own in reply to Dimaano’s as hostilities got underway with fans for both sides drowning the hall with cheers for their teams.

Both sides had fared well in their previous encounters. Dimaano, Cake’s talisman player and best of the game, dealt the opposition ring the heaviest pounding, scoring 39, almost half of his team’s total points. Alisbo, the cliffhanger shooter, pitched the scoring higher by 14 points.

Cheese Cake dominated scoring in every quarter as the baskets seared with shots and counter shots with Kharafi closely trailing, even outscoring Cake in round three, 1012, 13-22, 18-16 and 88-64. A series of one-point shots by Cheese Cake in the dying seconds of the match,

Best of the Rest Mo to make marathon debut: Britain’s double Olympic champion Mo Farah will run the first half of this year’s London marathon prior to making his debut over the full distance in the 2014 race.

“The Olympic 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres champion has agreed to make his full marathon debut at the 2014 London marathon and will use this year’s race to prepare himself for the challenge of tackling 26.2 miles (42.195 kms),” a statement from the race organisers said on Saturday.

“Farah’s aim is to test himself against the best in the world while becoming familiar with the London course.”

Farah won the London minimarathon three years in a row as a schoolboy between 1998 and 2000. He made his halfmarathon debut in 2011 when he won the New Mo York City half marathon in a British record 60 minutes 23 seconds.

“As a young boy growing up in London it has always been my ambition to run the London marathon,” he said in the statement.

“I won the mini-marathon when I was younger and have watched the race every year for as long as I can remember. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑

‘Kenyan athletes are doping’: Three-times world 3,000 metres steeplechase champion Moses Kiptanui said on Friday doping was taking place in Kenyan running camps.

“If you talk to athletes candidly, you get the feeling that doping is going on in these camps,” he told Reuters by telephone from Eldoret.

Kiptanui, who won three world titles between 1991 and 1995, is the first high profile former Kenyan athlete to allege the African nation’s runners are using performance-enhancing drugs.

He said the fluctuating performances of some Kenyan athletes were enough to arouse suspicion.

“They run well today and just (flop) the following moment.

Surely, something is not right,” the 42-year-old said. Kiptanui said catching drugs cheats was difficult because they doped for specific races and the drugs could not be traced the following day.

Allegations that Kenyan athletes were using drugs surfaced ahead of the Olympic Games last year when German television broadcaster ARD reported systematic doping

by Kenya’s elite athletes who train in running camps in the Rift Valley region. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑

Sochi hosts worlds: Sochi’s credentials as host city of the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Games were tested on Saturday with the staging of the wheelchair curling world championships.

“This event is the first tournament to be held in the new ‘Ice Cube’ curling center, specially built for the Olympic and Paralympic Games which will be held here in Sochi in 2014,” the head of world curling federation Kate Caithness said.

“The tournament is a fantastic opportunity to test the world class curling venue ahead of the Games... and I’m sure next year’s Games here in Sochi will be a catalyst for the further development of this discipline.”

Athletes from Canada, China, Korea, Norway, Russia, Slovakia, USA, Finland, Sweden and Scotland are competing in the southern Russian resort.

(AFP)

Movenpick Team

answered neck-to-neck by Kharafi kept the game alive, bringing fans to the edges of their seats.

As Kharafi played under heavy pressure from their fans, Cheese Cake held their nerves to finish off in style at 80-64, their fans getting rapturous at the sound of the buzzer.

Beltran shot a respectable 21 markers with James, Pamor and Martinez chipping in 9, 8 and 7 points apiece for the Kharafi squad in their gallant loss.

The Samuel squad on the other hand outplayed Movenpick Hotel to finish with a comfortable margin, 7969 in a game that mirrored that of the preceding match and left the crowd struggling to catch their breath in

Samuel Team

excitement and suspense as they watched the two squads hanging to each other’s coattails. Ramos opened scoring for Samuel, first with a 2pointer then quickly followed up with another 3-pointer to put some fear into the Movenpick camp.

It was nip-and-tuck between the two squads as they took turns at the hoops, with Bautista leading scoring for Movenpick to end the first quarter tied at 18-18. Rodriguez and Tolentino did the scoring for Samuel while Vilacilio weighed in to assist Bautista in the Movenpick effort.

But the rest of the way saw Samuel subject the hoteliers to a thorough spanking, demolishing the latter’s highly vaunted offense with a crip-

pling defense that stopped Bautista, Movenpick’s offensive machine, in his tracks each time he barreled his way inside in an attempt to score.

Bautista made multiple charges into opposition turf to pound in some points but failed to crack the Samuel defense. On occasions he managed to find his way inside, he got smothered –literally blocked, a number of times, an intimidating factor that led to his teammates to settle for other options rather than attempt a similar adventure.

So dominant was the Samuel defense that Movenpick managed just 36 points in the final half as against 37 for Samuel. Samuel who made the most of every opportunity

they had at the 15-ft line, continued the pressure in the final period before easing up in the homestretch to allow their opponent to buy a few baskets to reduce the gap, 79-69 at the buzzer. Rodriguez, best player of the game, led Samuel in the win with 21, Aquino 12 and Vilocilio 10.

Also on the hard court, the third and penultimate game of the tournament got underway with Tajaz going head to head with KEO. Starring Robles, Manamnam, Cruz and Pascual, Tazaj jumped the gun on KEO, racing to a 20-16 lead in the first quarter but a second round rally

by KEO led by Prado and Sumande, slowed down the Tazaj momentum, tying the scores in the round at 15

and a 4-point advantage for the Tazaj team at the halftime mark.

KEO’s attempts to strike back in round three through their offense duo Prado and Sumande was met with a stifling defense that stymied their coordinated effort. The round ended 16-14 for Tazaj, stretching their advantage to 6 points. KEO upped the pressure in the final round but could only manage a tie, 14-14 in the round to close the game 65-57 at the buzzer in favor of Tazaj.

Meanwhile, Bad Bananas’ hopes of winning the Open category championship trophy suffered a hitch as they lost their first championship game to Chatters, 82-72 in the final game.

The game from the onset got tough with both sides hustling for the win, with Chatters finishing the first quarter with a 2-point advantage at 18-16 on the efforts of Ramos and Sablan.

Javilo and Sumande led the charge for Bananas.

Both teams entered the second quarter with balanced offense and defense strategies but Bananas’ strategy came out tops when they finished the quarter slightly ahead with two points, 21-19 but couldn’t hold the momentum as their defenses crumbled subsequently in the face of series of Chatters raids. The final half of the game ended with Chatters comfortably on top, 22-15 and 23-20 to seal the deal at 82-72. There is still one more game to be played in the open category before the championship can be firmly decided.

Sabres rally past Bruins 4-2 Devils thump Flyers in high scoring thriller BUFFALO, New York, Feb 16, (AP): Christian Ehrhoff scored the winner with 10:58 remaining and the Buffalo Sabres rallied for three goals in the third period to beat the Boston Bruins 4-2.

Ehrhoff fired a wrister from the slot over goalie Anton Khudobin.

Cody Hodgson added an insurance goal less than 3 minutes later when he tipped in a pass from Tyler Myers.

Myers began the comeback 2 minutes into the third period, tying the game at 2 by backhanding in a rebound after Khudobin stoned Jochen Hecht on a 2on-1 break.

The goals completed a stirring comeback for Buffalo, which trailed 2-1 going into the third. Entering the game, Boston (8-2-2) had outscored its opponents 15-5 this season in the final period.

The Bruins’ only other loss in regulation this year came at home against Buffalo on Jan 31.

Drew Stafford also scored and Ryan Miller made 30 saves for Buffalo (6-8-1), which snapped a two-game skid and won for the third time in eight games.

Dougie Hamilton scored his first NHL goal and added an assist for Boston,

ICE HOCKEY which failed to earn a point for only the second time in 12 games. Rich Peverley also scored for the Bruins. Khudobin stopped 22 shots.

Devils 5, Flyers 3 In Newark, NJ‚ David Clarkson scored on a deflection at 10:43 of the third period and New Jersey rallied from a twogoal deficit to defeat Philadelphia.

Travis Zajac, Alexei Ponikarovsky and Patrik Elias scored the Devils’ other goals with Ilya Kovalchuk getting the primary assist on each. Martin Brodeur made 25 saves and had an assist, while Steve Bernier iced the game with an empty-net goal.

Wayne Simmonds, Mike Knuble and Matt Read scored during a 2:36 span in a first-period onslaught for the Flyers, who are 2-7 on the road this season. Ilya Bryzgalov had 15 saves.

Clarkson’s team-high 10th goal came on a deflection of a point shot by Adam Larsson. Elias assisted on the last two goals.

Penguins 3, Jets 1 In Winnipeg, Manitoba, Craig Adams scored his first two goals of the season to lift Pittsburgh to its seventh road win of the season.

James Neal scored his 11th goal of the season, while Penguins goalie MarcAndre Fleury turned aside 25 shots.

Andrew Ladd scored for the Jets and Ondrej Pavelec stopped 25 shots.

Winnipeg has lost three straight at home and hosts Boston on Sunday.

Ducks 5, Red Wings 2 In Detroit, Andrew Cogliano scored two of Anaheim’s three goals in the third period, sending surging Anaheim to its third straight win and seventh in eight games.

Viktor Fasth made 26 saves to become the first goalie in seven years to win his first seven career starts.

Cogliano snapped a 2-all tie 1:02 into the third and Bobby Ryan connected 48 seconds later. Cogliano capped the outburst with his fourth of the season at 18:11.

Blackhawks 4, Sharks 1 In Chicago, Marcus Kruger and Andrew Shaw scored during a strong second period, and NHL-leading Chicago beat sliding San Jose for its fifth win in six games.

Dave Bolland and Niklas Hjalmarsson

Tim Jackman #15 of the Calgary Flames loses his balance as he chases Ryan Reaves #75 of the St Louis Blues during an NHL game at Scotiabank

Saddledome on Feb 15, in Calgary, Canada. (AFP)

also scored for the Blackhawks, who remain the league’s only team without a regulation loss. Jamal Mayers had two

Tim Kennedy scored his first goal of the season for the Sharks, and Antti Niemi had 33 saves against his former

assists and backup Ray Emery made 27 saves for his fourth win in four starts this season.

NHL Results/Standings

WASHINGTON, Feb 16, (RTRS): Results and standings from the NHL games on Friday.

Buffalo 4 Boston 2 New Jersey 5 Philadelphia 3 Pittsburgh 3 Winnipeg 1

New Jersey Pittsburgh NY Rangers Philadelphia NY Islanders

Anaheim Chicago St Louis Dallas Los Angeles

Western Conference

Atlantic Division

Central Division

W 9 10 7 6 5

L OTL 2 3 5 0 5 1 8 1 7 1

GF 40 48 36 37 40

GA 31 35 34 45 46

PTS 21 20 15 13 11

GF 34 36 40 35 43

GA 29 33 36 27 50

PTS 18 17 16 16 13

GF 41 49 33 30 40

GA 37 40 43 47 49

PTS 17 13 11 11 11

Chicago Nashville St Louis Detroit Columbus

W 8 8 8 7 6

L OTL 2 2 4 1 6 0 5 2 8 1

W 8 6 5 4 5

L OTL 4 1 6 1 7 1 6 3 8 1

W 11 7 8 7 4

L OTL 0 3 3 4 5 1 5 2 8 2

2 1 2 3 1

GF 48 28 48 38 31

GA 29 26 45 41 43

PTS 25 18 17 16 10

GF 38 30 29 27 35

GA 29 36 34 32 44

PTS 18 14 13 11 11

GF 47 37 38 35 28

GA 35 33 39 38 33

PTS 21 17 17 14 12

Northwest Division Vancouver Minnesota Edmonton Colorado Calgary

W 8 6 5 5 4

L OTL 3 2 6 2 5 3 6 1 5 3

Pacific Division

Southeast Division Carolina Tampa Bay Winnipeg Florida Washington

Detroit San Jose Calgary Vancouver Columbus

Eastern Conference

Northeast Division Boston Montreal Toronto Ottawa Buffalo

5 4 5 4 2

Anaheim San Jose Dallas Phoenix Los Angeles

W 10 7 8 6 5

L OTL 2 1 4 3 6 1 6 2 5 2

Note: Overtime losses (OTL) are worth one point in the standings and are not included in the loss column (L)

team.

Blues 5, Flames 2 In Calgary, Alberta David Perron scored twice on the power play and St Louis scored four unanswered goals in the first period to cruise to the victory over Calgary.

Perron’s first of the night at 17:12 of the first period came against Joey MacDonald, who took over in the Flames’ net for starter Leland Irving just over four minutes into the game after St Louis scored on two of its first four shots.

Calgary outshot the Blues 15-5 in the second, but was only able to solve rookie Jake Allen once when Dennis Wideman ripped a rising slap shot through a crowd.

Stars 4, Canucks 3 In Vancouver, British Columbia, Brenden Dillon scored the go-ahead goal with 3 minutes left in the third period and Dallas rallied to end Vancouver’s sixgame winning streak.

Reilly Smith, Cody Eakin and Antoine Roussel also scored for the Stars, who overcame a 3-1 deficit to win for the fifth time in six games. Backup goalie Richard Bachman rebounded from a rough start and earned the victory in relief of the injured Kari Lehtonen.

Kings 2, Blue Jackets 1 In Los Angeles, Kyle Clifford opened the scoring late in the second period, Jonathan Bernier made 12 saves for Los Angeles and the defending Stanley Cup champions earned their first regulation win at home this season.

Mike Richards scored during a twoman advantage in the third period for the Kings, who climbed over Columbus and out of last place in the Western Conference with their second straight victory.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

SPORTS

50

‘A tribute to Steenkamp’

Murdered cover girl to appear in reality TV show JOHANNESBURG, Feb 16, (AFP): Blonde covergirl Reeva Steenkamp, who was allegedly shot dead by her lover Oscar Pistorius, will appear in a prerecorded celebrity reality TV show in South Africa Saturday, two days after her death shocked the nation and the world.

The 29-year-old, who was shot four times at the Olympian’s home in the early hours of Valentine’s Day on Thursday, will make a posthumous prime-time debut in “Tropika Island of Treasure.”

On Saturday Pistorius, the 26-year-old South African Paralympics gold medallist, faced a third night in police custody, accused of murdering Steenkamp, the woman who described him as her “boo” and “an amazing person”.

The reality show, shot on location in Jamaica, features the slain model and law graduate as well as several local person-

alities competing for one million rand ($113,500) prize money.

Producers decided not to shelve the show, instead painting its broadcast as a tribute to Steenkamp.

Forensics teams are still working at Pistorius’s home to try and establish what took place before and after Steenkamp was shot in the head and hand.

“She was happy, healthy, beautiful and vibrant and that’s the way she should be remembered,” said executive producer Samantha Moon said in a statement.

In an earlier statement Moon said the decision to broadcast Tropika Island of Treasure 5 was taken after “much deliberation.”

“This week’s episode will be dedicated to Reeva’s memory.”

The show will be broadcast on state television channel SABC1 after

Steenkamp’s mother had given the showing her blessing.

“Yesterday the mother agreed that we should go ahead and we are free to go ahead and we are working on how to pay tribute to her,” said Kaizer Kganyagon, a spokesman for SABC. The audience is expected to be much larger than the 2.5 to 3.0 million viewers who normally watch the show, which is now in its fifth season.

“The number that we expect will be obviously more than the normal, because now everybody wants to see this person that was killed two days ago.”

The hour-long show will air at 6:30 pm (1630 GMT), with a special tribute to be broadcast before.

Trailers show a beaming and vivacious Steenkamp clad in a bikini and other skimpy clothing.

The show is described as “pure adrenaline-fuelled drama... Whether diving off 75-foot Jamaican cliffs into the ocean, recreating ‘Cool Runnings’ or meeting Jamaican celebrities”.

Born in the southern city of Port Elizabeth, Steenkamp moved to Johannesburg six years ago to pursue her modelling career. She had been dating Pistorius since at least November.

After a tear-filled court appearance Friday which saw Pistorius break down repeatedly in the dock, a source at Brooklyn police station in Pretoria said the track star had “slept very well.”

The 26-year-old had sobbed as Pretoria magistrate Desmond Nair announced a single charge of killing Steenkamp.

The medal winner was expected to receive visits on Saturday from family and from members of his defence team,

South Africa fightback puts Test on knife edge

who are preparing for a bail hearing that will begin Tuesday ahead of what is expected to be a lengthy trial.

The state is expected to strongly oppose bail and prosecutors have indicated they will argue the murder was premeditated, meaning he could face a life sentence.

In a statement issued by Pistorius’s family and management company after the court appearance, the fallen star said “the alleged murder is disputed in the strongest terms.”

He also offered his condolences to those close to his former lover.

“Our thoughts and prayers today should be for Reeva and her family — regardless of the circumstances of this terrible, terrible tragedy.”

Meanwhile unconfirmed details of Steenkamp’s last hours appeared in the

IOC to discuss role of WADA

FILA chief forced to resign after IOC snub LONDON, Feb 16, (Agencies): The president of wrestling’s world governing body FILA was forced to resign on Saturday less than a week after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended that the sport be dropped from the 2020 Summer Games.

Switzerland’s Raphael Martinetti announced he was stepping down at a FILA Executive Committee meeting in Thailand after a vote of no confidence following wrestling’s recommended exit from the Games, the first sport since 2005 to be dropped from the Olympic programme.

He had been “accused” by some of FILA’s members as responsible for the sport’s debacle at this week’s IOC Executive Board meeting.

“On the occasion of the extraordinary bureau meeting that was convened by Mr Raphael Martinetti in Phuket on 15-16 February 2013, a group of Eastern delegates accused Martinetti him of being to blame for the eviction of wrestling as part of the 25 core sports for the 2020 Olympic Games,” FILA said in a statement.

“Mr Martinetti asked for the bureau’s trust in leading the campaign to save wrestling in the coming months, but the bureau only supported him by 50 percent of the votes,” it said.

“Mr Martinetti did not use his casting vote to save his position and

OLYMPICS

South African cricketer AB de Villiers plays a shot on Day 3 of the second Test between South Africa and Pakistan at Newlands in Cape Town, on Feb 16. (AFP)

Pak lead by 112 CAPE TOWN, Feb 16, (AFP): Robin Peterson and Dale Steyn led a South African fightback which left the second Test against Pakistan evenly poised at the end of the third day at Newlands on Saturday.

Pakistan were 100 for three in their second innings at the close, a lead of 112.

Peterson hit 84 to enable South Africa to get within 12 runs of Pakistan’s first innings total of 338 and Steyn bowled at blistering pace to take two wickets as Pakistan lost their first three second

CRICKET innings wickets for 45 runs.

At that stage South Africa were slightly on top but Azhar Ali and captain Misbah-ul-Haq shared a largely cautious unbeaten partnership of 55 to see Pakistan through to the close without further loss.

South Africa were hampered by a recurrence of a hamstring injury to Morne Morkel, who left the field after bowling one ball in his second spell.

He had to stop bowling because of the same injury in the first innings as well and seems unlikely to take the ball again in the match.

Peterson led a fighting performance

by South Africa’s lower order batsmen as they recovered from an overnight 139 for five to reach 326 all out.

Pakistan’s first innings lead of 12 runs was soon shown to be negligible as Steyn and Vernon Philander both took wickets in their first overs.

Mohammad Hafeez was comprehensively trapped leg before wicket by a ball which swung into him. After the briefest of consultations with opening partner Nasir Jamshed he walked off without seeking a review.

In the next over Jamshed fell in similar fashion to Philander.

After discussion with new partner Azhar he started to indicate he wanted

South Africa vs Pakistan Scoreboard CAPE TOWN, Feb 16, (AFP): Scores at stumps on the third day of the second Test between South Africa and Pakistan at Newlands on Saturday: PAKISTAN, first innings, 338 SOUTH AFRICA, first innings (overnight 139-5) G. Smith lbw b Saeed Ajmal ................ 19 A. Petersen c Azhar Ali b Saeed Ajmal ............................................... 17 H. Amla lbw b Saeed Ajmal ................. 25 F. du Plessis c Younis Khan b Saeed Ajmal ............................................... 28 J. Kallis lbw b Saeed Ajmal ................... 2 A. de Villiers c Umar Gul b Mohammad Irfan ......................................... 61 D. Elgar c Younis Khan b Saeed Ajmal ............................................... 23 R. Peterson c Umar Gul b Moham-

a review but appeared to be told by umpire Steve Davis that he had taken longer than the 15 seconds allowed.

Replays showed the ball would have clipped his bails so the decision would have been upheld.

Azhar and first innings centurion Younis Khan battled through some testing bowling against Steyn, Philander and Morkel.

Bowling downwind in his second

mad Hafeez ..................................... 84 V. Philander c Nasir Jamshed b Mohammad Irfan .................................. 22 D. Steyn c Sarfraz Ahmed b Mohammad Irfan ......................................... 10 M Morkel not out......................................8 Extras (b12, lb8, nb7) ............................27 Total (102.1 overs)...............................326 Fall of wickets: 1-36 (Smith), 2-50 (Petersen), 3-84 (Amla), 4-102 (Kallis), 5109 (Du Plessis), 6-164 (Elgar), 7-210 (De Villiers), 8-277 (Philander), 9-303 (Steyn) Bowling: Umar Gul 20-5-74-0, Tanvir Ahmed 10-4-26-0 (2nb), Mohammad Irfan 21-1-86-3 (5nb), Saeed Ajmal 42-9-96-6, Mohammad Hafeez 9.1-1-24-1 PAKISTAN, second innings Mohammad Hafeez lbw b Steyn .............0 Nasir Jamshed lbw b Philander ...............0

spell, Steyn was timed at more than 146kmh and troubled both batsmen before Younis, forced on to the back foot, chopped the ball into his stumps.

After being dismissed without scoring in the first innings, Misbah took 18 balls to score his first runs in the second innings.

Scoring slowed to a crawl, with leftarm spinner Peterson conceding only four runs in his first eight overs.

Team of Norway (left to right), Tarjei Boe, Emil Hegle Svendsen, Henrik L’AbeeLund and Ole Einar Bjoerndalen celebrate after winning the 4x7.5 km men relay at the Biathlon World Championships in Nove Mesto na Morave, Czech Republic, Feb 16. (AP)

Azhar Ali not out ....................................45 Younis Khan b Steyn .............................14 Misbah-ul-Haq not out ...........................36 Extras (lb2, w3)........................................5 Total (3 wkts, 44 overs) 100 Fall of wickets: 1-0 (Hafeez), 2-7 (Jamshed), 3-45 (Younis) Bowling: Steyn 9-2-24-2 (3w), Philander 11-4-26-1, Morkel 3.1-0-8-0, Peterson 155-32-0, Kallis 5.5-2-8-0 Match situation: Pakistan lead by 112 runs with seven wickets remaining in the second innings Toss: South Africa Umpires: Steve Davis, Bruce Oxenford (both AUS) TV umpire: Billy Bowden (NZL) Match referee: Jeff Crowe (NZL)

But Misbah gained in confidence, three times hitting Peterson for six as he advanced to 36 not out. Azhar was unbeaten on 45.

Overnight batsmen AB de Villiers and Dean Elgar started South Africa’s recovery when they took their sixth wicket stand to 55 before Elgar was caught at slip off Saeed Ajmal for 22.

At that stage off-spinner Ajmal had taken all six wickets but he had no further success, finishing with six for 96.

The left-handed Peterson batted positively from the start, shrugging off a poor run of batting form which had yielded just 15 runs in his previous seven international innings, including five noughts.

He went to his second Test fifty off 73 balls and went on to pass his previous best score of 61 against Bangladesh in Dhaka ten years ago.

De Villiers fell to Mohammad Irfan for 61 in the first over with the second new ball after a seventh wicket stand of 46 with Peterson.

But Peterson and Philander (22) added an innings-best 67 for the eighth wicket. The last two wickets brought another 49 runs before Peterson was last out, caught on the long-on boundary off Mohammad Hafeez.

Peterson made his 84 runs off 106 balls with 15 fours.

The tall Irfan, playing in his first Test, took three for 86 and troubled the batsmen with steep bounce.

South African press.

Beeld, an Afrikaans newspaper which initially broke the story of the murder, reported that two hours before the shooting neighbours complained to complex security over the loud fighting at the house.

Beeld had initially said Steenkamp was shot having been mistaken for an intruder, but this claim has been dismissed by police and prosecutors.

The daily also reported that Steenkamp was shot through the bathroom door while on the toilet.

Using unnamed and unquoted sources the paper said Pistorius carried Steenkamp in his arms downstairs and tried performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

When guards arrived Steenkamp was breathing, but was gargling blood because of her injuries.

announced his resignation in order to give the chance to another President to act upon the situation.”

Serbian Nenad Lalovic was chosen as acting president.

Wrestling seemingly paid the price for complacency with other sports, considered more at risk, having strong supporters among the IOC’s decision-making executive board.

Both taekwondo and modern pentathlon, seen to be at risk, had representation on the powerful IOC board.

FILA vice president Tomiaki Fukuda told reporters the governing body would continue to review wrestling’s plight during the annual gathering being held in Phuket.

“We will discuss in what ways we can bring wrestling back, but if nothing is decided today, we’ll continue our discussions tomorrow,” Fukuda said.

USA Wrestling thanked the outgoing president and welcomed the changes being made at the governing body.

“USA Wrestling and the international wrestling community wishes to thank Raphael Martinetti for his service and lifelong commitment to the sport,” the association’s executive director Rich Bender was quoted as saying on its official website.

“This decision provides international wrestling with an opportunity to change and improve.

“The sport will now be able to create a fresh new relationship with the International Olympic Committee and address some of the pressing challenges and opportunities facing wrestling.”

Part of the first modern Olympics in 1896 and all further editions of the Games, except the 1900 Paris Olympics, wrestling was stunned when the IOC Executive Board made a surprise recommendation on Tuesday to drop the sport from the 2020 Games.

The sport will now join seven other candidate sports battling for one spot in a revamped programme when the IOC session in Buenos Aires votes on the recommendation in September.

Meanwhile, the IOC will hold a conference on the role of the World Anti-Doping Agency amid increasing tensions over how to deal with performance-enhancing drugs.

IOC director general Christophe De Kepper told The Associated Press the meeting will be held in Lausanne, Switzerland, in late April or early May with international sports federations, national Olympic committees and athletes.

Hasan must go: POA committee ISLAMABAD, Feb 16, (AP): A Pakistan Olympic Association committee reiterated its demand on Saturday that Syed Arif Hasan step down as POA president, rejecting the chance to enter new negotiations despite the wishes of the IOC. POA interim committee secretary Rana Mujahid said Hasan’s re-election as president last year for a third time violates a government sports policy which limits office holders to two terms.

Mujahid told The Associated Press that nothing less than a new election “is acceptable to at least 20 sports federations of POA.” The interim committee has the backing of the government, but the IOC asked Hasan on Friday in Lausanne, Switzerland, to find a solution by starting talks.

“There’s no point in forming dialogue with someone who is not acceptable to us,” said Mujahid, a former field hockey Olympian.

About 20 sports federations formed their own interim committee within the POA and, with the support of the government, called for a new vote on Tuesday by forming a three-member election commission comprising of retired judges.

The decision was made by the IOC executive board this week in Lausanne, but was not publicly announced. The board acted after a formal request was made to IOC President Jacques Rogge by Francesco Ricci Bitti, head of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations, which represents the 26 sports in the games.

“Relations with WADA have deteriorated significantly and the lack of help and support from WADA against a background of constant media criticism of its sports ‘partners’ and the consequent breakdown of trust need to be addressed as a priority,” Ricci Bitti, an Italian who is president of the International Tennis Federation, said in a letter to Rogge.

The move comes amid strained relations between the International Olympic Committee and WADA, an organization which it created in 1999 to lead the global anti-doping fight.

The IOC and Olympic movement provide 50 percent of WADA’s annual budget.

The Lance Armstrong scandal has triggered a public feud between WADA and the UCI, cycling’s governing body and a member of ASOIF. WADA also singled out soccer and tennis for not doing enough testing.

“Things have deteriorated into a war of words,” ASOIF director Andrew Ryan told the AP on Friday.

“Things have reached a low point.

There is a real fear that if it goes any further, then the level of cooperation will go even lower. Let’s take this opportunity and have a real look at it.”

De Kepper said the conference will also address the issues of illegal betting, autonomy of sports bodies and the sports calendar.

Also to be discussed is the future leadership of WADA and the successor to current President John Fahey, whose six-year term expires at the end of 2013.

The WADA presidency alternates between the Olympic movement and governments. Fahey, a former Australian finance minister, succeeded IOC member Dick Pound as WADA president in 2007 as the representative of governments.

The IOC is scheduled to nominate the next WADA president at the fourth World Conference of Doping in Sport in November in Johannesburg, South Africa.

IOC and sports federation officials have expressed irritation with recent public statements by Fahey. They have also said nearly $500 million a year is spent each year on doping controls with few athletes being caught in the tests.

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

SPORTS

51

Mancini wary of Cup giantkillers Leeds

Chelsea stars must take blame, says Ivanovic LONDON, Feb 16, (AFP): Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic admits his side have only themselves to blame for their spluttering form as they bid to avoid an FA Cup embarrassment in Sunday’s fourth round replay against Brentford.

Rafael Benitez’s team were below their best again in an unconvincing 1-0 win at Sparta Prague in the Europa League on Thursday and the lacklustre display only added to the impression that the Blues are painfully out of sorts.

Fernando Torres took the brunt of the criticism after missing two golden chances to open the scoring but, while the Spanish striker can have few complaints after scoring one goal in his last 13 appearances, he isn’t the only one to look short of motivation and inspiration in recent weeks.

With League One minnows Brentford desperate to inflict more misery on their west London neighbours, Chelsea can’t afford to underestimate a team that came close to a shock win in the 2-2 draw at Griffin Park last month.

Serbia international Ivanovic acknowledges that Chelsea’s lack of consistency over the course of the campaign is a worrying trend which must be addressed.

“We go up and down this season,” he said. “We have to look at ourselves and our performance.

“We have had a lot of games. We have played every three days for the last four months. This has made it difficult. Sometimes you’re not recovered and don’t have a big enough squad.

“All these things affect results, but you have to be stronger.

Now we have some time, we can recover and play our games

SOCCER with a better performance.”

Benitez and Torres were again subject to the fans’ ire throughout the win in Prague and Chelsea could do with a morale-boosting Cup run to lift the gloom around Stamford Bridge.

The Blues, who would face Middlesbrough in the fifth round, have often bounced back from poor starts to finish the season strongly, including last term when they won the FA Cup and Champions League under Roberto Di Matteo.

But it took a Torres equaliser to spare Chelsea’s blushes

British Soccer Results/Standings LONDON, Feb 16, (AFP): English FA Cup results on Saturday: 5th Round Arsenal 0 Blackburn 1 Luton 0 Millwall 3 Milton Keynes Dons 1 Barnsley 3 Oldham 2 Everton 2 Playing Sunday Man City vs Leeds, Huddersfield vs Wigan 4th Round replay Chelsea vs Brentford Playing Monday Man Utd vs Reading Collated English Football League results: Championship Birmingham 0 Watford 4 Cardiff 2 Bristol City 1 Crystal Palace 4 Middlesbrough 1 Derby 0 Wolves 0 Hull 1 Charlton 0 Ipswich 1 Blackpool 0 Nottingham Forest 1 Bolton 1 League One Bury 0 Coventry 2 Hartlepool 2 Leyton Orient 1 Portsmouth 1 Carlisle 1 Preston 2 Bournemouth 0 Sheffield Utd 3 Colchester 0 Walsall 1 Notts County 1 Yeovil 3 Scunthorpe 0 Played Friday Tranmere 0 Shrewsbury 2 League Two AFC Wimbledon 2 Bradford 1 Bristol Rovers 1 Wycombe 0 Cheltenham 1 Aldershot 1 Fleetwood 0 Burton 4 Gillingham 2 D&R 1 Plymouth 0 Oxford 1 Port Vale 0 Morecambe 1 Rochdale 1 Torquay 0 Rotherham 1 Chesterfield 0 Southend 1 Northampton 2 York City 1 Barnet 2 Played Friday Exeter 2 Accrington 0 Scottish Soccer Results Celtic 6 Dundee Utd 2 Hearts 0 Kilmarnock 3 Motherwell 3 Inverness 0 Ross County 1 St Johnstone 0 St Mirren 0 Hibernian 1 Played Friday Aberdeen 1 Dundee 0 First Division Airdrie 2 Hamilton 2 Falkirk 1 Dunfermline 0 Livingston 3 Cowdenbeath 0 Morton 2 Partick 2 Raith 3 Dumbarton 2 Second Division Arbroath 0 Brechin 1 Ayr 5 Albion 2 Forfar 0 Alloa 1 Stenhousemuir 2 East Fife 1 Stranraer 0 Queen of South 5 Third Division Annan Athletic 1 East Stirling 2 Clyde 1 Rangers 4 Montrose 4 Elgin City 1 Peterhead 0 Stirling 0 Queen’s Park 2 Berwick 1 English Soccer League Standings.

Championship P W D L GF GA Pts Cardiff 31 21 4 6 53 31 67 Hull 32 18 5 9 43 33 59 Watford 32 17 5 10 64 42 56 Crystal Palace 32 15 10 7 58 40 55 Leicester 30 16 5 9 52 26 53 Middlesbrough 32 16 2 14 51 50 50 Brighton 31 11 13 7 43 34 46 Blackburn 31 11 11 9 42 38 44 Derby 32 11 10 11 48 45 43 Burnley 31 12 7 12 47 46 43 Nott Forest 32 10 12 10 41 45 42 Leeds 31 12 6 13 41 48 42 Millwall 31 11 8 12 41 43 41 Blackpool 32 10 10 12 50 47 40 Charlton 32 10 10 12 41 44 40 Bolton 31 9 11 11 44 45 38 Birmingham 32 9 11 12 41 52 38 Ipswich 32 10 8 14 34 52 38 Huddersfield 31 9 10 12 33 51 37 Sheffield Wed 31 10 6 15 38 47 36 Wolves 32 9 8 15 37 45 35 Barnsley 31 9 7 15 36 47 34 Bristol City 32 9 4 19 45 60 31 Peterborough 30 9 3 18 43 55 30 League One P W D L GF GA Pts Bournemouth 33 16 10 7 57 42 58

P W D Sheffield Utd 32 15 12 Yeovil 32 18 3 Doncaster 31 17 6 Tranmere 32 16 8 Swindon 31 15 10 Brentford 31 14 12 Coventry 33 14 8 Walsall 33 13 9 Leyton Orient 32 14 4 Notts County 32 11 12 Milton Keynes 30 12 8 Crewe 31 12 8 Stevenage 30 12 7 Crawley Town 29 12 6 Carlisle 32 11 7 Preston 32 9 11 Shrewsbury 33 8 13 Scunthorpe 33 9 8 Colchester 32 9 5 Oldham 31 8 6 Bury 32 5 12 Hartlepool 32 5 9 Portsmouth 33 5 8 League Two P W D Gillingham 32 18 8 Port Vale 32 17 9 Burton Albion 33 15 8 Cheltenham 33 14 11 Exeter 32 15 7 Rotherham 31 16 4 Northampton 32 15 6 Fleetwood Town 32 13 11 Southend 32 13 8 Morecambe 33 12 9 Bradford 31 12 8 Chesterfield 32 11 10 Oxford Utd 32 12 6 Wycombe 32 12 6 Dag and Red 33 11 8 Rochdale 32 11 8 York 33 8 14 Bristol Rovers 31 10 8 Torquay 31 9 10 Barnet 32 8 9 Plymouth 32 7 11 Accrington S. 32 8 8 Aldershot 32 7 10 AFC Wimbledon 31 8 7 Scottish Soccer Standings Premier League P W D Celtic 26 18 4 Motherwell 25 11 7 Inverness CT 26 9 11 Hibernian 27 10 7 Kilmarnock 27 9 9 St Johnstone 26 9 9 Aberdeen 27 9 9 Ross County 26 8 11 Dundee Utd 26 8 9 Hearts 26 7 9 St Mirren 26 7 8 Dundee 26 3 5 First Division P W D Morton 24 14 7 Partick 21 12 5 Dunfermline 24 12 3 Livingston 22 10 6 Falkirk 23 8 6 Raith 22 7 7 Hamilton 21 6 6 Cowdenbeath 23 5 8 Dumbarton 22 7 2 Airdrie Utd 24 4 6 Second Division P W D Queen of South 24 20 3 Alloa 24 13 6 Brechin 20 11 2 Arbroath 23 9 5 Forfar 24 10 2 Stenhousemuir 23 7 8 East Fife 25 7 5 Ayr 22 7 5 Stranraer 23 6 4 Albion 22 4 2 Third Division P W D Rangers 24 18 5 Queen’s Park 22 10 7 Peterhead 25 9 8 Montrose 25 9 8 Elgin 23 8 8 Annan Athletic 24 7 7 Berwick 22 7 6 Clyde 23 7 4 East Stirling 24 6 5 Stirling 22 5 4 Note: Played, won, drawn, goals against, points.

L 5 11 8 8 6 5 11 11 14 9 10 11 11 11 14 12 12 16 18 17 15 18 20

GF 47 55 44 47 52 45 53 46 36 44 40 38 37 38 40 41 36 36 31 32 31 28 34

GA Pts 29 57 40 57 29 57 31 56 21 55 32 54 40 50 48 48 39 46 35 45 34 44 40 44 41 43 42 42 55 40 42 38 40 37 55 35 50 32 45 30 48 27 53 24 57 23

L 6 6 10 8 10 11 11 8 11 12 11 11 14 14 14 13 11 13 12 15 14 16 15 16

GF 51 64 48 43 48 50 52 42 46 42 44 40 43 38 45 49 38 40 37 32 33 31 29 35

GA Pts 26 62 33 60 41 53 39 53 40 52 44 52 44 51 35 50 34 47 42 45 38 44 34 43 48 42 44 42 46 41 51 41 48 38 52 38 40 37 45 33 43 32 51 32 45 31 57 31

L 4 7 6 10 9 8 9 7 9 10 11 18

GF 61 43 50 34 41 32 32 32 42 25 33 14

GA Pts 20 58 34 40 44 38 34 37 35 36 32 36 34 36 34 35 48 33 34 30 44 29 46 14

L 3 4 9 6 9 8 9 10 13 14

GF 50 46 44 38 33 31 26 33 33 28

GA Pts 30 49 22 41 31 39 32 36 36 30 31 28 30 24 39 23 55 23 56 18

L 1 5 7 9 12 8 13 10 13 16

GF 63 42 39 34 40 35 38 35 26 27

GA Pts 14 63 24 45 31 35 42 32 50 32 40 29 40 26 41 26 49 22 48 14

L GF GA Pts 1 66 19 59 5 35 27 37 8 27 22 35 8 45 46 35 7 44 45 32 10 39 47 28 9 37 39 27 12 29 43 25 13 34 56 23 13 34 46 19 lost, goals for,

US winger Rogers comes out as gay MIAMI, Feb 16, (RTRS): United States international Robbie Rogers has come out as gay and says he is stepping away from soccer.

The 25-year-old, who recently played in England for Leeds United and Stevenage and has 18 caps for the US team, wrote on his website — under the title “The Next Chapter” — that he had been afraid to raise the issue.

There are no openly gay players playing in Major League Soccer or in the English professional leagues.

“Secrets can cause so much internal damage.

People love to preach about honesty, how honesty is so plain and simple. Try explaining to your loved ones after 25 years you are gay,” he wrote on Friday.

“For the past 25 years I have been afraid, afraid to show whom I really was because of fear. Fear that judgment and rejection would hold me back from my dreams and aspirations.

Fear that my loved ones would be farthest from me if they knew my secret. Fear that my secret would get in the way of my dreams.

“Dreams of going to a World Cup, dreams of

the Olympics, dreams of making my family proud. What would life be without these dreams? Could I live a life without them?”

Rogers made his name in MLS with Columbus Crew and was part of the US team at the Beijing Olympics and narrowly missed out on a place in the US World Cup squad in 2010.

The winger most recently played for the United States in 2011 but struggled following a move to English second tier club Leeds in January 2012, being loaned out to third tier Stevenage before being released by Leeds last month.

“I will never forget the friends I have made a long the way and the friends that supported me once they knew my secret,” he said.

“Now is my time to step away. It’s time to discover myself away from football.”

Many expected Rogers to return to Major League Soccer where his rights had been acquired by the Chicago Fire, although he had expressed unhappiness at the contractual situation in the North American league.

against Brentford in the first meeting between the two clubs for 63 years.

And Ivanovic, who made his 200th appearance for Chelsea in midweek, knows Benitez’s side badly need to go on a long winning run to restore belief.

He hopes the result in Prague and a victory over Brentford at the Bridge will provide the springboard to do exactly that.

Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has insisted his multi-million pound side will not underestimate giantkillers Leeds in their FA Cup fifth round tie at Eastlands on Sunday.

Mancini’s side are effectively out of the Premier League title race, with the defending champions trailing cross-town rivals and leaders Manchester United by 12 points with 12 games remaining, and were knocked out of the Champions League in the group phase.

Italian boss Mancini accepts there is now an even greater incentive for his team to look to secure the FA Cup and he believes the season will still be viewed as a success if they lift a trophy they last won in 2011.

But he admitted Leeds would offer a stiff test after the second-

tier club knocked Premier League Tottenham Hotspur out in the fourth round.

“Now the FA Cup is different,” said Mancini. “It is clear that it will not be easy because they beat Tottenham. I don’t think to play against Leeds is easy.

“In the FA Cup, every game is difficult. This is another way to do better in the last three months. It is possible to play in the final.”

Mancini had threatened to make widespread changes in the wake of the comprehensive 3-1 defeat at Southampton last weekend.

Romanian goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon is set to start ahead of Joe Hart, who is rested.

But otherwise Mancini wants to use a largely first-choice side against Neil Warnock’s team, as he did in wins over Watford and Stoke that took City into the fifth round.

“Warnock is a top manager, he has big experience,” said Mancini. “I played against him last year with QPR, we had big problems when we won 3-2 in London. He knows football very well.

Emphatic Celtic end Dundee United streak Commons, Stokes grab a pair apiece GLASGOW, Feb 16, (AFP): Kris Commons and Anthony Stokes grabbed a pair apiece as Celtic came from behind to cruise to a 6-2 win over Dundee United at Parkhead on Saturday.

United, who had recorded backto-back victories over Rangers and Hearts under new manager Jackie McNamara, had a dream start when Stuart Armstrong fired them into a 10th minute lead.

However, they had little time to celebrate with Efe Ambrose, muchmaligned for his performance in the midweek Champions League loss to Juventus, heading Celtic level a minute later.

Commons fired Celtic in front with a 21st Commons minute strike before United were awarded a disputed penalty four minutes later. Fraser Forster superbly saved Jon Daly’s spot-kick and from that moment on there was no stopping the home side.

Joe Ledley added a third with a deflected 37th minute shot and Commons made it 4-1 from the penalty spot in the 56th minute.

Stokes’s fierce strike flew past Radoslaw Cierzniak in the 71st minute before he knocked home from close

SOCCER

MK Dons’ Scottish defender Gary MacKenzie (left), vies with Barnsley’s English striker Chris Dagnall (right), during the fifth round FA Cup football match

between MK Dons and Barnsley at the MK Stadium in Milton Keynes on Feb 16. (AFP)

Hull pip Charlton

Cardiff on course for promotion LONDON, Feb 16, (AFP): Championship leaders Cardiff remain on course for promotion to the Premier League after beating Bristol City 2-1, while Hull boosted their promotion prospects with a 1-0 win over Charlton on Saturday.

Malky Mackay’s Cardiff are now eight points clear at the top after Fraizer Campbell’s double finished off struggling City and Hull cemented their hold on the second automatic promotion spot thanks to Gedo’s winner at the KC Stadium.

Campbell, signed from Sunderland during the January transfer window, opened the scoring on the stroke of half-time when he ran onto Tommy Smith’s clever through ball and slotted past goalkeeper Tom Heaton.

And 12 minutes into the second half, Campbell, making his home debut, scored his third goal for the club, more than he managed in the whole of last season for Sunderland, after a long throw from Aron Gunnarsson.

A bizarre own goal from Ben Nugent reduced the deficit in stoppage-time but it was too little too late for a City fightback.

Steve Bruce’s Hull are three points ahead of third placed Watford after Egypt forward Gedo, a deadline-day addition for the Tigers, hit the target on his full debut.

Gedo’s scrambled close-range finish from a corner in the 33rd minute was just reward for Hull’s dominance.

Troy Deeney bagged a brace as Gianfranco Zola’s Watford thrashed Birmingham 4-0 at St Andrew’s to maintain their promotion charge.

Deeney, a childhood Birmingham fan, opened the scoring with a free header in the 38th minute.

Blues goalkeeper Jack Butland could have done better with Watford’s second on the stroke of

half-time when he failed to keep out Ikechi Anya’s effort.

Anya set up Deeney for his second goal shortly after the hour mark before Almen Abdi fired home a fourth late on.

Glenn Murray took his goal tally to 27 for the season in Crystal Palace’s 4-1 win against promotion rivals Middlesbrough.

Murray got his first in the ninth minute and then set up Peter Ramage to double his side’s advantage three minutes after half-time.

Ian Holloway’s fourth placed team added a third through Murray’s spectacular drive in the 57th minute and Kevin Phillips’ late goal ensured

SOCCER

FC Augsburg’s Japanese midfielder Ja-Cheol Koo and Leverkusen’s defender Sebastian Boenisch vie for the ball during the German first division Bundesliga football match Bayer Leverkusen vs FC Augsburg in Leverkusen, western Germany on Feb 16. (AFP)

Palace extended their unbeaten league run at Selhurst Park to 15 matches.

Faris Haroun got one back for Middlesbrough, but the visitors are clinging on to the final play-off place after a fifth consecutive away league defeat.

Elsewhere, Billy Davies’s return for a second spell as Nottingham Forest manager started with a 1-1 draw against Bolton.

Andy Reid struck first for Forest in the 59th minute, but Craig Davies got the equaliser in the 77th minute.

Ipswich defeated Blackpool 1-0 and Derby were held to a 0-0 draw by struggling Wolves.

range in the 82nd minute.

Johnny Russell pulled one back for United with the last kick in the 90th minute but it was scant consolation for the visiting fans as Celtic claimed their biggest victory over the Tannadice club since December 1969.

It was former Celtic skipper McNamara’s first return to Parkhead since taking charge at United and he watched as his side took a tenth minute lead in a quick breakaway move.

Gary Mackay-Steven ran at the Celtic defence before slipping in Armstrong who buried a low angled shot past Forster into the bottom right-hand corner.

Celtic responded through Ambrose a minute later. Commons found Ambrose in the box with a corner and the Nigerian defender fired a powerful header towards goal that Cierzniak couldn’t keep out.

Celtic then found themselves in front as Emilio Izaguirre’s cross from the left was knocked on to Commons at the back post and his first time shot ricocheted off Cierzniak on its way in off the underside of the bar.

United blew a chance to haul themselves level when ref Madden controversially awarded them a penalty after he ruled Adam Matthews had pulled back Mackay-Stevens in the box. The decision enraged the Celtic players with Forster booked for dissent but the keeper pulled off a superb save low to his right to save Daly’s spot-kick.

The Hoops moved further in front through Ledley. A Victor Wanyama shot caused panic in the box and after a scramble Stokes teed up the Welshman whose dinked effort took a slight deflection off Keith Watson on its way past Cierzniak.

Any hopes United had ended when Celtic were awarded a penalty when Barry Douglas pulled down Stokes in the box. Commons stepped up to take the spot-kick and sent Cierzniak the wrong way as he buried the ball low into the bottom right-hand corner.

Celtic then laid siege to the United goal and it was no surprise when they made it 5-1 in the 71st minute. Stokes picked up the ball 30 yards out and drove to the edge of the box before unleashing a fierce strike that flew past the helpless United keeper.

Stokes added a second when he was on hand to fire past Cierzniak from close range after the ‘keeper had stopped a header from James Forrest on the line before Russell knocked a last minute consolation past Forster.

PRIME TIME

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013 sunday— (all times are kuwait local) 07:30 broner vs rees-boxing ..................... aljazeera sport+1 11:00 snooker ................................................. osn sport +2 14:00 real sociedad vs levante-football .... aljazeera sport+2 16:00 wwe smackdown .................................... osn sport 4 17:00 man city vs leeds-football ............... aljazeera sport+3 17:00 napoli vs sampdoria-football .......... aljazeera sport+1 19:00 reims vs st etiene-football .............. aljazeera sport+4 22:00 fiorentina vs inter-football .............. aljazeera sport+1

52

Sports

Everton frustrated as Oldham cause more drama

Arsenal dumped out of FA Cup Millwall into quarters LONDON, Feb 16, (AFP): Arsenal’s hopes of ending their eight-year trophy drought suffered a huge setback after they were dumped out of the FA Cup at home to second-tier Blackburn Rovers on Saturday.

Colin Kazim-Richards scored the only goal in Rovers’s 1-0 victory when he followed up in the 72nd minute, with a strike that went in off the post, after Gunners goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny failed to hold Martin Olsson’s shot.

Arsenal, who haven’t won a major piece of silverware since lifting the FA Cup in 2005, must now raise their spirits for a last 16 Champions League first leg tie on Tuesday when German giants Bayern Munich come to the north Londoners’ Emirates Stadium.

But this defeat can only add to the pressure on long-serving Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, whose side are a massive Smith 21 points behind Premier League leaders Manchester United.

The Frenchman, who had never seen Arsenal lose to lower league opposition in the FA Cup since taking charge of the Gunners in 1996, is sure to come under fire for not including star players such as Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshere and Santi Cazorla in his startling line-up.

The trio did all come off the bench only for Kazim-Richards to break the deadlock shortly afterwards and ensure Arsenal suffered a second embarrassing cup exit this season after fourth-tier Bradford knocked them out of the League Cup. Arsenal’s defeat meant the first three sides into this term’s last eight of the FA Cup all came from the second-tier Championship. Earlier on Saturday, Millwall won 3-0 away to non-league Luton Town.

Goals from James Henry, Rob Hulse and Dany N’Guessan saw the second-tier south London club into the last eight for the first time since they went all the way to the 2004 FA Cup final only to lose Manchester United.

As soon as the fifth round draw was made, memories were Chelsea vs Brentford Aljazeera Sport+3 14:30 local

City vs Leeds Aljazeera Sport+3 17:00 local

Leicester vs Wigan Aljazeera Sport+3 18:45 local

Arsenal’s Belgian defender Thomas Vermaelen (right), vies with Blackburn Rovers’ Scottish striker Jordan Rhodes (left), during the English FA Cup fifth round football match between Arsenal and Blackburn Rovers at the Emirates Stadium in London on Feb 16. (AFP)

Schalke poor run continues

Reus bags hat-trick in Dortmund in win BERLIN, Feb 16, (AFP): Germany midfielder Marco Reus netted a hat-trick in Borussia Dortmund’s 3-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday, but the champions had a striker sent off for the second time in the space of a week.

Dortmund’s win left them second in the league, but 15 points behind leaders Bayern Munich, who show no sign of releasing their grip on the Bundesliga after earning their 18th win in 22 matches with a 2-0 win at VfL Wolfsburg on Friday.

After Dortmund’s Poland striker Robert Lewandowski had earned a three-game ban for being sent off against Hamburg last Saturday, his replacement Julian Schieber was dismissed for a second yellow against Frankfurt and is banned for the next game.

Dortmund’s appeal against Lewandowski red card will be heard by the German Football Association (DFB) on Tuesday and they hope to have him back for next Sunday’s match at Moenchengladbach.

Should the appeal fail, Reus is the obvious choice to be moved up front as he profited from Dortmund’s constant pressure on the Frankfurt defence.

There were two goals, two yellow cards and the subsequent red in a frantic opening 30 minutes.

Reus hit the back of the net on eight minutes after a dream pass from Mario Goetze, while centre-back Mats Hummels produced a similar pass soon after as Reus made it 2-0 in as many minutes.

With Lewandowski suspended, Schieber was clearly eager to take his opportunity, but his over-zealous challenge on Frankfurt’s Carlos Zambrano earned him a yellow card on 27 minutes.

Fanni puts Marseille back in hunt PARIS, Feb 16, (AFP): An injury-time Rod Fanni goal gave Marseille a barelydeserved 1-0 win over Valenciennes on Saturday to move the former champions within five points of leaders Paris Saint Germain. With PSG fans drooling over the prospect of David Beckham making his debut for the club against longtime rivals Marseille next Sunday the latter, whose last league crown came in 2010, were determined to set themselves up as realistic title challengers.

The southerners laboured for much of the game but Fanni took the hosts onto 46 points from 25 games, five shy of PSG ahead of the Parisians’ encounter Sunday at Sochaux, but one ahead of Lyon, who

draw at Mainz ahead of Wednesday’s Champions League trip to Istanbul’s Galatasaray.

Schalke face the Turkish league leaders in the last 16, first-leg clash having dropped from second to eighth in the Bundesliga with just one win in their last 11 games, conced-

travel to Bordeaux.

Marseille fans will hope their side produce rather more scintillating football in next week’s French ‘clasico’ than they did for long periods against a Valenciennes side destined to spend the season comfortably ensconced in mid-table.

For much of the second half the fare at the Stade Velodrome bordered on the soporific and minds appeared to be elsewhere, as suggested by the J-8 slogan Marseille had on their kit — that is, eight days to go to the game which really matters. PSG, with Beckham on board to boost their profile and buoyed by an away success in Valencia which means they have one foot in the Champions League

quarter-finals, insist this will be their year — they have not won the French title since 1994 and their only European trophy was a Cup Winners Cup success two years later.

But they have been bankrolled the past two summers by their Qatari owners and their jigsaw is now taking shape as they bid to become only the second French club to taste European Cup glory since Marseille lifted the trophy 20 years ago.

Fanni’s late winner, a right-footed strike dispatching a Jeremy Morel cross, ensured Marseille enjoyed their first league win bonus in a month after it seemed they would drop vital home points.

ing 25 goals in the process — the league’s worst record. Brazil midfielder Michel Bastos scored both Schalke’s goals, but his team struggled again having been thumped 4-0 by Bayern last weekend.

“We didn’t start well, but that’s not easy in our current situation,” admitted Schalke

coach Jens Keller.

While Schalke move up from 10th to eighth, the pressure remains on Keller, who has just one win in his six games in charge in December.

Bayer Leverkusen are third after their 2-1 win at home to relegation-threatened Augsburg as striker Stefan Kiessling and midfielder Lars Bender both scored.

Dutch midfielder Rafael van der Vaart scored his first goal for Hamburg since May 2008 with a spectacular 24th-minute thunderbolt to secure a 1-0 win over Borussia Moenchengladbach to move his team up to sixth.

Freiburg stay fifth, and amongst the European places, with a 3-2 win at Werder Bremen while Greuther Fuerth stay bottom after their 1-0 defeat to Fortuna Duesseldorf.

SOCCER

Standings

He then saw red just four minutes later when his stray elbow on defender Bastian Oczipka earned him a second booking, despite furious protests from coach Jurgen Klopp.

Despite the numerical disadvantage, Reus moved up front to complete his hat-trick on 65 minutes when he fired home after Goetze had again caused havoc.

Frankfurt were also reduced to 10 men with 15 minutes left when Japan midfielder Takashi Inui earned a second yellow card.

Schalke’s poor Bundesliga form continued on as they twice come from behind for a 2-2

P W D L GF GA Pts Bayern 22 18 3 1 57 7 57 Borussia 22 12 6 4 50 26 42 Bayer 22 12 5 5 43 30 41 Eintracht 22 11 4 7 38 34 37 Freiburg 22 9 7 6 29 22 34 Hamburg 22 10 4 8 27 27 34 Mainz 05 22 9 5 8 30 27 32 Schalke 04 22 8 6 8 35 37 30 Borussia 22 7 9 6 31 33 30 Hanover 96 21 9 2 10 39 39 29 Werder Bremen 22 8 4 10 38 41 28 Fortuna 22 7 6 9 27 29 27 VfL Wolfsburg 22 7 5 10 22 32 26 Nuremberg 21 6 7 8 20 27 25 VfB Stuttgart 21 7 4 10 23 39 25 Hoffenheim 21 4 4 13 26 45 16 Augsburg 22 2 9 11 18 35 15 Greuther Fuerth 22 2 6 14 13 36 12 Note: Standings read as played, won, drawn, loss, goals for, goals against and points.

Augsburg’s midfielder Kevin Vogt (left), and Leverkusen’s defender Gonzalo Castro vie for the ball during the German First Division Bundesliga football match Bayer Leverkusen vs FC Augsburg in Leverkusen, western Germany on Feb 16. (AFP)

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revived of an infamous match between the two clubs in 1985 when rampaging Millwall fans wrecked Luton’s Kenilworth Road ground.

But the clubs have met on several occasions since and Saturday’s match, which ended a cup run for Luton that saw them knock out top-flight Norwich, appeared to pass off without a major incident inside the ground.

Elswehere, Barnsley won 3-1 away to third-tier Milton Keynes Dons.

Chris Dagnall opened the scoring in the third minute before setting the seal on victory with his second goal just seconds before the final whistle after Marlon Harewood had doubled the Yorkshire club’s lead in the 19th minute.

Dean Bowditch pulled a goal back for the hosts just after the hour mark.

Oldham’s Matt Smith caused more FA Cup drama as the League One giant-killers snatched a late equaliser to hold Everton to a 2-2 draw in the fifth round on Saturday.

Smith had scored twice in Oldham’s surprise win over Liverpool in the previous round and he came off the bench to frustrate the blue half of Merseyside in a thrilling tie at Boundary Park.

Jordan Obita shocked Everton with the opening goal early in the first half, yet Everton looked on course for the quarterfinals when Victor Anichebe netted the equaliser and Phil Jagielka headed the Premier League team in front soon after half-time.

But there was a sting in the tale for David Moyes’ men as Smith, a former shelf stacker in a supermarket, headed the equaliser with virtually the last touch of the game to set up a replay at Goodison Park.

Since their win over Liverpool, Oldham had dropped into the League One relegation zone and dismissed boss Paul Dickov, leaving Tony Philliskirk in charge on a caretaker basis, but their ability to trouble more illustrious opponents remains intact.

Everton were at full strength and England defender Leighton Baines went close to opening the scoring early on when his free-kick clipped off former Everton player Jose Baxter’s head and flashed just wide.

Yet just hours after Arsenal’s shock defeat against Blackburn, another upset was on the cards as Obita, a 19year-old making his first appearance in the FA Cup, threatened to write his own chapter in the competition’s rich history.

Lee Croft broke clear down the left in the 13th minute and drilled a low cross to the far post, where on-loan Reading forward Obita was just onside as he escaped his marker and slotted home for his first Oldham goal.

However, Oldham’s advantage was short-lived. In the 24th minute, Nikica Jelavic flicked on a long ball and Nigerian striker Anichebe showed great strength to power past JeanYves M’voto and hammer his shot past the exposed Dean Bouzanis.

Obita almost produced the perfect response to that setback as the teenager’s shot from the left side of the penalty area was pushed onto the far post by a fingertip save from Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard.

Moyes was forced to send on Kevin Mirallas in place of the injured Anichebe at half-time and the substitute made an immediate impact.

Mirallas whipped in a 48th minute corner that picked out Jagielka just six yards from goal and the England defender directed his header past Oldham goalkeeper Dean Bouzanis in emphatic fashion.

But Smith came on with half an hour remaining and, together with fellow substitute Robbie Simpson, he dragged the hosts back into the match.

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