TROOPS MASSACRE 220 iN SyRiA'S TREMSEh ... - Kuwait Times

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SATURDAY, JULY 14, 2012 SHAABAN 24, 1433 AH No: 15508 

Amir donates 

$3 million to 

tsunami-hit 

museum 

3 

Troops massacre 220 in 

Syria’s Tremseh village 

Death toll mounts as troops fire on protesters 

BEIRUT: Troops shot at protesters yesterday in Damascus and 

Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, reporting 

at least 63 deaths across the country, including 17 civilians, 24 soldiers 

and 22 rebels. Protesters had taken to the streets to renew 

their demands for the fall of the regime, under the slogan 

“Remove Kofi Annan, the servant of (President Bashar Al-) Assad 

and Iran,” referring to the UN and Arab League envoy. 

In Damascus, “regime troops shot heavy rounds of live gunfire 

in the Nahr Aysha district to disperse protesters,” the Observatory 

said, adding that demonstrators were also shot at in the Sayida 

Zainab district. Three protesters were wounded in Harasta, also in 

Damascus province, and later several people including a child 

were wounded when regime forces shelled the town, the 

Observatory said. In the northern commercial hub of Aleppo, 

troops opened fire in a bid to disperse the demonstrations, the 

Britain-based watchdog said. 

Meanwhile, about 220 Syrians, mostly civilians, were killed in a 

village in the rebellious Hama region when it was bombarded by 

helicopter gunships and tanks then stormed by militiamen who 

slaughtered some families, opposition sources said yesterday. UN 

special envoy Kofi Annan said he was “shocked and appalled” by 

news of “intense fighting, significant casualties, and the confirmed 

use of heavy weaponry such as artillery, tanks and helicopters” 

in the village of Tremseh. “I condemn these atrocities in the 

strongest possible terms,” Annan said in a statement. There were 

no independent accounts of the number of dead or how they 

were killed. UN monitors in Syria are currently confined to 

Damascus because of mounting violence. 

An activist video, the only film record to appear so far, showed 

the bloodied corpses of 15 young men with faces or shirts 

drenched in blood. Most wore T-shirts and jeans. Syrian state television 

said there had been fighting in Tremseh and accused 

“armed terrorist groups” of committing a massacre there, but 

gave no death toll. It said three soldiers had been killed. 

Opposition reports also said rebels of the Free Syrian Army had 

been killed in a battle. Lieutenant Ibrahim Zuait Al-Tarkawai was 

among rebels who died “defending the people of Tremseh”, the 

Hama Revolution Leadership Council said. 

“We can verify continuous fighting yesterday in the area of 

Tremseh,” said United Nations monitoring mission chief General 

Robert Mood. “This involved mechanized units, indirect fire, as 

well as helicopters,” he said. UN monitors were ready to “go in 

and seek verification of facts if and when there is a credible ceasefire”, 

he said. If scores of civilians were killed, this could be the 

worst atrocity in 16 months of fighting between rebels and the 

forces of President Bashar Al-Assad. World powers are deadlocked 

over how to halt the bloodshed, with Russia and China opposed 

to Western and Arab calls for Assad to step down immediately. 

Activists said the killing took place on Thursday, as the UN 

Security Council began negotiating a potentially crucial new resolution 

on Syria. Washington said it showed the need to move to 

tougher action, but Russia again ruled out such a step. “More than 

220 people fell today in Tremseh. They died from bombardment 

by tanks and helicopters, artillery shelling and summary executions,” 

the Revolution Leadership Council of Hama said in a statement. 

The Sunni Muslim village, surrounded by farmland near the 

Orontes River, was first shelled then invaded by pro-government 

Alawite militiamen who swept in and killed victims one by one. 

Some civilians were killed while trying to flee, it said. Armed Assad 

loyalists known as Shabbiha have been accused repeatedly of 

cold-blooded indiscriminate killings carried out on the coattails of 

army offensives into rebel-held districts. Another activist organization, 

the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said over 160 

people were killed on Thursday in Hama province, most of them 

in a massacre in Tremseh. — Agencies 

NEW DELHI: Police in northern India are 

investigating a village council after it 

banned “love marriages” and barred 

women under 40 from shopping alone 

or using mobile phones in public, reports 

said yesterday. In a slew of restrictive 

measures on women’s behavior, the 

council, or “panchayat,” in the predominantly 

Muslim village Asara in Uttar 

Pradesh state also insisted women cover 

their heads in public, said the Press Trust 

of India. Home Minister P Chidambaram 

condemned the orders, saying they had 

“no place” in a democratic society. 

“Police must act against anyone issuing 

such diktats. If anyone takes action 

against any young man or woman based 

on illegal village courts, then they must 

be arrested,” Chidambaram said at a 

press conference. Local police superintendent 

V K Shekhar told PTI that an 

inquiry had been ordered into the content 

and legality of the council restric- 

Max 48º 

Min 35º 

HAMA: This citizen journalism image shows a man mourning a victim 

killed by government forces in Tremseh. (Inset) This photo made from 

amateur video shows bodies of victims killed by government forces in 

Tremseh, Syria. — AP 

Indian village bans ‘love marriages’ 

tions. Panchayats often comprise an 

unelected group of elders, who are seen 

as the social and moral arbiters of village 

life. Although their rulings carry no legal 

weight, they can be highly influential 

and have been blamed for numerous 

abuses, such as sanctioning “honor 

killings” of women whose actions are 

deemed to have brought shame on their 

family. 

The measures were swiftly condemned 

by women’s rights groups. “This 

notion that women up to the age of 40 

need protection and need to be controlled 

is extremely chauvinistic and 

undermines all basic norms,” said Sudha 

Sunder Raman, general secretary of the 

All India Democratic Women’s 

Association. The head of the National 

Commission for Women, Mamta Sharma, 

said the council rulings were “laughable” 

and unenforceable. “Panchayats do not 

enjoy constitutional powers. And if there 

are no powers, there is no need to follow 

the orders,” Sharma said. Council representatives 

interviewed by the Mail Today 

newspaper said the rules were intended 

to safeguard women from “bad elements” 

in society. 

Council member Sattar Ahmed said 

“love marriages” as opposed to parentally 

arranged marriages, were damaging 

and a “shame on society.” “It is very 

painful for the parents, specially the girl’s 

family, because such marriages dent 

their respectability,” Ahmed said. The villagers 

themselves were reportedly satisfied 

with the panchayat rulings, saying 

they would help prevent young women 

being misled and forming unsuitable 

relationships. “Mobile phones are a 

curse, especially for girls. I would have 

been more happy if the panchayat had 

completely banned girls from using 

mobile phones,” villager Tarun 

Chaudhary told the Mail Today. — AFP

SATURDAY, JULY 14, 2012 

KUWAIT: At a meeting held at the 

diwaniya of former speaker Ahmed Al- 

Saadoun, members from the former 

majority bloc (2012 parliament) discussed 

a drafting a program to reform 

the parliamentary system to ensure 

effective public participation in the government, 

constitutional amendments 

that mandate Parliament’s approval of 

cabinet formation and economic, electoral 

and judicial reforms. 

At the meeting, former parliamentarians 

also met with youth activists at Al- 

Saadoun’s diwaniya and discussed 

means to reach a consensus on amending 

the electoral constituencies, in addition 

to voting system to be followed. 

Speaking at the meeting, MP 

Musallam Al-Barrak said that the 

upcoming elections will be conducted 

according to the existing electoral system 

though the final decision has not 

been made after a voting was held on 

the suggested amendment. 

The meeting also witnessed accusations 

being exchanged between the 

Popular Action Bloc(PAB) and the 

Justice Bloc. Ahmed Al-Saadoun, 

Musallam Al-Barrak and Khaled Al- 

Sultan were blamed for the suggesting 

that amendments be made. 

Commenting on the issue, Justice 

Bloc member Dr Adel Al-Damkhi said 

that the majority bloc had agreed on 

the suggested amendments that will be 

discussed again on Sunday and cast 

their votes after probing the youth’s 

opinions on Saturday. Al-Damkhi added 

that the main points to be discussed 

with youth activists will focus on electoral 

constituencies’ amendments. 

Sources stressed that the majority’s 

decision was made in the form of a reconciliation 

attempt with youth activists 

who will be represented in the meeting. 

They admitted that the youth were the 

key to winning the coming parliamentary 

elections. Sources added that the 

majority bloc was expected to demand 

a parliamentary government under a 

constitutional monarchy, request 

amendments be made to some constitutional 

articles, and the Constitutional 

Court law, the parliament chart, judicial 

reforms, eliminating corruption, setting 

a date to discuss financial worth declaration, 

interest in contradiction, condi- 

KUWAIT: Speaking to reporters after conducting 

an unscheduled inspection to 

Mishref co-operative society, HH the Prime 

Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak urged 

everyone to accord top most priority to 

national interest. He visited the facility to 

make sure that food supplies were available 

and are affordable ahead of Ramadan. 

“Ramadan teaches us many spiritual lessons 

that should be deeply entrenched in 

everybody’s soul, the most important of 

which is to prioritize our country’s best 

interest,” said the prime minister. 

The premier also stressed that Ramadan 

food supplies are abundantly available in 

all co-operative societies. “I am visiting the 

co-op society to share citizens’ concerns, 

ideas and suggestions,” he underscored, 

noting that he was keen on checking 

goods’ availability and price rates. Al- 

Mubarak also expressed his admiration at 

LOCAL 

Al-Saadoun hosts meeting on political reforms 

Kuwaiti ‘mujahideen’ not 

part of Free Syrian Army 

KUWAIT: Responding to recent statements 

made by Syria’s envoy to the United Nations, 

Bashar Al-Jaafari about the presence of 

Kuwaitis fighting with ‘terrorists’ in Syria, Dr 

Ajeel Al-Nashmi, GCC Muslim Scholars 

Association Chairman, denied that Kuwaiti 

‘mujahideen’ were part of the Free Syrian 

Army (FSA). 

Al-Nashmi asserted that such acts are considered 

a part of guerilla warfare rather than a 

war between two armies. “There is no place 

for strangers in such operations where warriors 

should know the terrain they are fighting 

on,” he stressed. “It only needs weapons,” 

he noted pointing out that what Syrians need 

most is financial support. -Al-Anba 

tioning the parliament’s approval and 

trust Cabinet formation and rendering 

parliamentary sessions as bring constitutional 

even without the government’s 

attendance. 

MP Khaled Al-Sultan disclosed that 

two iconic parliamentarians from the 

rival bloc had met with high-ranking 

officials and demanded issuing a ‘necessity 

decree’ to amend the electoral constituencies 

to five and allow voters to 

vote for two candidates. “This is sheer 

violation of the Constitution,” shouted 

Al-Sultan, accusing the MPs from the 

bloc of being unpatriotic. “The youth’s 

opinion is vital to us and we will consult 

them on forming their own country’s 

political future,” he said. 

— Al-Watan, Al-Rai 

National interest must 

be top priority: Premier 

Food supplies abundant: Sheikh Mubarak 

News in brief 

Information minister 

attends PAAET concert 

KUWAIT: Minister of Information Sheikh 

Mohammad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah sponsored 

and attended a concert held 

Thursday night by the Basic Education 

Faculty’s Music Department, the Public 

Authority for Applied Education and 

Training (PAAET). Several state departments 

were represented at the concert 

as part of the inter-departmental event. 

A constellation of Kuwaiti and other 

GCC singers, including Fahad Al-Kebisi 

from Qatar, Belqais Ahmed Fatehi from 

Yemen and Kuwaiti female student 

Amal Hussein, sang popular classical 

lyrics in association with a student 

choral and orchestra led by Dr Amr 

Jaafar. 

Detention of 11 

bedoons extended 

KUWAIT: Police have stated that the 

detention of 11 bedoons that took part 

HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al- 

Mubarak 

the promotion organized at the co-op society 

where many items are on display at 

affordable prices. — Al-Qabas 

in demonstration held in Taima, Jahra 

has been extended till Sunday so that 

investigations can be completed. 

Kuwait wastes 25% 

of water produced 

KUWAIT: According to recent statistics 

released by the Ministry of Electricity 

and Water (MEW), the amount of water 

wastage in the country now accounts 

for 25 percent of MEW’s total water 

production that stands at 453 million 

gallons per day. The situation calls for 

implementing a special plan to save 

and conserve water as Kuwait has very 

limited water resources. In this regard, 

sources said that MEW intends to 

revive the ‘water-saving pipefitting’ 

program that was used in the past. 

Sources added that the operation of 

Shuwaikh Reversed Osmosis plant, 

which produces 30 million gallons of 

water a day had saved Kuwait from a 

water supply crisis.


IWAKI, Japan: A handover ceremony for a $3 

million donation from His Highness the Amir 

of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber 

Al-Sabah to Japan’s tsunami-hit marine science 

museum was held yesterday, giving a 

great encouragement to the people of 

Fukushima and deepening friendship 

between the two sides. 

With attendance of Kuwait Institute for 

Scientific Research (KISR) Director General Dr 

Naji Al-Mutairi and Japanese dignitaries, 

Kuwaiti Ambassador to Japan Abdulrahman 

Al-Otaibi presented the donation to 

Aquamarine Fukushima Executive Director 

Yoshitaka Abe in the northeastern coastal city 

of Iwaki. 

In his speech at the ceremony, Fukushima 

Governor Yuhei Sato expressed gratitude to 

HH the Amir for the grant for the rehabilitation 

of Aquamarine Fukushima and confirmed 

his determination towards Fukushima 

Prefecture’s early recovery. “The restoration 

of the marine science museum is extremely 

important, as it is a symbol of revitalizing 

Fukushima Prefecture,” said Sato, adding that 

with this generous contribution from Kuwait, 

revitalization of Aquamarine Fukushima and 

this region will significantly advance. 

“One year and four months passed since 

the earthquake, and our efforts to work 

towards revitalize Fukushima have been 

gradually bearing fruits, as production and 

tourism are almost coming back to the predisaster 

level,” Sato noted, as he renewed his 

commitment to the full restoration of his prefecture 

by cooperating with people who support 

Fukushima, such as the Kuwaiti people. 

A magnitude 9.0-quake and ensuing 

tsunami on March 11 last year left nearly 

19,000 people dead or missing in the region 

and crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear 

power plant, which is located 55 kilometers 

north of Iwaki. During his state visit to Japan 

in March this year, HH the Amir announced 

the grant as a surprise gift for the restoration 

of the severely-damaged aquarium and the 

promotion of science and technology. In 

addition, Kuwait last year extended the dona- 

tion of five million barrels of crude oil worth 

about $500 million that has greatly helped 

post-quake reconstruction in the three hardest-hit 

prefectures including Fukushima. 

Home to the damaged nuclear complex, 

Fukushima Prefecture has been using its allocated 

share of JPY 15.5 billion ($195 million) 

in various projects, including support to small 

and medium-sized companies affected by 

the nuclear mishap, restoration of cultural 

properties and rebuilding homes of disaster 

victims. Sato also said the fresh donation will 

bring the ties of Kuwait and Fukushima to a 

further heights. For his part, Ambassador Al- 

Otaibi, who has been working as a bridge 

between Kuwait and Fukushima Prefecture, 

stressed keenness of HH the Amir, government 

and people of Kuwait to assist reconstruction 

process of Japan and Fukushima. 

“The 3 million donation was made for two 

reasons. First, it came from His Highness’ 

appreciation for the mission of Aquamarine 

Fukushima in raising the public’s awareness 

on the importance of protecting our nature 

and our oceans. 

“Second, it shows the special place that 

the Japanese people hold in the heart of His 

Highness. And such gesture showed by His 

Highness highlights, without any doubt, the 

firm friendship between our countries and 

the strong wish to cherish it for the generations 

to come,” the ambassador said. “I would 

like to convey my government’s hope that 

this donation will contribute to further accelerate 

the reconstruction of Aquamarine 

Fukushima and to set it back on course of 

pursuing its goal in paving the way of a better 

future for our children.” 

Al-Otaibi also attached great importance 

to the signing of a resolution of friendship on 

Thursday between KISR and Aquamarine 

Fukushima, saying “we are totally confident 

that this resolution of friendship is to flourish 

the inter-cooperation between Kuwait and 

Japan for the years to come.” 

The ambassador also said the year 2012 

has been of particular significance when 

thinking about the friendly relations between 

the two countries, shedding light on the historical 

state visit to Japan by HH the Amir 

upon the invitation of Emperor Akihito as a 

token of appreciation and gratitude for the 

support that Kuwait has extended the people 

of Japan since the March 11 disaster. 

Opened in 2000 on the coast of the 

Pacific Ocean, Aquamarine Fukushima has 

been a popular attraction, where people of 

all ages can enjoy learning various mysteries 

of the sea. Although there were no human 

casualties in Aquamarine Fukushima, tsuna- 

LOCAL 

Tsunami-hit Japan museum 

gets Amir’s $3m donation 

Fukushima governor thanks Kuwait govt, people 

KFAED opens irrigation project in N Lebanon 

BEIRUT: The Kuwait Fund for Arab 

Economic Development inaugurated 

yesterday an irrigation project in the 

town of Becharre in northern 

Lebanon. The project, which costs 

about $1.75 million, is part of the $300 

million Kuwaiti grant for Lebanon 

after 2006 war. 

Becharre residents expressed gratitude 

for KFAED’s role in supporting 

development projects in their towns 

and strengthening relationship 

between Lebanon and Kuwait. They 

also voiced sincere thanks to His 

Highness the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh 

Sabah Al-Ahamd Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, 

Kuwaiti government and people. In 

statements to KUNA, Head of KFAED 

Bureau in Beirut Nawaf Al-Dabbous 

said KFAED will continue its support 

for development in Lebanon in all 

economic, social, cultural, health, educational, 

agricultural sector. He also 

thanked Lebanese officials for offering 

all help and facilitating procedures to 

put the project into effect. 

Since 1966 the KFAED granted 

Lebanon 19 loans totaling about $568 

million to finance health, agricultural, 

transportation sectors and to rebuild 

districts destroyed by the Israeli war 

machine. 

The KFAED also oversees the use of 

grants provided by the State of Kuwait 

to Lebanon, the latest of which a 

$300-million grant to rebuild south 

Lebanon and compensate victims of 

2006 war. — KUNA 

mi waves hit the main building with full force, 

totally destroying the electrical system, which 

is the facilities’ lifeline. As a result, about 90 

percent, or 200,000 fish and marine animals, 

in the aquarium died. 

Aquamarine Fukushima was closed after 

the disaster and resumed business on July 15 

last year, the 11th anniversary of its first 

opening. The aquarium used to receive an 

average of more than 3,000 visitors per day, 

but the number of visitors fell by 70 percent 

last summer and 40 percent recently, respectively, 

in the aftermath of the twin natural disasters 

and the radiation crisis. Dr. Al-Mutairi, 

who signed the friendship agreement 

between the two institutes on the previous 

day with his counterpart Abe, said in a 

speech that KISR and the Japanese groups 

have expanded scientific cooperation and 

been engaged in many joint projects since 

his organization was established in 1967 by 

Japan’s Arabian Oil Company Ltd. 

Based on such a deep-rooted relationship 

between the two countries, Kuwait should be 

one of among the first countries to have 

extended support to Japan after the disaster, 

Dr. Al-Mutairi said. KISR started operations 45 

years ago with just five people, including 

founding member Katsuji Tainaka, but currently 

have 1,500 researchers and employees 

and is cooperating with some 40 institutes 

worldwide. According to Abe, the money will 

be used in ways such as creating a facility 

which children can experience nature on 

land. He also said the aquarium will build a 

monument in a show of gratitude to the 

Kuwaiti contribution, which will become a 

symbol of hope for reconstruction. Former 

Senior Vice Minister of Economy, Trade and 

Industry Teruhiko Mashiko, Foreign Ministry’s 

Deputy Director-General Misako Kaji, 

Professor Emeritus of Kyoto University Dr. 

Miyori Kumamoto, KISR’s founding member 

Katsuji Tainaka, Japan Cooperation Center for 

the Middle East Managing Director Yoshitaka 

Nakamura and Japan-Kuwait Society 

Secretary General Ryuei Izumi were also present 

at the ceremony. — KUNA 

Sadu House welcomes LOYAC group 

KUWAIT: The Sadu Occupational Co-operative Society welcomed 

members of the Lothan Youth Achievement Center (LOYAC) 

group and introduced them to the art of traditional weaving in 

Kuwait and developing related skills in a summer program.


Six sustain 

injuries 

in motor 

accidents 

By Hanan Al-Saadoun 

KUWAIT: A six-year-old Kuwaiti boy suffered 

a head injury, a 42- year-old man 

fell unconscious in a car accident that 

took place near the National Guard’s 

headquarters. They were admitted to Al- 

Sabah Hospital. 

A 40-year-old citizen suffered chest 

pain after being involved in a motorcycle 

accident that took place in Al-Rai. He was 

admitted to Farwaniya Hospital. 

A 33-year-old Chinese national and a 

36-year-old Korean national suffered lacerations 

to the head and legs in a car 

accident that took place in Wafra. Both 

were admitted to Adan Hospital. 

A 13-year-old citizen fractured his left 

thigh bone in a car accident that took 

place in Abdallah Al-Mubarak. He was 

admitted to Farwaniya Hospital. 

Fire incident 

A 25-year- old Bangladeshi sustained 

second degree burns, two citizens suffered 

from a case of smoke inhalation 

and was administered treatment on site 

after a Jleeb house caught fire. The 

Bangladeshi was admitted to Farwaniya 

Hospital. 

KUWAIT: The brothers of a 13-year-old girl brutally 

assaulted a citizen who allegedly kidnapped her. 

They chased him down, beat him up and stabbed 

him. Case papers indicate that the suspect attended 

a wedding and saw the girl playing outside her 

house. He lured her into taking a ride with him. One 

of the girl’s brothers witnessed the incident, and 

along with his other brothers, chased the suspect 

who drove recklessly in an attempt to escape and 

jeopardize the lives of others. The pursuit continued 

around Andalus Street, reaching the Fifth Ring 

Road, during which the suspect rammed into five 

other cars and hit a concrete barrier. The brothers 

later accosted him and assaulted him mercilessly 

until he was saved by police. A case was filed and 

further investigations are in progress. 

Boy dies in football playground 

A 13-year-old boy died while playing football 

with friends in Fahaheel. While playing, he suddenly 

fell unconscious and was immediately admitted 

to Adan hospital. However, he was declared dead 

before admission. 

Hit and run cases 

An Asian man died after being accidently run 

over by the driver of a vehicle who was in charge of 

picking him and other workers from Jaber Hospital 

construction site. An Indian was seriously injured 

after being run over by a speeding car in Fahaheel. 

The man was admitted to Adan hospital for treatment. 

Pool accident 

A 15-year-old citizen was admitted to Adan hospital’s 

Intensive Care Unit after he fell in Khairan 

resort’s swimming pool and sustained injuries. 

Patients assault receptionist 

A receptionist at the Mubarak Al-Kabeer 

Firemen honored for 

outstanding service 


KUWAIT: A ceremony was held to felicitate firefighters 

from Capital Fire Department at the Kuwait 

National Library. They participated in the 10th 

Fireman Festival, along with entities like the Army, 

Fire Services Department and the National Guard. It 

was held under the patronage of Lt General Jassem 

Al-Mansouri, General Director of Fire Department. 

The awards were distributed to officers who were 

chosen on the basis of their outstanding performance 

and efforts made to carry out duties. 

The ceremony began with a speech delivered by 

Colonel Hamad Al-Hadlaq who hailed the efforts 

made by firemen to tackle fires and conduct rescue 

operations. Also, Al-Mansouri thanked Kuwait 

National Library for their cooperation. In the end, 

memorial shields were distributed to firemen. 

Hospital reported to police that two citizens 

assaulted him while on duty because he did not 

allow them to visit the doctor. The employee added 

that one of the two assailants suffered from fever 

and according to the address on his identification 

card , he ought to have visited another hospital, 

which enraged them. The hospital security interfered 

and convinced the men to visit the other hospital. 

Driver falls into coma 

Joggers in Rumathiya spotted a man, in his forties, 

found on the driver’s seat of his vehicle unconscious. 

However, when the police and paramedics 

confirmed that the man had fallen into a coma. He 

was rushed to the nearest hospital. 

Diwaniya catches fire 

A fire broke out at a diwaniya made out of wood 

in Ahmadi. Firefighters who responded to an emergency 

call rushed to the scene and put out the 

flames before it spread further. No casualties were 

reported. 

Motorbike accident 

A 25-year-old citizen was seriously injured after 

he lost control over his motorbike along the Gulf 

Road. The man was admitted to the Amiri hospital. 

Police break up protest 

Riot police dispersed 30 bedoons who took to 

the streets in Taima, Jahra demanding the release 

of 11 others were arrested previously. 

Freak accident 

A highway patrol policeman was seriously 

injured when his own gun, that was strapped on to 

his thigh, accidently fired in its holster. The bullet 

fractured his thigh bone and severed a major blood 

vessel. 

LOCAL 

Brothers overpower sister’s 

abductor after hot chase 

Boy dies of suspected sun stroke 

Indian arrested for stealing passport 

An Indian was arrested in Khaitan for stealing 

his sponsor’s passport. Case papers indicate that a 

police patrol noticed that the suspect was trying to 

avoid a security check. Upon approaching him and 

asking him to produce his identification card, he 

pretended not to know Arabic. However, after the 

policeman performed a background check, he was 

found wanted in connection with sealing his sponsor’s 

passport. 

Beauty salon burgled 

The workers from a beauty salon in Maidan 

Hawally lodged a complaint with police stating that 

the salon was broken into, and that all equipment 

was stolen. The workers suspect the building’s 

watchman’s involvement in the case as they had 

had arguments with him previously. 

Campaign on 

fire safety 


KUWAIT: KFSD in coordination with KOC 

held an awareness campaign titled 

“Nabeeha Tawsal’ in order to educate 

people on safety and remind them of the 

major role fire departments are playing. 

The campaign also created awareness 

about how to deal with incidents of fire 

breakouts and reduce human casualties 

and damage to properties.


Message of French Ambassador to Kuwait on French National Day 

On the 14th of July, France celebrates 

its National Day, 223 

years after the Revolution which 

gave birth to our democratic system. 

This system has lately witnessed a 

smooth, quiet transition between our 

former President, Mr Nicolas Sarkozy, 

and the newly elected President, Mr 

Francois Hollande. 

As an Ambassador of France to 

Kuwait, I take this opportunity to hail 

more than half a century of bilateral 

relations with the state of Kuwait. I am 

happy to say we have strong, steady 

and friendly relationships between our 

two countries, between our heads of 

states, and also our peoples. 

Our newly elected President of the 

Republic Mr Francois Hollande 

responded warmly to His Highness 

Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al- 

Sabah’s congratulations on our presidential 

elections, and he emphasized 

the deep trust and respect in our relationship. 

Our President renewed the 

French commitment to Kuwait’s security 

and stability. Indeed whatever the 

changes of Presidents in the French 

Republic, the history of our friendship 

remains constant and firm. 

Last year alone, I witnessed two visits 

by our Foreign affairs Minister, and 

many other high officials, which gave 

me the feeling of the importance we 

attach to maintaining close political 

dialogue with the Kuwaiti authorities. A 

few days ago, His Excellency Sheikh 

Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, 

Foreign Affairs Minister, was in Paris, 

for the friends of Syria meeting. Our 

longstanding partnership stems first 

and foremost from the commitment of 

both countries to peace and security in 

the region, and in the world at large. 

We share common views on many 

regional and international issues. 

In the field of defense and military 

cooperation Kuwait and France have 

weaved for three decades strong ties, 

materialized by a defense agreement in 

1992, which was strengthened in 2009. 

The visit to Paris last month by the 

Kuwaiti chief of staff comes in a long 

process of mutual contacts, joint exercises, 

and various exchanges. 

Our economic relations still have to 

grow to reach the high level of our 

political ties. During his visit to Kuwait 

last march our Minister for industry 

observed that more and more French 

companies, with excellent technology 

and expertise, are expressing interest 

in the various projects of development, 

in all possible fields. We are expecting a 

delegation of our French business leaders 

association in the near future. On 

the other hand, we are pleased to 

observe that the Kuwaiti investments in 

France are steadily increasing. 

Education and culture is a vital area 

for France, and we are happy to have 

inaugurated in 2012 a true Cultural 

Center in Kuwait. Under the name 

“Institut FranÁais” this Center not only 

caters to learners of French, but it provides 

information for students wanting 

to study in France, and organises cultural 

activities, exhibitions like the prestigious 

“Golden Era of Arab Sciences” 

with Dar Al-Athar Al-Islamiyya, conferences 

like “New Media and Democracy” 

with three associations of the civil society, 

art exhibitions like the ones in Beit 

LOCAL 

Kuwait-French ties: Getting 

closer, growing stronger 

French Ambassador Nada Yafi 

NBK reveals annual social 

program for Ramadan 

Features Iftar meals, visits to NBK 

Hospital and Beit Abdullah 

KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) 

revealed its annual ‘Doing Good Deeds’ program 

during the Holy month of Ramadan. For 

more than 20 years, the program comprises a 

NBK Public Relations Executive Manager 

Manal F Al-Mattar 

series of activities and events aimed at 

encouraging community engagement and 

solidarity and charity in Kuwait. 

Manal Al-Mattar, NBK Public Relations 

Executive Manager said “NBK will ramp up its 

charitable activities, as a good corporate citizen 

of Kuwait. NBK hopes to encourage a 

greater sense of community and charity during 

Ramadan and encourages its customers 

and staff to participate by ‘doing good deeds’ 

all month long.” 

“It is a well rooted tradition that has been 

carried out by NBK each year in its efforts to 

continuously have an active role in the Kuwait 

society. NBK believes in the power of doing 

good,” added Al-Mattar. 

NBK fast-breaking banquets 

NBK Ramadan Social Program includes 

hosting fast-breaking banquets which have 

become a tradition observed annually within 

the “Do Good Deeds in Ramadan” philanthropic 

drive initiated by NBK more than 20 

years ago. 

The Iftar banquets will be held near the 

Grand Mosque. Fast-breaking will also be 

offered at various mosques and other locations 

throughout Kuwait. NBK will also distribute 

Iftar meals via special convoys that will 

tour the more crowded areas in the country. 

NBK volunteers 

NBK staff volunteers have already finalized 

all necessary arrangements for Ramadan tents 

to receive fasting people on the eve of first 

day of Ramadan. NBK staff volunteers will 

manage and supervise the fast-breaking banquets. 

Louthan, and many music concerts 

where East meets West. On the other 

hand, we are delighted to see the 

growing numbers of Kuwaitis visit 

France through the increasing numbers 

of visas delivered. 

Strong relations indeed depend on 

close ties between people, and I 

believe French and Kuwaiti people 

have a lot in common., like the citizens’ 

interest for politics, their attachment 

to a Welfare state, the strong 

belief in democracy, to mention but a 

few. We are proud to have welcomed 

Kuwait Transparency in France in June 

this year on the occasion of the second 

tour of our parliamentary elections, 

where they had the opportunity to 

watch closely our elections procedures, 

adding a new field to our mutual 

exchanges. 

I hope our ties will grow stronger in 

all possible fields. 

Long live the friendship between 

Kuwait and France. 

Social visits 

The NBK Ramadan Social Program will also 

include several visits by NBK’s Public Relations 

personnel and NBK staff volunteers to NBK 

Children’s Hospital and beit Abdullah, in addition 

to the distribution of Gerge’an throughout 

NBK’s branch network. 

Social media activities 

NBK Ramadan Social Program will also 

include daily competitions and valued prizes 

through the official social media channels of 

NBK in Facebook & Twitter and Instagram.


Ban lauds progress in 

Kuwait-Iraq relations 

UN seeks to see fully ‘normalized ties’ 

UNITED NATIONS: Secretary-General 

Ban Ki-moon said that he is ‘encouraged’ 

by the progress in Kuwaiti-Iraqi bilateral 

relations and urged the two neighbors 

to sustain this momentum, and seize the 

opportunity to resolve all outstanding 

issues and fully normalize their relations. 

In a report to the Security Council 

issued late Thursday on the work of the 

UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), 

Ban said the bilateral relations between 

the two countries ‘witnessed noticeable 

improvement’ during the last four 

months, including the creation of a joint 

commission to manage the navigation of 

the Khor Abdullah shared waterway. 

Besides, he added, the parties agreed 

to take the necessary measures for the 

maintenance of their common border 

and to enhance joint security, with 

Kuwait, indicating that it would also 

open consulates in Basra and Irbil. He 

indicated that both countries jointly 

requested the UN to begin the maintenance 

work of Iraq-Kuwait Boundary 

Ban Ki-moon 

KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) organized a field trip 

to the students of the Summer Internship Program at the end 

of the two-week courses to Kuwait Danish Dairy Company 

(KDD). 

KDD representatives took the students in a tour to introduce 

them to the various activities as well as an exclusive visit 

to its factory. The students had the chance to see the different 

stages of food production. 

The NBK Summer Internship Program is designed for students 

as an extension of NBK’s education outreach services. 

The program demonstrates NBK’s long-standing social 

involvement as well as its national commitment towards providing 

the young generations with the appropriate opportunities 

to experience firsthand how the actual professional banking 

issues and transaction are handled and processed. 

The 5-hour daily sessions of two-week internship featured 

a mixture of theoretical and practical training dedicated to 

providing the interns with invaluable knowledge on a variety 

of subjects such as; the team work, creative thinking, means of 

self expression and modern banking work procedure, in addition 

to helping interns to have greater exposure to daily banking 

work procedures. 

NBK regularly organizes and designs events and packages 

for the youth of the country to familiarize them with the world 

of banking and make them responsible citizens. 

Maintenance Project (IKBMP) by 

October 31 this year, “subject to the fulfillment 

by the parties of the necessary 

prerequisites for the field maintenance 

work to begin.” “The United Nations will 

continue to support the parties’ commendable 

efforts towards the completion 

of the IKBMP in a swift and flexible 

manner,” he pledged. He also recalled 

that the Security Council supported his 

recommendation last month that Iraq 

and Kuwait “should begin exploring other 

arrangements to consolidate and 

ensure continued cooperation in the 

search for missing persons and property, 

including national archives.” 

In a related matter, Ban said the UN 

“remains committed to providing all the 

necessary assistance to facilitate Iraq’s 

exit from its obligations under Chapter 

VII of the UN Charter,” including through 

the work of the high-level coordinator 

for the return of Kuwaiti and other 

nationals and property, Gennady 

Tarasov, as well as through the timely 

completion of the IKBMP. 

On the political situation in Iraq, Ban 

said he was ‘concerned’ that political 

tensions have risen since he last reported 

to the Council four months ago. 

“Unless the impasse is meaningfully 

addressed by all parties, it could hamper 

efforts to move the country toward 

progress and stability. Political tensions 

could also adversely impact the security 

situation,” he warned. The current political 

impasse is also hindering efforts to 

resolve outstanding issues pertinent to 

the disputed internal boundaries, he 

indicated. “I continue to firmly believe 

that addressing these issues remains 

central to Iraq’s future stability,” he 

stressed. 

“I therefore urge Iraqi leaders to work 

together in a spirit of compromise and 

inclusiveness, in accordance with the 

Constitution, towards a peaceful and 

prosperous future for Iraq,” he said. 

Regarding stability in the region, Ban 

said it “remains a crucial factor for Iraq’s 

transition to a peaceful and stable 

democracy. “I continue to be deeply 

concerned with the escalation of violence 

in Syria, which could have an 

adverse political and humanitarian 

impact on the region, including Iraq.” 

The Council is scheduled to meet on 

July 25th to renew UNAMI mandate for 

one whole year at Iraqi Foreign Minister 

Hoshyar Zebari’s request. In a letter to 

Ban, Zebari said “the events and developments 

of the Arab Spring have confirmed 

the credibility of the Iraqi 

approach to the building of a democratic 

State and the protection of human rights 

and the population. We are making 

progress in establishing that approach, 

which will serve our population. Against 

that background, Iraq will require the 

support of UNAMI,” conveying the Iraqi 

Government’s wish that the Mission’s 

mandate be extended for a further period 

of 12 months. —KUNA 

LOCAL 

SARAJEVO: Kuwait Ambassador to Albania Najib 

Abdulrahman Al-Bader meeting Albanian Foreign 

Minister Edmond Panariti. —KUNA 

Kuwait, Albania 

hail bilateral ties 

SARAJEVO: Kuwait Ambassador to Albania Najib 

Abdulrahman Al-Bader met with Albanian Foreign Minister 

Edmond Panariti to discuss issues of common interest. 

During the meeting, Al-Bader relayed Deputy Prime 

Minister, Foreign Minister and Minister of for Cabinet Affairs 

Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah’s greetings to his 

Albanian counterpart for assuming office as the new country’s 

Foreign Minister. The Albanian official lauded the strong bilateral 

ties and expressed appreciation for Kuwait’s support for 

developmental projects in the country which are carried out 

through Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development 

(KFAED). In May, Albanian President Bamir Topi visited Kuwait 

for the purpose of promoting relations in all areas. —KUNA 

Myanmar’s Islamic 

bodies hail Kuwait 

KUALA LUMPUR: Islamic organizations in Myanmar have 

expressed appreciation to His Highness the Amir Sheikh 

Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and the Kuwaiti government 

for condemning the bloody violence against Muslims in 

Arkan, Myanmar. 

Kuwaiti Ambassador to Myanmar Essa Al-Shimali told 

KUNA, yesterday, via the phone that he received a group of 

representatives from various Islamic organizations in 

Myanmar who gave him a letter in which they expressed their 

thanks and gratitude to the Kuwaiti leadership’s stance 

toward violent acts. 

Violence broke out between Muslims and Buddhists after 

an incident on May 28 in a village in the central part of 

Rakhine state. Three Muslim members of the Rohingya ethnic 

group raped and killed a Buddhist woman belonging to the 

Arakan ethnic group. That incident triggered further attacks 

and arson throughout the state.—KUNA 

NBK holds field trip for internship students


Avalanche dead loved ones 

mourn at French ski resort 

LONDON: Syria appears to be quietly shifting 

some chemical weapons from storage sites, say 

Western and Israeli officials, but it is not clear 

whether the operation is merely a security precaution 

amid the chaos of war, or something 

more. Some analysts see the move as serving a 

dual purpose - to keep the weapons from capture 

by an expanding insurgency, and to deprive 

Syria’s Western foes of any excuse for intervention 

on the grounds of securing dangerous 

material gone astray. The Syrian government 

denies carrying out the operation, first reported 

by the Wall Street Journal, and there is no firm 

word on the materials involved. Syria’s undeclared 

stockpile reportedly includes sarin nerve 

agent, mustard gas and cyanide. 

But the reports contribute to an impression of 

crumbling government control in parts of Syria, 

and are likely to heighten international concern 

about the security of what is believed to be the 

Middle East’s largest chemical weapons stockpile. 

An Israeli official said however the movements 

reflected an attempt by President Bashar 

Al-Assad to make “arrangements to ensure the 

weapons do not fall into irresponsible hands”. 

“That would support the thinking that this matter 

has been managed responsibly so far.” In 

Washington, a national security official confirmed 

the US government had received reports 

of chemical weapons movements but was not 

sure of the reasons. 

10 

More than 20 killed in 

S African train crash 

Analysts see move as serving a dual purpose 

TIGHT CONTROL 

A second US official said the reported movements 

were “relatively new”, but not necessarily 

hugely frightening. Pentagon spokesman 

George Little said Pentagon believed the Assad 

regime retained control of chemical weapons but 

the United States and its partners were watching 

closely. “We would of course caution them (the 

Syrians) strongly against any intention to use 

those stockpiles. That would cross a serious red 

line,” he said. “We cannot assume nefarious 

intent,” said Dina Esfandiary, a research analyst at 

London’s International Institute for Strategic 

Studies. She said mustard gas, stored in 

weaponised form in artillery shells, could be used 

against “tactical targets” like advancing troops. 

“This is the reason why moving them looks suspicious 

- because it looks like he is moving them to 

be used, even though he could be moving them 

to more secure locations.” 

Western countries believe Damascus has the 

world’s largest remaining stockpile of undeclared 

chemical weapons - including mustard gas and 

the deadly VX nerve agent. The arsenal could give 

Assad a means to project power domestically and 

in the region, and counterbalance Israel’s undeclared 

nuclear weapons. In London, the British 

Foreign Office (ministry) said Syria was a country 

“of proliferation concern” and had a track record 

of covert weapons programs. From Israel’s point 

of view the biggest “red line” would be a transfer 

9 

of such weaponry to the powerful Shi’ite political 

party and guerrilla group Hezbollah, a sworn foe. 

More localized leakage within Syria would be less 

worrying as such weapons are not easy to operate 

in the absence of a military infrastructure, 

Israeli officials have said. 

RESTIVE AREAS 

But Damascus worries that even the appearance 

that it no longer enjoys 100 percent control 

of the material could trigger military action by the 

West to secure the sites and prevent them from 

getting into the hands of Islamist militants, analysts 

say. “The material in question may not be 

adequately protected, or they are near restive 

areas,” said Shashank Joshi of the Royal United 

Services Institute military think tank. Assad’s focus 

on the possibility that Western forces may one 

day seek to capture his chemical weapons may 

have been sharpened by the holding of regular 

multinational military exercises involving US 

forces in neighboring Jordan earlier this year. 

Joshi said the US had been training for that 

kind of operation with nuclear-armed Pakistan in 

mind, “and so the stories have been trickling out 

(from Jordan) in a very clear US signaling that ‘we 

are preparing for this eventuality’. That will obviously 

have affected Assad.” Western media 

reports have said suspected sites are in half a 

dozen cities and towns including the capital 

Damascus, Latakia, Hama and near Aleppo. A sen- 

SE Asia meeting in disarray 

over sea dispute with China14 

BANGKOK: Supporters of the judges react to the Constitution Court ruling outside the court in Bangkok, Thailand yesterday. The court defused the country’s latest political crisis yesterday, 

dismissing a controversial case that alleged ruling party lawmakers trying to amend the constitution were plotting to overthrow the monarchy. —AP 

Syria moves chemical weapons 

ior Free Syrian Army source said two weeks ago 

that Assad’s forces, with Iranian help, were moving 

chemical weapons out of the the Tal Qartal 

military site, around 14 km southwest of Hama. 

The source said some were going to Damascus 

and being airlifted to Lebanon. There was no 

immediate confirmation of the report. 

FRONT LINES 

Leonard S Spector, director of the Washington 

office of the James Martin Center for 

Nonproliferation Studies research center, said 

there were several scenarios in which control 

could be lost over portions of the chemical arsenal. 

Writing in a June 26 article in Yale Global 

Online, Spector listed these as: Custodians could 

be reassigned to the front lines of the impending 

civil war. They could desert posts to protect families 

as domestic turmoil continues. They could 

defect to the rebel cause, transferring control 

over weapons stocks to the Free Syrian Army, 

with confused lines of authority and plans to 

manage such materials that are likely non-existent. 

Depending on the ebb and flow of battle, 

Assad could abandon the custodians if, for example, 

the sites fell within swathes of territory taken 

by rebel forces. They could be overrun by rebel 

troops. Free Syria Army leaders might try to 

demonstrate, through capture of a site symbolizing 

Assad’s military strength, that the Syrian 

leader was losing his grip on power. —Reuters


JERUSALEM: Israel’s immigration police have been 

granted the power to remove foreigners without permits 

from the occupied West Bank, Haaretz newspaper 

reported yesterday. According to the report, the head of 

the Israeli army’s Central Command has granted the 

interior ministry’s enforcement arm the power to arrest 

foreigners who have outstayed their visa in a bid rein in 

foreign pro-Palestinian activists. 

The order was signed on July 6, the paper said. Until 

now, Israel has struggled to find a way to apprehend 

activists in the West Bank. “Many illegal residents within 

Israel choose to come to the Judaea and Samaria area to 

work,” an army statement said in response, using the 

biblical term for the West Bank. 

“In the past, the (interior ministry’s Population and 

Migration Authority) had no enforcement power over 

these workers. “According to the new order, inspectors 

will be authorised to transfer the illegal residents into the 

boundaries of the State of Israel, where the regular 

enforcement procedures will proceed, as per Israeli law,” 

INTERNATIONAL 

Israel to deport illegal foreigners from West Bank 

AMMAN: Jordanian lawmakers, no names available, recite verses from the 

holy Quran during a session for the Jordanian Parliament. Jordan’s powerful 

Muslim Brotherhood said yesterday that it will boycott the upcoming parliamentary 

elections in protest over recent changes in the kingdom’s election 

legislation, saying they fall short of the opposition group’s demands. — AP 

Jordan’s Islamists to 

boycott elections 

AMMAN: Jordan’s powerful Muslim 

Brotherhood said yesterday it will boycott 

the upcoming parliamentary elections 

in protest over recent changes in 

the kingdom’s election legislation, saying 

they fall short of the opposition 

group’s demands. 

A boycott would deal a blow to King 

Abdullah II, who has made his reforms’ 

campaign the centerpiece of efforts to 

stave off Arab Spring-type of protests. 

Islamists have made gains all over the 

Middle East and show increasing 

strength in Jordan, where regular street 

protests over the past 18 months have 

called for wider public say in politics and 

for curtailing the king’s absolute powers. 

The elections, expected at the end of 

the year though no date has officially 

been set, are critical in the king’s campaign. 

He has changed 42 articles, or 

one-third of Jordan’s 60-year-old constitution, 

giving parliament a say in 

appointing Cabinets - a task which used 

to be his sole prerogative. 

“The government left us no choice 

but to boycott the elections because it 

did not show any seriousness toward 

real reforms,” Brotherhood spokesman 

Jamil Abu-Bakr told The Associated 

Press. Abu-Bakr, however, said the 

Brotherhood - Jordan’s largest opposition 

group - may reverse the latest decision 

if the government promptly acts on 

its demands. “We will leave that discussion 

until a time when the government 

undertakes serious and real efforts 

toward reforms,” he said. 

Government officials did not answer 

repeated calls for comment. The main 

dispute is over a new election law, which 

gave concessions to the opposition by 

allowing each eligible voter two ballots 

instead of one under legislation enacted 

in 2001. Parliament passed the new on 

Thursday. Under it, one ballot is reserved 

for representatives from local districts in 

this traditionally tribal society, while the 

other goes to a 27-seat national list of 

candidates. 

That way, Islamists are expected to 

dominate the national list and also get 

some votes from the local list, while tribal 

pro-government candidates will likely 

muster most of the local support from 

their particular clan and relatives. 

But the Brotherhood argues that the 

law still favors king’s loyalists and that 

elections held under it would produce 

another docile legislature. It insists on an 

old, 1989 election law, which allowed 

Jordanians multiple ballots and saw the 

Brotherhood at the time win almost half 

of the seats in the first elections in more 

than two decades. 

In 1990, six Brotherhood lawmakers 

joined a Cabinet for the first time ever. 

But the group’s popularity waned soon 

afterward as its lawmakers and Cabinet 

members failed to deliver on promises to 

create jobs and improve living conditions 

of the poor. Instead, they focused 

on trivial issues, like banning alcohol 

aboard flights of Jordan’s flag carrier to 

Arab countries and ending TV talk shows 

they considered too liberal. 

The Islamists boycotted the last two 

elections but remained popular among 

poor Jordanians who benefit from 

Islamic charities that aid schools, banks 

and hospitals in areas outside the government’s 

reach.—AP 

GAZA: The head of the Islamist group Hamas in the 

Gaza Strip said on Friday he was confident Egypt’s 

new president would shield the Palestinian enclave 

from Israeli attack and fully open its borders to end a 

trade blockade. 

Mohamed Morsi, who won power in last month’s 

presidential election in Egypt, is a member of the 

Muslim Brotherhood and ideologically close to 

Hamas. The Gazan Islamists long complained that his 

predecessor Hosni Mubarak, ousted from power last 

year in a popular revolt, sided not just with Israel, but 

also with their political rival Palestinian President 

Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement. 

So far, Hamas has seen little sign of a policy shift 

since Morsi took office and diplomats said the 

Egyptian leader had so many domestic problems that 

he could ill-afford to dedicate much time to re-tooling 

Cairo’s relations with the Palestinians. 

However, Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s 

Gaza government, told worshippers in a mosque that 

change was coming. “We are confident that Egypt, the 

revolution led by Morsi, will never provide cover for 

any new aggression or war on Gaza,” he said. “We are 

confident that Egypt, the revolution led by Morsi, will 

not take any part in blocking Gaza,” he added. 

Israel launched a military offensive against Gaza in 

late 2008 in an effort to end repeated rocket attacks 

from Hamas, which refuses to recognise Israel’s right 

to exist. Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died in 

the three-week war. 

Low level violence continues and Israel still imposes 

a rigid trade blockade on Gaza, arguing that it is 

needed to prevent weapons of arms-making materials 

into the enclave. 

Politicians in Israel have expressed alarm in private 

over the election of Morsi and fear that their country’s 

historical peace treaty with Egypt could be eroded 

over time. 

Mubarak helped police the Gaza blockade and did 

not let any goods officially cross the border, saying 

this was part of longstanding accords with 

Washington and Israel. However, Cairo always turned 

a blind eye to a thriving blackmarket business with 

Gaza conducted through a warren of underground 

tunnels. 

A few hundred people cross in and out of Gaza 

every day via Egypt and the number of passengers 

has increased since Morsi took office. However, officials 

on both sides explain this on the start of the holiday 

season rather than on any policy shift. 

Morsi’s position will soon be put to test when he 

meets officials from Hamas and the secular Fatah, 

which is backed by Western powers and rules in the 

nearby West Bank. 

Protocol means that Morsi will almost certainly see 

Abbas first, with one source saying it would happen 

on Wednesday. No date has yet been set for a Hamas 

delegation to be received. 

Both President Abbas and Hamas are likely to be 

pressed by Egypt to end their long-standing hostilities, 

which at one point saw the two sides fight a brief 

it said. “The status of these illegal residents will be identical 

to the status of illegal residents found during routine 

enforcement in Israel.” The army noted that the inspectors 

“will not be allowed to enter a (Palestinian) place of 

residence without the appropriate warrant signed by a 

military judge admitted to a committee on the matter of 

exclusion from the Judaea and Samaria region.” 

Last month, the immigration police began a nationwide 

crackdown on the estimated 60,000 illegal African 

migrants living in Israel. — AFP 

Hamas sees Egypt’s 

Morsi defying Israel 

Egypt’s leader to meet Abbas next week 

civil war in Gaza. 

“No one can help the Palestinians more than they 

can help themselves. They should take daring steps to 

end their rifts,” an official in Cairo told Reuters by 

phone. Repeated attempts at Palestinian reconciliation 

have ended in failure, with the two sides at loggerheads 

on everything from setting a date for elections 

to cooperating on security. 

“Theoretically, Morsi’s election gave a boost to 

Hamas, but the man has a million domestic problems 

to handle at home,” a diplomat in the region told 

Reuters, asking not to be named. “If Morsi publicly 

backs Hamas, he would be seen as supporting the 

Palestinian division and that would reflect badly on 

his foreign policy. He has to tread it carefully,” he 

added. — Reuters 

CAIRO: Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi speaks 

to reporters during a joint news conference with 

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, unseen, at the 

Presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, yesterday. The 

presidents of Egypt and Tunisia pledged to open a 

new chapter in relations following uprisings that 

overthrew longtime rulers, replacing them with a 

Muslim Brotherhood figure and an activist who was 

exiled. — AP


YENAGOA: Medical workers yesterday 

struggled to save the survivors of a 

massive petrol fire in southern Nigeria, 

as the death toll, previously put at 

roughly 100, rose by at least four. 

Relatives of those who were engulfed 

in flames while scooping fuel from an 

overturned tanker flocked to area hospitals 

and found family members who 

were hardly recognisable. 

Sade Orisola said she received a call 

to say that her brother was among 

those burned early Thursday in the 

inferno on a major highway in Rivers 

state. “When I got to the hospital I met 

a different person wrapped under a 

huge bandage,” she told AFP as she 

sobbed outside the Federal Medical 

Centre in Yenagoa, capital of neighbouring 

Bayelsa state. 

“‘Can that be my brother?’ is what I 

asked.” Rivers officials said more than 

100 people were killed and 50 others 

injured in the fire. The severely burned 

survivors were rushed to several hospitals 

and medical workers were struggling 

to assess the full loss of life. 

“What I can tell you is that we are 

still losing people,” Rivers information 

commissioner Ibim Semenitari said. 

“In one of the hospitals where we had 

13 wounded, four people have died,” 

she added. 

More fatalities were feared at two 

other hospitals and the the state plans 

to release a final toll on Monday, 

Semenitari explained. Medical workers 

at the hospital in Yenagoa who 

requested anonymity said they were 

not equiped to care for victims with 

such high degree burns, a common 

problem in Nigeria, where many hospitals 

lack the most basic facilities. 

The tragedy happened after the 

tanker swerved to avoid three oncoming 

vehicles in Rivers’ Ahoada area, a 

key trading hub in the oil-rich Niger 

Delta region. Semenitari said that the 

toll could have been much higher had 

the fire occured closer the town of 

Ahoada, as even more people may 

have rushed to the scene to collect the 

fuel spilling out of the toppled truck. 

“In a way we may have been fortunate,” 

she said. Fuel leaks and oil 

tanker accidents in Nigeria, Africa’s 

most populous country, often draw 

huge crowds and many deaths have 

been caused by accidental fires. In 

October 1998, more than 1,000 people 

INTERNATIONAL 

Hospitals struggle to save victims of Nigeria oil fire 

MPUMALANGA: Emergency services personel attend to an injured man at the site of a train crash at 

Mpumalanga, South Africa, yesterday. Over twenty people are confirmed dead with some 25 injured, 

some critically, following a collision between a train and a truck carrying farm labourers. —AP 

More than 20 killed in 

S African train crash 

Truck was carrying 44 farm workers 

JOHANNESBURG: Twenty-four people were killed in 

South Africa yesterday when a goods train ploughed 

into a truck carrying farm workers at a level crossing, 

an official said. The train transporting coal to 

Mozambique collided with a four-tonne truck and 

dragged it down the tracks, leaving dismembered 

bodies in its wake in what rescue officials described 

as a gruesome scene. The accident occurred shortly 

before 7:30 am (0530GMT) near the town of Malelane 

in the eastern province of Mpumalanga, south of the 

famed Kruger National Park. 

“Nineteen people died on the scene,” said Joseph 

Mabuza, spokesman for the provincial department of 

community safety. “As far as I know this is the worst 

rail accident in our region since 1994,” he added. The 

truck was carrying 44 farm workers and 25 of them 

suffered severe injuries. Some were airlifted to hospitals, 

with the death toll initially estimated at 30. 

“It would appear as if the truck driver may have 

crossed the railway line without having a proper lookout 

and as a result the train hit him and then pulled 

him for about a kilometre to two kilometres,” said 

Thulani Sibuyi, head of the province’s community 

safety department. 

“The bodies are lying all over the scene. People 

torn apart and so forth.” A woman at the scene 

described the aftermath to local radio, saying: “You 

can smell blood. There are bodies everywhere. It’s a 

very gruesome sight.” The driver of the truck survived 

the crash. 

“It is understood that a coal train consisting of four 

locomotives and 39 wagons... collided with a fourtonne 

truck,” said Sibongiseni Hena, the spokesman 

for the railway safety regulator. Police told AFP they 

were investigating and considering laying a charge of 

culpable homicide. Railways and freight rail in South 

Africa are owned and operated by Transnet, the staterun 

transport and logistics company. The firm said in 

a statement that the driver of the truck had failed to 

stop at a level crossing. 

The Congress of South African Trade Unions 

(Cosatu), the country’s largest labour federation, said 

the accident exposed the terrible labour conditions 

where “workers are transported in open trucks”. “The 

accident also points to the need to re-examine all railway 

level crossings to make sure that drivers are fully 

aware of the approaching hazard,” it said in a statement. 

Accidents at level crossings are common in South 

Africa as drivers often ignore safety signs. This year a 

court handed a 20-year prison term to a Cape Town 

minibus taxi driver who ignored safety signals at a 

railroad crossing and was hit by an oncoming train, 

killing 10 school children. — AFP 

BERLIN: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 

spokesman promised Germany’s 

Jewish and Muslim communities yesterday 

they would be free to carry out 

circumcision on young boys despite a 

court ban which has provoked concerns 

about religious freedom. 

In a country that is especially sensitive 

to allegations of intolerance 

because of the Nazis’ slaughter of 6 

million Jews in the Holocaust, the 

government said it would find a way 

around the Cologne court ban in June 

as a matter of urgency. 

“For everyone in the government it 

is absolutely clear that we want to 

have Jewish and Muslim religious life 

in Germany,” said Merkel’s spokesman 

Steffen Seibert. “Circumcision carried 

out in a responsible manner must be 

possible in this country without punishment.” 

European rabbis descended on 

Berlin this week to lobby against what 

they see as an affront to religious freedom 

- with the backing of Muslim and 

Christian leaders in an unusual show 

of unity, as well as the support of 

many German politicians. 

Ruling in the case of a Muslim boy 

taken to a doctor with bleeding after 

circumcision, the Cologne court said 

the practice inflicts bodily harm and 

should not be carried out on young 

boys, but could be practised on older 

males who give consent. 

This is not acceptable under Jewish 

religious practice which requires boys 

to be circumcised from eight days old, 

nor for many Muslims, for whom the 

age of circumcision varies according 

to family, country and branch of Islam. 

“It is well know that in the Jewish 

religion early circumcision carries 

great meaning, so it is a matter of 

urgency that this right be restored,” 

said Seibert, adding that Merkel’s own 

office would be involved in efforts to 

resolve the problem. 

“We know a quick decision is needed 

and that this cannot be put off. 

Freedom of religious practice is a very 

important legal right for us,” he said. 

died at Jesse, in the southeastern Delta 

state, when a pipeline exploded as 

people tried to steal fuel. 

In April last year, a fuel tanker overturned 

at an army checkpoint in the 

central part of the country, sparking an 

inferno in which some 50 people were 

killed. Rivers Governor Chibuike 

Amaechi has ordered a full probe into 

the causes of the crash. 

Some Nigerian newspapers on 

Friday said poor roads were partly to 

blame, but Kayode Olagunju of the 

Federal Road Safety Commission has 

said such speculation is premature. 

More than 17,000 people died in 

31,000 road accidents across Nigeria 

between 2007 and 2009, according to 

the road safety agency’s most recent 

report. —AFP 

Germany tells Jews, 

Muslims they will be 

free to circumcise 

Germany is a close ally of Israel 

and its ambassador there has promised 

parliament’s Diaspora Affairs 

Committee to defend the rights of 

Germany’s growing Jewish community. 

European rabbis ended their meeting 

in Berlin on Thursday in a defiant 

mood. They plan talks with German 

Muslim and Christian leaders in 

Stuttgart next week to see how they 

can fight the ban together. 

The ruling by the Cologne Regional 

Court applies to the city and surrounding 

districts with a total population 

of just over 2 million people. The 

total population of Germany is about 

82 million. Cologne is home to about 

120,000 Muslims, whose plans for a 

new central mosque has stirred antiimmigrant 

sentiment. 

The head of the Conference of 

European Rabbis urged Jews in 

Germany to continue carrying out circumcision 

despite the ban. 

But the German Medical 

Association, while opposing the ban 

because it could drive circumcision 

underground with greater risk of 

infection through poor hygiene, 

advised doctors not to carry out the 

operation until the legal situation is 

cleared up as they could risk prosecution. 

Pinchas Goldschmidt, the Swissborn 

chief rabbi of Moscow who 

organised the meeting, said the ban 

was a fresh example of creeping prejudice 

in European law against non- 

Christians, after a Swiss ban on 

minarets, French and Belgian bans on 

Islamic veils in public and an attempted 

Dutch ban on halal meat. 

“Circumcision represents the basis 

for belonging to the Jewish community. 

It has been practised for 4,000 

years and cannot be changed,” said 

Goldschmidt. 

Germany is home to about 120,000 

Jews and 4 million Muslims. Many of 

the latter originating from Turkey, 

which has also condemned last 

month’s court ruling. — Reuters


MADRID: Spanish King Juan Carlos (R) talks with Spain’s 

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy (L) before a cabinet meeting 

at the Zarzuela Palace in Madrid, yesterday. —AFP 

FBI to help Austria look 

again at Kampusch case 

VIENNA: Austria is enlisting the help of the FBI and Germany’s 

BKA Federal Crime Office to see whether mistakes were made in 

the investigation of one of its most notorious cases - the kidnapping 

of schoolgirl Natascha Kampusch. 

Snatched on her way to school when she was 10 years old by 

Wolfgang Priklopil, Kampusch was held for eight years in a windowless 

cell under his house outside Vienna before escaping in 

August 2006. He killed himself hours later. 

While it is the most thoroughly evaluated case ever in Austria, 

a parliamentary panel recommended the investigation be looked 

at again with the help of foreign experts, Justice Ministry spokeswoman 

Sabine Mlcoch said. 

“If they find out that there really have been some mistakes 

then we can learn for the future,” she said. Drawing parallels with 

the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States or the 1963 assassination 

of US President John F. Kennedy, Mlcoch said: “There will 

always be some theories of what could have happened. There 

are always some critics who say you could have done this, and 

this, and this.” 

She said the case was not being re-opened but the committee, 

set up yesterday and due to complete its work by the end of 

the year, would look at how the investigation was conducted. 

The government had agreed to the parliamentary panel’s recommendation 

for the sake of transparency. “We want to show that 

we have a clear conscience, we know that we’ve done everything 

possible,” Mlcoch said. 

A team working with the committee, which groups Justice 

and Interior Ministry officials and others, will include a cold case 

expert from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In her 

memoirs “3,096 Days” Kampusch recounted how her captor 

starved her, beat her, sexually abused her and forced her to clean 

his house half naked, calling her his “slave”. 

Austria was shocked by an abuse scandal again in 2008 when it 

emerged that Josef Fritzl had held his daughter Elisabeth in a cellar 

for 24 years and fathered seven children with her, one of which 

he murdered through neglect. He is in jail for life. —Reuters 

KANSAS CITY: The boyfriend of Kansas 

City woman whose 10-year-old daughter 

weighed just 32 pounds when she was 

rescued from a closet remained at large 

Thursday, one day after he was charged 

with child endangerment. 

Neighbors had long suspected 

Marcus R. Benson played more of a role 

than he initially claimed after a call to a 

24-hour child abuse hotline led authorities 

to the family’s apartment June 22. 

Inside a locked closet that reeked of urine 

was the girl, weighing less than half of 

what a typical child her age weighs. 

The girl’s mother, whom The 

Associated Press isn’t naming to protect 

the girl’s identity, was charged the next 

day with assault, child abuse and child 

endangerment. She has pleaded not 

guilty and waived the right to a preliminary 

hearing during a court appearance 

CHAMONIX: Relatives of the nine climbers 

killed by an avalanche in the French Alps 

gathered at the nearby resort of Chamonix 

yesterday to pay their respects the day after 

the tragedy. The mountaineers who died in 

the avalanche on Mont Maudit (“Cursed 

Mountain” in French) in the Mont Blanc massif 

early on Thursday were three Britons, 

three Germans, two Spaniards and a Swiss. 

Twelve others were injured. 

Relatives of Roger Payne, a former general 

secretary of the British Mountaineering 

Council, arrived in Chamonix late Thursday, 

as did Britain’s ambassador to France, Peter 

Ricketts, and the Swiss consul. “We are here 

to support the families whatever way they 

like in these tragic times,” Ricketts said, hailing 

in French the memory of Payne “very well 

known in Chamonix and in Great Britain.” 

The brother of one of the dead Spaniards 

went early yesterday to Chamonix hospital 

where the bodies are being kept in nine 

rooms. “We’re receiving the victims’ families 

at the town hall with staff and a member of 

the PGHM” French mountain rescue group, 

before taking them to the bodies at the hospital, 

said town hall security official Jean- 

Louis Verdier. 

“We’re trying to help them understand as 

best as possible why their loved ones died, so 

that they can mourn. There was no technical 

error,” Verdier said. The avalanche also 

injured 12 people, one seriously with throat 

and back injuries who has been hospitalised 

in Sion in Switzerland. Six of the injured have 

already left hospital. 

The injured are three Spaniards, two 

Germans, two Americans, two Danes, a Serb, 

a Swiss and a Frenchman. Frederic Champly, 

in charge of emergency and mountain rescue 

at Sallanches hospital, said the injured 

there were doing well. 

Danish survivor Thomas Vybro, 30, spoke 

from his hospital bed about his terror as he 

was swept away by the wall of ice and snow 

and how he had struggled in vain to dig his 

fellow mountaineers after the avalanche. 

“That was terrible, I thought I would die, I 

really thought ‘I’m gonna die now’,” he told 

AFP. “Because I’m sure I would hit something, 

that would kill us or we would go over a cliff. 

We were going so fast.” 

“I had a hard time breathing. I thought it 

was because of the altitude but it was 

because I had ice in the lungs,” he said. Of the 

six climbers that Vybro helped to dig out of 

the snow, two were already dead. 

“The worst thing of course was to see 

these people we dug up were dead and other 

people were very bad, with broken legs, it 

was horrible,” he said. Thursday’s avalanche 

involved a slab of snow around two metres 

(six feet) thick and 100 square metres in area 

which is not “enormous”, Champly said. 

“Too many people is what led to there 

being so many victims,” he said. British 

ambassador Ricketts told AFP that he had 

been told the climbers were properly 

equipped and led and had followed the recommended 

itinerary. 

“One French official was saying to me 

they were doing nothing imprudent,” 

Ricketts said. “What we were hearing... is that 

it was not predictable that this piece of ice 

would detach itself and fall down the mountain, 

the conditions were normal for climbing 

and there was no way of predicting that.” 

INTERNATIONAL 

Avalanche dead loved ones 

mourn at French ski resort 

Avalanche hit with little warning 

Thursday. Her attorney, public defender 

Curt Winegarner, declined to comment 

outside the courtroom. 

Immediately after the girl’s discovery, 

Benson told police he didn’t live in the 

apartment, and said that he often visited 

to see his 2- and 8-year-old daughters, 

but hadn’t seen their half-sister in about 

a year, according to the probable cause 

statement filed in the mother’s case. 

Benson said that when he asked the 

mother about the 10-year-old, she told 

him she was with her aunt or in her room 

because she was in trouble. He said he 

never knew the mother put the girl in the 

closet or “he would have done something 

about it,” the probable cause statement 

said. 

But a couple days after the 10-yearold 

was discovered, longtime neighbor 

Aishah Coppage said she was skeptical. “I 

An ecumenical memorial service is to be 

held for the victims in a Chamonix church 

on Saturday at 1200 GMT. Mont Maudit is 

the massif’s third-highest peak, rising to 

4,465 metres (14,650 feet) and is considered 

one of the more difficult paths to the summit 

of Mont Blanc, western Europe’s highest 

peak. 

Thursday’s accident was the deadliest 

climbing disaster in France since August 

2008. Some 20,000 climbers attempt to 

reach the summit of Mont Blanc every summer, 

with up to 500 a day during peak 

CHAMONIX-MONT-BLANC: Daniel Rosseto (L), independent highmountain 

guide and his client Thomas Wybro, from Denmark, both 

survivors from an avalanche in the French Alps, pose yesterday at 

the Sallanches hospital in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc. —AFP 

know he knew,” she said last month, 

adding that he had keys to the apartment, 

changed clothes there and was 

always there when Coppage got off 

work. 

Julie Hamilton, a spokeswoman in the 

Jackson County prosecutor’s office, said 

the probable cause statement in 

Benson’s case won’t be released until he 

is arrested. Online court records don’t list 

a lawyer for Benson. After his initial interviews 

with police, he was released while 

authorities continued an investigation 

that culminated in the two counts of 

child endangerment. 

“The first thing he did when he got 

out of jail was to come over here,” 

Coppage said last month. “You could 

hear him ranting and raving because he 

was mad we were talking to the press 

and the police and everything. I don’t 

times. Police have launched an enquiry into 

the accident to determine whether there 

may have been human error. Strong winds 

led to a layer of snow building up on a steep 

slope that slid under the weight of the 

mountaineers, perhaps after one of them 

struck the snow with an ice axe, said local 

prosecutor Pierre-Yves Michau. 

The investigation could take several 

weeks. “Victims’ relatives will be kept 

abreast of the probe,” as will their respective 

nations, Michau said. —AFP 

Police seek boyfriend of woman accused of abuse 

care about his anger because I believe he 

knew.” 

Coppage said last month the couple 

had a volatile relationship and she sometimes 

could hear them fighting next 

door. Her phone wasn’t accepting new 

messages Thursday. According to the 

probable cause statement, the mother 

told police she didn’t let the girl leave the 

house because the child is malnourished 

and she would “get in trouble if someone 

saw her.” 

It’s unclear how much time the child 

spent in the closet. In the probable cause 

statement, she told police that her mother 

put her in the closet “a lot.” The couple’s 

two younger children have been 

placed in protective custody. The 10year-old 

girl was hospitalized after police 

found her, but it is unclear if she is still in 

the hospital. —AP


DENVER: A 28-year-old autistic man from 

Colorado was found emaciated but alive 

on Thursday after living off mainly frogs 

and roots while wandering lost for at 

least three weeks in the remote Escalante 

Desert of southern Utah, authorities said. 

William Martin LaFever of Colorado 

Springs, Colo., told rescuers that in addition 

to the bits of food he scavenged, he 

drank water from the Escalante River 

while attempting to walk from Boulder, 

Utah, to Page, Ariz., a distance of approximately 

90 miles or more by the route he 

appeared to be taking. 

The Garfield County Sheriff’s 

Department estimated he had traveled 

about 40 miles before he was found. “It is 

some of the most rugged, unforgiving 

terrain you will find anywhere on Earth, 

jagged cliffs, stone ledges, sandstone, 

sagebrush, juniper,” sheriff’s spokeswoman 

Becki Bronson said in a telephone 

interview. 

“Where William was hiking, there just 

isn’t anyone out there,” she said. “There 

are no people. There are no towns.” The 

sheriff’s department said it was remarkable 

that searchers aboard a helicopter 

were able to find LaFever at all, much less 

alive. Deputy Ray Gardner, who had 

recently completed training in search 

and rescue operations for people with 

autism and was aboard the helicopter, 

said LaFever would not have survived 

another 24 hours. 

The helicopter took LaFever to 

Garfield Memorial Hospital in Panguitch. 

The hospital said it could not release any 

information on his condition. LaFever 

was trying to get to Page because his 

father, John LaFever of Colorado Springs, 

told him he would wire money to him in 

there, the sheriff’s department said in a 

written release. 

William LaFever had called his father 

on June 6 or 7 to say he was hiking in the 

Boulder area with his dog, and that 

someone had stolen some of his hiking 

gear and he had run out of money. John 

LaFever told his son to catch a ride to 

Page to collect the money. 

Unbeknownst to his father, William 

LaFever apparently decided to hike down 

the Escalante River and then hitch a boat 

ride along Lake Powell to Page, rather 

than try to catch a ride, the sheriff’s 

department said. 

LaFever set out along the river but ran 

out of food. His dog left him, and LaFever 

began abandoning his gear until all he 

had was the clothing and shoes he was 

wearing when he was found, the sheriff’s 

department said. 

The dog hasn’t been seen since. 

Authorities do not know why the dog ran 

off, Bronson said. The early June phone 

call was the last time the family heard 

from LaFever, and his sister reported him 

missing on Monday, the sheriff’s department 

said. 

A telephone message left at the 

LaFevers’ home in Colorado Springs wasn’t 

immediately returned. Gardner’s training 

in searching for people with autism 

taught him they are naturally drawn to 

INTERNATIONAL 

Autistic man survives 3-week ordeal in Utah desert 

ARIZONA: In this undated photo provided by the United 

States Drug Enforcement Administration, shows a 240yard, 

a complete and fully operational tunnel that ran 

from a small business in Arizona to an ice plant on the 

Mexico side of the border, July 12, 2012, in San Luis, 

Arizona. — AP 

US nuclear plant 

problem worse than 

thought: Report 

LOS ANGELES: US nuclear regulators published an update on 

California’s troubled San Onofre power plant Thursday, sparking 

an expert warning that the problem is more serious than first 

thought. A reactor at the nuclear power plant near San Diego was 

shut down in January after a radiation leak, although the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission (NRC) said there was no danger to the 

public. 

Investigations found unexpected erosion on tubes that carry 

radioactive water, and the entire plant was shut down, forcing 

Californian authorities to fire up alternative power generation 

facilities. On Thursday, an update on the tube erosion, posted on 

an obscure part of the NRC’s website, showed the situation had 

worsened. 

“This reveals a far greater problem than has been previously 

disclosed, and raises serious questions about whether it is safe to 

restart either unit,” said Daniel Hirsch, a nuclear expert at the 

University of California, Santa Cruz. 

The new data shows that more than 3,400 steam generator 

tubes in the new steam generators at San Onofre have been 

found to be damaged-about 1,800 in Unit 3 and 1,600 in Unit 2 — 

he said. “Edison had been talking about trying to get Unit 2 back 

on line at end of summer; now we know to do so they would 

have to run with a large number of damaged tubes,” Hirsch told 

AFP. A spokeswoman for operator Southern California Edison did 

not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new 

figures. The NRC did not comment on the figures, which were 

presented as tables. —AFP 

MEXICO CITY: The runner-up in Mexico’s 

presidential race on Thursday filed suit 

before the country’s electoral court in a 

bid to void the results on charges the winner 

broke campaign finance laws and 

bought millions of votes. 

Left-wing candidate Andres Manuel 

Lopez Obrador came in 3.3 million votes 

behind Enrique Pena Nieto from the centrist 

Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), 

according to the official count from the 

July 1 vote. 

But the former mayor of Mexico City, 

who lost the 2006 presidential race by a 

narrower margin, says the campaign was 

rigged, with major media outlets skewing 

coverage to promote the telegenic Pena 

Nieto at the expense of the other parties. 

Lopez Obrador said he had proof Pena 

Nieto enlisted help from local governors 

to buy around 5 million votes by doling 

out pre-paid gift cards, cash, foodstuffs, 

building materials and fertilizer to lure 

poor voters to the ballot boxes. 

“The massive vote buying operation 

was carried out before and on the day of 

the election,” Lopez Obrador told a news 

conference, adding he would next week 

unveil a “national plan for the defense of 

democracy and the dignity of Mexico.” 

In 2006, Lopez Obrador also refused to 

accept his loss to President Felipe 

Calderon by less than 1 percentage point. 

Financial markets were rattled when his 

supporters staged weeks of disruptive 

protests, occupying the capital’s main 

boulevard. This time markets have largely 

shrugged off the possibility of a drawn-out 

conflict and Pena Nieto is already naming 

advisers to work on his government’s transition. 

Lopez Obrador stopped short of calling 

for protests and said his camp will argue 

before the electoral tribunal, known as the 

TRIFE, that the PRI broke the rules for free 

elections. His lawyers filed their complaint 

with election officials Thursday evening, 

delivering dozens of boxes filled with doc- 

uments, videos, photos as well as home 

appliances, clothes and kitchen utensils 

allegedly given away by the PRI campaign. 

The TRIFE has until Sept. 6 to consider 

all claims and officially declare a presidentelect. 

Pena Nieto, 45, is set to return the 

PRI to power after 12 years in opposition. 

The party ruled Mexico for seven decades 

straight and often turned to authoritarian 

tactics to stifle political rivals and rig elections. 

Lopez Obrador said the party resorted 

to its old tricks after polls showed he 

was gaining ground late in the campaign 

and a student-led movement began to rally 

against Pena Nieto’s candidacy. 

Backed by the Party of the Democratic 

Revolution (PRD) and a coalition of smaller 

left-wing parties, Lopez Obrador also 

claims the PRI pressured local officials to 

line up votes for the party in the many 

water, so the helicopter search focused 

on the Escalante River, the department 

said. The helicopter team spotted 

LaFever Thursday afternoon, sitting in 

the Escalante River about five miles from 

Lake Powell, weakly waving at the aircraft. 

Gardner was dumbfounded when 

LaFever identified himself because of the 

long odds of finding anyone in that 

country, the sheriff’s department said. “In 

all my career I have never seen someone 

so emaciated,” Gardner was quoted as 

saying in the sheriff’s department release. 

“I could not believe that he was alive, and 

feel certain that in another 24 hours he 

would not have been alive.” 

Gardner didn’t immediately return a 

phone message late Thursday. LaFever 

was so weak that he couldn’t stand, but 

he was so eager for human contact that 

at first he would not stop talking long 

enough to eat or drink anything, the 

sheriff’s department said. He eventually 

took a drink and ate a granola bar. — AP 

Leftist seeks to void Mexico’s 

presidential election, again 

Obrador disputed results of previous election 

MEXICO CITY: Camerino Eleazar Marquez (L), Electoral Counselor of the 

Progessive Movement, Luis Walton (2nd R) of Democratic Convergence party, 

and Senator for the Democratic Revolution Party Ricardo Monreal (R) check 

their watches as Senior IFE official Edmundo Jacobo (2nd L) signs documents 

received backing up a legal complaint calling for the results of Mexico’s vote 

to be thrown out, after the leftist leader Lopez Obrador’s claim that Enrique 

Pena Nieto from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won the general 

elections. — AFP 

states where it holds power. 

Ricardo Mejia, a spokesman for Lopez 

Obrador’s legal team, said the lawyers will 

present proof that Pena Nieto spent 4 billion 

pesos ($296.51 million) during the 

campaign, 12 times the legal limit of 330 

million pesos. The PRI denies the accusations 

and has filed a legal complaint 

against Lopez Obrador for making false 

statements. 

PRI chairman Pedro Joaquin Coldwell 

said Lopez Obrador alienated many voters 

with his protests in 2006 and called him a 

“sore loser” who was backtracking on a 

promise made before the vote to accept 

the election results. 

“We will prove the falsehood of his 

arguments,” Joaquin Coldwell told a news 

conference. “And demonstrate the legality 

of our triumph.” —Reuters


BANGKOK: Thailand’s 84-year-old 

king has recovered from minor 

bleeding around the brain, the royal 

palace said yesterday, but still canceled 

a day trip to western Thailand. 

It would have been his fourth such 

recent excursion outside the hospital 

where he has stayed for more 

than two-and-a-half years. 

The trips are seemingly meant to 

raise his profile after his extended 

absence from the public eye, especially 

as Thailand goes through a 

period of possible political turbulence. 

The palace’s statement said 

King Bhumibol Adulyadej had 

twitching in his right hand and a 

slightly increased pulse rate 

Thursday evening before a comput- 

er scan found bleeding in the brain’s 

outer membrane. He was given 

medicine intravenously and recovered 

yesterday morning, with a normal 

pulse rate and blood pressure 

and no more twitching. 

The palace said doctors urged the 

king not to take on any duties for a 

while. Bhumibol has been staying at 

Bangkok’s Siriraj Hospital since 

September 2009. Originally treated 

for lung inflammation, he had a 

spinal tap procedure last year to 

reduce excess cerebrospinal fluid 

causing pressure on his brain. He 

was treated for abdominal bleeding 

that caused a sharp drop in his 

blood pressure in November, and for 

a painful digestive condition in 

January. The king had been scheduled 

to visit a development project 

Sunday in the western province of 

Ratchaburi. In May, he made a highly 

publicized trip to Thailand’s old capital 

of Ayutthaya, wearing an army 

uniform for the occasion, and since 

then he has made two boat trips for 

ceremonial occasions. 

Thailand’s monarchy once had 

near-universal respect among Thais, 

but the king’s fading from public life 

and the palace’s perceived role in 

the nation’s political battles have 

tarnished the institution in recent 

years. 

The political troubles and the 

concurrent decline in Bhumibol’s 

health have kindled uncertainty 

INTERNATIONAL 

Thai king recovers from bleeding around the brain 

DILI: Government palace guards view skeletal remains 

on a mass grave at the national government palace 

compound in Dili yesterday. Police in East Timor who 

uncovered a mysterious mass grave at the national 

government palace last month said yesterday they had 

found the bones of 72 bodies and clues the dead may 

have been Chinese. — AFP 

Philippines nabs 

extremist for 

priest abduction 

MANILA: Philippine police yesterday said they had 

arrested a Muslim extremist allegedly involved in the 

abduction of a US Catholic priest almost two decades 

ago. Police and military units arrested Jumli Orie 

Manjuri, an alleged member of the Al-Qaeda-linked 

Abu Sayyaf group, on Thursday for the kidnapping of 

Father William Bertelsman in 1994 on the strife-torn 

southern island of Jolo. 

The suspect was detained on the southern island of 

Basilan, which like Jolo is a rugged, heavily-forested 

area and a stronghold of the extremist group, a police 

statement said. Manjuri was part of the group that 

seized the American priest, who was promptly rescued 

by authorities, the statement said. The group has frequently 

abducted foreigners as well as locals since the 

1990s with the aim of extorting ransom money, killing 

kidnap victims during rescue attempts or when payment 

is not made. Manjuri is also believed to have taken 

part in the killing of 14 military trainees in 1998 and 

the killing of farm workers in 2008, all in the southern 

Philippines, police said. The Abu Sayyaf, a small band of 

Islamic militants set up in the 1990s with seed money 

from the late Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network, is 

based on remote southern islands and is responsible 

for the country’s deadliest terror attacks. The number 

of Abu Sayyaf fighters has dropped from roughly 2,000 

a decade ago to a few hundred today, according to 

security analysts. However the group remains active, 

staging kidnappings and bombing attacks. — AFP 

SEOUL: Tokyo and Beijing have been 

locked in a diplomatic fight over a 

Chinese man who hurled petrol 

bombs at the Japanese embassy in 

Seoul, officials said yesterday. The 38year-old 

surnamed Liu was charged 

with attempted arson in January after 

he threw four petrol bombs at the 

mission, leaving burn marks on its 

outer wall. 

“Japan has asked South Korea 

through formal diplomatic channels 

to hand him over” for trial, a foreign 

ministry official told AFP on condition 

of anonymity. South Korea has also 

received an informal request from 

China to deport him, she said. 

At talks yesterday with South 

Korea’s Justice Minister Kwon Jae-Jin, 

Chinese Public Security Minister Meng 

Jianzhu showed his “interest” in the 

case, Kwon’s office. Kwon vowed to 

handle the case under South Korea’s 

law and legal procedures, it said, 

declining to give details. 

Liu has told investigators that he 

attacked the embassy because he was 

angry at Tokyo’s refusal to deal with 

the issue of “comfort women” forced 

to work in Japanese military brothels 

in World War II. He said his late maternal 

grandmother-a Korean-was forced 

into wartime sex slavery in China. 

Some 200,000 women from Korea 

and other countries were drafted to 

work in Japanese army brothels, 

according to historians. 

Japan has rejected talks on compensating 

them. Liu also claimed 

responsibility for an arson attack 

which caused minor damage at 

Japan’s controversial Yasukuni shrine 

last December. 

The shrine in Tokyo is dedicated to 

2.5 million Japanese killed in warsincluding 

top war criminals-and is 

about the monarchy’s future. Even 

though there is an heir apparent, 

Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, there is 

uncertainty about his capacity to 

rule. 

The announcement on the king’s 

health came the same day Thailand’s 

Constitutional Court decided the ruling 

Pheu Thai party was inappropriately 

trying to amend the constitution. 

But the court rejected the more 

serious charge that the bill was an 

effort to overthrow the governing 

system of constitutional monarchy. 

The court could have ordered the 

ruling party dissolved, and speculation 

had been high that such an 

order would have triggered protests 

and possible violence. — AP 

China, Japan in diplomatic 

foray over embassy attacker 

Japan ask S Korea to hand him over for trial 

E Timor ruling party 

wins 30 parliament seats 

DILI: The ruling party of East Timor resistance hero Xanana 

Gusmao has won 30 seats in parliament, according to a 

final count yesterday from last weekend’s vote, and will 

need to form a coalition to govern. 

Gusmao’s centre-left National Congress for Timorese 

Reconstruction (CNRT) is three seats shy of the 33 needed 

for an absolute majority in the 65-seat parliament which 

would allow him to remain prime minister. 

The National Electoral Commission count of Saturday’s 

vote showed that the main opposition left-wing Fretilin 

party had come second with 25 seats in parliament. The 

Democratic Party (PD), a member of the previous ruling 

coalition, won eight seats, while Frente-Mudanca grabbed 

two. The CNRT said it would decide Sunday which party to 

team up with. If it is unable to form a majority, Fretilin and 

PD could join forces and lead parliament. Yesterday’s 

results need to be confirmed by the Supreme Court before 

being officially declared, and parties have 48 hours to complain 

to the court of appeals. 

Preliminary results given Sunday had said CNRT had 

won 31 seats, and Fretilin 24. The count for the other two 

parties remained unchanged. — AFP 

often seen as a symbol of the country’s 

wartime aggression. Meng 

arrived Thursday for a three-day visit 

to discuss cooperation in consular and 

immigration services. 

At separate talks Friday with 

Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan, 

Meng said Beijing was “seriously” 

considering Seoul’s request to release 

four South Korean activists, the foreign 

ministry said. 

The four were arrested on March 29 

after helping North Korean refugees, 

and accused of endangering China’s 

national security, a charge that can 

carry severe punishment. 

Almost all refugees from the North 

cross first to China, which repatriates 

any fugitives it catches, classing them 

as economic migrants. South Korean 

activists engage in secret activities in 

China to help the refugees travel on to 

Seoul. —AFP 

MANILA: Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert 

Del Rosario addresses the media during a press conference 

in suburban Pasay City, south of Manila, 

Philippines, after his return from the ASEAN Regional 

Forum in Cambodia yesterday. — AP


NANGAHAR: An Afghan women’s 

affairs official was killed yesterday 

when a bomb attached to her vehicle 

exploded, critically wounding her 

husband and daughter, police said. 

“Laghman provincial women’s affairs 

director Hanifa Safi was assassinated 

as a result of the explosion of a magnetic 

bomb attached to her vehicle,” 

provincial police chief Abdul Rahman 

QUETTA: Activists of the secular Pashtun nationalist 

Awami National Party (ANP) help move a damaged truck 

following a bomb blast in Quetta yesterday. A bomb 

attack killed at least six people outside a party political 

meeting in Pakistan’s troubled southwestern city of 

Quetta yesterday, police said. —AFP 

Sarjang told AFP. 

“Her daughter and husband along 

with four passersby were wounded.” 

Safi and Laghman provincial government 

spokesman Sarhadi Zwak 

blamed Taliban insurgents for the 

attack. 

The killing came just days after a 

shocking video surfaced of the execution 

of a woman, allegedly by 

Taleban Islamists, after she was 

accused of adultery in Parwan just 

north of Kabul. The Taliban, who 

were notorious for their suppression 

of women’s rights during their rule 

from 1996 to 2001, are waging an 

insurgency to overthrow the 

Western-backed government of 

President Hamid Karzai. 

Their favoured weapons-indis- 

INTERNATIONAL 

Magnetic bomb kills Afghan women’s official 

Militants flee Pakistan 

after border attack 

KHAR: Dozens of militants from Afghanistan who attacked a 

Pakistani village and took scores of hostages have fled back across 

the border, leaving the captives behind after a deadly battle with 

the army, officials said yesterday. The fighters who staged the 

cross-border attack on Thursday around 2 pm local time came 

from Afghanistan’s Kunar province and appeared to be targeting 

members of an anti-Taleban militia in Kitkot village near Pakistan’s 

Bajur tribal area, in the northwest. Pakistan has railed against 

Afghan and NATO forces for not doing enough to stop the rising 

number of cross-border attacks, which it says have killed dozens of 

members of its security forces. However, there has been little sympathy 

from the US and Afghan governments, which have long 

complained Pakistan allows sanctuary to militants fighting in 

Afghanistan. The militants in Thursday’s attack fled Kitkot under 

the cover of darkness late that night, said Framosh Khan, a government 

official in the surrounding area. Locals reported seeing them 

carrying the bodies of 15 dead fighters, he said. Two anti-Taleban 

militiamen were also killed in the fighting. 

Pakistani soldiers managed to free dozens of villagers who were 

taken hostage by the militants or were trapped in their homes during 

the fighting, said Khan. The information could not be independently 

verified because the area is largely off-limits to 

reporters. 

Elsewhere in the country, a bomb exploded yesterday near a 

political rally in the southwestern city of Quetta, killing at least five 

people, officials said. The bombing appeared to target a rally being 

held by the Awami National Party, which has been attacked many 

times before because of its opposition to Islamist militants. 

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. In addition 

to the five people killed, 11 others were wounded, said 

Mohammed Jafar, a doctor at the city’s main hospital. Most of the 

victims were attending the political rally when the bomb went off. 

Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, home to both 

Islamist militants and Baluch nationalists who have been waging a 

decades-long insurgency against the government for greater 

autonomy and a larger share of the province’s natural resources. 

In southern Pakistan, prisoners at a jail in Hyderabad city took 

15 staff hostage and tried to break out of the facility, said senior 

prison official Gulzar Channa. Guards opened fire on the prisoners 

to prevent them from escaping, killing one of them. Officials are 

trying to get the prisoners to release the hostages and go back to 

their cells, said Channa. Several Islamist militants convicted in connection 

with the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal 

reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 are held in the jail. —AP 

PHNOM PENH: A Southeast Asian regional 

summit ended in acrimony yesterday over 

China’s assertive role in the strategic South 

China Sea, failing to agree on a concluding 

joint statement for the first time in its 45year 

history. 

Divisions between the 10 countries in 

the Association of Southeast Asian Nations 

(ASEAN) follow a rise in incidents of naval 

brinkmanship involving Chinese vessels in 

the oil-rich waters that has sparked fears of 

a military clash. 

The Philippines said it “deplores” 

ASEAN’s failure to address the worsening 

row, and criticised Cambodia-a close ally of 

China-for its handling of the issue during 

the foreign ministers’ meeting. 

Without mentioning China, Philippine 

Foreign Minister Albert del Rosario told a 

news conference in Manila that one “member 

state’s” intrusions into Philippine territory 

were part of a “creeping imposition” of its 

claim over the entire South China Sea and 

were raising the risk of a conflict. 

The South China Sea has become Asia’s 

biggest potential military flashpoint as 

Beijing’s sovereignty claim over a huge, 

looping area has set it against Vietnam and 

the Philippines as the three countries race 

to tap possibly huge oil reserves. 

The stakes have risen as the US military 

shifts its attention and resources back to 

Asia, emboldening its long-time ally the 

Philippines and former foe Vietnam to take 

a bolder stance against Beijing. 

ASEAN’s divisions are an ominous sign 

for a bloc that wants to create a regional 

economic community by 2015 that would 

bring down barriers in trade, labour and 

financial markets-partly to compete with 

China for investment. 

China is a member of the East Asian 

Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum which 

also held meetings in Cambodia. “The 

increasing assertion by this member state 

over the disputed and non-disputed areas 

poses a threat to the peace and stability in 

the Asia-Pacific region,” del Rosario said. “If 

left unchecked, the increasing tension that 

is being generated in the process could further 

escalate into physical hostilities which 

no one wants.” 

China has been accused of using its 

heavy influence over summit chair 

Cambodia and several other ASEAN members 

to block regional-level discussions on 

the issue and attempts to agree a binding 

maritime Code of Conduct to manage the 

dispute. 

The Philippines said it took “strong 

exception” to Cambodia’s statement that 

the non-issuance of a communique was 

due to “bilateral conflict between some 

ASEAN member states and a neighbouring 

country”. 

It said it had only requested that the 

communique mention the recent standoff 

between Chinese and Philippine ships at 

the Scarborough Shoal, a horseshoeshaped 

reef in waters that both countries 

claim. Indonesia, the biggest economy in 

Southeast Asia, played down the rift. “No 

doubt the South China Sea at the moment 

is a difficult issue but I’m sure ASEAN will 

find ways and means to be able to address 

that problem,” Indonesian Foreign Minister 

Marty Natalegawa told Reuters. 

But the rising tensions were underlined 

yesterday when the Chinese navy said that 

one of its frigates had run aground on Half 

Moon Shoal, about 90 nautical miles (170 

km) off the western Philippine island of 

Palawan. 

China said it was conducting a rescue 

mission and the Philippines said it was 

sending “assets” to the area to investigate 

and provide assistance if needed. 

“That’s a very strategic location to 

strengthen their claim over the Reed Bank, 

they are getting closer to our territory, putting 

one foot inside our fence,” one military 

official told Reuters. 

The Philippines scrambled aircraft and 

ships to the Reed Bank area last year after 

Chinese navy ships threatened to ram a 

Philippine survey ship. 

China said last month it had begun 

criminate roadside bombs-are 

responsible for a majority of the 

deaths of both security forces and 

civilians, but the use of a magnetic 

bomb indicates that Safi was a specific 

target. The most recent high-profile 

assassination was of a senior government 

peace negotiator, Arsala 

Rahmani, who was shot dead in his 

vehicle in Kabul in May. —AFP 

SE Asia meeting in disarray 

over sea dispute with China 

Philippines deplores inaction, criticises Cambodia 

“combat-ready” patrols in waters it said 

were under its control in the South China 

Sea, after saying it “vehemently opposed” a 

Vietnamese law asserting sovereignty over 

the Paracel and Spratly islands. 

Philippine President Benigno Aquino 

told Reuters in an interview last week that 

he may ask the United States to deploy spy 

planes to monitor the disputed waters. 

China, whose trade and investment ties 

with Cambodia have surged in recent years, 

has warned that “external forces” should 

not get involved in the dispute, which it 

says should only be discussed bilaterally. 

CAMBODIA: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (C) speaks during the 5th 

Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) Ministerial Meeting with Foreign Ministers from 

Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam held on the sidelines of the 

45th Annual Ministerial Meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations 

(ASEAN) in Phnom Penh yesterday. —AFP 

Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also 

lay claim to parts of the South China Sea. 

Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Pham Binh 

Minh said he was “very disappointed” over 

the failure to issue a statement. In a statement 

issued late on Thursday, Chinese 

Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi repeated that 

there was “no dispute” about China’s sovereignty 

over Scarborough Shoal. “China 

hopes the Philippine side faces the facts 

squarely and stops creating trouble,” he 

added. 

The United States has stressed it is 

neutral in the long-running maritime dispute, 

despite offering to help boost the 

Philippines’ decrepit military forces. It 

says freedom of navigation is its main 

concern about a waterway that carries $5 

trillion in trade - half the world’s shipping 

tonnage. —Reuters


SYDNEY: Police in remote Papua New 

Guinea have arrested members of an 

alleged cannibal cult accused of killing 

at least seven people, eating their 

brains raw and making soup from their 

male organs, a report said yesterday. 

The 29 people were part of a 1,000strong 

group formed to combat errant 

sorcerers who The National newspaper 

said had begun charging exorbitant 

fees. 

The cost of a witch doctor revealing 

a cause of death or casting out an evil 

spirit was usually 1000 kina ($472) 

cash, plus a pig and a bag of rice, but 

some were also demanding sex as payment. 

“It’s against our traditional ethics 

and morals for a sorcerer to have inter- 

JAKARTA: A Muslim Indonesian holds a banner during a 

protest in front of the Myanmar Embassy in Jakarta, 

Indonesia, yesterday. Hundreds of Indonesian, Muslims 

denounced the violence in Myanmar between Buddhists 

and minority Rohingya Muslims. —AP 

course with a man’s wife or teenage 

daughter,” said one local cult leader in 

the Tangi area, inland from Madang 

province on PNG’s northeast coast. 

“That was the main cause of frustration 

that led to the forming of a group 

to hunt down sorcerers. “Over time, as 

suspects were released to carry on as 

sorcerers, we got tired and fed up.” 

There is a widespread belief in sorcery 

in PNG where many people do not 

accept natural causes as an explanation 

for misfortune, illness, accidents or 

death. 

Locals determined to get revenge 

on the profiteering witch doctors 

sought their own supernatural training 

from village chiefs, using their “possessed” 

bush knives to hunt down and 

kill seven people since April, the report 

said. “We ate their brains raw and took 

body parts such as livers, hearts, penis 

and others back to the hausman (traditional 

men’s houses) for our chief trainers 

to create other powers for the 

members to use,” one of those arrested 

said. 

The killings saw police raid Biamb 

village last week and arrest 29 people, 

eight of them women. A local expert in 

the supernatural cited by the newspaper 

said the way the group operated 

was different from traditional PNG 

hausman practice, which would normally 

see specific people trained to 

hunt a sanguma (sorcerer). 

“But these people never kill sorcerers 

in broad daylight, mutilate and eat 

INTERNATIONAL 

Cannibal cult arrest in Papua New Guinea 

Australian defence 

chief vows to 

stamp out abuse 

SYDNEY: Australian Defence Force chief General David Hurley yesterday 

vowed to stamp out abuse in the military following a damning 

report detailing allegations of rape and sexual assault. The 

report, released Tuesday, was commissioned by the government last 

year following the so-called Skype scandal, when footage of a young 

male recruit having sex with an unwitting female classmate was 

streamed online to cadets in another room. 

It detailed 24 allegations of rape that never went to trial among 

847 claims of sexual or other abuse dating back to the 1950s. “Any 

abusive behaviour in the defence force is unacceptable and I am 

deeply distressed by each and every allegation,” Hurley wrote in an 

opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald. 

“I have given a personal undertaking to do everything I can to 

stamp out any form of abuse in the ADF and to lead our cultural 

change programme.” The review, conducted by law firm DLA Piper, 

recommended a number of options to address the allegations 

including an apology and compensation to victims, and a public 

inquiry. 

Hurley said it was critical the claims be addressed as soon as practicable. 

“I will fully support the government in whatever process it 

determines appropriate,” said Hurley. “We should not, and cannot, 

turn a blind eye to instances of inappropriate behaviour.” 

“As individuals we must also be able to demonstrate that we 

have the moral courage to act and the ability to respond in an 

appropriate and timely manner when issues arise.” But Hurley also 

stressed that while the allegations were serious, he strongly believed 

they did not define the military, which he said enjoyed a proud 

national and international reputation for excellence. “I have served in 

the ADF for 40 years and I know that the force is not characterised by 

abusive behaviour,” he said. As well as the rapes, the report documents 

“horrific” child sex assaults and brutal initiation ceremonies 

and paints a culture of cover-up, failure to punish perpetrators and 

hostility towards victims who complained. —AFP 

sorcerers’ flesh, livers, and hearts or 

make soup from the penis of sorcerers,” 

he said. 

“This is insane and the cannibalism 

(of this group) goes beyond the local 

culture.” Madang provincial police 

commander Anthony Wagambie 

urged other followers of the group, 

believed to number more than 1,000, 

to surrender. 

“It is the tip of the iceberg and more 

needs to be done to educate locals to 

eradicate the movement,” he told The 

National. 

“Police cannot do it alone. It 

requires collective effort from government, 

responsible agencies, non-governmental 

organisations and the 

churches to work together.” —AFP 

Japan digs for missing as 

20 die after heavy rain 

Rescuers continue search, using heavy machinery 

TOKYO: Rescuers were racing against 

time yesterday in the search for people 

buried under mudslides as heavy 

rains that have already claimed 20 

lives continued to pound southwestern 

Japan. Police, firefighters and 

troops were digging through mud and 

rubble with shovels as more torrential 

rain fell, on top of “unprecedented” 

downpours that swamped whole 

neighbourhoods on Thursday. 

Television footage showed torrents 

of muddy water carrying uprooted 

trees and other debris after Thursday’s 

violent deluge, while rivers burst their 

banks and flooded towns and villages 

in the main southern island of Kyushu. 

Reports showed residential streets 

in the city of Kumamoto covered in 

mud, while battered cars that had 

been swept away by flood water were 

left dumped on hillsides in scenes 

reminiscent of the March 2011 tsunami 

in the northeast. 

In the city of Aso in Kumamoto prefecture, 

central Kyushu island, landslides 

buried at least 17 households, 

killing 19 people with six more still 

missing, local officials said. “We will 

keep searching for the missing 

throughout the night, while urging 

our citizens to stand guard as heavy 

rain continues sporadically,” said 

Kumamoto prefectural official Yushin 

Maekawa. 

In Oita, a man in his 70s died after 

being swept into a raging river, while 

another man remained missing. Public 

KYUSHU: This aerial photo shows a cluster of buildings affected by 

flood waters left by torrential rain at Aso city in Kumamoto prefecture, 

on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu. —AFP 

broadcaster NHK showed rescuers 

continuing their search, using heavy 

machinery to remove uprooted trees, 

boulders and debris as night fell. 

The weather eased somewhat yesterday 

morning bringing temporary 

relief, but further downpours were 

recorded in Kyushu later in the day. 

The city of Hita, Oita prefecture, issued 

evacuation orders to more than 14,800 

people amid increasing fears the 

Kagetsugawa river, which runs 

through the city, would burst its 

banks, local officials said. 

Nearly 25,000 people in other parts 

of the prefecture were advised to seek 

safety, the officials said. In neighbouring 

Kumamoto prefecture, more than 

250 households were told to evacuate, 

while everyone living on the floodplain 

of the Shirakawa river in 

Kumamoto city was advised to get to 

safety. 

Yesterday’s downpours were set to 

add to the misery for an area where 

50,000 people were ordered to leave 

their homes on Thursday after it was 

lashed by the heaviest rainfall on 

record. 

Landslides and fallen trees have cut 

roads and water supplies in several 

places, with at least one small mountain 

community completely cut off, 

the local government said. A Japanese 

military helicopter dropped supplies 

including food and water onto the isolated 

district, it said. 

The weather agency urged residents 

of Kyushu to be vigilant against 

mudslides and floods after rainfall of 

10.1 centimetres (about 4 inches) per 

hour was recorded in the southern 

region of Kagoshima early yesterday. 

The weather agency forecast further 

about 20 centimetres of rainfall in 

the northern Kyushu region during the 

24 hours to 6:00 am today (2100 GMT 

Friday). —AFP

Clinton meets Myanmar 

16 

leader at business forum 

Business 


NEW YORK: Fears of violence in the Persian 

Gulf escalated Thursday, pushing the price of 

oil higher. The Obama administration slapped 

Iran with more sanctions aimed at stifling its 

nuclear program. Traders, who worry that the 

sanctions will eventually lead to a military conflict 

in the Gulf, responded by buying oil. “This 

just puts the risk back out there,” said Phil 

Flynn, an oil analyst with Price Futures Group. 

The US and other Western nations believe 

Iran is building a weapon and have heaped 

financial and diplomatic pressure on the 

country since November to force it to negotiate. 

Iran denies the claim. Its leaders have 

threatened to block a key shipping channel 

out of the Gulf if the sanctions continue. Such 

a move, or a conflict in the area, could slow 

down or even halt shipments out of one of 

the world’s most prolific sources of oil. About 

20 percent of the oil traded around the world 

comes from the Persian Gulf. Sanctions 

helped cut Iran’s oil production by 188,500 

‘Market seems kind of directionless’ 

barrels per day from May to June as buyers 

looked for other sources of crude, according 

to OPEC. Iran fell to No. 3 in OPEC production 

last month. Iraq moved to No. 2, behind Saudi 

Arabia. 

Oil prices, which had been down all day, 

jumped after the sanctions were announced. 

Benchmark US crude added 27 cents to end 

at $86.08 per barrel in New York. Brent 

crude, which sets the price for imported oil, 

added 84 cents to finish at $101.07 per barrel 

in London. Thursday’s sanctions were 

aimed at companies and people affiliated 

with Iran’s defense ministry. Previous sanctions 

were meant to curtail its ability to 

export oil. Earlier this year, European refineries 

stopped buying Iranian oil, and Iran’s 

banks were blocked from doing business 

with much of the world. 

For most of this month, oil prices have 

been on a bumpy ride, changing direction 

almost every day as the global economy put- 

Spanish civil servants 

protest salary cuts 

ters along. Investors and analysts say it’s hard 

to figure where prices are headed. China and 

other emerging economies appear to be 

using more oil. Yet those increases are offset 

by weaker demand in the US - the world’s 

biggest oil consumer - where the job market 

has stagnated, and in Europe, which continues 

to wrestle with massive government 

debts. 

“The market seems kind of directionless,” 

Gene McGillian, a broker and oil analyst at 

Tradition Energy, said. “Are we going to see the 

emergence of a global economic recession, or 

are things going to stabilize?” The latest batch 

of data continued to deliver mixed views of the 

global economy. Reports out of Europe 

Thursday said borrowing costs rose in Spain 

and unemployment rose in Greece, stoking 

concerns about the region’s financial crisis. 

Meanwhile the US Labor Department said the 

number of people filing for unemployment 

benefits plunged last week. Economists said 

17 

Asia has firepower to 

18 

fight slowing growth 

JPMorgan says bad trade 

19 

has ballooned to $5.8bn 

TOKYO: Model cars of German luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz are displayed for an anniversary event of the company’s showroom. Mercedes-Benz will hold a 

sales promotion event till July 29. — AFP 

New Iran sanctions boost oil prices 

they thought the drop will be temporary. 

The International Energy Agency said 

global oil demand should rise this year, but 

the increase will be less than what it predicted 

a month ago. Natural gas futures rose after 

the US said the nation’s natural gas surplus is 

falling more in line with historic levels. The 

government said the nation’s supply is 20 

percent larger than the five-year average, 

much lower than what it was earlier in the 

year. The price of natural gas added 2.1 cents 

to finish at $2.874 per 1,000 cubic feet in New 

York. At the pump, retail gasoline prices were 

flat at a national average of $3.384 per gallon, 

according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil 

Price Information Service. Gasoline prices 

have been steady this week. A gallon of regular 

is about 55 cents cheaper than what it was 

in April. In other futures trading, heating oil 

rose 1.15 cents to finish at $2.7733 per gallon, 

while wholesale gasoline added 3.73 cents to 

finish at $2.8062 per gallon. — AP


Clinton meets Myanmar 

leader at business forum 

Clinton in plea for workers’ rights in Asia 

SIEM REAP: US Secretary of State Hillary 

Clinton met Myanmar President Thein 

Sein yesterday for landmark discussions 

days after Washington eased its sanctions 

on the once-pariah state. The pair began 

talks in the Cambodian tourist town Siem 

Reap on the sidelines of a US business 

conference, after the US on Wednesday 

gave the green light to firms to invest in 

Myanmar, including in oil and gas, in its 

greatest loosening of tough sanctions so 

far. It is Clinton’s second meeting with 

Thein Sein after she became the first US 

Secretary of State to visit Myanmar in half 

a century during a trip to the country late 

last year, as reforms took hold of the long 

military-dominated nation. 

Washington has faced criticism from 

rights groups concerned it is moving too 

fast in its eagerness to cash in on 

Myanmar’s vast business potential. But 

the decision will please US firms eager not 

to miss out on what some economists 

expect to be a gold rush in the resourcerich 

nation. Asian firms have been doing 

business in Myanmar for years, while the 

European Union suspended most of its 

sanctions against the country in April. 

“I am sending a very prestigious business 

delegation,” Clinton told Thein Sein, 

after shaking hands with the former general, 

adding that she wanted the representatives 

to hear his plans. A high-level 

group of US business leaders will be visiting 

Yangon and the capital Naypyidaw 

in the coming days. Myanmar yesterday 

said Thein Sein and Clinton were expected 

to discuss changes that have swept 

SIEM REAP: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (left) and Thailand’s Prime 

Minister Yingluck Shinawatra stand during a meeting yesterday. —AFP 

Myanmar since a quasi-civilian government 

replaced the military junta last 

year. 

“The meeting shows the support of 

the US government to Myanmar’s reform 

process,” Zaw Htay, director of the president’s 

office, told AFP. Clinton acknowledged 

yesterday in a speech to a 

women’s forum in the Cambodian 

tourist town of Siem Reap that in 

Myanmar as it opens up “there will be a 

lot of challenges” but said she hoped to 

see “continuing progress there.” 

Washington was setting up “protec- 

tions to ensure that increased American 

investment advances the reform 

process” she said, as US firms will have to 

report on transparency and labour 

rights. Myanmar-along with regional 

neighbours-has called for all sanctions to 

be lifted as the country embarks on its 

“second wave” of economic reforms. 

Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi welcomed 

the sanctions decision, but called 

for greater transparency at state-owned 

Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise, which 

US firms will be able to do business with 

under the new rules. 

Her comments were echoed by influential 

US Senators John McCain and Joe 

Lieberman, who said operations at the 

organisation “remain non-transparent 

and the billions of dollars in foreign 

investment that it receives remain unaccountable 

to the people and parliament 

of Burma”. Human Rights Watch went 

further, saying Washington had “caved 

to industry pressure” because it did not 

insist on reforms in governance and 

human rights. 

Thein Sein’s comments to the UN 

Thursday that refugee camps or deportation 

was the “solution” for stateless 

Muslim Rohingya, following communal 

violence last month in western 

Myanmar, are also likely to alarm 

Western nations. Left impoverished by 

decades of economic mismanagement 

and isolation under army rule, the country 

is seen as the next big frontier in Asia 

for firms wanting to take advantage of its 

resources, cheap labour force, high 

growth potential and strategic position 

between China and India. 

Thein Sein told the Singapore Straits 

Times his country would sign up to an 

Oslo-based initiative to enhance transparency 

of payments in the oil and minerals 

sector. Clinton is hosting the US- 

ASEAN business forum in Siem Reap, 

which is be the largest ever gathering of 

American corporate leaders in Asia. 

Executives from Coca-Cola, Caterpillar, 

DHL and Goldman Sachs are among 

dozens of US companies travelling to the 

conference. —AFP 

Opel CEO Stracke resigns 

in middle of turnaround 

FRANKFURT: The CEO of General Motors’ 

loss-making European business abruptly 

stepped down on Thursday, a sign that the 

automaker’s top management wants to speed 

up what has been a slow-moving restructuring 

plan. Karl-Friedrich Stracke stepped down 

just two weeks after presenting a new plan to 

rebuild the struggling European Opel and 

Vauxhall brands and return them to profitability. 

Adam Opel GmbH said in a statement that 

he will stay with GM and take on special projects, 

reporting to CEO Dan Akerson. GM Vice- 

Chairman Steve Girsky, the head of Opel’s 

board of directors and a company troubleshooter, 

will serve as acting chief of 

European operations while the company 

searches for Stracke’s replacement. 

The surprise moves show that GM’s upper 

management is growing more impatient with 

the slow pace of change in Europe as the 

economy deteriorates faster than expected, 

said Michael Robinet, managing director of 

IHS Automotive, a consulting firm near 

Detroit. “Change of leadership really denotes 

a new direction is required, maybe a new 

speed at which some of the changes will 

occur,” Robinet said. “It also signals to labor 

that it’s a new sheriff in town.” The US 

automaker wants to make a profit on its 

European business, which includes Opel and 

the Vauxhall brand in Britain, despite tough 

competition among mass-market carmakers. 

Opel and Vauxhall have been a drag on the 

company’s earnings for a dozen years, including 

a $256 million loss in the first quarter and 

$747 million last year. Stockholders and ana- 

lysts have questioned whether GM is moving 

fast enough to stem the losses and restructure 

in Europe, where GM has too many factories 

and workers for the number of cars it sells. 

The faltering European macro economy 

has created a situation where plant closings 

and other restructuring moves may now be 

more palatable to unions and governments as 

auto companies struggle, said Robinet. “That 

sense of urgency needs to be conveyed to 

labor that this is not just something we’re 

going to talk about every couple of months. 

This is job one,” he said. GM rode strong North 

American profits to earn $1 billion last quarter, 

but its profit margin - a measure of profitability 

- was 5.8 percent, well below the 10 percent 

margin typical of Hyundai or Volkswagen, the 

top industry performers. —AP 

business 

Egypt’s leaders battle 

it out as economy 

heads towards cliff 

CAIRO: Egypt’s new Islamist president and his old military 

foes have come out swinging in a struggle for political power, 

but their countrymen need them to find a way to work 

together to avert economic chaos. In the two weeks since his 

inauguration, President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim 

Brotherhood has openly defied the entrenched military by 

summoning the Islamist-led parliament the generals dismissed 

on the eve of his election. The political confrontation 

risks paralysing the government, and the first casualty could 

be Egypt’s fragile economy, fast heading towards a balance of 

payments and budget crisis. 

The past year and a half of turmoil has frightened away 

tourists, sent investors packing and wrecked economic 

growth. Egyptians need their leaders to set aside their political 

quarrel fast. “Both the military and the Brotherhood are 

here to stay for the foreseeable future and neither side is 

strong enough to defeat the other, so there has to be some 

compromise,” said Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Doha 

Center. 

The army, in power for six decades, moved to limit the 

power of the new civilian president even as voters were lining 

up to elect him. On the first day of a two-day run-off election 

last month, generals dissolved the parliament. On the second 

day, they issued a decree restricting the president’s powers. 

Mursi did not wait long to assert his own power either, issuing 

a decree summoning the disbanded parliament just days after 

he took office. The lawmakers met on Tuesday. Judges, seen 

as allies of the generals, responded by rebuking Morsi. 

An economy in such straits will not long survive such confrontation, 

said economist Said Hirsh of Capital Economics: 

“Months, rather than years, they can hold on like this.” Morsi, 

whose Brotherhood was repressed under the rule of military 

men, wants to whittle away at the might of the Supreme 

Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the sweeping economic 

interests they control. 

But he must also address demands of an electorate desperate 

for jobs and security after exhausting uncertainty since 

Hosni Mubarak was toppled by street power in February last 

year. “Confronting SCAF and improving the economy don’t 

always go together. Sometimes you have to make a choice to 

prioritise one over the other,” said Hamid. 

Lost time 

The political crisis may have already cost Morsi valuable 

time to set the economy straight, and the tasks ahead are 

huge. Egypt’s foreign reserves have tumbled to $15.5 billion, 

well below half the level they were at when the anti-Mubarak 

uprising erupted in January 2011. Interest rates the government 

pays have rocketed to an unsustainable 16 percent for 

one-year treasury bills, their highest in a decade. 

Investors will be watching closely as Morsi sets up a new 

government. Several names for a new prime minister are 

being bounced around - mostly technocrats with an economic 

background. “The formation of a legitimate government - 

and evidence that that government is capable of making and 

implementing policy - is essential if investors who believe in 

Egypt’s long term prospects are to be persuaded that they can 

begin to deploy capital now,” said Simon Williams, HSBC 

economist in Dubai. 

Morsi must convince the International Monetary Fund that 

he has enough control of government and broad political 

support to implement austerity measures the IMF is expected 

to demand to open the way for a loan facility, last put at $3.2 

billion. Morsi may win breathing space with donations. He visited 

wealthy Saudi Arabia this week in his first trip abroad 

since taking office. The West - fearful of instability in the first 

Arab state to make peace with Israel - also will not want to see 

Egypt fail. 

But Saudi or American handouts will not earn much 

respite. Egypt needs to win over investors further afield, ranging 

from Western bond buyers to multi-national firms, which 

until Mubarak’s overthrow poured in cash and delivered 

growth and jobs - even if Egyptians complained only the rich 

benefited. “External aid will buy Egypt time, but Egypt needs 

reform, access to private capital and growth if it is to begin to 

reverse the losses of the last 18 months,” said Williams. 

A Western diplomat said Egypt is always likely to find a way 

to avert catastrophe, but that alone would not be enough to 

deliver on the hopes of people who expect a better future. 

“They will always find a way to muddle through, but the prize 

is not to muddle through,” the diplomat said. “The prize is to 

do something different.” —Reuters


BoE takes 

Geithner Libor 

views on board 

LONDON/WASHINGTON: The Bank of England confirmed yesterday 

it had received US recommendations to overhaul the 

Libor benchmark at the heart of a global rate-rigging scandal, 

saying it had passed them on to the banking group responsible 

for the rate. Documents obtained by Reuters earlier yesterday 

showed that US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pressed 

the British central bank in June 2008 to make changes to the way 

that the widely used interest rate benchmark was set. 

Geithner, who was the head of the New York Federal Reserve 

Bank at the time, sent a private email to BoE Governor Mervyn 

King recommending six ways to enhance the credibility of the 

London interbank offered rate. The BoE passed on Geithner’s 

thoughts in an email to the British Bankers Association (BBA) - 

the banking group responsible for Libor - which at that stage 

had already decided to launch a review of the rate. 

“Both the Bank and the Federal Reserve were assured by the 

BBA that it would take on board the recommendations, either 

through actions or through questions on which it would consult,” 

the BoE said in a news release. More than a dozen banks are 

under investigation by authorities in Europe, Japan and the 

United States over suspected rigging of Libor, which is used in 

financial contracts worth hundreds of trillions of dollars globally. 

The June 1, 2008 email, first reported by the Washington 

Post, included a two-page memo dated May 27 of that year that 

suggested establishing best practices for calculating Libor, 

“including procedures designed to prevent accidental or deliberate 

misreporting.” It recommended the British Bankers’ 

Association require that auditors for banks reporting their borrowing 

costs for the calculation of Libor attest to the accuracy of 

their rates. The New York Fed is due to release documents later 

yesterday that it has said will show it took “prompt action” four 

years ago to highlight problems with Libor. 

No show stopper 

The Bank of England also published a number of emails 

between members of its staff, and the BBA. “Changes are being 

made to incorporate the views of the Fed. There is no show 

stopper as far as we can see,” Angela Knight, the BBA’s former 

head, said in a June 3 email to Paul Tucker, who was then the 

BoE’s executive director for markets. He is currently deputy governor 

and a candidate to replace King at the top. 

London-based Barclays is the only bank so far to admit any 

wrongdoing in giving false information as part of the complex 

process of setting Libor, in order to influence the pricing of derivatives 

and also to rebut speculation about the weakness of its 

balance sheet during the financial crisis. Barclays agreed to pay 

fines of $453 million in a settlement with US and British officials. 

Libor is used for $550 trillion of interest rate derivatives contracts, 

and influences rates from mortgages to student loans to credit 

cards. 

The scandal so far has been mostly confined to London, with 

public outcry that regulation in Britain was lax. But concern has 

grown about the wider impact on consumers and the involvement 

of US regulators. The BBA came out with a policy paper in 

November 2008 that included proposed changes such as 

improved governance structures and disciplinary procedures, 

and better scrutiny and analysis of the data collected for setting 

the rate. 

A group of Democratic senators on Thursday pushed for the 

US Justice Department and financial regulators to step up investigations 

into whether global banks manipulated the interest 

rate benchmark. US state attorneys general are also jumping into 

the widening scandal, a move that could open a new front 

against the top global banks. 

In his email, Geithner suggested one way to “eliminate (the) 

incentive to misreport” would be to randomly select a subset of 

16 reporting banks and calculate an average after discarding the 

highest and lowest values, without identifying which banks may 

have had unusually high or low borrowing costs. During the 

2007-2009 financial crisis, the borrowing costs of many banks 

soared as counterparties worried about their health. Some banks 

may not have wanted their high borrowing costs to become 

public out of fear it may have fueled concern about their viability. 

It is not clear how far the New York Fed pressed any concerns 

it may have had. The New York Fed declined to comment. 

Thomson Reuters Corp is the British Bankers’ Association’s official 

agent for the daily calculation and publishing of Libor. The 

company said it continues to support the BBA in calculating and 

distributing Libor rates. — Reuters 

MILAN: Italian banks came to the rescue yesterday after the 

country suffered a ratings downgrade, but while Rome cut its 

three-year borrowing costs at auction, a rise in 10-year bond 

yields highlighted concern it may fall victim to Europe’s debt 

crisis. Moody’s cut Italy’s sovereign debt rating to Baa2 yesterday, 

citing doubts over Italy’s long-term resolve to push 

through much-needed reforms and saying persistent worries 

about Spain and Greece were increasing its liquidity risks. 

Solid domestic demand helped the Italian Treasury sell the 

top planned amount of 5.25 billion euros in bonds, paying less 

than a month ago on three-year paper. “This was a challenging 

enough auction without the downgrade which makes the 

result look all the more impressive,” said Spiro Sovereign 

Strategy Managing Director Nicholas Spiro. “Once again, the 

Treasury was able to get its debt out the door, which right 

now is the overriding priority.” 

A new 2015 bond was sold at an average 4.65 percent rate, 

compared with the 5.30 percent Italy paid in June just before a 

cliffhanger Greek vote that had stoked fears of a euro exit and 

soon after an unconvincing first deal to help Spanish banks. 

Italian banks’ commitment to support Rome’s refinancing of 

its 2 trillion euro debt and a broad domestic investor base 

have provided a safety net for Italy throughout the crisis. 

Foreign investors’ reluctance to hold Italian debt, however, 

keeps the yields under pressure. Benchmark 10-year-bond 

yields were up nine basis points around 6 percent while Italy’s 

debt insurance costs also rose. “Does it mean this puts a cap 

on the rise in Italian yield? Well, not really,” said strategist 

Marc Ostwald at Monument Securities in London. 

The US rating agency lauded Prime Minister Mario Monti’s 

commitment to fiscal reforms and structural consolidation. 

But warned it could again cut the country’s marks if the next 

BUSINESS 

Italy passes market 

test after downgrade 

Italy sells maximum planned amount in bonds 

MADRID: Spanish civil servants, some dressed in mourning, took 

to the streets yesterday to protest the latest round of government 

austerity measures and their second wage cut in as many years. 

Several hundred workers left the complex of government ministries 

in Madrid and blocked traffic briefly yesterday. In the eastern 

city of Valencia, several hundred Justice Ministry workers 

shouted “hands up, this is a stick-up” at a protest rally. 

The civil servants - who saw their wages cut 5 percent on average 

in 2010 in the first round of austerity cuts - are usually paid 14 

times a year. The government is proposing to axe an extra payment 

normally made just before Christmas. The cuts are part of a 

raft if austerity measures unveiled by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy 

designed to shave 65 billion off the government’s budget through 

2015. Rajoy’s Cabinet was scheduled to approve the wage cut and 

other austerity measures yesterday. 

Italian government failed to continue along this path. “The 

negative outlook reflects our view that risks to implementing 

these reforms remain substantial. Adding to them is the deteriorating 

macroeconomic environment, which increases austerity 

and reform fatigue among the population,” it said. 

“The political climate, particularly as the spring 2013 elections 

draw near, is also a source of implementation risk.” 

Analysts say political uncertainty ahead of elections is the 

main risk for Italy, where frustration with austerity measures 

and the country’s weak and fragmented party system is stoking 

anti-European sentiment and has helped the meteoric rise 

of the populist Five Star Movement, led by comedian Beppe 

Grillo. 

Respected technocrat Monti, who was called in last 

November to pull back Italy from the edge of the cliff and 

avoid a Greek-style debt crisis, has said he will stand down 

next year. Three-times Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who 

has kept a low profile since being forced out to leave room for 

Monti, announced this week he will return to frontline politics 

as the centre-right candidate, further muddling the political 

outlook. 

He has taken an increasingly anti-European tone in recent 

public comments, criticising Monti’s austerity policies and 

openly questioning the value of remaining in the euro. 

“Berlusconi seems to have picked up on the increased sense of 

frustration within the Italian society that the sacrifices being 

made by the country are not being sufficiently recognised by 

the markets and that part of the blame lies in the slow EU policy 

response,” said BNP Paribas analyst Luigi Speranza. Opinion 

polls suggest that a centre-left bloc would win the elections 

and it is not yet clear whether Berlusconi’s return to front line 

politics may alter the picture.—AP 

MADRID: Civil servants shout slogans condemning the recent austerity measures announced by the Spanish government, 

during a demonstration yesterday. — AP 

Spanish civil servants protest salary cuts 

The cuts, which also include a sales tax increase and overhaul 

of benefits, were unveiled after Spain won approval from the other 

16 countries that use the euro for the first 30 billion tranche of 

a bailout for its troubled banking sector. Spain also managed to 

secure an extra year to meet a European deficit reduction target 

of 3 percent of GDP. In the Puerta del Sol in downtown Madrid, 

about 500 civil servants gathered, about half of them dressed in 

black. Some women wore veils, as if they were at funerals. 

Protesters blew whistles and horns. Civil servants are often 

ridiculed in Spain and seen as lazy, clock-in and clock-out types 

with the luxury of a job for life. But many earn as little as 1,000 a 

month. Isabel Perez, a 40-year-old librarian, said “our wages have 

already been cut and now they take away the Christmas payment. 

I don’t make it to the end of the month as it is. The extra payment 

gave some relief.—AP


JINJIANG: This picture shows a Chinese worker monitoring 

a thread-making machine at a factory yesterday. — AFP 

China’s economic growth 

slows amid global chaos 

BEIJING: China’s economy expanded at its slowest pace in 

more than three years as dire problems overseas started to hit 

home, official data showed yesterday, fuelling expectations of 

more stimulus moves. The world’s second-largest economy 

grew 7.6 percent in the second quarter year-on-year, the 

National Bureau of Statistics said, the weakest since 6.6 percent 

during the depths of the global financial crisis at the start of 

2009. “(The slowdown) was mainly due to the continued deterioration 

in the international environment, which further 

dampened foreign demand,” statistics bureau spokesman 

Sheng Laiyun told reporters. 

“Domestic demand eased also as macro-economic tightening, 

particularly controls on the real estate sector, continued.” 

The weak second-quarter expansion dragged down growth to 

7.8 percent for the first half of the year, a period when the debt 

crisis in Europe has deepened and the US economy has continued 

to struggle. Sheng expressed confidence that the economy 

would stabilise and China would meet its full-year growth 

target of 7.5 percent. “I believe China’s economy will continue 

moderate and steady growth in the second half of the year,” he 

said, citing the potential for investment, consumption and 

exports to propel expansion the rest of the year. 

“We are very confident in achieving the full-year growth target.” 

Nevertheless, the target growth rate of 7.5 percent is well 

down on the 9.2 percent achieved last year, and 10.4 percent 

in 2010. Stock market reaction in China to yesterday’s data was 

muted, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index ending 

a mere fraction higher. Some other markets, including in 

Hong Kong, South Korea and Australia, showed stronger gains 

amid general relief that China’s growth figure was not worse. 

Tang Jianwei, economist at Bank of Communications in 

Shanghai, said the second-quarter result was in line with 

expectations and that China’s planners would be able to speed 

up the economy. “We expect economic conditions in the second 

half of the year will be slightly better than the first half,” 

Tang told AFP. “We’ve already seen stabilisation in investment 

from June’s data thanks to government stimulus policies.” 

The government last week took the rare step of slashing 

interest rates for the second time in a month. That came after 

three cuts since December in banks’ reserve requirements, or 

the amount of money they must keep on hand. Such cuts are 

meant to free up funds for lending and thus boost the economy. 

Chinese leaders have vowed to take further measures. 

Premier Wen Jiabao this week called stabilising economic 

growth the government’s “top priority”. 

Slowing growth in China is also casting a further cloud over 

the broader global economy, which is still suffering the effects 

of the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Employment figures in the 

United States, the world’s biggest economy, remain weak and 

Europe is struggling to overcome its sovereign debt crisis. Ren 

Xianfang of IHS Global Insight said in a report that China’s second-quarter 

figure marked the sixth straight three-month period 

of slower growth, and highlighted that the country’s economy 

risked losing momentum. 

Still, she said that the government retained ample toolsincluding 

another interest rate cut, more loosening in bank 

reserve requirements and exchange rate stability-to spur activity. 

“We are expecting about 7.9 percent growth this year,” she 

said. Besides the growth figures, the bureau released a slew of 

other economic statistics yesterday that backed up the broader 

slowdown. Growth in retail sales, the main gauge of consumer 

spending, continued to slow in June, rising 13.7 percent 

in June compared with the same period a year earlier, marginally 

down from growth of 13.8 percent in May. — AFP 

HONG KONG: Bad news from South 

Korea, Singapore and China this week 

failed to rattle investors’ confidence in 

the region, despite fears that Europe’s 

economic contagion is spreading rapidly 

to the East. China’s economy expanded 

at its slowest pace in more than three 

years as the weakness of Western export 

markets started to bite, official data 

showed yesterday. The world’s secondlargest 

economy grew 7.6 percent in the 

second quarter year-on-year, the weakest 

since 6.6 percent during the depths 

of the global financial crisis in early 

2009. 

South Korea meanwhile lowered its 

2012 economic growth outlook to three 

percent, citing a global slowdown and 

the euro-zone debt crisis, a day after the 

central bank unexpectedly cut its key 

interest rate. And in Singapore, a tradereliant 

bellwether of Asia’s economic 

prospects, officials said the economy 

contracted by a surprisingly large 1.1 

percent in the second quarter from the 

previous three-month period. 

But despite the barrage of negative 

news, Asian markets rallied yesterday as 

investors concluded that things could 

have been a lot worse. “Chinese GDP 

data came in broadly in-line with official 

consensus numbers, but well ahead of 

the feared doomsday whisper numbers 

that had been circulating of something 

sub-7.0 percent,” said Cameron Peacock 

at IG Markets in Australia. 

SINGAPORE: Singapore’s trade-driven economy contracted 

by 1.1 percent in the second quarter from the previous 

three-month period as debt woes dampened European 

demand, a government estimate showed yesterday. The 

unexpected contraction, down from 9.4 percent growth in 

the preceding quarter, was largely due to an output drop in 

the biomedical manufacturing industry, the trade ministry 

said in a statement. Compared to a year ago, gross domestic 

product (GDP) grew 1.9 percent, still within the government 

forecast of 1.0-3.0 percent expansion for the whole year and 

better than the first-quarter growth rate of 1.4 percent on 

the year. Singapore’s economy is seen as a bellwether for 

Asia due to its sensitivity to demand from key markets like 

Europe and the United States. “The figures will disappoint 

as most traders were expecting modest expansion,” said 

Justin Harper, market strategist for IG Markets Singapore. 

“Up until now the Singapore economy has been pretty 

resilient, weathering the storm coming in from the eurozone 

by diversifying across a range of sectors including oil 

and gas, pharmaceuticals and electronics,” he said. 

“But the headwinds are proving too strong as Asia takes 

a hit from slowing European trade.” The GDP estimate for 

the second quarter is computed largely from data in April 

and May and subject to revision. The median forecast of a 

Dow Jones Newswires poll of 11 economists had tipped 

Singapore’s second-quarter GDP to expand 0.8 percent 

from the previous three months. The manufacturing sector 

contracted 6.0 percent in April-June from 20.9 percent 

growth in the previous quarter, while the construction 

industry grew a modest 0.3 percent from 27.9 percent in the 

same time period. 

The services sector grew 0.4 percent in the three months 

to June, compared with 2.7 percent growth in the first three 

months of 2012. Global demand weakness for Singapore’s 

key exports-electronics and pharmaceuticals-was the primary 

factor dragging down second-quarter growth, DBS 

Group Research said in a report. “The simultaneous surges 

Much of the confidence hinged on 

the stable inflation outlook and the 

scope regional policymakers have to fire 

up stimulus measures to boost flagging 

domestic demand, analysts said. The 

Bank of Korea’s rate move on Thursday 

followed cuts last week by the European 

Central Bank and China’s central bank. 

Brazil on Wednesday cut its rate to a 

record low. 

China took the rare step of slashing 

interest rates for the second time in a 

month. That came after three cuts since 

December in banks’ reserve requirements, 

or the amount of money they 

must keep on hand. Such cuts are meant 

to free up funds for lending and provide 

impetus to economic activity. “As inflation 

is falling fast, it provides sufficient 

room for further easing. Following the 

recent two rate cuts, Beijing still has 

plenty of policy room to step up monetary 

easing,” HSBC wrote in a research 

note yesterday. 

“We believe further easing measures 

will fully filter through to generate a 

modest growth recovery of 8.5 percent 

year-on-year in the coming quarters.” 

Analysts are also predicting looser monetary 

policy in South Korea, where 

Capital Economics said the BOK’s earlier 

inflation fears had “seemed misguided”. 

Inflation was 2.2 percent in June, amid 

falling global oil prices. But Hanyang 

University economics professor Ha 

Joon-Kyung said consumption would 

BUSINESS 

Asia has firepower to 

fight slowing growth 

‘All we need is stimulus’ 

stay soft despite a lower interest rate, 

because of uncertainties about the economic 

outlook and the euro-zone crisis. 

“Consumption is expected to remain 

weak, along with lower circulation of 

money, as households will exploit a lower 

key interest rate to reduce debts 

instead of spending,” he said. In 

Singapore, IG Markets head of premium 

client management Jason Hughes said 

the city state’s “consumer culture” was 

undaunted but its export-focused economy 

was vulnerable to additional weakness 

in demand from Europe and the 

US. “So I think GDP and growth in 

Singapore will remain under pressure,” 

he said. HSBC Co-Head of Asian 

Economic Research Frederic Neumann 

said Asia was “under pressure” from 

falling global demand, explaining the 

sharp slowdown in growth after a 

strong first quarter. Even after the 

expected stimulus measures, he said the 

“global backdrop may be too fragile for 

growth to snap back to its original 

speed”. But easier bank lending should 

“at least prove enough to cushion 

another blow delivered by the West”. 

“Asian financial systems remain sound. 

All that’s coming is another trade shock, 

and one that is likely to be much shallower 

than in 2008 as trade financing 

remains available,” he wrote in a 

research note. “All we need is stimulus, 

and the region will quickly fire up 

again.” — AFP 

Euro-zone woes hit Singapore GDP in Q2 

in electronics and pharmaceutical productions that drove 

GDP growth in the first quarter are not sustainable amid the 

global demand weakness,” the banking group said. — AFP 

SINGAPORE: Korean designer Joon Courtenay displays 

her dragon pendant creation at the Singapore 

International Jewellery show yesterday. The Dragon 

Pendant in 18 carat white and yellow gold is encrusted 

with diamonds and rubies and an imperial jade circle 

carving with lapis lazuli and fire opal was priced at 

280,000 Singapore dollars ($220,403). — AFP


US producer prices edge up in June 

WASHINGTON: US producer prices rose only slightly 

in June as energy costs dropped, suggesting inflation 

pressures remain muted and leaving the door open 

for more easing by the Federal Reserve. The Labor 

Department said yesterday its seasonally adjusted 

producer price index rose 0.1 percent last month. 

Analysts polled by Reuters expected the index to drop 

0.5 percent. The increase was driven by gains in consumer 

goods like household appliances, light trucks 

and pet food. 

“The modest 0.1 percent increase in US producer 

prices in June is another illustration that the Fed doesn’t 

need to worry about inflation, at least not in the 

near-term,” said Paul Ashworth, chief US economist at 

Capital Economics in Toronto. While wholesale prices 

of finished goods rose, costs for intermediate and 

HONG KONG: Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. executives, from left, Executive 

Director and Chief Financial Officer Patrick Chan, Joint Vice Chairmen and 

Managing Director Raymond Kwok, Deputy Managing Director Mike Wong, 

Joint Vice Chairmen and Managing Director Thomas Kwok and Deputy 

Managing Director Victor Lui, smile during a news conference yesterday. — AP 

HK property tycoons 

charged with graft 

HONG KONG: Two of Hong Kong’s richest 

tycoons and a former senior official 

were charged with corruption yesterday 

in the biggest graft scandal the regional 

banking hub has seen. Sun Hung Kai 

Properties co-chairmen Thomas and 

Raymond Kwok, two of Asia’s wealthiest 

men, were among five people charged 

with eight offences related to payments 

and unsecured loans amounting to 

HK$34 million ($4.38 million). Former 

government chief secretary Rafael Hui 

was also charged, along with another 

Sun Hung Kai director, Thomas Chan, 

and Francis Kwan, former non-executive 

director of New Environmental Energy 

Holdings Ltd. 

The case has shocked Hong Kong as 

the Kwoks own some of the city’s most 

iconic real estate and Sun Hung Kai is a 

blue-chip listed company and the city’s 

biggest property developer by market 

capitalisation. Hui, 64, is the most senior 

official ever arrested by the Independent 

Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). 

The former number two in the semiautonomous 

southern Chinese city, he 

faces eight charges related to misconduct 

involving rent-free use of luxury 

apartments and unsecured loans, the 

ICAC said. 

Thomas Kwok, 60, faces two charges 

of conspiracy to commit misconduct in 

public office, and his 59-year-old brother 

Raymond has been charged with three 

offences including furnishing false information, 

the ICAC said. Raymond Kwok 

conspired to offer Hui annual extensions 

of an unsecured loan, while Chan and 

Kwan offered the official a “series of pay- 

ments” as a “reward” for cooperation, the 

anti-graft investigators said. 

All five suspects appeared in court to 

hear the charges, before being released 

on bail-in the Kwoks’ case HK$10 million 

each. They were not required to enter 

pleas. “I believe I have not done anything 

wrong and that the Hong Kong 

judiciary system is fair. I will fight the 

accusations and I hope it will prove my 

innocence,” Raymond Kwok said outside 

the court. 

He said he has relied on yoga to deal 

with the legal challenge while Thomas 

Kwok said he will draw on his Christian 

faith to fight the case, quoting from the 

Bible saying he believed “light will shine 

in the darkness”. “I want to encourage 

people to learn yoga because it can help 

you to relax and it has helped me to face 

the challenge in these few months,” 

Raymond Kwok told a news conference 

later where he appeared with his elder 

brother. 

The Kwok brothers and Hui were 

arrested in March in a case that has sent 

shockwaves through the Asian financial 

centre, where cosy links between 

wealthy tycoons and officials have long 

raised suspicion. A third Kwok brother, 

Walter, was arrested in May but has not 

been charged. Each of the Kwoks has 

denied any wrongdoing. Shares in Sun 

Hung Kai were suspended from trading 

on the Hong Kong stock exchange earlier 

yesterday. The company, which owns 

billions of dollars of land and harbourside 

real estate, has previously said the 

allegations against its directors would 

not impact on its business.—AFP 

crude goods fell, suggesting less inflation pressure 

down the road. 

The data did not appear to affect prices on US stock 

index futures, which rose. Yields on US government 

debt hovered near record lows, with appetite for safehaven 

assets underpinned by a downgrade to Italy’s 

sovereign rating. Hiring by US companies slowed dramatically 

in the second quarter as employers grew 

worried about a sagging global economy hurt by 

Europe’s snowballing debt crisis. 

China’s growth rate slowed for a sixth successive 

quarter to its slackest pace in more than three 

years. So-called core inflation, which strips out 

more volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.2 percent, 

in line with expectations. While overall inflation 

has cooled recently, core inflation has held at 

NEW YORK: JPMorgan Chase said yesterday that a bad 

trade had cost the bank $5.8 billion this year, almost 

triple its original estimate, and raised the prospect that 

traders had acted improperly to conceal the blunder. 

“This has shaken our company to the core,” CEO Jamie 

Dimon said. The bank said all managers in the London 

office responsible for the bad trade had been dismissed 

without severance pay and that it planned to revoke two 

years’ worth of pay from each of those executives. 

JPMorgan said it had lost $4.4 billion because of the 

trade from April through June, and its chief financial officer 

said the bank had lost an additional $1.4 billion in the 

first three months of the year. Dimon’s original estimate 

of the loss from the bad trade, disclosed in a surprise 

conference call with Wall Street analysts on May 10, was 

$2 billion. 

The bank said an internal investigation, including 

emails and voice messages, had called into question the 

values that traders placed on certain bets, and that the 

traders may have been seeking to mask losses. The 

Securities and Exchange Commission did not immediately 

respond to a request for comment. Dimon told 

Congress last month that the trade was meant to hedge 

risk to the company and protect it in case “things got 

really bad” in the global economy. Instead, the trade has 

backfired and damaged the bank’s reputation. 

Speaking broadly about the trading loss yesterday, 

Dimon told analysts: “We don’t take it lightly.” He added: 

“We’re not making light of this error, but we do think it’s 

an isolated event.” The bank said that it was reducing its 

net income for the first quarter by $459 million because 

it had discovered information that “raises questions 

about the integrity” of values placed on certain trades. 

Dimon said the bank had closed the division of the 

BUSINESS 

higher levels. Some policymakers at the Fed worry 

that further moves to lower borrowing costs could 

fuel higher inflation, though the central bank has 

said it was ready to do more to help the economy if 

needed. 

Energy prices dropped 0.9 percent in June, 

dragged down by a record drop in prices for residential 

electric power, which fell 2.1 percent. Diesel fuel 

prices sank 8.8 percent. The fall in energy prices is likely 

to help the economy as lower costs for fuels and 

other input prices leave companies more money to 

spend on other things, such as equipment or even hiring. 

Many employers are concerned over plans by the 

US government to cut spending and let tax cuts expire 

next year, a jolt that could send the economy into 

recession. — Reuters 

JPMorgan says bad trade 

has ballooned to $5.8bn 

All managers responsible dismissed 

bank responsible for the bad trade and moved the 

remainder of the trading position under its investment 

banking division. Overall, JPMorgan said it earned $5 billion, 

or $1.21 per share, for the second quarter, which covers 

April through June and includes the bank’s disclosure 

of the trading loss on May 10. Analysts surveyed by 

FactSet, a provider of financial data, had expected 

JPMorgan to earn 76 cents per share. JPMorgan stock was 

up 25 cents, or 0.8 percent, at $34.29 in premarket trading. 

Just three months ago, JPMorgan was viewed as the 

top American bank, guided by Dimon’s steady hand. 

Since the disclosure of the trading loss, however, that 

reputation has been eroded. Dimon, who originally dismissed 

concerns about the bank’s trading as a “tempest 

in a teapot,” appeared before Congress twice to apologize 

and explain himself, and several government agencies 

have launched investigations. JPMorgan has lost 

about 15 percent of its in market value since the loss 

came to light. The bank could take back pay from executives 

in charge of the division where the losses occurred. 

That procedure is known as a “clawback.” It would be the 

first time JPMorgan exercised such a procedure. 

The most likely candidate would be Ina Drew, 

JPMorgan’s chief investment officer, who oversaw the 

division responsible for the loss and left the bank days 

after the disclosure. In 2011, her pay package totaled $15 

million. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that 

three other employees of the bank tied to the trade, 

including one who was known as the “London whale,” 

had left the bank. Under close questioning from lawmakers 

in June about his own role in setting up the investment 

division responsible for the mess, Dimon declared: 

“We made a mistake. I’m absolutely responsible. The 

buck stops with me.” —AP 

NEW YORK: In this photo, automobiles pass a JP Morgan Chase building in New York. — AP


DUBLIN: State-owned Allied Irish 

Banks is hopeful it can attract outside 

investment in 2014 and expects 

to have hit 90 percent of its deleveraging 

target by the end of this year, 

chief executive David Duffy told the 

Irish Times yesterday. AIB, effectively 

nationalised last year in the fallout 

from a property market crash, is radically 

shrinking its balance sheet and 

cutting costs in a bid to return to 

profitability by 2014. 

“I am optimistic that if we deliver 

our controllable universe in terms of 

our performance and Europe is not 

too negative, there will be investors 

who are attracted to an investment 

in AIB” during 2014, Duffy told the 

newspaper. The bank is already talking 

to a broad spectrum of investors 

and expects to be able to offer them 

a high single-digit percentage 

return, he said. 

The bank by March had shed 14 

billion euros ($17 billion) of loans 

and assets under a 20.5 billion euro 

deleveraging target, part of Ireland’s 

EU/IMF bailout deal, and expects to 

have achieved 90 percent of that figure 

by the end of the year, Duffy 

said. 

AIB would support any “work- 

able” proposals by the government 

to address the high number of lossmaking 

tracker mortgages on the 

books of Irish banks so long as it 

does not add risks to the state and 

can be funded efficiently, Duffy said. 

The government is exploring ways to 

shift mortgages that track the ECB 

interest rate from AIB and stateowned 

Irish Life and Permanent. But 

Bank of Ireland, which is not fully in 

state hands, has said it is not 

involved in the talks. 

“We want to make sure it is a solution 

that works for the whole system. 

Otherwise, it’s one bank versus 

BUSINESS 

AIB CEO eyes outside investment by 2014 

HYDERABAD: Indian farmers work in a field after monsoon 

rains yesterday. The monsoon rains which usually 

hit India from June to September are crucial for farmers 

whose crops feed hundreds of millions of people. — AP 

UK May building drop 

dents economy hopes 

LONDON: British firms built less in May than a year earlier 

even with an extra working day, official data showed yesterday, 

further denting hopes that the struggling economy 

emerged from recession in the second quarter. The country 

fell back into its second recession in four years at the 

turn of the year and a recent slew of gloomy economic 

data has raised fears that the downturn extended into the 

April-June period. Construction output dropped 6.3 percent 

in May on a non-seasonably adjusted basis, the Office 

for National Statistics said, warning that caution should be 

taken when interpreting the monthly movements involving 

May and June 2012. 

Firms failed to benefit from a May public holiday being 

postponed until June, when another day was added to celebrate 

the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. “This (data) supports 

our view that the economy remained in recession in the 

second quarter,” said Vicky Redwood at Capital Economics. 

“In theory there should have been a boost to those numbers 

from the extra day, so the underlying trend is even 

worse than those numbers point to.” Between March and 

May construction output fell 7.4 percent compared to the 

same three months in 2011, the ONS said. New public 

housing work plunged by 22.9 percent, while volumes of 

new public non-housing excluding infrastructure and new 

infrastructure fell by almost as much. Official data earlier 

this week showed manufacturers got a lift in May from the 

postponed holiday, a move which then boosted retail sales 

in June according to a survey. Construction activity fell at 

its fastest pace in 2-1/2 years in June, a Purchasing 

Managers’ Survey showed earlier this month, and sister 

surveys found that the manufacturing sector contracted 

for the second straight month while the dominant service 

sector endured one of its worst months in the past three 

years. The economy has been basically flat for two years 

and is not showing a great deal of signs of impending 

recovery, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said earlier 

this week. Economists in a Reuters poll see tepid 

growth ahead at best, with only a small bounce from 

London’s hosting of the Olympic Games, leading to calls 

for the government and BoE to act. — Reuters 

TRIPOLI: Prime Minister Abdelrahim 

Al-Kib predicted a bright future for foreign 

investment in Libya especially in 

the oil sector whose infrastructure 

needs to be overhauled, in an interview 

with AFP. “The plan is to revamp 

the whole thing and work on the infrastructure 

of the oil and gas industry... 

(an) area for projects for companies 

that might be interested so that we 

can increase production levels,” he 

said. The outgoing premier, whose 

government did not have the prerogative 

to sign contracts, noted the country’s 

2012 crude output had surpassed 

expectations and reached its pre-revolution 

levels. 

Current production is about 1.6 million 

barrels per day. Libya, a member 

of the Organisation of Petroleum 

Exporting Countries (OPEC), holds the 

largest proven oil reserves in Africa. It 

also boasts vast natural gas reserves. 

But other opportunities for investment 

abound: tourism along a 1,700-kilometre 

(more than 1,000-mile) 

Mediterranean coastline, basic infrastructure 

including roads and housing, 

airlines, the health and education sectors, 

and e-governance. 

“I guarantee you, any sector you 

think of, there are plenty of projects to 

work on,” said Kib, a US-educated electrical 

engineer, urging international 

companies to make fact-finding visits. 

Kib said his country was heading 

towards a knowledge and marketbased 

economy in which corruption 

would be replaced by a robust legal 

system and a competent workforce. 

Libya has already allocated 650 million 

dinars ($500,000) to support small and 

medium size enterprises and over 1 

billion dinars for training and education. 

Kib pins hopes on the private sector 

to generate employment and 

motor development. Libyans on July 7 

voted for a General National Congress, 

a 200-member legislative assembly, in 

landmark elections following 42 years 

of dictatorship under Muammar 

Gaddafi. The signing of contracts, 

which came to a complete halt during 

the 2011 revolt that ousted Gaddafi, is 

expected to resume with elected 

authorities in place. In the months 

leading to elections, hundreds of companies 

and businessmen from around 

the world visited Libya to assess the 

investment climate and look for partners. 

“Libya will surprise the world,” 

said Kib. He pointed to almost-on-time 

elections as his cabinet’s crowning 

achievement. 

Preliminary tallies released by 

Libya’s electoral commission this week 

all point to a strong performance of a 

liberal coalition led by wartime premier 

Mahmud Jibril. The coalition 

trounced Islamist contenders across 

the country and may hold a majority in 

the next congress if it wins over other 

parties and independents. “I think the 

moderates will prevail because that’s 

the nature of Libyan society,” Kib told 

AFP. “Moderation will prevail throughout 

the history of Libya coming into 

the next hundreds of years.” 

Kib became prime minister in 

November replacing fellow technocrat 

Jibril, one of the architects of the 2011 

revolution and leader of a coalition 

sweeping the polls. After managing a 

turbulent transition period, rocked by 

another, which is not a place that 

anyone wants to arrive at,” Duffy 

said. 

Duffy said he had concerns about 

the government’s decision to allow 

for mortgage debt of up to 3 million 

euros to be restructured under new 

personal insolvency legislation published 

by the government earlier this 

month. 

The rules require the approval of 

65 percent of the lenders to agree to 

the restructuring. The new rules 

could “start bringing in all classes of 

debt in an uncontrolled way,” Duffy 

said. —Reuters 

Libya’s Kib predicts bright 

future for foreign investors 

Current production at 1.6m barrels per day 

deadly clashes that highlighted the 

difficulty of disarming and integrating 

ex-rebels into state institutions, Kib 

says he has “no regrets,” only lessons 

learned. 

One of them is balancing the high 

expectations of a population that 

swung overnight from completely 

subdued under a brutal dictatorship to 

empowered by a successful revolution. 

“(Everybody) wants to show that they 

own this place,” said Kib, noting that 

this was a challenge that at times 

could play out positively, as it did during 

the largely trouble-free election 

TRIPOLI: Libyan Prime Minister Abdel Rahim Al-Kib is pictured during an 

interview. — AFP 

day. Security, he added, will be no 

doubt one of the key obstacles facing 

the next cabinet, which should be in 

office by late August. But Kib was 

quick to point out that crime rates in 

Libya were lower than in many other 

parts of the world. Kib, who has 

unveiled state-of-the-art prisons and 

courtrooms during his term, said justice 

and human rights were crucial to 

Libya’s future, while acknowledging 

violations. “It is true we have had some 

individual violations but that is the 

nature of things after a revolution like 

the one we had,” he said. — AFP


Iraqis escape 

country’s 

woes at lake 

resort 

Page 25 

‘American Idol’ at 

crossroads 

after Steven Tyler’s exit 

Page 28 

A model wears a creation 

by Roya Hesam on the 

second day of the 

seventeenth edition of the 

Amsterdam Fashion 

Week, in the 

Westergasfabriek on 

Wednesday. —AFP


Pink more aware profanities 

in music since giving birth 

The singer - whose real name is Alicia Moore - 

insists that motherhood hasn’t made her new 

album any softer than her past offerings though. 

“Some people are worried [my new album]’s going to 

be a bunch of lullabies. It’s definitely not,” she said. “I’m 

more aware of the cursing. It didn’t stop me but I’m 

aware of it. It’s a very, fun, dance-y, rock-and-roll 

record.” The star, who has a 13-month-old child with 

husband Carey Hart, called in to Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS 

FM radio show Monday morning while breastfeeding. 

She shared about her toddler: “She’s got six teeth but 

she’s not a biter.” Pink, who released her new tune 

‘Blow Me (One Last Kiss)’ this week, told the radio host 

Usher 

‘completely devastated’ 

after stepson 

declared brain dead 

The rapper is said to feel “distraught” after doctors 

revealed Kyle Glover - the child of the singer’s exwife 

Tameka and her former partner Ryan Glover - 

had “not experienced any brain activity” since being 

admitted to hospital on Saturday after he was struck on 

the head by a jet ski in Lake Lanier in Atlanta, Georgia. A 

source close to 33-year-old rapper told 

HollywoodLife.com: “Usher is completely devastated and 

shaken with what has occurred. “[He] is emotionally 

drained from the accident. He feels incredibly awful, distraught 

... it’s been a complete rollercoaster of emotions.” 

Kyle was riding on an inner tube in the lake when he was 

struck by the passing jet ski, and following the incident 

he was admitted to the Children’s Healthcare unit at 

Egleston Hospital in Atlanta. Tameka was “extremely 

thankful” to Usher after he reportedly chartered a plane 

allowing her to fly to Atlanta to be at Kyle’s side, and she 

has taken to her Facebook page to thank fans for their 

support and urge them to pray for her son. The motherof-five 

wrote: “Kyle, You are strong ... You’ll be saved I 

know it. I love you my baby. I need all #Prayers for my 

son! thanks you everybody! (sic)” A decision has yet to be 

made on whether to take the youngster off life support, 

and the incident is now being investigated. 

that she had just switched sides with her 

nursing. She revealed: “My left is a lot 

more talented than my right.” In addition 

to promoting her new song - 

which will be on an album ‘The Truth 

About Love’ due out September 18 - 

and her participation in the I Heart 

Radio Music Festival on September 

21 and 22 in Las Vegas, Nevada, 

Pink said motherhood so far has 

been “amazing.” She added: 

“Willow has her Daddy’s looks and my 

attitude. She’s going to rule the world.” 

Pattinson 

wants to take on James Bond 

The 26-year-old star wants to play 

Ian Fleming’s iconic spy but thinks 

he’ll be perfect for the role in two 

more decades. He confessed: “Yeah, I’d 

definitely like to go for Bond, but in 

more like 20 years. There’d be nothing 

worse than, like, ‘Let’s get a fresh-faced 

Bond!’ That would be the worst idea in 

the world. It would be ridiculous to reinvent 

it as some young posh kid.” He continued: 

“After Daniel Craig you have to 

have some baggage. I’d have to be tortured 

in the first few scenes. I’d have to 

do the first film with one arm or something.” 

The ‘Twilight saga star added 

that he is becoming more conscious 

about his health as he gets older. He 

told The Sun newspaper: “I think 26 is 

Sara Ramirez 

has got married 

The ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ actress - who plays Dr. Callie Torres in the 

medical drama TV series - tied the knot with her longtime 

boyfriend Ryan Debolt after a one-year-long engagement. 

The 36-year-old actress’ representative told Us Weekly that the 

happy couple exchanged vows in “an intimate ceremony in New 

York”, and the private event was attended by “close family and 

friends”. Ryan, a business analyst, asked Sara to be his wife on June 

17, 2011 while the couple were on holiday in Paris, France, and she 

was said to be overcome with “tears of joy” when he popped the 

question. A witness explained: “Her boyfriend came next to her 

and kneeled. He opened a case, and we just heard her saying, ‘Oh 

my God! Oh my God! Oh my god,’ and seconds later, a really big 

‘Yes!’” Earlier this year, Sara admitted she wants to have children 

with Ryan, but she intends to approach the prospect of having a 

baby with a degree of caution as she comes from a divorced family. 

She said: “I’m considering having kids. It’s a huge responsibility to 

me. I come from a family that’s divorced, and that gives you a sense 

of caution. I get the timeline, I get the stats, but I want to enjoy 

being engaged for a minute.” 

the turning point. I’ve got to make up 

for 10 years of living like a degenerate. 

I’ve suddenly become conscious of 

being unhealthy. “You’ve spent every bit 

of free time since the age of 15 in a pub. 

And suddenly you’re like: ‘Oh God, I 

don’t want to be this grey ghost sitting 

there with a pot belly. I’ve got to get it 

together’.” Speaking about his new 

movie, ‘Cosmopolis’, Robert said he 

agreed to do it because it’s so “ridiculous”. 

He said: “I think the script was so 

bizarre, we thought it was quite funny it 

was even getting made. Literally it’s 

totally ridiculous.”


Paula Abdul 

still friends with Cowell 

The ‘Someone Like You’ singer is seven months 

pregnant by boyfriend Simon Konecki, but has 

hidden her bump from the public by keeping a 

low profile and wearing baggy clothes. A source close 

to the singer says Simon and Adele wanted to keep 

their happy news a secret for as long as possible to 

avoid attention. A source told heat magazine: “‘Adele 

has barely left the house in recent months, so she 

could keep this to herself for as long as possible. “She 

stopped exercising a few months ago, and since then 

The ‘Straight Up’ singer’s friendship with the talent 

show boss has been in the public eye since 

working together on ‘American Idol’. However 

the 50-year-old performer insists that they are still 

amicable after he traded both her and Nicole 

Scherzinger in for Britney Spears and Demi Lovato. 

She said: “Believe it or not, Simon and I are friends. It’s 

a warped kind of thing.” Although she was surprised 

that the 52-year-old music mogul didn’t renew her 

contract in January, she says the past six months 

have given her new perspective on the matter. She 

told Celebuzz: “He was stuck between a rock and a 

hard place when he opened up his mouth. He 

thought change and a bold and a big departure were 

needed for what was going on.” Meanwhile, Paula is 

interested in how well the new panel, which includes 

last season’s L.A Reid, do without her. She continued: 

“I’m looking forward to seeing how they do. When 

you have a long career such as Britney’s, she knows 

what she’s doing. I hope she has fun. Same thing with 

Demi.” She added: “What’s the best advice I can give 

them? Don’t take mine, obviously.” 

it’s been all about the baby.” Other friends say 36-yearold 

Simon - who has a five-year-old daughter from a 

previous marriage - and Adele, 24, have been keen to 

have children since they started dating last year. 

Another source told LOOK magazine: “Family is 

very important to them and they’ve been talking 

about kids and getting married since they met last 

September. I think Adele’s still quite surprised at how 

quickly it happened, though. “She’s clearly got the 

usual nerves of an expectant mum, but Simon’s been 

Nicki Minaj 

considering legal action 

after thorough 

airport security check 

The ‘Starships’ singer - who played the 

Barclaycard Wireless Festival in London at the 

weekend - insisted she was touched too 

much, however did not name the airport where the 

incident took place. She said on twitter on Monday 

that she was fondled by a female security guard. 

The entertainer was angered at how she was treated 

and even posted a photo of the woman who 

was patting her down via the micro-blogging website. 

She tweeted: “Pretty sure I was just overtly 

fondled @ this check point. By a very old lady w/an 

accent. Word?” Adding that she was taking photos 

of the situation, Nicki was even more upset that the 

security told her not to take photos of them after 

the incident. She wrote: “So TSA always takes pics 

of me while doing their job! But would u believe 

they just told ME EYE couldn’t take pics???? Wow.” 

Nicki apparently has made it through security and 

headed for a stop in Dubai before going on to her 

next concert location. —Bang Showbiz 

Adele due 

to give birth 

in September 

amazingly reassuring, they’re both so happy.” It has 

also been rumoured the couple could have married in 

secret, after Simon was seen wearing what looked like 

a wedding ring when he attended the Ivor Novello 

awards with Adele earlier this year. Adele revealed her 

pregnancy to her fans on her website in June, writing: 

“I’m delighted to announce that Simon and I are 

expecting our first child together. “I wanted you to 

hear the news direct from me, obviously we’re over 

the moon. Yours always, Adele.”


Comic-con news 

Could there be any doubt over 

what the first two words would 

be out of Arnold 

Schwarzenegger’s mouth at Comic- 

Con? “I’m back,” said the former 

California governor, who has leaped 

back to acting with a series of upcoming 

action roles including “The 

Expendables 2,” which 

Schwarzenegger came to promote at 

the fan convention. Schwarzenegger 

joined fellow stars Sylvester Stallone, 

Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews and 

Randy Couture on a panel to preview 

footage for Comic-Con. Quoting his 

famous line from the “Terminator” 

films, Schwarzenegger said that after 

eight years away from action films 

while governor, he took some ribbing 

from his co-stars, who also included 

Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Chuck Norris, Jason 

Statham, Liam Hemsworth and Jean- 

Claude Van Damme. 

“‘Well, we know you’ve been out of 

the business for eight years. Let me 

show you how to load a gun again 

and, Arnold, here’s how you throw a 

punch,’” Schwarzenegger recalled his 

co-stars joking. But after the verbal 

sparring of state government, 

Schwarzenegger found he was able to 

pick up where he left off as an action 

star fairly fast, doing fun things like 

taking out a knife and killing a guy 

and cutting his head off. “You wish 

you could do some of those things 

when you’re in politics, but you know, 

you can’t,” Schwarzenegger said. 

The sequel to Stallone’s 2010 hit, 

“The Expendables 2” casts the band of 

tough guys into vengeance mode 

after they’re betrayed on a mission. 

The movie arrives in theaters in Aug 

17. After the preview, Comic-Con 

organizers presented their Inkpot 

Award honoring pop-culture contributions 

to Schwarzenegger, who also 

has filmed the crime thriller “The Last 

Stand” since leaving the governor’s 

office. Stallone, who also co-stars with 

Schwarzenegger in the upcoming 

prison thriller “The Tomb,” recalled 

first meeting Schwarzenegger at the 

Golden Globes for 1977, when his 

boxing saga “Rocky” won for best picture 

and Schwarzenegger won as best 

new star for “Stay Hungry.” “Who is 

this guy as big as the whole table?” 

Stallone recalls wondering of former 

body-building champion 

Schwarzenegger. After hearing the 

Austrian’s name called for his award, 

Stallone thought, “No one has a name 

like that. This guy is doomed, over, 

flash in the pan.” 

Disney unveils ‘Lone 

Ranger’ trailer 

Johnny Depp made a splash at 

Comic-Con, and he wasn’t even there. 

About 6,000 fans at the San Diego 

Convention Center Thursday got the 

first look at “The Lone Ranger,” which 

stars Depp as Tonto. He wears long 

hair and full-face makeup to portray 

the Lone Ranger’s Native American 

companion. The brief clip hinted at 

the character’s craftiness, with one 

scene showing him riding beneath a 

speeding train. It also offered a peek 

at Armie Hammer as the Lone Ranger 

and Helena Bonham Carter as a dame 

of interest, amid a backdrop of trains 

crossing the Western desert. Jerry 

Bruckheimer is producing the film. 

Disney unveiled the footage at the 

conclusion of its panel presentation 

that included glimpses of Tim 

Burton’s “Frankenweenie,” Sam 

Raimi’s “Oz: The Great and Powerful” 

and the video game romp “Wreck-It 

Ralph,” which features the voices of 

Sarah Silverman and John C. Reilly. 

“The Lone Ranger” is directed by Gore 

Verbinski, who worked with Depp on 

the first three “Pirates of the 

Caribbean” films and the animated 

“Rango.” It is set for release next summer. 

Lifestyle 

Arnold’s back with ‘Expendables’ 

Saban’s Power Rangers POWER Up Comic-Con Day 1 at 

San Diego Convention Center.—AFP 

Teenage mutant ninja turtles attend Nickelodeon at Comic-Con on Thursday, July 12, 2012, in 

San Diego, Calif. —AP 

In this image provided by Butterfinger, Comic-Con attendees 

go mad to take a photo with Butterfinger Man at Comic-Con on 

Thursday in San Diego, Calif. —AP 

Showtime kills with 

‘Dexter’ tease 

“Dexter” revealed a secret at 

Comic-Con. 

Showtime unleashed the first two 

minutes from the serial-killing drama’s 

upcoming seventh season at a Comic- 

Con presentation Thursday. The scene 

picked right up right where the sixth 

season ended, with Jennifer 

Carpenter’s Deb discovering Michael 

C. Hall’s Dexter standing over the 

body of the Doomsday Killer. In the 

scene - spoiler alert! - the forensic analyst 

attempts to explain the awkward 

circumstance to his apprehensive 

police officer sister. She doesn’t 

understand why the body is wrapped 

in plastic. The moment abruptly ends 

when Deb calls for backup and Dexter 

seemingly lunges toward her. Does 

the undercover killer think his sister 

buys his story? “He hopes so in that 

moment,” said Hall, who was on hand 

at Thursday’s panel with Carpenter. 

“She’s taking it one step at a time,” 

added a coy Carpenter. Yvonne 

Strahovski, who will be guest starring 

with Hall and Carpenter in the seventh 

season, was also present at the 

Comic-Con presentation, but she 

couldn’t divulge much about her role. 

Strahovski only offered up her character’s 

name, Hanna, and that she’s a 

“woman of mystery with a dark past.” 

“She meets Dexter and helps him with 

an investigation into an old murder 

mystery,” the former “Chuck” star 

revealed. The seventh season of 

“Dexter” premieres Sept 30. —AP


Jet skis skim across the lake as families picnic on the shores: a 

resort just west of Baghdad is an oasis of relative calm that 

offers escape from bombs, shootings and political squabbling. 

The Habbaniyah Tourism City, which lies between Fallujah 

and Ramadi, two of the main Sunni insurgent strongholds of past 

years, offers swimming, boating and a cinema. Hundreds of people 

relax on the beach to escape the violence, political chaos and 

lack of basic services that define everyday life in Iraq. 

“I come here every week with my family and friends to escape 

from the daily problems like unemployment ... politics and sectarianism,” 

said Abdul Rahman Mohammed, 25, an unemployed 

university graduate. “When we see the Iraqis here, they are not 

Sunni, or Shiite, Kurd or Christian, and they have smiles on their 

faces, we forget everything else,” said Mohammed, who holds a 

bachelor’s degree in administration and economics. 

His brother, 29-year-old Abdul Qader, who has a degree in history 

and is also unemployed, said European tourists should 

“come here to see the real Iraq.” The Habbaniyah Tourism City, 

which includes a 300-room hotel, 528 chalets, docks for boats, a 

cinema, shops, sports fields and five restaurants, originally 

opened in 1979. 

But it fell on hard times after Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion 

of neighboring Kuwait and decade of international sanctions that 

followed. The situation worsened after the 2003 US-led invasion, 

when insurgents used the area as a base. “Terrorist groups set up 

their headquarters in the city in 2006 and 2007 because it is in an 

isolated desert area and American forces were not present,” said 

Captain Laurens Saad al-Essawi, the deputy police chief. 

But “we entered the city in 2008 and were able to clean it from 

the terrorists and it has been safe since then,” he added. A year 

later Habbaniyah was back in business. Jet skis ply the lake all 

day, while families sit under small colored tents on the shore 

with the men entertaining the children and the women, most of 

whom wear headscarves, preparing meals. The resort “doesn’t 

belong to any specific sect,” the resort’s director general, Hamid 

Abbud Tarrad told AFP. 

“All Iraqis from north to south have nice memories (of 

Habbaniyah), since 90 percent of Iraqis have visited it,” he said. 

The lakeside resort reopened in March 2009 and 5,000 visitors 

were there for the ceremony, Tarrad said. “We now receive 

between 5,000 to 10,000 people during the holidays and about 

30,000 on feasts and special occasions,” Tarrad said. 

Oasis of calm- At the beginning of the year a Turkish company 

began rehabilitating the resort, with plans on managing the site 

over the next 25 years. “We hope that the city... will regain its historical 

position on the Arab and international tourism map,” said 

Tarrad, noting that in 1982 Tourism City was voted the best resort 

in the region by the World Tourism Organisation. 

Habbaniyah is not without its problems, however. Rubbish is 

strewn on the beach and floating in the lake. Recently a fight 

involving dozens of people wielding knives and sticks broke outapparently 

over a woman-and was only stopped when members 

of the security forces showed up and drew their pistols. But compared 

to the rest of Iraq, Habbaniyah is still an oasis of calm. While 

violence in Iraq has declined from its peak in 2006 and 2007, 

bombings and shootings are a reality of everyday life, killing 132 

people in May, according to official figures. 

And the country has been hit by a series of intertwined political 

crises that began with accusations that Prime Minister Nuri al- 

Maliki was monopolising power and escalated into calls for his 

ouster. The Iraqi government is paralysed, and most people have 

to live with woefully inadequate basic services, especially when it 

comes to electricity and clean water. “I used to come here before 

the collapse (of Saddam’s regime), and today we have returned 

to Habbaniyah,” said Umm Baqr, a 40-year-old who works at the 

education ministry. “We only feel happy when we swim. The 

water is our only breathing space,” she said. —AFP 

Lifestyle 

Iraqis escape country’s 

woes at lake resort 

“When we see the Iraqis here, they are not Sunni, or 

Shiite, Kurd or Christian, and they have smiles 

on their faces, we forget everything else” 

Iraqis swim in the lake of Habbaniyah, west of Baghdad, on June 17, 2012. Jet skis skim across the lake as 

families picnic on the shores: a resort just west of Baghdad is an oasis of relative calm that offers escape 

from bombs, shootings and political squabbling. — AFP Photos 

Iraqis swim in the lake of Habbaniyah, west of Baghdad, on June 17, 2012.


Dachshunds dressed for the occasion, Dee Dee, foreground left, and her cousin Clifford, foreground 

right, are held by their owner Valerie Diker, as they and other dogs and people wait 

for the start of the most expensive wedding for pets Thursday. 

We double-dog dare you to check this out. Two dogs 

“got married” Thursday night at a Manhattan extravaganza 

to benefit the Humane Society of New York. 

Bride Baby Hope Diamond, a white Coton de Tulear with 

black-gray markings, was led down the aisle, resplendent in 

her canine couture gown. Her poodle groom, a dapper dude 

named Chilly Pasternak from Richmond, Va., didn’t seem too 

excited about the whole affair but, never-the-less, went along 

with the ceremony. Seven year itch, anyone? 

After they got hitched, the cuddly couple were presented 

with a Guinness World Record in the category of most expensive 

pet wedding at $158,187.26. The luxury goods and servic- 

Ubisoft taking 

blockbuster 

Videogame firm Ubisoft is moving into the film business 

with an adaptation of its blockbuster title “Assassin’s 

Creed”-sidestepping the Hollywood movie machine by 

producing the film itself. With rising star Michael Fassbender 

of “Prometheus” and “X:Men: First Class” fame signed on to 

play the title role, the film will be the first produced by 

Ubisoft Motion Pictures, a division set up by the Paris-based 

firm so it can retain creative control over adaptations of its 

game franchises. 

“Ubisoft has decided to never sell its licences because it 

wants to have creative control,” Ubisoft Motion Pictures CEO 

Jean-Julien Baronnet told AFP. “There are strong licences and 

investments in important games that require us to diversify 

sources of franchise value and synergies.” The firm provided 

no details about a possible director or release date for the 

“Assassin’s Creed” film, but it can rely on a rabid fan base, 

with more than 30 million units of the game’s franchise sold 

since its 2007 launch. 

The series moves from one generation to another as players 

follow the ancestry of a fictional assassin to solve a perilous 

modern-day mystery. Previous instalments have been 

set during the Crusades and in Renaissance Italy and 

“Assassin’s Creed III”-set during the American Revolution-is 

due for release on October 30. A hallmark of the franchise has 

been “historical fiction” that blends rich details from past centuries 

with fantasy characters locked in a battle between 

assassins and Templars hunting for a mysterious orb of great 

power.—AFP 

es that went into the wedding were all donated. Guests 

bought tickets for the fundraiser. Baby Hope was adopted by 

animal welfare activist Wendy Diamond after her beloved 

Maltese died of cancer last month. Lucky Diamond, a longtime 

champion of the underdog, was originally cast as the bride. 

The wedding instead served as a celebration of the life of the 

little Maltese. 

Lucky herself held a Guinness Record: The animal most 

photographed with famous people. She posed with more than 

300 celebrities, from “Twilight” actress Kristen Stewart to hiphop 

star Snoop Dogg. No expense was spared for the black-tie 

gala, held at the Jumeirah Essex House Hotel at Central Park. 

She kept a Colt .38-caliber revolver close, while 

he preferred a .45-caliber pistol from the 

same maker. But neither weapon was 

enough to save American outlaws and lovers 

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow during a 1934 

ambush by law enforcement officers. After the duo 

was dead, authorities recovered the revolver 

Bonnie had secured to an inner thigh with white 

medical tape. They also seized the handgun Clyde 

had tucked into his waistband. 

Nearly 80 years later, those guns and other 

items connected to the infamous gangsters will 

be going up for auction in New Hampshire on Sept 

30. An auction official estimated Thursday that 

each Bonnie and Clyde weapon could bring 

between $100,000 and $200,000. “They were pretty 

famous in their moment and I think that’s lasted 

through time,” said Bobby Livingston, vice president 

of RR Auction in Amherst, N.H. 

Besides the guns, other items Livingston’s company 

will auction include a gold pocket watch 

Clyde was wearing when he died, and a cosmetics 

case Bonnie was using to carry lipstick, Coty face 

powder and a powder puff. The brown leatherette 

box was inside the Ford automobile the gangsters 

were riding in when a posse of lawmen riddled it 

with bullets on a Louisiana road. 

Also in the auction is a letter that Clyde wrote 

to his brother L.C. Barrow on the back of a photo 

showing a house on a platform surrounded by 

water. He signed it “bud,” his code name when he 

was on the run. FBI files say Bonnie and Clyde met 

in Texas in 1930 and were believed to have committed 

13 murders and several robberies and burglaries 

by the time they died. Law enforcement 

Dachshunds dressed for the occasion, Clifford, left, and his cousin Dee Dee, wait to take part 

in the most expensive wedding for pets.—AP photos 

The “dream team” included a celebrity wedding planner, a 

“lighting guru” with experience at major museums, and highly 

touted chefs for the reception, to name just a few. 

Since the guests came from more than one species, a company 

co-owned by Ellen DeGeneres provided a pet food buffet. 

“I am not the mother of the bride, since Baby Hope is 56 

years old in dog years,” Diamond said on her website. “Just call 

me the Maid of Honor!” The wedding wasn’t 100 percent highbrow. 

It was officiated by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. — AP 

officials were among their victims. The duo 

became infamous as they traveled across 

America’s Midwest and South, holding up banks 

and stores with other gang members. 

Texas Ranger Frank Hamer led the posse of six 

lawmen who carried out the ambush, and auction 

officials said authorities gifted him the guns from 

the lovers’ bodies as part of his compensation for 

the operation. Auction officials said all the Bonnie 

and Clyde items are coming from the estate of 

Robert E. Davis. He was a collector from Texas who 

acquired items Hamer had owned, along with 

items that came from the estate of Clyde’s sister, 

Marie Barrow.—AP 

This pair of undated 

photos provided by RR 

Auction of Amherst, 

N.H., show firearms once 

owned by outlaws and 

lovers Clyde Barrow and 

Bonnie Parker.—AP


The Rodin Museum, a little jewel box of a 

building surrounded by formal gardens 

and showcasing the French artist’s monumental 

sculptures, had by most accounts lost a 

certain je ne sais quoi in the 83 years since it was 

built. Now, for the first time since the museum 

opened in 1929, the public will get to see it as its 

architects intended. The Rodin Museum reopens 

after a more than three-year, $9 million renovation 

that returned all its sculptures to their original 

locations inside and out, refurbished almost 

all of them - only “The Burghers of Calais” has 

yet to be cleaned up - and restored the grounds’ 

formal French garden, fountain and reflecting 

pool. 

“It was long overdue,” Timothy Rub, director 

and chief executive officer of the Philadelphia 

Museum of Art, which runs the Rodin, said at a 

preview event Thursday. “We have a beautiful 

site and building and a great collection that had, 

frankly, lost some of its luster.” The inside galleries 

were rearranged to emphasize the way 

many figures in “The Gates of Hell” - Rodin’s 

colossal masterwork that dominates the museum 

entrance - inspired his later iconic sculptures 

from “The Kiss” to “The Thinker.” Behind the 

scenes, a new air-conditioning system will mean 

a swelter-free visit for summer tourists for the 

first time in decades. 

Located between the Philadelphia Museum 

of Art and the new Barnes Foundation on the 

Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the classical Beaux- 

Arts building contains the largest collection of 

Auguste Rodin’s sculptures outside of the 

Musee Rodin’s collections in Paris and Meudon. 

It was a gift to the city from movie theater magnate 

Jules Mastbaum, who was introduced to 

Rodin’s work during a 1923 trip to Paris. 

Mastbaum hired two France-born architects 

living in Philadelphia, architect Paul Cret and 

landscape designer Jacques Greber, to create 

the limestone museum. Its holdings include 

more than 140 bronze, marble and plaster 

sculptures, plus drawings, prints, letters and 

books. 

“Everything you see here, the interior in particular, 

is a true restoration of one of the most 

sophisticated buildings ever,” curator Joseph 

Rischl said. “This is as sophisticated as a Parisian 

dress of 1929.” The Rodin Museum also houses a 

few works that were created by other artists. 

Two small bronze heads, attributed to Rodin 

when Mastbaum purchased them, were later 

found to be the work of the artist’s collaborator, 

muse and lover Camille Claudel. In addition, the 

Musee Rodin permitted Mastbaum to commission 

a copy of “The Kiss,” one of Rodin’s bestknown 

works. 

The marble reproduction in Philadelphia 

was completed in 1929, 12 years after Rodin’s 

death, by Jacques Greber’s father, sculptor Henri 

Greber. As is the case in museums around the 

world, the majority of the Rodin sculptures in 

Philadelphia’s museum weren’t cast in bronze 

until years after his death in 1917.—AP 

Two goats named Goatee and Pismo 

are wowing California beachgoers 

with their surfing skills. The goats’ 

owner, Dana McGregor, says he taught 

his goats to surf because he loves to ride 

the waves and thought they would like it, 

too. The goats stood on surfboards and 

cruised along the water Wednesday at 

San Onofre State Beach, as bystanders 

watched in amazement. Goatee, a nanny 

goat, and her billy goat, Pismo, even rode 

waves together. But after a few rides, 

Goatee swam to shore. McGregor says he 

got Goatee originally to eat unwanted 

plants on his property. He began taking 

the goat to the beach with him, eventually 

putting her on a surfboard. McGregor 

says he started putting Pismo on a board 

shortly after he was born in March. — AP 

Aretrospective of Japan’s reclusive living legend Yayoi 

Kusama, 83, opened at New York City’s Whitney 

Museum of American Art on Thursday, complete 

with her signature spots. Running through September, the 

exhibit includes some 150 works, including Kusama’s monumental 

multicolor plexiglass light installation “Fireflies on 

the Water.” 

The installation is set in a dark room, with mirrors on 

each wall and a pool in the center, and is designed to create 

“visual effects that may be disorienting to some viewers,” 

according to the Whitney’s website. Audiences must 

work for the experience. “Visitors must step up onto a sixinch 

(15-centimeter) high platform, pass through a 30-inch 

(76-centimeter) wide doorway, and travel over a 30-inchwide 

platform with no edge protection,” the site added. 

Before arriving at its final destination in New York, 

Kusama’s retrospective appeared at the Centre Pompidou 

art museum in Paris, followed by the Tate Modern in 

London. Born in Matsumoto, Japan in 1929, Kusama came 

to the Big Apple in 1958, where she became a fixture in the 

Pop and Minimalism art movements of the 1960s as she 

created her own brand of art. After a series of exhibitions 

and “happenings,” including staged events with nude participants 

at New York landmarks, Kusama returned to 

Japan in 1973. 

Kusama suffered from a series of psychiatric disorders 

and was admitted to a hospital for mental illness shortly 

after her return to Tokyo, where she has lived, for the most 

part, until now. The Whitney exhibition features the first of 

Kusama’s work to be shown in the United States since 

1998. Exhibition organizers say it “seeks to show the full 

breadth of the artist’s output throughout her lengthy and 

varied career, contextualizing Kusama’s American sojourn 

with representations of her early and late career in Japan.” 

The exhibition includes paintings from Kusama’s 

Minimalist period in New York, as well as her famous soft 

sculptures, like “Accumulation” (1963), a chair painted in 

white, covered with fabric dressings that look like fungal 

growths. Visitors can watch the film “Self-Obliteration” 

(1968), which captures her period of experimentation with 

performance art, extending beyond the traditional confines 

of the art gallery. The exhibit was supported by 

French fashion designer Louis Vuitton, which has released 

a collection of dotted clothing, shoes, handbags and accessories 

inspired by Kusama’s work. 

The company has launched a website that recounts 

Kusama’s life story in 12 languages and dialects and features 

images of her work at www.louisvuittonkusama.com. 

The Whitney Museum features twentieth century and contemporary 

American art. It was founded in 1930 by US 

sculptor, art patron and philanthropist Gertrude Vanderbilt 

Whitney (1875-1942). — AFP 

This March 22, 2012 file photo 

shows Japanese avant-garde artist 

Yayoi Kusama answering questions 

during a press preview for a 32hour 

art event at Roppongi shopping 

district in Tokyo.—AFP 

Dana NcGregor’s pet goats Pismo, left, and Goatee surf at San Onofre State Beach, 

Calif on Wednesday.—AP


Songstresses 

dominate Forbes 

list of rich young celebs 

Female singers dominated the top of Forbes’ list of 

the highest-paid celebrities under the age of 30, 

released Thursday, starting with country pop sensation 

Taylor Swift. The business magazine said the 22-yearold 

Swift earned $57 million in the 12 months to May, a 

period that included the North American and Australasian 

legs of her 111-concert “Speak Now” tour. 

Forbes said each Swift concert raked in an average of 

$1 million, with multi-platinum album sales and product 

endorsements topping up her wealth. She is expected to 

release a new album in October. Teen idol Justin Bieber, 

18, the only male in the top five, placed second at $55 

million, followed by Rihanna ($53 million), Lady Gaga ($52 

million) and Katy Perry ($45 million). Last year, Lady Gaga 

topped the list at $90 million. Forbes said her slump is 

likely due to the fact that she did not tour during its Mayto-May 

review period. 

“Expect the pop princess to earn more next year,” it said. 

Forbes said it considered “album and concert sales, movie 

paydays, profit participation, endorsements and advertising 

work,” and interviewed showbiz insiders such as managers 

and agents, in coming up with its under-30 list. It did not 

deduct agent fees-typically double-digit-or what it called 

“expenses related to being a celebrity.” — AFP 

The “Twilight” blood-suckers aren’t the only 

big-screen vampires at Comic-Con. Adam 

Sandler’s putting the bite on audiences, too. 

On opening day at the fan convention Thursday, 

Sony Pictures previewed footage of Sandler’s animated 

comedy “Hotel Transylvania,” in which he 

provides the voice of the grand-daddy of vampires, 

Dracula. 

It’s the follow-up to a rare flop for Sandler, whose 

string of hits came to an end this summer with the 

dud “That’s My Boy,” co-starring Andy Samberg. 

Opening Sept. 28, “Hotel Transylvania” against costars 

Samberg, who provides the voice of a human 

Tunisian singer Saber Rebai performs at the Carthage international Festival on July 12, 2012 

outside Tunis. —AFP 

‘American Idol’ at crossroads 

after Steven Tyler’s exit 

Idol” is on the brink of an adolescent identity crisis. 

Judge Steven Tyler is leaving and taking his naughty rock 

“American 

star vibe with him, fellow judge Jennifer Lopez is dithering 

about staying put, and ratings for the Fox show have declined as TV’s 

talent show field gets more competitive. When “American Idol” returns 

for its 12th season next January, it will have to be a reengineered version 

of the once-powerhouse series that turned hopefuls such as 

Jennifer Hudson into stars and gave network rivals fits. 

One big step would be a clean sweep of the judging panel. 

Aerosmith frontman Tyler got the ball rolling with his announcement 

Thursday that he was putting rock ‘n’ roll ahead of the show that he 

said had been “over-the-top fun.” “I strayed from my first love, 

Aerosmith, and I’m back - but instead of begging on my hands and 

knees, I got two fists in the air and I’m kicking the door open with my 

band,” Tyler said in a statement. Aerosmith is on a nationwide tour with 

Tyler and has an album due out in the fall. 

Tyler’s departure leaves original judge Randy Jackson and Jennifer 

Lopez, but their futures are cloudy. In a phone interview with The 

Associated Press as the news about Tyler broke, Lopez said she was 

saddened to hear that he was leaving and was weighing her own decision. 

“I can’t even imagine anyone else there right now because I’ve 

just spent two years sitting next to him,” she said. “I love Steven, and 

we became close during that time. We were a great support for each 

other, on an adventure that neither one of us knew what it was going 

to be. So it’s hard to hear that he won’t be doing it.” 

Lopez, who proved a warm charmer on “Idol,” said Tyler’s departure 

will play a role in her decision to stay or go. She has already indicated 

that there is a good likelihood that she will not be back. “All hope is 

never lost, not all hope, but at the same time, there are too many things 

that I need to think about,” she said. “I know they want me back, I 

Adam Sandler looks to rise again in ‘Transylvania’ 

falling for Dracula’s vampire daughter. 

“Hotel Transylvania” director Genndy 

Tartakovsky says he’s not worried that Sandler and 

Samberg are coming off a flop. The filmmaker says 

his PG-rated family tale is wildly different from the 

R-rated “That’s My Boy.” “Movies go up and down, 

and I don’t think there’s every been a history of one 

movie flopping and then a career ending for that 

person,” Tartakovsky said in an interview. “There are 

a lot of rebounds to this business. 

“And our film’s for a different audience, so we 

weren’t worried either way. Our movie stands alone, 

really well on its own, and it’s Dracula with Adam’s 

In this Jan 8, 2012 file photo, “American Idol” judge 

Jennifer Lopez, center, reacts as fellow judge Steven Tyler, 

left, of Aerosmith makes a joke about wearing Lopez’s 

pants as Randy Jackson and Ryan Seacrest are seen at 

right during the “American Idol” panel at the Fox 

Broadcasting Company Television Critics Association 

Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif. —AP 

know that I want to go back, but it’s not as simple as that. When I started 

‘Idol’ ... I signed on for one year. I didn’t even think about doing it for 

two years, let alone three years. To make the decision to go back a second 

year was a big deal for me.” Jackson and his “dawg!” exclamations 

have been a stalwart part of “Idol.” But the show’s multi-year contracts, 

such as the one Jackson signed, typically include an escape clause that 

the network can choose to exercise or not. —AP 

voice. It’s a family film.” The voice cast includes 

Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, Jon 

Lovitz, David Spade, Cee Lo Green and Molly 

Shannon. 

Sony’s “That’s My Boy” was a departure for 

Sandler, who has been one of Hollywood’s steadiest 

earners since the mid-1990s, with such $100 million 

hits as “The Longest Yard,” “Anger Management,” 

“Big Daddy,” “Click” and “Grown-Ups.” With a 

raunchier edge than his usual PG-13 comedies, 

“That’s My Boy” failed to pack in Sandler’s fan base 

of males in their teens and 20s, the movie taking in 

just $36 million. — AP


French singer Mathias Malzieu from French rock band Dionysos is carried by fans as he performs on stage during the 28th edition of the Francofolies music 

festival Wednesday in La Rochelle, western France. — AFP 

Bob Dylan rejects claim 

over first electric guitar 

Bob Dylan dismissed Thursday a claim that a woman in 

New Jersey has the guitar he played at the Newport 

Folk Festival in 1965, when he was infamously booed 

for going electric. A lawyer for the music icon said Dylan still 

has the Fender Stratocaster guitar which he played on July 25, 

1965, prompting boos which forced him off stage after only 

three songs. 

The musician had until then played solely on acoustic guitar, 

making his name as a protest singer with early hits including 

“Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They are a- 

Changin’.” An upcoming television documentary reportedly 

claims that the guitar was left on board a plane which Dylan 

used after the show, and that the pilot took it with him, and 

left it in an attic. Dawn Peterson, a 43-year-old New Jersey 

woman and daughter of the pilot, Vic Quinto who died in 

1977, told the PBS show “History Detectives” that her father 

had always said the guitar was left inadvertently on his plane. 

“Since I can remember a guitar had been in the attic, although 

no one, including me, paid much attention to it,” Peterson 

told the Los Angeles Times newspaper. The instrument 

“remained in my mother’s attic for another 20 years until I got 

married and brought it to my home,” she said, adding the 

family had never been sure until PBS researchers confirmed 

the authenticity of the guitar. But Dylan’s lawyer Orin Snyder 

rejected the claim, made in a show to be broadcast on July 17. 

“Bob has possession of the electric guitar he played at The 

Newport Folk Festival in 1965,” he said. “He did own several 

other Stratocaster guitars that were stolen from him around 

that time, as were some handwritten lyrics. “In addition, Bob 

recalls driving to the Newport Folk Festival, along with two of 

his friends, not flying,” he added in a statement sent to AFP. 

Dylan shrugged off the electric controversy-in 1966 a fan 

notoriously shouted “Judas” at a show in England-and went 

on to become “the voice of a generation” and one of the most 

influential musicians of modern times. The singer-real name 

Robert Allen Zimmerman-turned 71 this year, and is still on his 

so-called Never Ending Tour, which he launched in 1988. He 

received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack 

Obama in May. — AFP 

Inspired by ‘Imposter,’ 

5 stylish documentaries 

With “The Imposter,” director Bart Layton takes a non-fiction subject 

- the disappearance of a 13-year-old boy and the emergence 

of a man who claims to be him years later and depicts it 

with all the tension, twists and turns of a gripping mystery. He accomplishes 

much of this feat through clever use of reenactments - a tactic 

the great Errol Morris used to revolutionize documentaries decades ago. 

It got me thinking about other stylish documentaries I’ve loved over the 

years, ones that infused fascinating, real-life tales with the beauty and 

artistry of feature films. There are so many to choose from, I realize I’m 

scratching the surface here. But I only get to choose five each week. 

That’s why the game is fun: 

“Man on Wire” (2008) 

James Marsh’s Oscar-winning documentary about Philippe Petit, the 

diminutive French daredevil who walked a tightrope between the 

World Trade Center towers in 1974, plays more like an intricately timed, 

high-stakes heist flick. You know from the start that Petit makes it -he’s 

alive and all too happy to talk about himself - but you’ll still hold your 

breath as he and his partners in crime relive the feat. One of the neatest 

tricks Marsh pulls off here is creating the sensation that we’re actually 

watching Petit make the walk. But we’re not. No footage is available. 

Marsh seamlessly pieces together the event through photographs and 

recreations. Sitting in the audience, feeling as if we’re in on the scheme 

with Petit and his motley crew of co-conspirators is just one of the film’s 

many joys. 

“Waltz With Bashir” (2008) 

Unlike anything I’d ever seen before, this changed my ideas about 

the possibility of film. It’s a breathtakingly gorgeous animated documentary, 

which may sound like a contradiction in terms, but Israeli 

writer-director Ari Folman breaks all the rules with exhilarating creativity. 

Folman reconstructs the hazy memories of his time as a young soldier 

at war in 1980s Lebanon by visiting friends and then animating 

their talks. The result looks like a graphic novel brought brilliantly to life. 

Dark shadows suggest impending danger, and bright splashes of color 

provide unexpected jolts of energy. That the figures on screen resemble 

real people, without appearing entirely realistic, adds to the fascination. 

“Hell and Back Again” (2011) 

Director and photographer Danfung Dennis crafted this Oscarnominated 

documentary about the war in Afghanistan with the 

engrossing, dreamlike artistry of a feature film. And yet he maintains 

the bracing, intimate realism needed to authentically tell a story 

about battle, survival and redemption. He jumps back and forth 

between a 25-year-old Marine sergeant’s return to his North Carolina 

hometown and the mission that left him seriously wounded. Dennis 

is so in the thick of things, he’ll repeatedly make you wonder how he 

got that amazing shot. Match cuts and clever sound editing provide a 

seamless flow between past and present. 

“Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back” (1967) 

Pioneering filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker set the standard for the 

rock documentary with this classic, behind-the-scenes look at Bob 

Dylan’s 1965 concert tour of England. This was impish 23-year-old 

Dylan before he famously went electric, and Pennebaker depicts this 

fortuitous moment of flux with grainy, intimate, black-and-white 

camerawork. The images he captured here became endlessly copied 

and parodied, from the 1987 INXS video for “Mediate,” in which the 

band members toss away cue cards the way Dylan does with 

“Subterranean Homesick Blues,” to “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox 

Story,” which parodies this time in Dylan’s life with dead-on hilarity. 

The rough-hewn aesthetic is a thing of restless beauty. 

“Stop Making Sense” (1984) 

One of the coolest concert films ever, it’s probably also my favorite 

Jonathan Demme film; the way he structures it is just mesmerizing. 

“Stop Making Sense” begins on a stage with only lead singer David 

Byrne singing “Psycho Killer” and playing a guitar with a boom box on 

the floor behind him. And then song by song, piece by piece, the 

place builds and fills up until the whole stage is full with the complete 

band, other musicians and an array of instruments. The process happened 

right before your eyes but it was so subtle and deliberate, you 

may not even have noticed it. It’s a great example of a band being 

playful and inventive rather than self-serious. And of course, the 

music is great. — AP


Despite sanctions, Apple 

gear booming in Iran 

Merchants source US products through underground routes 

DUBAI: At its gleaming store, RadanMac offers the 

latest Apple gear - the new iPad, iPhones, iPods, 

laptops, all-in-one desktop computers and more. 

But this is no ordinary Apple store. It’s in 

Tehran, where Apple and other US computer 

products are banned under US sanctions that 

have been in place for years. Despite the embargo, 

RadanMac is one of an estimated 100 stores in 

the Iranian capital that openly sell Apple products, 

often at little more than US prices. 

“Business has been booming for the last three 

years,” said Majid Tavassoli, the store’s owner, in a 

phone interview. He said his company employs 

more than 20 staffers and has been supplying 

Apple products to Iranian buyers since 1995. The 

company also has a servicing unit and a business 

sales arm whose clients have included the Central 

Bank of Iran, state television channels, newspapers 

and design professionals. 

Iran’s booming Apple business underscores 

the limitations of economic sanctions by the 

United States and other countries. Washington 

and its allies have imposed sanctions in an 

attempt to curb Iran’s nuclear program, which 

Tehran maintains is peaceful. US companies are 

barred from selling any goods or services to Iran 

unless they obtain special authorization. 

The focus of the sanctions has been on Iran’s 

banks and oil industry, Iranian individuals and 

companies that Western capitals believe are 

assisting what they suspect is Tehran’s drive 

towards a nuclear weapons capability. But US consumer 

products and computer equipment are 

another matter. Although they are banned, enterprising 

Iranian merchants continue to source 

them through underground trade routes in the 

Middle East and beyond. 

In the case of Apple, some digital sales of 

music, videos and software go directly through 

the California company - via its iTunes and App 

Store online services. According to Tehran computer 

dealers, Iran is a rapidly growing market for 

software downloads: Iranians register Apple 

accounts with randomly-chosen addresses outside 

the country, and use foreign gift-cards to pay 

for purchases. 

In response, a spokesman for Apple Inc 

referred Reuters to its export control policy that 

restricts it or any subsidiaries it owns from exporting 

any products to Iran. 

Once considered rare and sought-after, 

iPhones and iPads are now de rigueur in Iran 

among those who can afford them. The epicentre 

of the trade is Tehran’s largest technology mall, 

the bustling Capital Computer Complex, where 

more than 350 traders supply products for Iran’s 

increasingly tech-savvy population. 

One of RadanMac’s competitors is a smaller 

firm called Apple Iran. Its website is a nearly exact 

replica of Apple’s own, except for the Persian language 

and a disclaimer: “This website is not in 

anyway affiliated with Apple Inc.” Apple has been 

attempting to shut it down, according to a person 

familiar with the matter. “We’re really proud of it,” 

says Apple Iran spokesman Ali Afghah, an Apple 

enthusiast and author of a Farsi-language study 

on the history of the company. 

“I’m known as the Apple guy by friends and 

family,” said the 28-year-old, who bought his first 

Apple computer in 2002 and now describes himself 

as a “Mac-head.” 

“It was different then,” he said. “The products 

were around double the price.” 

Like RadanMac, Apple Iran boasts an impressive 

cast of corporate customers for its services. 

Along with major Iranian banks, they have included 

IRIB - Iran’s state broadcasting network - news- 

papers and magazines, Afghah said. 

“There must be at least 1,000 editors in Iran 

now using Macs, if not more,” he estimated. 

Neither government officials nor editors 

responded to requests for comment on whether 

they used Apple technology. 

In recent months, Afghah said, Apple Iran has 

seen sales decline because of tough new sanctions 

imposed by the US and its allies against 

Iran’s financial sector. The new measures have 

caused Iran’s currency, the rial, to plummet and 

made international payments from Iranian banks 

much more complex. The company relies on a 

steady stream of creative individuals - including 

musicians, film editors and photographers - to 

keep its business going. 

Tavassoli set up RadanMac - in Farsi, the word 

“radan” means “the one who does everything correctly” 

- after his employer, a Middle Eastern computer 

company, pulled out of Iran. He had worked 

there as a service engineer for Apple products. 

Left with the company’s spare parts, he said he 

invested a few thousand dollars and spent the 

next 15 years combining his love of Apple technology 

with trying to make a living out of it. 

“To start with, it was really tough,” said the 51year-old. 

“Four of my colleagues gave up and 

moved back to the States. But I love what I do.” 

Despite the sanctions, Tavassoli said there was 

no shortage of business because of Iranians’ love 

for the latest technology. Still, sales come with 

major headaches and taking big investment risks. 

Like many traders, he prefers to order directly 

from distributors in Hong Kong, Singapore and 

Malaysia. But the tightening embargoes against 

Iran’s financial system since the beginning of this 

year now make direct shipments more problematic, 

especially if they are large. 

He can use Dubai or Turkey as an alternative 

transit point but that incurs additional duties and 

shipping fees. Iranian customs also needs to be 

paid: around 4% for portable products and a 

whopping 60% for larger components, such as 

desktop iMacs and monitors. 

Even so, prices often remain competitive with 

authorized Apple dealers outside Iran. The lowest 

spec MacBook Pro was priced in Tehran this 

month at around $1,250, compared to $1,200 

(before tax) for the slightly updated model in New 

York. This is significantly cheaper than buying the 

product in many European capitals. The fluctuations 

in Iran’s volatile open market dollar rate 

mean that prices change every day. 

Apple dealers in Iran often manage to obtain 

the company’s newest models within weeks of 

their release and at reasonable prices. The latest 

releases also show up sooner via opportunistic 

travelers who purchase them abroad and resell 

them at highly inflated prices. 

Obtaining spare parts poses particular challenges. 

RadanMac draws customers by offering a 

one-year service contract with all sales. “It’s Iranian 

Apple Care,” Tavassoli said with a chuckle, alluding 

to the name of Apple’s own technical support 

and warranty services. 

In the absence of a reliable supply of spare 

parts his team often has to borrow from new computers 

to fix old ones. “It’s one of the most difficult 

issues we face,” he says. 

In the meantime, Iranian demand for Apple’s 

own online stores is rising, say Apple traders who 

report a sharp rise in requests from customers. 

Thirty-year-old computer engineer Sina, who 

didn’t want his family name to be published, said 

he set up an iTunes account for his girlfriend after 

buying her an iPod. 

Computer users in Iran trying to download 

directly from iTunes eventually will see a “1009 

error message,” which indicates that the service is 

blocked to the country from which the connection 

is being made. 

Sina said he circumvented the block on Iranian 

Internet addresses by using a secure, virtual private 

network to access the Apple website. Then 

he downloaded iTunes. He first tried to register an 

account with a US address he found on the 

Internet, but encountered problems. But a 

Canadian address worked. He also bought online 

a Canadian gift card to make purchases. 

“Everything worked fine,” he said. — Reuters 

SUN VALLEY: Sergey Brin (left), co-founder of Google and wife Anne Wojcicki attend the Allen & 

Company Sun Valley Conference yesterday in Sun Valley, Idaho. The conference has been hosted 

annually by the investment firm Allen & Company each July since 1983. The conference is typically 

attended by many of the world’s most powerful media executives. — AFP 

TECHNOLOGY 

This handout picture received from 

Imperial College London yesterday shows 

a person demonstrating a device which 

enables disabled people to control a computer 

with their eyes at a research facility. 

Engineers said yesterday they had built a 

device using mass-produced video gaming 

equipment that lets disabled people control 

a computer with just their eyes with a 

price tagof under $30 (25 euros). — AFP 

The eyes have it 

for disabled 

gamers 

PARIS: Engineers said yesterday they had 

built a device using mass-produced video 

gaming equipment that lets disabled people 

control a computer with just their eyes-with a 

price tag of under $30 (25 euros). 

The gadget comprises two video game 

console cameras, costing less than $10 

apiece, attached outside the line of vision to 

a pair of ordinary glasses, reported the team 

from Imperial College London. 

The cameras relay the eye’s movements 

to an ordinary computer, wirelessly over Wi- 

Fi or via USB, and used one watt of power, 

they wrote in the Journal of Neural 

Engineering.In this way, test subjects could 

control a cursor on a screen just like a computer 

mouse. 

“We have achieved two things: we have 

built a 3D eye tracking system hundreds of 

times cheaper than commercial systems and 

used it to build a real-time brain machine 

interface,” said co-author Aldo Faisal. “This is 

frugal innovation; developing smarter software 

and piggy-backing existing hardware to 

create devices that can help people worldwide...” 

It also allowed patients to interact more 

smoothly and more quickly than technologies 

that require electrode implants in the 

brain, and are even more expensive. “We 

demonstrate here that by using mass-produced 

video game hardware, it is possible to 

produce an ultra-low cost binocular eyetracker 

with comparable performance to 

commercial systems, yet 800 times cheaper,” 

the researchers wrote. 

The technology offers hope for restoring 

some level of independence to people suffering 

from multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, 

muscular dystrophy and spinal cord 

injuries or amputees.—ÅFP


SAN FRANCISCO: San Francisco city officials on Thursday 

said that they have soured on Apple computers due to 

the Macintosh maker’s decision to bail out of a program 

to promote making electronics earth friendly. 

The California company behind coveted iPads, 

iPhones, iPods and Macbook computers in June abandoned 

the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment 

Tool global registry for “greener electronics” and did not 

respond to requests for comment about the move. 

The city of San Francisco for several years has had a 

rule in place that requires laptops, computers or monitors 

bought by departments to meet top EPEAT standards. 

Apple’s name was off the EPEAT member list this week 

and it has removed the registry’s symbol from packaging. 

“Apple’s decision to have its products removed from 

the EPEAT registry will make it difficult for city employees 

to procure Apple laptops, monitors and (desktop computers) 

in the future,” said city chief information officer 

Jon Walton. 

“San Francisco has reached out to Apple and is hopeful 

that a solution to this challenge can be found in the 

future.” The procurement rule is similar to a standard 

used by other US cities and states as well as by the federal 

government, according to Walton. 

“There is no ban or boycott in place in San Francisco 

on Apple products and none is being considered,” city 

Environment Department director Melanie Nutter said. 

However, she added, the city purchaser “will be issuing 

a letter to remind city agencies about the city’s technology 

purchasing policies.” Nutter’s department assists 

in implementing the city’s green purchasing ordinance. 

“We are reaching out to understand why Apple decided 

to withdraw its participation from the EPEAT eco-label 

program for computers and hope to learn about how 

their products meet green standards in San Francisco,” 

Nutter said. 

The Green Electronics Council in 2009 went international 

with a registry that shows how computers and 

monitors measure up when it comes to being Earthfriendly. 

EPEAT gives green ratings to computer desktops, laptops 

and monitors. It was launched in the United States in 

2006 with corporations and other large IT purchasers in 

mind but the registry is available for anyone to consult 

online for free at epeat.net. 

Electronics makers and other interested parties establish 

EPEAT criteria used to rate computers, with bronze, 

silver and gold being the top rankings. 

The standards factor in energy savings, production 

TECHNOLOGY 

Ubisoft taking ‘Assassin’s Creed’ to big screen 

PARIS: Videogame firm Ubisoft is moving into the film 

business with an adaptation of its blockbuster title 

“Assassin’s Creed”-sidestepping the Hollywood movie 

machine by producing the film itself. 

With rising star Michael Fassbender of 

“Prometheus” and “X:Men: First Class” fame signed on 

to play the title role, the film will be the first produced 

by Ubisoft Motion Pictures, a division set up by the 

Paris-based firm so it can retain creative control over 

adaptations of its game franchises. 

“Ubisoft has decided to never sell its licenses 

because it wants to have creative control,” Ubisoft 

Motion Pictures CEO Jean-Julien Baronnet told AFP. 

“There are strong licences and investments in important 

games that require us to diversify sources of franchise 

value and synergies.” 

The firm provided no details about a possible director 

or release date for the “Assassin’s Creed” film, but it 

can rely on a rabid fan base, with more than 30 million 

units of the game’s franchise sold since its 2007 launch. 

The series moves from one generation to another as 

Kaspersky Lab, D-Link 

extend partnership 

DUBAI: Kaspersky Lab announces 

that it has extended its long-standing 

partnership agreement with D- 

Link combining D-Link’s NetDefend 

series of UTM Firewalls with 

Kaspersky’s most comprehensive, 

best-in-class endpoint security suite 

to provide customers with exceptional 

multi-layered protection. 

Starting this month, D-Link’s 

NetDefend UTM Firewall customers 

will receive free licenses for 

Kaspersky Business Space Security as 

well as an option to buy additional 

licenses at a special D-Link program 

rate. The combination of these two 

compelling products will enable D- 

Link/Kaspersky Lab customers to 

deploy a truly reliable, multi-layered 

defense strategy to fight today’s 

ever evolving security threats. 

D-Link’s UTM Firewalls have been 

relying on Kaspersky Lab’s signature 

analysis for several years to power 

the integral anti-malware solution 

on their gateway products to secure 

the entry point to corporate networks. 

The addition of Kaspersky 

Business Space Security will enhance 

the level of protection even further 

by providing multiple layers of 

defense. This adds another level of 

protection to networks where D-Link 

NetDefend UTM Firewall is deployed. 

The first level of protection is the 

NetDefend UTM Firewall gateway 

itself, which, serving as the only 

point of access to the corporate network 

from the Internet, intercepts 

and weeds out the most prevalent 

and dangerous malware, spyware, or 

hacking attempts. However, no single 

solution can ensure 100% protection 

from modern-day malware - 

this is where Kaspersky Business 

Space Security brings immense value. 

It establishes a second perimeter 

of defense for critical network assets 

such as file servers, user workstations, 

and mobile devices, neutralizing 

any malware that eludes the 

gateway or bypasses it altogether 

(e.g. when employees unwittingly 

bring malware in on USB flash drives 

or are travelling outside the reach of 

the company network). 

Kaspersky Business Space 

Security Suite for workstations, 

smartphones and file servers has 

been strengthened with the recently 

launched Kaspersky Endpoint 

Security for Windows and Kaspersky 

Security Center 9, providing deeper 

protection and comprehensive control 

tools. This has resulted in 

Kaspersky Business Space Security 

Suite becoming Kaspersky’s most 

unique and compelling corporate 

product offering - ever. And it’s now 

included with every D-Link 

NetDefend UTM Firewall. 

Commenting on the partnership 

agreement signed with D-Link, 

Stephane Le Hir, Vice-President of 

Business Development at Kaspersky 

Lab, said “I am very pleased with 

our expanding partnership with D- 

Link, which will provide customers 

with the best possible endpoint 

protection to complement its 

world-class gateway-based security 

solutions.” 

Commenting on the agreement 

with Kaspersky, Richard Chen, SMB 

Director of D-Link, said “We are 

pleased to further strengthen our 

cooperation with Kaspersky. We’ve 

put a lot of effort into developing 

best-in-class solutions for SMBs, and 

this segment is one of our highest 

priorities. Having Kaspersky Lab’s 

solutions in D-Link security devices 

will help us not only to expand our 

distribution channels, but also to 

strengthen our global presence and 

brand equity.” 

The D-Link NetDefend UTM 

Firewall with Kaspersky Business 

Space Security is available immediately 

to D-Link customers at D-Link’s 

Security Portal website: http://security.dlink.com.tw. 

players follow the ancestry of a fictional assassin to 

solve a perilous modern-day mystery. 

Previous instalments have been set during the 

Crusades and in Renaissance Italy and “Assassin’s Creed 

III”-set during the American Revolution-is due for 

release on October 30. A hallmark of the franchise has 

been “historical fiction” that blends rich details from 

past centuries with fantasy characters locked in a battle 

between assassins and Templars hunting for a mysterious 

orb of great power. 

Baronnet said that despite Ubisoft’s experience in 

producing a cinematic computer-generated experience, 

it has decided that a traditional live action film 

would be the best option for “Assassin’s Creed”. ‘Learn 

to exploit it’- 

“Humans convey more emotion on the big screen. 

And it shouldn’t be forgotten that actors bring viewers 

into the cinemas,” he said. Plans are in the works for 

other productions involving Ubisoft’s game franchises, 

Baronnet said, with its motion pictures division separated 

into film and television arms. 

First up will be a television adaptation of its wacky 

“Raving Rabbids” franchise for French public television 

and US children’s channel Nickelodeon, due for broadcast 

next year. 

Plans are also in the works for adaptations of 

Ubisoft’s stealth franchise “Splinter Cell” and tactical 

shooter game “Ghost Recon”. For all of its films, Ubisoft 

will maintain full creative control over scripts, directors, 

casting and budgets, Baronnet said. “We prefer making 

the film a 100 percent by ourselves instead of having a 

studio that could betray the spirit of the license, 

because this would have a negative effect on the 

image of the game,” he said. 

Ubisoft’s move is a smart one, said analyst Laurent 

Michaud of European tech consultancy Idate, especially 

as videogames become more and more cinematic. 

“The videogame is a content creator. Instead of giving 

up this wealth to third parties, it makes more sense 

to learn to exploit it yourself,” he said. “Who is in a better 

position to exploit the value of a licence than the 

one who created it?” — AFP 

San Francisco sours 

on Apple computers 

Tech giant off EPEAT member list 

methods, toxic components, packaging, life spans and 

the ease with which electronics can be recycled. 

EPEAT, which is overseen by the nonprofit Green 

council, was started with a grant from the US 

Environmental Protection Agency but is supported by 

fees manufacturers pay to register products. — AFP 

Apple CEO Tim Cook (right), with Victor Koo (left) at the 

Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, 

Idaho. —AP


00:45 Crime Scene Wild 

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02:35 Sharkbite Beach 

03:30 Up Close And Dangerous 

03:55 Up Close And Dangerous 

04:25 Wild France 

05:20 Stranger Among Bears 

05:45 In Too Deep 

06:10 E-Vets: The Interns 

06:35 E-Vets: The Interns 

07:00 Karina: Wild On Safari 

07:25 Meerkat Manor 

07:50 Bondi Vet 

08:15 Corwin’s Quest 

09:10 Dick ‘n’ Dom Go Wild 

09:35 Breed All About It 

10:05 Crocodile Hunter 

11:00 Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 

11:55 Michaela’s Animal Road Trip 

12:50 Wildlife SOS 

13:45 Animal Planet’s Most 

Outrageous 

14:40 Bad Dog 

17:25 Bad Dog 



20:10 Great Ocean Adventures 

21:05 Wildest Africa 

22:00 Cats 101 

22:55 Great Animal Escapes 

23:20 Great Animal Escapes 

23:50 Untamed & Uncut 

00:20 Walk On The Wild Side 

00:50 Doctors 

01:20 Live At The Apollo 

02:05 The Royle Family 

02:35 The Impressions Show 

03:05 Twenty Twelve 

03:35 Allo ‘allo! 

04:05 Balamory 

04:25 Tellytales 

04:35 Little Prairie Dogs 

04:45 Nina And The Neurons 

05:00 Show Me Show Me 

05:25 Boogie Beebies 

05:40 Charlie And Lola 

05:50 Fimbles 

06:10 Tellytales 

06:20 Little Prairie Dogs 

06:30 Nina And The Neurons 

06:45 Show Me Show Me 

07:10 Boogie Beebies 

07:25 Doctor Who 

08:10 One Foot In The Grave 

08:40 Dinnerladies 

09:10 As Time Goes By 

09:40 The Weakest Link 

10:25 Coast 

11:25 Robin Hood 

12:10 After You’ve Gone 

12:40 2 Point 4 Children 

13:10 Casualty 

14:00 Eastenders 




16:00 Monarch Of The Glen 

16:50 Doctor Who 

17:35 Doctor Who Confidential 

17:45 Robin Hood 

18:30 Allo ‘allo! 

19:00 Rev. 

19:30 Gavin & Stacey 

20:00 Live At The Apollo 

20:45 Fawlty Towers 

21:20 Great Ormand Street 

22:10 The Impressions Show 

22:40 Twenty Twelve 

23:10 The Weakest Link: Scd Special 

00:30 Celebrity Fantasy Homes 

01:20 Celebrity Fantasy Homes 

02:05 MasterChef 


03:25 Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers 

03:55 Rick Stein’s French Odyssey 

04:25 James Martin’s Brittany 



06:05 Living In The Sun 

07:00 Antiques Roadshow 


11:15 Masterchef: The Professionals 

12:05 Masterchef: The Professionals 

13:00 Bargain Hunt 


14:25 Extreme Makeover: Home 

Edition 

15:10 Extreme Makeover: Home 

Edition 

15:50 Come Dine With Me 



21:00 Cash In The Attic 

21:45 Cash In The Attic 



00:00 BBC World News America 

00:30 BBC World News America 

01:00 BBC World News 

01:30 Newsnight 


02:30 Our World 


03:10 Weekend World 

03:30 Collaboration Culture 


04:30 Rendezvous With Zeinab 

Badawi 


05:10 Faster, Higher, Stronger 


06:30 Fast Track 




08:30 Middle East Business Report 


09:30 Click 



10:30 Collaboration Culture 


11:10 World Features 

11:30 Rendezvous With Zeinab 

Badawi 


12:10 The Culture Show Special 

FIGHTING ON OSN ACTION HD 



13:30 Newsnight 


14:30 Our World 





16:15 Sport Today 



17:30 Dateline London 


18:10 Faster, Higher, Stronger 


19:30 Click 




21:15 Sport Today 



22:30 Click 



23:30 Dateline London 

00:10 Puppy In My Pocket 

00:35 Tom & Jerry Kids 

01:00 Scooby Doo Where Are You! 

01:25 The Flintstones 

01:50 Pink Panther And Pals 

02:15 Looney Tunes 

02:40 Popeye Classics 

03:00 Dexter’s Laboratory 

03:25 Tom & Jerry 


04:15 The Scooby Doo Show 

04:40 Johnny Bravo 


05:25 The Jetsons 

05:50 Wacky Races 



06:35 A Pup Named Scooby-Doo 

07:00 Bananas In Pyjamas 

07:25 Jelly Jamm 

07:50 Baby Looney Tunes 

08:15 Gerald McBoing Boing 

08:40 Ha Ha Hairies 


09:15 The Garfield Show 

09:40 What’s New Scooby-Doo? 


10:30 Droopy: Master Detective 

10:55 The Looney Tunes Show 



11:55 Help! It’s The Hair Bear Bunch 




13:00 Wacky Races 

13:10 Dastardly And Muttley 

13:35 The Scooby Doo Show 

14:00 Dexters Laboratory 










18:30 Rockin’ With Judy Jetson 

20:10 The Looney Tunes Show 


21:00 Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries 



22:15 Droopy & Dripple 

TV listings 

22:40 Scooby-Doo And Scrappy-Doo 

23:05 Popeye 

23:20 The Jetsons 

23:45 Duck Dodgers 

00:30 Bakugan: New Vestroia 

00:55 Bakugan: New Vestroia 

01:20 Powerpuff Girls 

02:10 Courage The Cowardly Dog 

03:00 The Amazing World Of 

Gumball 

03:25 Ben 10 

03:50 Adventure Time 


04:40 Generator Rex 

05:05 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 


05:55 Angelo Rules 

06:00 Ed, Edd n Eddy 

06:25 Casper’s Scare School 

07:00 The Powerpuff Girls 

07:15 Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi 

07:40 Total Drama: Revenge Of The 

Island 


Gumball 


08:55 Regular Show 

09:20 Batman Brave And The Bold 

09:45 Young Justice 

10:05 Thundercats 

10:35 Hero 108 

11:00 Redakai: Conquer The Kairu 

11:25 Grim Adventures Of... 

12:15 Courage The Cowardly Dog 




14:45 Thundercats 

15:10 Generator Rex 

15:35 Ben 10 



Gumball 


17:40 Regular Show 


18:55 Ben 10: Alien Force 

19:20 Ben 10: Alien Force 


20:35 Bakugan: Mechtanium Surge 

21:00 Star Wars: The Clone Wars 

21:25 Redakai: Conquer The Kairu 

21:50 Grim Adventures Of... 

22:00 Codename: Kids Next Door 

22:50 Ben 10 

23:15 Ben 10 

23:40 Chowder 

00:00 Amanpour 

00:30 World Sport 

01:00 Piers Morgan Tonight 

02:00 World Report 

03:00 Anderson Cooper 360 

04:00 Piers Morgan Tonight 

05:00 Quest Means Business 

05:45 CNN Marketplace Africa 

06:00 The Situation Room 


07:30 Cnngo 



08:30 Backstory 


09:15 CNN Marketplace Middle East 

09:30 Business Traveller 


10:30 Mainsail 

11:00 The Best Of The Situation Room 



13:00 The Brief 

13:30 Inside Africa 


14:30 Inside The Middle East 

15:00 Talk Asia 

15:30 Eco Solutions 

16:00 Going Green 


17:00 International Desk 

17:30 African Voices 

18:00 CNN Marketplace Europe 


18:30 The Brief 


19:30 Living Golf 


20:30 Inside Africa 


21:30 Cnngo 

22:00 The Best Of The Situation Room 


23:30 Going Green 

00:15 Weird Or What? 

01:10 Sons Of Guns 

01:35 How Sports Are Made 

02:05 How Sports Are Made 

02:30 Wheeler Dealers Revisited 

03:25 Fifth Gear 

03:55 Fifth Gear 


05:15 How Do They Do It? 

05:40 How It’s Made 

06:05 Swamp Loggers 

07:00 How It’s Made 

07:25 Building The Future 

08:15 Mega Builders 

09:10 Extreme Engineering 

10:05 World’s Toughest Tools 

10:55 Man, Woman, Wild 

11:50 Alaska’s Great Race 

12:45 Ultimate Survival 

13:40 Ultimate Survival 

14:35 World’s Toughest Jobs 

15:30 Coal 

16:25 Extreme Fishing 

17:20 Hillbilly Handfishin’ 

18:15 Tornado Road 

19:10 Finding Bigfoot 

20:05 Gold Rush 

21:00 Deadliest Catch 

21:55 Hillbilly Handfishin’ 

22:50 Extreme Fishing 

23:45 River Monsters: Lair Of Giants 

00:35 Superships 

01:25 Science Of The Movies 

02:15 Game Changers 


03:05 The Gadget Show 

03:35 Da Vinci’s Machines 

04:25 Moon Machines 

05:15 Superships 

06:05 Science Of The Movies 



07:50 Prank Science 

08:15 Prank Science 

08:40 Head Rush 

08:43 Things That Move 

09:10 Things That Move 

09:40 Nextworld 

10:30 Sport Science 





14:45 Prophets Of Science Fiction 

15:35 Ecopolis 

16:30 Future Weapons 

17:20 Meteorite Men 


18:40 Scrapheap Challenge 

19:30 Mega World 

20:20 Futurecar 


22:00 Investigation X 

22:50 Futurecar 

23:40 Prophets Of Science Fiction 

00:10 Fairly Odd Parents 


01:00 Brandy & Mr Whiskers 


01:50 Replacements 


02:40 Emperor’s New School 

03:05 Emperor’s New School 







06:00 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 

06:25 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 

06:40 The Suite Life Of Zack And 

Cody 

07:05 So Random 

07:30 Phineas And Ferb 

07:55 Shake It Up 

08:20 Good Luck Charlie 

08:45 Wizards Of Waverly Place 

09:10 Jessie 

09:35 A.N.T. Farm 

10:00 Austin & Ally 

10:25 Cadet Kelly 

12:05 Fish Hooks 



13:20 A.N.T. Farm



14:10 Jessie 



15:25 Phineas And Ferb 


16:15 So Random 

16:40 Jessie 

17:00 Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure 







20:50 Cadet Kelly 



Cody 


Cody 

23:45 Sonny With A Chance 

00:30 The Haunted 

01:20 Crime Scene Psychics 

02:05 True CSI 

02:55 On The Case With Paula Zahn 

03:45 Extreme Forensics 


05:20 Crime Scene Psychics 

06:10 Disappeared 

07:00 Forensic Detectives 

07:50 Murder Shift 

08:40 Mystery ER 

09:30 Real Emergency Calls 

09:55 Who On Earth Did I Marry? 


















22:50 Ghost Lab 

23:40 A Haunting 

00:00 Treks In A Wild World 

01:00 Banged Up Abroad 

02:00 Travel Oz 


03:00 Meet The Natives: USA 

04:00 Which Way To 






09:00 Deadliest Journeys 

09:30 Chasing Che: Latin America On 

A Motorcycle 

10:00 Don’t Tell My Mother 

11:00 The Ride: Alaska To Patagonia 


12:00 The Green Way Up 







17:00 Departures 


19:00 One Man & His Campervan 


20:00 Extreme Tourist Afghanistan 

21:00 Travel Madness 


22:00 Into The Drink 


23:00 Somewhere In China 












09:00 Deadliest Journeys 

09:30 Chasing Che: Latin America On 

A Motorcycle 

10:00 Don’t Tell My Mother 










17:00 Departures 




20:00 Extreme Tourist Afghanistan 





23:00 Somewhere In China 

00:00 Master of Disaster 

01:00 Apocalypse: The Second World 

War 

02:00 Big, Bigger, Biggest 

03:00 Fight Science 

04:00 Hunter Hunted 

05:00 The Known Universe 

06:00 Untamed Americas 

07:00 Perilous Journeys 



War 


11:00 Fight Masters 


13:00 The Known Universe 

14:00 Untamed Americas 

15:00 Perilous Journeys 



War 


19:00 World’s Deadliest Animals 

20:00 Shark Men 


22:00 Sea Patrol 

23:00 Salvage Code Red 

00:00 Wild Russia 

01:00 Built For The Kill 

01:55 World’s Wildest Encounters 

02:50 Swamp Men 

03:45 Fairy Penguins: The Secret of 

Sydney Harbour 

04:40 Expedition Wild 

05:35 Shark Men 

06:30 Salmon Wars 

07:25 World Wild Web 

07:50 Savannah 

08:20 Dam Beavers 

09:15 Caught In The Act 

10:10 Leopard Queen 

11:05 Dangerous Encounters 


13:00 Wild Chronicles 

13:30 Wild Chronicles 

14:00 Kangaroo Kaos 




18:00 Killer Dragons 




22:00 Killer Dragons 


FASTER ON OSN CINEMA 

00:00 Hallowed Ground-PG15 

02:00 Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call - 

New Orleans-18 

04:00 Jackass 3.5-R 

06:00 Four Brothers-18 

08:00 Returner-PG15 

10:00 Red Faction: Origins-PG15 

12:00 Fighting-PG15 

14:00 Returner-PG15 

16:00 Taxi-PG15 

18:00 Fighting-PG15 

19:45 13 Assassins-18 

22:00 The Net-PG15 

01:00 Brighton Rock-PG15 

03:00 How Do You Know-PG15 

05:00 Return To Rajapur-PG15 

07:00 True Story Of Puss’n Boots-PG 

09:00 Not Since You-PG15 

11:00 Arthur And The Revenge Of 

Maltazard-PG 

13:00 Happy Ever Afters-PG15 

15:00 Oceans-PG15 

17:00 Shanghai-PG15 

19:00 Faster-PG15 

21:00 Take Me Home Tonight-18 

23:00 Biutiful-18 

00:30 The Daily Show With Jon 

Stewart 

01:30 Curb Your Enthusiasm 

02:30 Two And A Half Men 

03:00 New Girl 

03:30 Melissa & Joey 

04:00 Til Death 

04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay 

Leno 

05:30 The Simpsons 

06:00 Friends 

06:30 Mad Love 

TV listings 

07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 


08:30 New Girl 


09:30 30 Rock 

10:00 Modern Family 



Leno 

12:00 Friends 




14:00 Melissa & Joey 

14:30 Modern Family 

15:00 30 Rock 


Stewart 

16:30 Friends 


18:00 Best Friends Forever 

18:30 Perfect Couples 

19:00 The Office 


Leno 


Stewart 

22:00 Saturday Night Live 

23:00 Two And A Half Men 


00:00 Jane By Design 

01:00 Smash 

02:00 The Bachelor 

03:00 Fairly Legal 

04:00 The Killing 

05:00 Good Morning America 

07:00 The Glades 

08:00 Castle 

10:00 The Martha Stewart Show 

11:00 The View 



14:00 Smash 

15:00 Live Good Morning America 

16:00 The Glades 

19:00 C.S.I. 

20:00 C.S.I. Miami 

21:00 C.S.I. New York 

22:00 Law & Order: Criminal Intent 

23:00 The Killing 

00:00 Cold Case 

01:00 Smash 

02:00 The River 


04:00 Smash 



07:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 

08:00 Inside The Actor’s Studio 



12:00 Emmerdale 

12:30 Coronation Street 


14:00 Castle 


16:00 Emmerdale 

16:30 Coronation Street 


18:00 Body Of Proof 

19:00 C.S.I. 

20:00 C.S.I. Miami 

21:00 C.S.I. New York 

22:00 Law & Order: Criminal Intent 

23:00 The River 

01:00 Road To Perdition-18 

03:00 The Siege-18 

05:00 S.W.A.T.: Firefight-PG15 

07:00 True Justice: Deadly Crossing- 

PG15 

09:00 Shanghai Noon-PG15 

11:00 S.W.A.T.: Firefight-PG15 

13:00 No Time To Fear-PG15 

15:00 Shanghai Noon-PG15 

17:00 Arctic Predator-PG15 

19:00 Talento De Barrio-PG15 

21:00 The Net-PG15 

23:00 Seventh Moon-18 

00:00 Mr. Nice-18 

02:15 Dickie Roberts: Former Child 

Star-PG15 

04:00 Inspector Gadget (1999)-PG15 

06:00 The Addams Family-PG 

08:00 Love And Mary-PG15 

10:00 For Richer Or Poorer-PG 

12:00 Addams Family Values-PG 

14:00 Last Holiday-PG15 

16:00 For Richer Or Poorer-PG 

18:00 Hitch-PG15 

20:00 Dodgeball: A True Underdog 

Story-PG15 

22:00 Tucker Max-R 

02:30 Gilles’ Wife-PG15 

04:15 Munich-18 

07:00 Don’t Fade Away-PG15 

09:00 The Great Gatsby-PG 

11:30 Spartacus-PG15 

14:45 Get Low-PG15 

16:30 Entre Les Murs-PG15 

18:45 Thelma And Louise-PG15 

21:00 I Capture The Castle-18 

23:00 On Strike For Christmas-PG15 

00:00 Daydream Nation-PG15 

01:45 Despicable Me-FAM 

03:30 Mean Girls 2-PG15 

05:15 Ramona And Beezus-PG 

07:00 Battle: Los Angeles-PG15 

09:00 That’s What I Am-PG15 

10:45 Charlie St. Cloud-PG15 

12:30 Stone Of Destiny-PG15 

14:15 Mars Needs Moms-PG 

15:45 That’s What I Am-PG15 

17:30 Transformers: Dark Of The 

Moon-PG15 

20:00 Roadie-PG15 

22:00 Love And Other Drugs-R 

00:30 NRL Premiership 

02:30 PGA European Tour 

07:00 Trans World Sport 

08:00 PGA European Tour Weekly 

08:30 Live Super Rugby 



14:30 Trans World Sport 

15:30 Futbol Mundial 




22:00 PGA European Tour 

00:00 Super Rugby 

02:00 WWE SmackDown 

04:00 WWE Bottom Line 


07:00 Live AFL Premiership 


10:30 Live NRL Premiership 


14:30 PGA European Tour Weekly 

15:00 Live PGA European Tour 



23:30 Super Rugby 

00:00 NRL Full Time 


01:00 Volvo Ocean Race Highlights 

02:00 AFL Premiership 

04:30 Total Rugby 

05:00 Golfing World 

06:00 World Pool Masters 


07:30 European PGA Tour 




17:00 Live Rugby League 

19:00 Mobil 1 The Grid 

19:30 AFL Premiership 

22:00 Live Sailing World Match 

Racing Tour 

00:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter 

01:00 WWE Smackdown 


04:00 UFC 



10:00 WWE NXT 

11:00 WWE Vintage Collection 


12:30 Live AFL Premiership 

15:30 V8 Supercars Extra 

16:00 V8 Supercars Highlights 

17:00 V8 Supercars Highlights 



21:00 UFC


Kuwait on top in 1st Kuwait Int’l 

Kyokushin Karate Tournament 

The Kuwait Committee of 

Kyokushin Karate (KCKK) derived 

from the Kuwait Olympic 

Committee held its 1st International 

Kyokushin Karate Tournament on July 6 

and 7, 2012 in the Kuwait Judo and 

Taekwondo Federation in Sabah Al- 

Salem Area with 46 fighter from 16 

countries: Japan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, 

Hungary, Netherlands, Greece, Britain, 

Saudi, Jordan, Lebanon etc. and international 

referees from Japan, Uzbekistan, 

Nederland, Britain, Russia, Lebanon and 

Kuwait. 

Kuwait national team achieved 1st 

place under 85, 2nd place under 65, 2nd 

place juniors plus four silver medals. 

KCKK guests of honor included Shihan 

Loek Hollander from the Netherlands, 

Shihan Yoshikazu Koi from Japan, 

Shihan David Pickthall from United 

Kingdom. 

The president of Kuwait Committee 

Announcements 

Indian Embassy 

passport and visa 

Passports and Visa applications can be deposited at the two 

outsourced centers of M/S BLS Ltd at Sharq and Fahaheel. 

Details are available at www.bls-international.com and 

www.indembkwt.org . 

Consular Open House 

Consular Wing is providing daily service of Open House to 

Indian citizens on all workings days from 1000 hrs to 1100 hrs 

and from 1430 hrs to 1530 hrs by the Consular Officer in the 

Meeting Room of the Consular Hall at the Embassy. For any 

unaddressed issues, Second Secretary (Consular) can be contacted. 

Furthermore, the head of the Consular Wing is also 

available to redress grievances. 

Indian workers helpline/helpdesk 

Indian workers helpline is accessible by toll free telephone 

number 25674163 from all over Kuwait. It provides information 

and advice to Indian workers as regards their grievances, immigration 

and other matters. The help desk at the Embassy (Open 

from 9AM to 1PM and 2PM to 4:30PM, Sunday to Thursday) 

provides guidance to Indian nationals on routine immigration, 

employment, legal and other issues. It also provides workers 

assistance in filling up labour complaint forms. For any unaddressed 

issues, the concerned attachÈ in the Labour section 

and the head of the Labour Wing can be contacted. 

Basal Al-Bannay said that the great 

achievement of Kuwaiti team in this 

international event was the result of 

hard work done in past courses and 

tournaments both in Kuwait and internationally 

and we are very proud of all 

the results which were an indication of 

the high level and standard of 

Kyokushin training in Kuwait. 

Kuwait national team achieved 1st 

place under 85, 2nd place under 65, 2nd 

place juniors plus four silver medals. 

Results 

Junior Category 

1st Daniel Marmarosi (Hungary) 

2nd Thari Alonizi (Kuwait) 

3rd Ali Abdulaziz (Kuwait) 

3rd Furiz Karomatov (Tajikistan) 

65kg Category 

1st Darren Stringer (GB) 

2nd Jassem Malik (Kuwait) 

3rd Abdulaziz Saed (Bahrain) 

3rd Mohammed Al Rifai (Syria) 

75kg Category 

1st Abdulrahman Abu Alhassan 

(Saudi Arabia) 

2nd Suliman Al Suliman (Saudi 

Arabia) 

3rd Ahmad Algathban (Kuwait) 

3rd Mubarak Al Sager (Kuwait) 

85kg Category 

1st Salim Al Rashid (Kuwait) 

2nd Mutal Nazarov (Uzbekistan) 

3rd Essa Bo Al Qassem (Kuwait) 

3rd Aiman Swidan (Syria) 

+85kg Category 

1st Ferry Hoogeveen (Holland) 

2nd Richard Lizak (Hungary) 

3rd Hamad Mamdoh (Jordan) 

3rd Masaaki Shimajiri (Japan) 

Legal Advice Clinic 

Free legal advice is provided on matters pertaining to labour disputes, 

terms of contracts with employers, death/accident compensation, 

withholding of dues by employers, etc. by lawyers on our panel, 

to Indian nationals on all working days between 1500hrs to 1600hrs. 

Ambassador’s Open House 

The Open House for Indian citizens by the Ambassador is being 

held on all Wednesdays at the Embassy for redressal of grievances. In 

case Wednesday is an Embassy holiday, the meeting will be held on 

the next working day. 

‘Leniency of Islam’ 

An unprecedented initiative of KTV2 (English channel) is the new program 

by the name ‘Leniency of Islam’ presented by Shaikh Musaad 

Alsane and directed by Hamid Al-Turkait. The program is mainly 

meant to address the expatriates living in Kuwait. Religious questions 

are received through the program email qislam@tv.gov.kw and sms 

can be sent to- 97822021 and answered by the lecturer and Imam in 

Awqaf Ministry Shaikh Musaad Alsane - a Master Degree holder in 

Sharia and fiqih from Kuwait University. So don’t forget to watch the 

program every Friday at 1:00 pm. 

Free Arabic course 

IPC is opening an Intensive Basic Arabic Course for ladies commencing 

from June 3 to July 8, 2012. The class will be from 5-7 pm for three days 

a week. Registration is on! For information, call 22512257. 

what’s on 

Embassy 

Information 

EMBASSY OF AUSTRALIA 

The Australian Embassy Kuwait does not have 

a visa or immigration department. All processing 

of visas and immigration matters in 

conducted by The Australian Consulate- 

General in Dubai. Email: 

info.ausdxb@vfshelpline.com (VFS) 

immigration.dubai@dfat.gov.au (Visa Office); Tel: 

+971 4 355 1958 (VFS) - +971 4 508 7200 (Visa 

Office); Fax: +971 4 355 0708 (Visa Office). In Kuwait 

applications can be lodged at the Australian Visa 

Application Centre 4B 1st Floor, Al-Banwan Building 

Al-Qibla Area, Ali Al-Salem Street, opposite the 

Central Bank of Kuwait, Kuwait City, Kuwait. Working 

hours and days: 09:30 - 17:30; Sunday - Thursday. Or 

visit their website www.vfs-au-gcc-com for more 

information. Kuwait citizens can apply for tourist 

visas on-line at www.immi.gov.au/e visa/e676.htm 

■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ 

EMBASSY OF BRAZIL 

The Embassy of Brazil requests all Brazilian citizens 

in Kuwait to proceed to the website 

www.brazil.org.kw (Contact Us Form / Fale 

Conosco) in order to register or update contact 

information. The Embassy encourages all citizens to 

do so, including the ones who have already registered 

in person at the Embassy. The registration process 

helps the Brazilian Government to contact and assist 

Brazilians living abroad in case of any emergency. 

■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ 

EMBASSY OF BRITAIN 

Consular section at the British Embassy will be 

starting an online appointment booking system 

for our consular customers from Sunday, 01 July 

2012. All information including how to make an 

appointment is now available on the embassy website. In 

addition, there is also a “Consular Appointment System” 

option under Quick links on the right hand side on the 

homepage, which should take you to the “Consular 

online booking appointment system” main page. 

Please be aware that from 01 July 2012, we will no longer 

accept walk-in customers for legalisation, notarial services 

and certificates (birth, death and marriages). If you have 

problems accessing the system or need to make an 

appointment for non-notarial consular issues or have a 

consular emergency, please call 2259 4355/7/8 or email 

us on consularenquirieskuwait@fco.gov.uk. If you require 

consular assistance out of office hours (working hours: 

0730-l430 hrs), please contact the Embassy on 2259 4320. 

■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ 

EMBASSY OF KOREA 

The Embassy of the Republic of Korea wishes 

to inform that it has moved to Mishref. New 

Address: Embassy of the Republic of Korea 

Mishref, Block 7A, Diplomatic Area 2, Plot 6 

The Embassy also wishes to inform that it will be 

opened to the public on the following office hours: 

Saturday to Thursday Morning: 8:00 am to 12:30 pm 

Lunch Break: 12:30 pm to 1:00 pm 

Afternoon: 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm 

■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ 

EMBASSY OF KENYA 

The Embassy of the Republic of Kenya wishes 

to inform Kenyan residents throughout Kuwait 

and the general public that with effect from 

June 1, 2012 the Embassy has moved from its current 

location to a new location in Surra Block 1, Street 8, 

Villa 303. Please note that the new telephone and fax 

numbers will be communicated as soon as possible. 

For enquiries you can contact Consular Section on 

mobile 90935162 or 97527306. 

■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ 

EMBASSY OF PAKISTAN 

During the holy month of Ramadan the 

general working hours at the Embassy of 

Islamic Republic of Pakistan will be from 8 

am till 2 pm.

SATURDAY, JULY 14, 2012


NEW YORK: Obese and overweight 

people are more likely to develop 

colon polyps, a possible precursor to 

cancer, than slimmer people, according 

to an international study. 

Previous studies have made the connection 

between obesity and colon 

cancer, a link recognized by the US 

National Cancer Institute. But the 

current study, which appeared in the 

American Journal of 

Gastroenterology, is the first to point 

to a higher risk of colon polyps - also 

known as adenomas - in heavy people. 

“Because there is a known asso- 

ciation between obesity and cancer, 

there is a logical extension to expect 

a connection between obesity and 

the step before cancer, which is adenoma,” 

said Hutan Ashrafian from 

Imperial College, London, who coauthored 

the study. Ashrafian and 

his colleagues analyzed data from 23 

studies involving more than 100,000 

people across the United States, Asia 

and Europe, looking at the relationship 

between polyps and body mass 

index, or BMI, a measure of weight 

relative to height. 

All the studies followed World 

Health Organization (WHO) guidelines 

that define people with a BMI 

over 25 as overweight and above 30 

as obese. In most studies, polyps 

were identified during colonoscopy 

procedures while two large studies 

used self-reported questionnaires. 

Overall, researchers found that 22 

percent of overweight and obese 

people had colon polyps, compared 

to 19 percent in people of normal 

weight. The polyp risk grew with 

increasing BMI. 

“The findings suggest that obesity 

may be having an effect (on cancer 

health & science 

Heavy people more likely to have colon polyps 

HYDERABAD: Indian exhibitors display cows preserved in formaldehyde at the 

Animal Husbandry and Dairy Development Exhibition and Conference Dairy Show in 

Hyderabad yesterday. —AFP 

It’s not lunacy: Not-a-planet 

Pluto boasts five moons 

LOS ANGELES : Pluto may have been 

kicked out of the planet club, but it has 

gained yet another companion. 

Scientists announced Wednesday the 

discovery of the smallest moon yet 

around the icy orb, bringing the tally of 

known moons to five. “We’re not finished 

searching yet,” said Hal Weaver of 

Johns Hopkins University, who thinks 

there may be more lurking. 

The discovery was made by a team 

of scientists who used the Hubble 

Space Telescope to scout out Pluto’s 

neighborhood ahead of a NASA spacecraft 

that’s scheduled to arrive in 2015. 

When the New Horizons craft launched 

in 2006, Pluto was a full-fledged planet, 

but has since been demoted to dwarf 

planet status by the International 

Astronomical Union. 

The newfound moon - known as P5 

until it gets a proper name - appeared 

as a faint fleck in the Hubble images. 

Scientists estimated the mini-moon to 

be 6 to 15 miles across, smaller than the 

still nameless one that they spotted last 

year, which is 8 to 21 miles wide. Pluto’s 

largest moon, the 650-mile-wide 

Charon, was discovered in 1978. Two 

smaller moons, Nix and Hydra, were 

found in 2005. 

The moons are thought to have 

formed after an ancient collision 

between Pluto and an object in the 

Kuiper Belt, a disk teeming with small 

bodies that lies beyond the orbit of 

Neptune. Since the launch of the New 

Horizons mission, scientists have been 

studying the Kuiper Belt in search of 

debris that might pose a danger to the 

spacecraft. 

Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute 

said names for the new moon and last 

year’s discovery will not be proposed 

until the team finishes analyzing the 

Hubble data in case there are more hidden 

moons. 

Showalter said he favors names that 

go together - like the mythological 

Greek couple Orpheus and Eurydice. “If 

we happen to find more moons, then 

we will have to pick a different story 

from Greek mythology,” he said in an 

email. —AP 

MANILA: Philippine authorities seized 

some 1,500 live aquarium fish and about 

150 live pieces of brain coral at a Manila 

pier yesterday just before they were to be 

shipped to Japan. The fish and corals in 

water-filled plastic bags stored in styrofoam 

boxes were seized by quarantine officers, 

said fisheries bureau law enforcement 

chief Andres Menguito. 

He said the fish and corals were headed 

for Japan and likely being smuggled 

because there was no permit to export 

them. Nobody who had been transporting 

the aquatic species could be found. “The 

quarantine officers were able to inspect the 

cargo. Perhaps when the person in charge 

of the fish saw some quarantine officers 

NAIROBI: Cholera is rising in the last major 

town held by Somalia’s Al-Qaeda linked 

Shehab, with most of those stricken by the 

disease children, the World Health 

Organization (WHO) warned yesterday. The 

UN agency “is very much concerned about 

the increased number of cholera cases, particularly 

in Kismayo town,” it said in a statement, 

warning that the infectious diarrhoeal 

disease could kill within hours if 

untreated. 

“One health facility did a rapid test 

among a sample of 10 patients, and a total 

of six cases tested positive for cholera,” the 

development) much earlier than we 

thought,” said Ashrafian, who with 

his fellow authors recommended 

timely colon cancer screening for 

overweight and obese people. The 

findings couldn’t say whether obesity 

causes polyps by itself, but if it 

does, that may be bad news for a 

world where obesity is on the rise. 

According to the World Health 

Organization, about 500 million people 

worldwide are obese. Colon cancer 

killed more than half a million 

people worldwide in 2008, WHO figures 

show. — Reuters 

1,500 fish, corals 

seized at Manila pier 

were already inspecting, they disappeared,” 

Menguito told AFP. 

The officer expressed hope suspects 

could be traced through documents used 

to bring the fish, hidden inside some cartons, 

to the pier. 

The export of live aquarium fish without 

a permit is forbidden, and gathering or 

possessing corals is illegal in the 

Philippines. 

A conviction for those crimes can lead to 

up to eight years in prison, Menguito said. 

Environmentalists have previously warned 

excessive harvesting of ornamental fish 

and other marine resources from the 

Philippines could threaten the country’s 

fish stocks and other sea life. —AFP 

Cholera grows in Somali 

insurgent bastion: WHO 

WHO statement read. Of the 65 patients 

treated so far, 40 required “immediate hospitalisation”, 

it added-and most of the cases 

were children aged below eight. 

Hardline Shebab fighters still control 

large parts of southern Somalia, but are left 

with the southern port of Kismayo as the 

last major town they control, after attacks 

by AU troops, government forces and 

Ethiopian soldiers. Kismayo is blockaded at 

sea and on land, with main supply routes 

strangled by encircling forces. Kenyan 

troops in the AU force have vowed to seize 

the town by the end of August. — AFP 

BAIKONUR: A camel stands in front of the space communication antennas at the 

Russian leased Kazakh Baikonur cosmodrome yesterday. The launch of the spacecraft 

to the International Space Station with the next ISS crew including US astronaut 

Sunita Williams, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Japanese astronaut 

Akihiko Hoshide aboard is scheduled tomorrow. —AFP


health & science

CLASSIFIEDS 

Hospitals 

Sabah Hospital 24812000 

Amiri Hospital 22450005 

Maternity Hospital 24843100 

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital 25312700 

Chest Hospital 24849400 

Farwaniya Hospital 24892010 

Adan Hospital 23940620 

Ibn Sina Hospital 24840300 

Al-Razi Hospital 24846000 

Physiotherapy Hospital 24874330/9 

Clinics 

Rabiya 24732263 

Rawdha 22517733 

Adailiya 22517144 

Khaldiya 24848075 

Khaifan 24849807 

Shamiya 24848913 

Shuwaikh 24814507 

Abdullah Salim 22549134 

Al-Nuzha 22526804 

Industrial Shuwaikh 24814764 

Al-Qadisiya 22515088 

Dasmah 22532265 

Bneid Al-Ghar 22531908 

Al-Shaab 22518752 

Al-Kibla 22459381 

Ayoun Al-Kibla 22451082 

Mirqab 22456536 

Sharq 22465401 

Salmiya 25746401 

Jabriya 25316254 

Maidan Hawally 25623444 

Bayan 25388462 

ACCOMMODATION 

Fully furnished sharing 

accommodation available for 

an executive bachelor or 

couples with kitchen facilities 

and utilities. This flat is a 

2 bed, with 2 bathrooms (1single 

Indian type) front big 

hall as drawing and dining. 

Contact: 66639625/ 

24340491 after 4:30 pm. 

(C 4076) 

12-7-2012 

Accommodation available 

for two decent bachelors or a 

small family in a 2 bedroom 

spacious apartment in Shaab 

Al-Behri, opposite Bush 

Plaza, rent is very reasonable. 

Contact: 66541343. (C 4074) 

10-7-2012 

MATRIMONIAL 

Proposals are invited for a 

highly qualified, well settled 

Male, 28 year old Latin 

Catholic boy from Cochin 

working at a Semi 

Government firm in Kuwait, 

from parents of catholic girls. 

Interested may please email 

to edamana28@gmail.com 

(C 4078) 

14-7-2012 

SITUATION VACANT 

Full time live out maid/nanny 

for three months, starting 

mid July. Must have own residency. 

Work from 7am to 

7pm, Saturday - Thursday in 

Salwa. Call 97687172 for 

interview. 

7-7-2012 


FOR SALE 

Mitsubishi Lancer Ex-2008, 

green color (new body) 

62000km, price KD 1,950/-. 

Contact: 50699345. 

(C 4075) 

10-7-2012 

CHANGE OF NAME 

“I, VALLATH KOZHIPILLIL 

NARAYANANKUTTY also known 

as NANDAN MENON, holding 

Indian Passport No: Z1120130 of 

SREEBHADRA, Chandrathil 

Road, Edappally PO, Cochin - 

682024 hereby change my 

name as VALLATH KOZHIPILLIL 

NARAYANANKUTTY NANDAN 

MENON”. (C 4077) 

14-7-2012 

No: 15508 

112 

THE PUBLIC 

AUTHORITY FOR 

CIVIL INFORMATION 

Automated enquiry 

about the Civil ID card is 1889988 

Prayer timings 

Fajr: 03:25 

Duhr: 11:54 

Asr: 15:29 

Maghrib: 18:50 

Isha: 20:20


Arrival Flights on Saturday 14/7/2012 

Airlines Flt Route Time 

JZR 185 DUBAI 0:15 

QTR 148 DOHA 0:20 

MEA 408 BEIRUT 1:00 

SAI 441 LAHORE 1:30 

PIA 239 ISLAMABAD 2:05 

RJA 642 AMMAN 2:10 

GFA 211 BAHRAIN 2:20 

UAE 853 DUBAI 2:25 

ETD 305 ABU DHABI 2:30 

OMA 643 MUSCAT 2:50 

THY 768 ISTANBUL 2:50 

DHX 370 BAHRAIN 2:55 

FDB 67 DUBAI 3:10 

MSR 612 CAIRO 3:20 

QTR 138 DOHA 3:25 

JZR 503 LUXOR 3:55 


JZR 1541 CAIRO 4:55 


JZR 555 ALEXANDRIA 6:00 

KAC 412 MANILA 6:15 

BAW 157 LONDON 6:30 

KAC 416 JAKARTA 6:35 

JZR 529 ASSIUT 6:40 

KAC 206 ISLAMABAD 7:15 

KAC 382 DELHI 7:30 


KAC 302 MUMBAI 7:50 

KAC 352 COCHIN 8:05 

KAC 284 DHAKA 8:15 

KAC 344 CHENNAI 8:20 

KAC 362 COLOMBO 8:20 


ABY 125 SHARJAH 8:30 

QTR 132 DOHA 9:00 



BAB 436 BAHRAIN 9:35 


IRA 3407 MASHAD 10:10 


MSR 618 ALEXANDRIA 11:25 

IRM 5066 MASHAD 11:55 

JZR 325 NAJAF 12:30 



KAC 673 DUBAI 13:40 


KNE 472 JEDDAH 14:15 


QTR 140 DOHA 14:25 

SVA 500 JEDDAH 14:30 

KAC 562 AMMAN 14:30 

JZR 241 AMMAN 14:40 



KAC 788 JEDDAH 15:00 

JZR 257 BEIRUT 15:00 

QTR 134 DOHA 15:15 

IRC 6791 MASHAD 15:25 

KAC 538 SHARM EL SHEIKH 15:30 

IZG 4161 MASHAD 15:45 

KAC 118 NEW YORK 16:00 



UAL 982 WASHINGTON DC DULLES 17:10 


SVA 510 RIYADH 17:20 


JZR 777 JEDDAH 17:40 


KAC 176 GENEVA 17:45 

KAC 502 BEIRUT 18:00 

KAC 542 CAIRO 18:15 

QTR 144 DOHA 18:20 

JZR 125 BAHRAIN 18:30 




KAC 104 LONDON 18:45 

QTR 6130 DOHA 19:00 

MSR 620 ASSIUT 19:10 

KAC 618 DOHA 19:20 


IRM 5064 MASHAD 19:30 

JAI 572 MUMBAI 19:35 


KAC 774 RIYADH 19:40 

IRA 607 MASHAD 19:50 

AXB 393 KOZHIKODE 19:55 



QTR 146 DOHA 20:25 

KNE 460 MEDINAH 20:25 

KAC 790 MEDINAH 20:25 



ALK 229 COLOMBO 20:55 

KLM 415 AMSTERDAM 21:05 



BBC 43 DHAKA 21:25 

SYR 341 DAMASCUS 21:30 


QTR 136 DOHA 21:35 


KAC 614 BAHRAIN 22:00 

JZR 513 SHARM EL SHEIKH 22:00 



AIC 975 CHENNAI 22:25 


UAL 981 BAHRAIN 22:40 

FDB 8053 DUBAI 23:05 

DLH 636 FRANKFURT 23:10 





Departure Flights on Saturday 14/7/2012 

Airlines Flt Route Time 

AIC 976 GOA 0:05 

UAL 981 WASHINGTON 0:25 

DLH 637 FRANKFURT 0:30 



KLM 413 AMSTERDAM 0:55 



SAI 442 LAHORE 2:30 

PIA 240 SIALKOT 3:20 








QTR 139 DOHA 4:50 

QTR 149 DOHA 5:40 






BAW 156 LONDON 8:25 



JZR 324 AL NAJAF 9:05 


JZR 240 AMMAN 9:10 

KAC 561 AMMAN 9:15 




QTR 133 DOHA 10:00 

KAC 101 LONDON 10:00 

KAC 537 SHARM EL SHEIKH 10:00 


DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION 

In case you are not travelling, your proper cancellation 

of bookings will help other passengers to use seats 

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw) 

information 

KAC 107 GENEVA 10:10 




IRA 3406 MASHHAD 11:10 


KAC 165 ROME 11:45 

KAC 501 BEIRUT 12:00 

JZR 776 JEDDAH 12:15 

MSR 619 ASSIUT 12:25 



IRM 5065 MASHHAD 13:25 

GFA 220 BAHRAIN 14:25 








KAC 617 DOHA 15:45 



JZR 512 SHARM EL SHEIKH 15:55 

KAC 789 MADINAH 16:00 

SVA 505 JEDDAH 16:00 

QTR 135 DOHA 16:15 

IRC 6792 MASHHAD 16:25 

KAC 773 RIYADH 16:25 

IZG 4162 MASHHAD 16:45 


QTR 141 DOHA 17:45 





UAL 982 BAHRAIN 18:30 

SVA 511 RIYADH 18:35 


KAC 613 BAHRAIN 19:00 

QTR 145 DOHA 19:20 



KAC 283 DHAKA 19:30 


MSR 621 ALEXANDRIA 20:10 

QTR 6131 DOHA 20:30 

KAC 153 ISTANBUL 20:30 


IRM 5063 MASHHAD 20:40 

IRA 604 ISFAHAN 20:50 

KAC 331 TRIVANDRUM 20:50 

KAC 351 KOCHI 21:05 








ALK 230 COLOMBO 21:55 

KLM 415 DAMMAM 22:05 

JZR 1540 CAIRO 22:05 


KAC 381 DELHI 22:20 


SYR 342 DAMASCUS 22:30 

QTR 137 DOHA 22:35 

KAC 301 MUMBAI 22:40 

KAC 205 ISLAMABAD 22:45 


JZR 554 ALEXANDRIA 23:00 



BBC 44 CHITTAGONG 23:05 

AXB 394 KOCHI 23:10 

QTR 147 DOHA 23:10 


KAC 411 BANGKOK 23:40 

FDB 8054 DUBAI 23:45


Word Sleuth 

Solution 

Yesterdayʼs Solution 

C R O S S W O R D 7 3 6 

ACROSS 

1. A secret agent hired by a state to obtain (military) information 

about its enemies or by a business to obtain industrial secrets from 

competitors. 

4. (British) A cup of tea. 

9. North American woodland herb similar to and used as substitute for 

the Chinese ginseng. 

13. Towards the side away from the wind. 

14. An independent ruler or chieftain (especially in Africa or Arabia). 

15. South American armadillo with three bands of bony plates. 

16. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth. 

17. A family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in southeastern Asia. 

18. A Russian river. 

19. Shrubby tree widely distributed along tropical shores. 

21. (Greek mythology) Son of Daedalus. 

24. A state of confusion and disorderliness. 

25. A domed or vaulted recess or projection on a building especially 

the east end of a church. 

28. Genus of tall smooth herbs of forested mountains of Europe and 

Asia minor. 

30. An indehiscent fruit derived from a single ovary having one or 

many seeds within a fleshy wall or pericarp. 

32. (Akkadian) God of wisdom. 

35. An accountant certified by the state. 

36. A radioactive transuranic element. 

38. English monk and scholar (672-735). 

40. A region of Malaysia in northeastern Borneo. 

42. An official prosecutor for a judicial district. 

43. A white soft metallic element that tarnishes readily. 

44. A colorless and odorless inert gas. 

45. A light strong brittle gray toxic bivalent metallic element. 

46. An African river that flows northwest into Lake Chad. 

49. A detailed description of design criteria for a piece of work. 

54. Away from the mouth or oral region. 

57. An anxiety disorder characterized by chronic free-floating anxiety 

and such symptoms as tension or sweating or trembling of lightheadedness 

or irritability etc that has lasted for more than six months. 

60. A quantity of no importance. 

61. A master's degree in business. 

62. A large fleet. 

64. Tag the base runner to get him out. 

65. A rapid escape (as by criminals). 

66. African tree having an exceedingly thick trunk and fruit that 

resembles a gourd and has an edible pulp called monkey bread. 

67. An agency of the United Nations affiliated with the World Bank. 

DOWN 

1. Winning all or all but one of the tricks in bridge. 

2. Having nine hinged bands of bony plates. 

3. Not only so, but. 

4. A block of solid substance (such as soap or wax). 

5. A benevolent aspect of Devi. 

6. A tricycle (usually propelled by pedalling). 

7. Seed of a pea plant. 

8. Sea catfishes. 

9. Highly seasoned fatty sausage of pork and beef usually dried. 

10. South American cavy. 

11. A person who is abnormally small. 

12. Narrow-leaved green herbage. 

20. An organization of countries formed in 1961 to agree on a common 

policy for the sale of petroleum. 

22. A radioactive element of the actinide series. 

23. Being nine more than ninety. 

26. An informal term for a father. 

27. Someone who works (or provides workers) during a strike. 

29. 1 species. 

31. A dull persistent (usually moderately intense) pain. 

33. A federal agency established to regulate the release of new foods 

and health-related products. 

34. A river in north central Switzerland that runs northeast into the 

Rhine. 

37. Resinlike substance secreted by certain lac insects. 

39. American professional baseball player who hit more home runs 

than Babe Ruth (born in 1934). 

41. The elementary stages of any subject (usually plural). 

47. A member of a seafaring group of North American Indians who 

lived on the Pacific coast of British Columbia and southwestern Alaska. 

48. A native or inhabitant of Iran. 

50. A metabolic acid found in yeast and liver cells. 

51. Mild yellow Dutch cheese made in balls. 

52. (Greek mythology) Daughter of Zeus and Demeter. 

53. Fabric dyed with splotches of green and brown and black and tan. 

55. (Babylonian) God of storms and wind. 

56. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad. 

58. A compartment in front of a motor vehicle where driver sits. 

59. The bill in a restaurant. 

63. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens. 

Yesterdayʼs Solution


SYDNEY: Australian pace bowler Brett Lee yesterday 

announced his retirement from international cricket 

after a 13-year career, saying his body and mind were 

no longer up to the stresses of touring. The 35-year-old 

said a calf muscle strain that forced him home from 

Australia’s recent one-day tour to Britain was the final 

straw after a string of setbacks caused by injuries. 

“I woke up this morning and just felt like I was 

ready,” Lee said, adding his original plan had been to 

play at September’s World Twenty20 tournament in Sri 

Lanka as his international swansong. “I think personally 

in a team environment you have to have 100 percent 

commitment-mentally and physically,” he told a press 

conference at the Sydney Cricket Ground. “And I guess 

looking at the next few months I just didn’t have that 

desire any more. “It wouldn’t be fair on me, or my team 

if I went with that attitude... you get to the point in life 

where you say enough is enough.” 

Lee said he would continue to play the less demanding 

Twenty20 cricket in the Indian Premier League and 

the Australian Big Bash League. Lee’s calf injury was the 

latest in a long line of injuries that punctuated his playing 

career, of 310 Test wickets at 30.81 from 76 matches 

and 380 one-day international wickets at 23.36 from 

221 matches. He also endured side strains, a broken 

toe, ankle issues, stress fractures to his back, persistent 

elbow problems and appendicitis. Lee was not offered 

a national contract in Cricket Australia’s latest round of 

agreements, and decided not to take up a deal with his 

state side, New South Wales, for this coming summer. 

Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland 

paid tribute to Lee’s contribution to Australian cricket 

and as an inspiration to youngsters to take up the 

game. “His record as a wicket-taker and leader of the 

attack is fantastic and speaks for itself but his resilience 

and ability to bounce back after numerous injuries has 

also been impressive,” Sutherland said. “On top of this, 

and this is a significant part of his legacy, Brett inspired 

young Australians to play cricket and bowl fast.” Lee 

also became extremely popular in cricket-mad India 

where he wrote and recorded the song “You’re the One 

For Me”, which reached number two on the Indian 

charts and led to a role in his first Bollywood movie 

“Victory”. 

Lee said while he had enjoyed his cricket career, he 

was tired of being away from home for long periods 

and was looking forward to a different phase of his life. 

“It’s been a fantastic career and I’ve loved every minute 

of it, but it’s stage two of my life now,” he said. “My holiday 

will be at home-I’m sick of being away. That was on 

my mind as well-time away from home. “I just want to 

maybe do some fishing and just chill out for a few 

months.” Lee retired from Tests in February 2010 as 

Australia’s fourth-highest Test wicket-taker but played 

on in one-day and Twenty20 cricket up until yesterday’s 

announcement. — AFP 

SPORTS 

Australia’s Lee quits international cricket 

Millar wins 12th stage, 

Wiggins in yellow 

ANNONAY: Britain’s David Millar 

claimed his fourth Tour de France 

stage, and first since 2003, after dominating 

a two-up sprint with 

Frenchman Jean-Christophe Peraud 

yesterday. Yellow jersey holder Bradley 

Wiggins finished nearly eight minutes 

behind a leading group of five to 

retain his race lead after the 226 km 

12th stage between Saint-Jean-De- 

Maurienne and Annonay in the 

Ardeche. Wiggins’ Sky teammate Chris 

Froome stayed second overall at 2min 

05sec with Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) 

in third at 2:23 and Australia’s Cadel 

Evans (BMC) fourth at 3:19. Millar’s 

fourth career stage on the race comes 

in the wake of an “horrific” Tour campaign 

for his Garmin-Sharp team who 

have lost several riders including team 

leader Ryder Hesjedal. 

“It’s massive. It’s been a horrific Tour 

for us so far,” said Millar. “I really wanted 

to do something... prove that we’re 

still here and show that Garmin-Sharp 

are one of the best cycling teams in 

the world.” A day after the toughest 

stage in the Alps and with the only 

two major climbs coming within the 

first 80 km, the breakaway contenders 

were primed from the start of the 

race’s longest stage. After 20 km of 

attacks and counter-attacks a 19strong 

group that included the first 

five finishers managed to pull itself 

free of the peloton to begin the 12.5 

km climb to the summit of the 

Cucheron. On the way to the summit 

the frontrunners split as the demands 

of the category one climb took their 

toll. 

Eleven leaders went over the summit 

with a lead of 53sec on the main 

peloton containing the yellow jersey 

ANNONAY: Stage winner, Great Britain’s David Millar (right), sprints before 

crossing the finish line ahead of France’s Jean-Christophe Peraud at the end of 

the 226 km and twelfth stage of the 2012 Tour de France cycling race starting 

in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and finishing in Annonay Davezieux, southeastern 

France yesterday — AFP 

and the big favorites and they would 

go on to increase their lead further. 

Millar had been part of a five-man 

group that finally broke free of their 

companions after the descent of the 

day’s second climb and with around 

120 km to race. By then, Millar was 

already considering his options. 

“When it whittled down to the five riders 

I didn’t expect to be at the front 

but I was feeling great,” he said. “Once 

we were in the group of five I knew I 

was the fastest sprinter there so I 

decided my tactics about 120 km out, 

and that was to win the sprint.” They 

went on to build a significant lead on 

the peloton being controlled by 

Wiggins’ Sky team, taking their advantage 

to nearly 13 minutes. 

Although there was little at stake 

for the yellow jersey challengers on 

this stage, Millar denied the peloton 

had sat up to let them race away. 

“They didn’t let us go, we really had 

to fight hard to build that advantage!” 

added the Scot. After collaborating 

all day, Spaniard Egoi Martinez of the 

crash-hit Euskaltel team began the 

hostilities with a brief attack 4 km 

from the finish. But it was Peraud’s 

acceleration 2.7 km from the slightly 

uphill finish that proved decisive. 

Millar fought hard to get back on the 

wheel, and his efforts allowed the pair 

to open up a decisive gap on 

Martinez, Frenchman Cyril Gautier 

and Croatian Robert Kiserlovski. At 

the end, Millar collapsed on the 

ground to soak up a victory that 

comes 45 years, to the day, after the 

death of former British cycling giant 

Tom Simpson. — AFP 

Australia’s fast bowler Brett Lee 

Evans optimistic 

despite another 

Sky battering 

SAINT-JEAN-DE-MAURIENNE: Defending champion Cadel 

Evans said he won’t give up his battle for the yellow jersey 

despite slipping further down the Tour de France hierarchy. 

“Every time I lose time and the further I slip back the chances 

of the win are diminished but we’re still in with a chance, and 

for that reason I’m not going to give up,” Evans said at the start 

of the 12th stage yesterday. Two days after losing nearly two 

minutes to race leader Bradley Wiggins in the stage nine time 

trial, Evans suffered a first big setback in the mountains when 

he lost 1min 26sec to the Briton on the ‘Queen’ stage in the 

Alps. From sitting second at 1:53 behind Wiggins, Evans 

dropped two places to fourth to start the 12th stage 3:19 

behind the Team Sky leader. 

Evans launched an audacious bid to attack Sky and Wiggins 

60 km from the finish on Thursday’s 11th stage, before being 

brought to heel and then paying for his efforts 5 km from the 

summit finish of La Toussuire. It was further proof of Team 

Sky’s superiority. They have raced so fast as a team that it is 

near impossible for rivals to attack and, crucially, sustain their 

efforts on the flat or the climbs. Yet is was also clear Evans simply 

didn’t have the legs on the day. “I wasn’t at the level that I 

needed to be, and paid for it in the end,” he admitted. “It’s frustrating. 

Fortunately, that’s behind us now and hopefully that 

will be the last of the disappointments of this Tour.” Although 

nine stages remain, few will allow Evans to close his gap to 

Wiggins-unless the Englishman suffers the stage racer’s 

biggest fear of an off-day or, worse, a crash. While there are 

several climbing stages left, only one-stage 17 - is a mountaintop 

finish. Evans, however, remains defiant. “There’s nine days 

of racing to go, hard racing. I still think we’re going to see 

some changes and the elimination of one of the contenders,” 

he said. The Pyrenees are up next, but already Evans is looking 

ahead to the final time trial over 53.5 km on the penultimate 

stage 19. “The Alps are certainly no walk in the park but the 

Pyrenees aren’t easy and then there’s the long time trial at the 

end there,” he added. 

“Anyone who’s got anything left in the tank there can make 

a really big difference, looking at the results from the first time 

trial.” On stage nine’s 41.5 km race against the clock, Wiggins 

dominated the field to beat Evans by 1:53, with teammate 

Chris Froome in second at 35sec. At the start of stage 12, 

Froome sat second overall at 2:05 behind Wiggins and 18sec 

ahead of Italian contender Vincenzo Nibali. The chances of a 

Sky one-two in Paris are real, and Evans added: “The guys to 

beat, or try and get close to even, are certainly the Sky guys. 

“But there’s still a lot racing to be done. You have to look forward 

with optimism, otherwise you’ve got no chance whatsoever.” 

—AFP


LYTHAM: One year ago, American 

golfers were mired in their longest 

major title drought, Darren Clarke’s 

victory at the 2011 British Open 

becoming the sixth major crown in a 

row to escape US clutches. Northern 

Ireland’s Clarke, Rory McIlroy and 

Graeme McDowell, Germany’s Martin 

Kaymer and South Africans Charl 

Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen 

had kept the majors outside US grasp 

since Phil Mickelson’s 2010 Masters 

triumph. 

But now the tide has turned in a 

major way. Keegan Bradley ended 

the American drought by capturing 

last year’s PGA Championship, countryman 

Bubba Watson won the 

Masters last April and Webb Simpson 

claimed the US Open last month-all 

of them first-time major winners. If 

the Claret Jug falls into American 

hands, as it has only once in the past 

five years, then US golfers will own all 

four major titles for the first time 

since 2004. 

Mickelson won the first of his 

three green jackets at the 2004 

Masters to complete a run of four 

major titles in a row by Americans, 

capping a streak that began with Jim 

Furyk at the 2003 US Open and 

included victories by Ben Curtis at 

the 2003 British Open and Shaun 

Micheel at the 2003 PGA 

Championship. And an American 

winner next week at Royal Lytham 

also would open the way for US 

golfers to complete a sweep of the 

calendar year’s four major titles at 

next month’s PGA Championship at 

Kiawah Island. 

That has not happened since 

1982, when Craig Stadler won the 

Masters, Tom Watson won the US 

and British Opens and Raymond 

Floyd took the PGA Championship. 

And there is always Tiger Woods, a 

14-time major champion chasing the 

record 18 majors won by Jack 

Nicklaus. He has won three US PGA 

titles this year, the most recent this 

month, and could capture his first 

major since 2008. “One of my 

thoughts on the back nine was I 

don’t know how Tiger has won 14 of 

these things, because of the pressure,” 

Simpson said after his US Open 

triumph. “I couldn’t feel my legs most 

of the back nine. It grew my respect 

for Tiger all the more.” 

Simpson will skip the British Open 

to be with his wife when she gives 

birth to their second child and 

Australian Jason Day, ranked 21st in 

the world, will stay home to be with 

his newborn son. But while Simpson 

cites Woods as an inspiration to a 

young generation of talented golfers, 

he also noted that Bradley’s victory at 

last year’s PGA gave many US players 

a sense that if Bradley could capture 

a major so could they. 

“If I see Keegan Bradley win a 

major, I respect his game a ton, but I 

feel like, Keegan Bradley won one, I 

want to go win one,” Simpson said. 

“All these guys that won before me, I 

played with these guys all my life. I 

want to win. “Everybody is so competitive 

in this world that we just 

SPORTS 

US could go from major drought to total sweep 

SCARPERIA: Australia’s Casey Stoner steers his Honda during the second free practice session in view of tomorrow’s 

Italian Moto GP, at the Mugello race circuit, in Scarperia, Italy yesterday. — AP 

Stoner looks to bounce back in Italy 

MUGELLO: World champion Casey 

Stoner is determined to bounce 

straight back in tomorrow’s Italian 

Grand Prix after last weekend’s crash at 

the Sachsenring dealt a blow to his 

hopes of defending his crown in his 

final season. The Australian crashed out 

with two bends of the final lap remaining 

in Germany, in a race won by teammate 

Dani Pedrosa. The main beneficiary 

of Stoner’s spill was Yamaha’s former 

champion Jorge Lorenzo who was 

gifted the runner-up spot to move clear 

at the top of the riders standings on 

160 points. 

Pedrosa climbed into second on 146 

with Stoner on 140. “I’ve always liked 

Mugello, we’ve enjoyed some pretty 

good results there. Last year didn’t go 

to plan but we know what we did 

wrong so hopefully this year we can be 

a little more competitive,” said Stoner, 

who was third last year. “I really enjoy 

the fast corners there. There are a lot of 

areas where we get a lot of wheel spin 

and a lot of fast changes of direction. 

It’s not a small dinky little track that you 

can’t use these bikes on; it’s actually 

somewhere where you can open the 

throttle up and actually get to full 

throttle. 

“After a disappointing race in 

Sachsenring, I want to get back on the 

bike and take some points back in the 

Championship.” Pedrosa, who now lies 

second in the championship after his 

maiden win of the season in Germany, 

earlier in the day confirmed he has 

signed a two-year contract extension 

with Honda. His new teammate will be 

current Moto2 championship leader 

Marc Marquez, who will replace the 

retiring Stoner. “It was great to win the 

race (in Germany), the feeling was so 

good. And after that Honda and myself 

announced that we will continue 

together,” said Pedrosa. “This is great 

news for me, because I’ve been many 

years with Honda since I started racing. 

I have always raced Repsol Honda. For 

us to continue it’s great and we are 

hoping to continue in a strong way, 

also now in the second half of the 

championship.” He added: “Here is a 

great track for us. Last year doesn’t 

count much because I wasn’t so fit, but 

two years ago I won the race here, so 

I’m pretty confident here. The Honda is 

normally good here. We hope to do a 

good job and to do a good race.” 

Lorenzo, like Stoner, has had a rollercoaster 

spell in the championship with 

his win in Germany prefaced by a crash 

in Assen the week before. The Mugello 

circuit is a favorite for Lorenzo, having 

taken victory in the 250cc class, two 

second-place premier-class finishes in 

2009 and 2010 and his first Grand Prix 

premier class win last year. — AFP 

kind of feed off of each other.” There 

have been 15 different winners in the 

past 15 majors and the past nine 

majors in a row have gone to firsttime 

major champions, a good omen 

for a stellar group, including Luke 

Donald and Lee Westwood, seeking a 

major breakthrough. 

England’s Justin Rose, ranked 

ninth, and Australian Adam Scott, 

ranked 12th, have shined at times 

this season and seek their first major 

triumphs as well. There are, however, 

some Americans in the fight as well 

who have yet to claim a major. Jason 

Dufner, ranked seventh, has two victories 

this year and was the nearlyman 

at last year’s PGA 

Championship, collapsing late to 

hand Bradley the victory. Matt 

Kuchar ranks eighth and Hunter 

Mahan 10th and either could figure 

into the drama at Lytham before the 

pot bunkers claim their final victim, 

as might Steve Stricker, the World 

No. 13 who at 45 knows his chances 

are running out. — AFP 

Hurricanes 

down Chiefs 

WELLINGTON: The Wellington Hurricanes upset Super 15 

leaders the Waikato Chiefs 28-25 with a dramatic late try 

yesterday to keep their slim hopes of a top six play-off 

berth on life support. Hooker Dane Coles’ try four minutes 

after the full-time siren also dented the Chiefs’ chances of 

ending the regular season in top spot and guaranteeing 

themselves home advantage through the finals series. 

While the Chiefs are already guaranteed a finals spot after 

winning the New Zealand Conference, South Africa’s 

Western Stormers can now overtake them with a win over 

the Western Force in this weekend’s final round of regular 

matches. 

After a frantic first half, which included two tries to 

winger Julian Savea, the Hurricanes looked to have faded 

against their New Zealand rivals before launching a lastditch 

attack after being awarded a penalty. Desperately 

keeping possession after the siren sounded, they laid siege 

to the Chiefs’ line, Coles forcing his way across a jumble of 

bodies for a try that the television referee ruled legitimate 

after an agonizing delay. While the win sparked wild celebrations 

among the Hurricanes players, there are six teams 

vying for four play-off spots in this weekend’s round and 

they still need results elsewhere to go their way to make 

the cut. 

Captain Conrad Smith said the Hurricanes, written off at 

the start of the season after a clear-out of high-profile players 

such as Ma’a Nonu and Piri Weepu, had proved a point 

regardless. “We threw everything at each other and we 

somehow crawled over the line to take it,” he said. “I’m 

proud of the way we played whether we make the playoffs 

or not, it’s been a heck of a year considering where 

we’ve come from.” The Chiefs made a perfect start with a 

try after three minutes, Tawera Kerr-Barlow slipping 

through the defense to score between the posts, with the 

Hurricanes complaining the referee accidentally obstructed 

a tackler. Whistleblower Jonathan Kaplan waved away 

the protest and Aaron Cruden made an easy conversion to 

make it 7-0. 

The Hurricanes almost hit back two minutes later after a 

line break from Jack Lam but had to settle for a Beauden 

Barrett penalty as the Chiefs’ defense held firm. Smith soon 

found a way through for the home side, leaving the Chiefs 

standing with a dummy pass in the centre of the park then 

offloading for the Hurricanes to work the ball over to Savea 

for the winger’s first try. They maintained the pressure and 

were rewarded with Savea’s second in the 23rd minute, 

the big winger bulldozing his way over the line and Barrett 

converting to make it 15-7. — AFP


LYTHAM: Rory McIlroy will be looking 

to eat his own words when he tees off 

in the British Open at Royal Lytham 

and St Annes next Thursday. It was a 

year ago that he moodily stomped off 

after a final round of 73 at Royal St 

George’s saying that links golf, and 

especially British weather, were not to 

his liking. “My game is suited for basically 

every golf course and most conditions, 

but these conditions I just don’t 

enjoy playing in really. That’s the bottom 

line,” was how McIlroy described 

his feelings then about finishing well 

down the field. 

“I’d rather play when it’s 80 degrees 

and sunny and not much wind. “I’m 

not a fan of golf tournaments that the 

outcome is predicted so much by the 

weather. It’s not my sort of golf,” he 

said. “I’m looking forward to getting 

back to America, playing in Akron, and 

obviously the PGA and the Irish Open 

is a big one for us, as well. It’s a week 

that I sort of enjoy.” McIlroy’s comments 

took some by surprise but many 

others understood, in the knowledge 

that the then 22-year-old Ulsterman 

had still to master the art of curbing 

his attacking instincts when the wind 

is blowing and the rain is falling. 

He promptly bounced back to top 

form with a string of top 10 finishes 

and had another title win in Hong 

Kong en route to becoming the second 

youngest-ever world No 1, behind 

only Tiger Woods, in March. Since then 

though his form has oddly deserted 

him with a run of missed cuts ending 

in failing to make it through to the 

weekend when defending his US Open 

crown in San Francisco last month. 

Some have said that the celebrity status 

that has come McIlroy’s way since 

his runaway win in the US Open last 

year might have gone to his head. 

The lad from Holywood, Northern 

Ireland in quick succession has given 

swing tips to President Barack Obama 

during a state banquet at the White 

House, met the Queen at Newbury 

races, played tennis with Maria 

Sharapova at a Madison Square 

Garden exhibition and thrown the 

opening pitch at a San Francisco 

Giants Major League baseball game. 

He also features regularly in the pages 

of the top gossip magazines through 

his romance with former tennis world 

no1 Caroline Wozniacki. 

McIlroy took some time off after his 

US Open flop, reappearing at the Irish 

Open where, armed with a new driver, 

he began his preparations for the 

British Open in suitably wet weather 

conditions. 

SPORTS 

McIlroy trying to master Open fears 

Will Tiger be toothless 

or claws bared at Open? 

LYTHAM: Tiger Woods has produced tantalizing glimpses of the 

form that made him a 14-time major champion, but no definite 

sign that he is prepared to add to that title haul at next week’s 

British Open. Woods won his third US PGA event of the year on July 

1 at the National, following triumphs at the Memorial in June and 

Arnold Palmer Invitational back in March to snap a 17-month win 

drought following his infamous sex scandal. 

“I remember there was a time when people were saying I could 

never win again,” Woods said. “Here we are.” But Woods has also 

missed the cut for only the eighth and ninth times in his 17-year 

pro career, failing to make the weekend at Charlotte in May and last 

week’s Greenbrier Classic. And Woods has had disappointing 

results in the majors this year, sharing 40th at the Masters and 21st 

at the US Open, where he excited fans by leading after 36 holes 

only to falter in the final rounds. 

While he leads the US PGA money list with $4.2 million and is 

the top-ranked American player in the world at fourth, Woods has 

not shown he has the game to once again capture a major title as 

he prepares to face Royal Lytham. “It’s something I’ve done over 

the years, I’ve won major championships, and I haven’t done it 

since ‘08,” Woods said. “We all go through periods where that doesn’t 

happen. Some periods are entire careers. “But I understand how 

to win major championships. The key is giving yourself opportunities 

on the back nine tomorrow every time. You’re not going to win 

them all but if you’re there, a lot chances are you’re going to win 

your share.” 

Woods, chasing the all-time record of 18 majors won by Jack 

Nicklaus, has won the same events this year that he had at the start 

of 2009, another year in which he was coming off a serious leg 

injury just as he suffered in 2011. “I had a good year that year. I won 

six times,” Woods said. “It would be nice if I could get the same 

total with a couple of majors in there.” 

Woods has not won a major since the 2008 US Open and has not 

been the man to beat tomorrow in a major since 2009 when South 

Korean Yang Yong-Eun outplayed him down the stretch to win the 

PGA Championship. But Woods took a big confidence boost from 

his victory two weeks ago at Congressional Country Club, his 74th 

career triumph moving him within eight of matching Sam Snead’s 

US PGA career record. 

Woods says his work-in-progress swing changes in working with 

coach Sean Foley are finally nearing their payoff. “It was just a matter 

of time,” Woods said. “I could see the pieces coming together. 

We can see the consistency. If you look at my ball-striking this year 

it has gotten more and more consistent. “There are times I revert 

back but it’s happening less and less. Give me a little time and I feel 

like this (winning) is what I can do.” In 16 majors since his 2008 US 

Open victory, Woods has missed four with injuries, finished outside 

the top 20 four times, twice missed the cut and finished in the top 

six in six events. 

US veteran Steve Stricker is among those who has proclaimed 

Woods is back on form only to scratch his head when the former 

Tiger Woods 

World No 1 stumbles in his next outing, still struggling to regain the 

consistency that was once his hallmark. “I guess lately we don’t 

know what to expect from him,” Stricker said. “When he wins, 

we’re all eager to look ahead and think that he’s going to be back 

to where he was in the early 2000s or whenever he was at the top 

of his game.” Woods, a three-time British Open champion, was the 

low amateur and shared 22nd place at Royal Lytham at the 1996 

Open and he shared 25th on the same course in 2001. — AFP 

It would, he said, be good experience 

for Lytham. “I want to try to 

become a better wind player and better 

bad weather player, and the only 

way to do that is by playing in it,” he 

said. “Definitely in the past, if things 

haven’t gone my way, the fight goes 

out of me pretty quickly, and that’s 

something I’m working on and something 

that I’m trying to get better at.” 

In McIlroy’s favor is the fact that he 

knows Royal Lytham reasonably well, 

having played there regularly as an 

amateur. “Lytham is a course I like. It’s 

very fair,” he said. “You have to hit 

good shots around there, and it really 

punishes you; the fairway bunkers are 

so punishing. If you hit it in, there’s no 

chance of getting to the greens. “It’s a 

great course and I’m looking forward 

to it being on the rota, and I think a lot 

of guys are.” — AFP 

Stricker on track 

but Matteson 

blitzes field 

ILLINOIS: American Steve Stricker made a 

solid start in his quest for a fourth consecutive 

John Deere Classic title but compatriot 

Troy Matteson stole the limelight 

with a blistering 10-under 61 on Thursday 

in Silvis, Illinois. 

Matteson attacked TPC Deer Run with 

10 birdies in a flawless opening round, 

taking a three-shot lead over Ricky Barnes 

(64) as he looks to add a third PGA title to 

his resume. “It was a pretty special day,” 

Matteson said. “I’ve been playing pretty 

well, just not making a lot putts. “I made a 

couple putts that were really, really difficult, 

and I had a bunch of other really, 

really good looks. 

“I didn’t think it was going to be 10under, 

but definitely thought it was going 

to be good.” Stricker, who is looking to 

become just the fifth men’s player to win 

the same tournament in four consecutive 

years, joined six others in a tie for third 

after a back nine blitz helped him to a sixunder 

65. After an even par front nine 

with one birdie and one bogey leaving 

him well off the pace, Stricker powered 

home with four birdies and an 80-yard 

hole out for eagle. “It was a slow start, 

really a little bit out of sorts to start with,” 

Stricker said. “I hit some shots that I 

haven’t been hitting. Just a little unsettled 

I guess you would say. Then I just had a 

really good back side.” 

Young Tom Morris, Walter Hagan, 

Gene Sarazen and Tiger Woods sit in the 

exclusive club of men to win a tournament 

in four consecutive years and 

Stricker said the chance to join them was 

on his mind. “I’m looking at it as an 

opportunity. 

It’s fun, but there is pressure 

involved,” said Stricker. “You’re trying to 

do it and there’s a lot of expectations not 

only from me, but from a lot of other 

people to do it too. “I try to tell myself, 

I’ve won it three times. But I’m trying to 

downplay it to myself. “It seems to be 

working the way I’ve been thinking 

about it, so I’ll just go out and try to do 

the same thing tomorrow.” — Reuters


Hewitt advances, 

Nishikori ousted 

NEWPORT: American Rajeev Ram upset Japanese second 

seed Kei Nishikori 7-6 (8/6), 6-3 Thursday to book a semi-final 

date against Australian Lleyton Hewitt at the ATP Hall of 

Fame Championships. Ram, ranked 118th in the world, won 

his first ATP title two years ago on the Newport grass and is 

in position for another trip to the final if he can oust Hewitt, 

a former World No. 1 coming back from toe surgery. Hewitt, 

31, eliminated Israel’s Dudi Sela 6-4, 6-3 in the day’s other 

quarter-final at the $398,250 event. Playing in Newport for 

the first time since 1998, Hewitt broke Sela five times and 

cruised to victory in 78 minutes. The Aussie has been out 

almost four months and fallen to 233rd in the ATP rankings. 

Hewitt reached his first ATP semi-final since June of 2010, 

when he went on to win his 28th career title at Halle, defeating 

Roger Federer in the final. 

Yesterday’s other quarter-finals pit US top seed John Isner 

against South African qualifier Izak Van Der Merwe and 

German qualifier Benjamin Becker against US sixth seed 

Ryan Harrison. Becker eliminated Canadian third seed Milos 

Raonic 6-3, 6-3 on Thursday while Harrison downed countryman 

Jesse Levine 6-3, 6-4. It will be Harrison’s fourth quarterfinal 

of the year and second on grass after losing in the last 

eight at Eastbourne last month. Becker, ranked 112th, broke 

Raonic three times to claim only his eighth triumph of the 

season and third of the week in just 63 minutes, avenging a 

semi-final loss to the Canadian in February at San Jose. “He 

didn’t serve many aces, whereas last time I played him he 

served nearly 30,” Becker said. “His serve wasn’t as effective 

today. I made him play a lot on his second serve and used 

my chances.” 

TOMIC, HAAS KNOCKED OUT 

In Stuttgart, Australian third seed Bernard Tomic and 

German veteran Tommy Haas, the eighth seed, were both 

knocked out of the Stuttgart claycourt tournament at the 

second round stage on Thursday. Tomic went down to a 7-6 

(8/6), 6-3 defeat to Brazilian claycourt specialist Thomaz 

Bellucci while Slovak qualifier Pavol Cervenak, the world 206, 

saw off Haas 6-4, 6-4. Bellucci, the world 64, saved eight of 

the 10 break points he faced to claim victory in one hour and 

47 minutes. “It was very tough,” said Bellucci. “At the beginning 

of the match I was a little bit nervous. When I was 1-4 

down, I started to play better and in the second set I was 

feeling more comfortable and more confident.” In the quarter-finals 

Cervenak will tackle Argentine second seed Juan 

Monaco, who breezed past Germany’s Tobias Kamke 6-2, 6- 

3. “It’s been a bad day for me,” said Haas. “I wasn’t striking 

the ball well and missed a lot of crucial points.” Last month, 

Haas defeated Roger Federer to win the Halle grasscourt 

tournament. —Agencies 

LONDON: When Roger Federer returns 

to Wimbledon later this month to begin 

his bid for Olympic gold, the seven-time 

champion will find the historic venue he 

regards as a second home has undergone 

a major facelift. Federer barely had 

time to pack away his racquets after his 

final victory over Andy Murray on 

Sunday before Wimbledon groundstaff 

began to transform the hallowed confines 

of the All England Club into a riot of 

color ahead of the Olympic tennis event. 

The Games are returning to 

Wimbledon for the first time since 1908 

and the experience will come as quite a 

culture shock to those used to the genteel 

surroundings of the south-west 

London arena. Aside from the high-quality 

tennis on show, a significant part of 

Wimbledon’s charm is the tranquil 

atmosphere. From the creeping vines 

and flowers that cover the outside of 

Centre Court to the club’s insistence that 

all players must wear white kit, there is 

something unique about Wimbledon. 

Between July 28 and August 5 all that 

STANFORD: Second-seeded Marion 

Bartoli won the last 11 games to surge 

past unranked US university player 

Mallory Burdette 7-5, 6-0 Thursday in 

the second round of the WTA hard-court 

tournament here. France’s Bartoli lost 

only seven points on her serve in the 

second set as she recovered from 4-1 

down in the opening frame against the 

player who attends Stanford University, 

where the tournament is held. Burdette 

had two chances to take the first set, but 

couldn’t covert either one and Bartoli 

seized the chance to turn the tide. “She 

was playing well at the start,” said 

Bartoli, who won the title in 2009 and 

was runner-up last year to Serena 

Williams. Bartoli was also runner-up here 

in 2008. “She was hitting the lines and 

the corners. It was not easy to come 

will change and even seven-time champion 

Federer may be forgiven for doing a 

double-take when he gets his first 

glimpse of the overhaul. 

Dark green is the dominant color during 

the Wimbledon fortnight, but the All 

England Club will be lost in a purple haze 

for the duration of the Games, with many 

of the outside courts decked out in the 

vivid Olympic livery and legendary ring 

logo within 24 hours of Federer’s triumph. 

Perhaps most noticeably, the 

Wimbledon requirement that players 

wear white clothing will be gone. 

Instead, spectators can expect a rainbow 

of hues as players wearing outfits in the 

colors of their nation bring a splash of 

color to the world’s most famous tennis 

courts. 

But despite some marked differences, 

one thing will have to be the same - the 

grass courts - and that means plenty of 

extra work for head groundsman Eddie 

Seaward and his 28-man team. Seaward 

is due to retire this summer after more 

than 20 years, but before that, he and his 

back. I had to wait for the storm to 

calm,” Bartoli said. 

“I needed to take the momentum 

away from her. I stepped up and played 

harder. I tried to get more first serves in. 

“I had the momentum going into the 

second set. But I knew it would not be 

easy until the last point, I didn’t want it 

to slip away.” Bartoli converted five of 

her 13 break chances against her inexperienced 

opponent, firing 26 winners 

with 17 unforced errors. “My experience 

paid off and helped me a lot,” said the 

world number 10. “I have good memories 

here. I was not worried, I knew I 

could come back.” Bartoli next faces 

fifth-seeded Belgian Yanina Wickmayer 

in Friday’s quarter-finals, when topseeded 

Williams, fresh from her triumph 

at Wimbledon, will take on sixth-seeded 

team face the job of returning the courts 

to top condition in record time. “We’ve 

had Davis Cup ties before, soon after the 

Championships, but that’s only one 

court, and there will be 10 match courts 

for the Olympics,” he said. “There are 

fewer matches for the Olympics than for 

a grand slam, and the matches are shorter, 

but it’s going to be very high profile.” 

They may not be able to follow the 

usual post-Championship renovation 

program, which would ordinarily take 12 

months to complete, but Seaward is confident 

they will get it done. “We have 20 

days between The Championships and 

the Olympics, and we’re confident that 

we can get the grass back on the baselines,” 

he said. “Between the two events, 

we’re going to be sowing grasses which 

are pre-germinated - in other words, 

they would have already started to grow. 

That should take about three days. 

“On the practice courts, it’s a different 

issue, as the players will start practicing 

about a week after The Championships 

finish, and we won’t have time to do 

sports 

STANFORD: Marion Bartoli of France returns 

a shot to Mallory Burdette during the Bank 

of the West Classic at Stanford University 

Taube Family Tennis Stadium on July 12, 

2012 in Stanford, California. —AFP 

Bartoli finds a 

winning touch 

Chanelle Scheepers of South Africa. 

Unseeded Urszula Radwanska, sister 

of Wimbledon runner-up Agnieszka 

Radwanska, survived a second-set wobble 

to defeat eighth-seeded New 

Zealander Marina Erakovic 6-3, 3-6, 6-4. 

Poland’s Radwanska was up a set and a 

break but said she lost focus as Erakovic 

battled back to knot the match at one 

set apiece. “And she also started playing 

better,” said Radwanska, who won a 

match here last year as a qualifier. But 

the younger Radwanska, ranked 57th in 

the world, eventually held on to wrap 

up the match in just over two hours. She 

booked a quarter-final clash with 

American Coco Vandeweghe. Romanian 

Sorana Cirstea reached her fourth quarter-final 

of 2012 with a 6-3, 6-3 victory 

over China’s Zheng Saisai. —AFP 

Wimbledon braced for the purple haze 

much in that time.” A shorter tournament, 

Olympics tennis will be condensed 

into just over a week, with its draw of 64 

half the size of Wimbledon’s singles draw 

of 128, and Olympic matches, except the 

men’s singles final, will be best-of-three 

sets instead of best-of-five. 

For the players, a quick return to 

Wimbledon is a welcome break from the 

daily grind of life on tour and they are 

keen to see how the 144-year-old venue 

scrubs up. “This time at Wimbledon will 

be different,” China’s Peng Shuai said. “It’s 

the first time we don’t have to play in 

white. I can’t imagine what it’s going to 

look like. “Maybe everyone should take 

photos for history in case it never happens 

again!” Women’s world number one 

Victoria Azarenka was also looking forward 

to seeing the transformation. “It’s 

kind of new and exciting to see how it’s 

going to turn out,” said the Belarusian. 

“You can wear your national colors. I’m 

actually really excited to see some 

McDonald’s or Coca Cola in the back of 

the court. It will be funny.” — AFP


BUENOS AIRES: Argentina’s volleyball player Nicolas Uriarte (right) taking 

part in a training session in Buenos Aires, ahead of the London 2012 Olympic 

Games. Nicolas Uriarte will face his father Jon Uriarte, head coach of the 

Australian team in their opening volleyball pool match at the London 

Olympics. —AFP 

Father v son dilemma 

for volleyball family 

SYDNEY: Jon Uriarte says it’s destiny and a gift that 

his Australian team will face his son Nicolas and 

native Argentina in their opening volleyball pool 

match at the London Olympics. Uriarte, 50, is in his 

second coaching stint in Australia and his reward for 

qualifying the ‘Volleyroos’ for London is a showdown 

to conflict the loyalties of his family back in Buenos 

Aires. Uriarte, who won a bronze medal with 

Argentina at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, has coached 

his home country in between stints with Australia in 

2001-2004 and since May last year. 

Australia qualified for a second Olympics after 

finishing ahead of higher-ranked Iran, Japan, China 

and South Korea at a qualifying tournament in Tokyo 

in June. He roars with laughter at the thought his 

emerging Australian team will have his country of 

birth, organized by setter Nicolas, lining up on the 

other side of the net in their opening game at Earl’s 

Court on July 29. “It’s some kind of gift. I can’t believe 

it that I would be at the Olympics with my son for 

our own achievements,” Uriarte said. “Nicolas is now 

22, he’s earned his position in the Argentina national 

team and I’ve been so happy that life has given me 

this opportunity for my work to be so fulfilled. “My 

son is having a similar opportunity and he is earning 

his position in the national team and then we are 

going to be together in the same party at the 

Olympics, that is something amazing. “To be there 

with all of my family and enjoying being there and 

expressing ourselves is some kind of gift for our life.” 

Jon is in regular contact with his family and Nicolas 

through Internet video calls and says his family was 

overjoyed when news reached them that Australia 

had made it through to the Olympics. “That night it 

was 12 hours’ time difference from Japan to 

Argentina and when I woke up the next day I connected 

with them through Skype and my family was 

having sushi just to celebrate that we had qualified 

for the Olympics in Japan,” he chuckled. “All my 

three children play volleyball. It was their choice. 

They are very passionate about their sport, everybody 

was just so happy. The technology allowed me 

to watch them having that dinner on my screen.” But 

now come the split loyalties among the Uriarte clan 

as the big day draws near. Jon’s daughter, Delfina, 

15, who has played state-level volleyball in Buenos 

Aires and lived for four years in Australia during her 

father’s first stint there, knows who she will be supporting 

in London. 

“My wife asked Delfina ‘who are you going to 

cheer for?’ and she said ‘I will paint my two cheeks 

both countries’ flags, but I want Australia to win’”, 

Jon said. “My family all enjoyed their time here and 

loved this country deeply. Argentina is our country 

of birth and we have the culture, but we learned to 

love this country so much.” Under Uriarte, Australian 

volleyball has grown under a junior scholarship 

scheme, first developed by him at Australia’s 

Institute of Sport in Canberra early last decade. Now 

Australia, with all the squad playing in overseas professional 

leagues, has climbed to 22 in the FIVB 

world rankings, won the Asian championships in 

2007 and finished fourth last year. Uriarte believes 

his intimate knowledge of the Argentine team will 

give Australia its best chance of springing an upset 

in London. —AFP 

WASHINGTON: Uniforms for US Olympic athletes 

are American red, white and blue - but 

made in China. That has members of Congress 

fuming. Republicans and Democrats railed 

Thursday about the US Olympic Committee’s 

decision to dress the US team in Chinese manufactured 

berets, blazers and pants while the 

American textile industry struggles economically 

with many US workers desperate for jobs. “I 

am so upset. I think the Olympic committee 

should be ashamed of themselves. I think they 

should be embarrassed. I think they should take 

all the uniforms, put them in a big pile and burn 

them and start all over again,” Senate Majority 

Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev, told reporters at a 

Capitol Hill news conference on taxes. 

“If they have to wear nothing but a singlet 

that says USA on it, painted by hand, then that’s 

what they should wear,” he said, referring to an 

athletic jersey. House Democratic Leader Nancy 

Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference 

that she’s proud of the nation’s Olympic 

athletes, but “they should be wearing uniforms 

that are made in America.” House Speaker John 

Boehner, R-Ohio, said simply of the USOC, 

“You’d think they’d know better.” In a statement, 

the US Olympic Committee defended the 

choice of designer Ralph Lauren for the clothing 

at the London Games, which begin later this 

month. 

“Unlike most Olympic teams around the 

world, the U.S. Olympic Team is privately funded 

and we’re grateful for the support of our 

sponsors,” USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky 

said in a statement. “We’re proud of our partnership 

with Ralph Lauren, an iconic American 

company, and excited to watch America’s finest 

athletes compete at the upcoming Games in 

London.” Ralph Lauren also is dressing the 

Olympic and Paralympic teams for the closing 

ceremony and providing casual clothes to be 

worn around the Olympic Village. Nike has 

made many of the competition uniforms for the 

US and outfits for the medal stand. 

On Twitter, Sandusky called the outrage over 

the made-in-China uniforms nonsense. The 

designer, Sandusky wrote, “financially supports 

our team. An American company that supports 

American athletes.” Ralph Lauren’s company 

declined to comment on the criticism. In fact, 

this is not the first time that Ralph Lauren has 

designed the Olympic uniforms. Yet that did little 

to quell the anger on Capitol Hill. “It is not 

just a label, it’s an economic solution,” said Rep 

PARIS: Yohan Blake is the new kid on the 

block, the pretender ready for a tenacious bid 

to usurp training partner Usain Bolt from his 

lofty pedestal as the world’s greatest sprinter. 

The Olympics in London are the perfect setting 

for an intra-Jamaican duel of epic proportions, 

with Bolt defending his 100 and 200m 

sprint titles from the 2008 Beijing Games. 

Blake’s run-off against Bolt in last year’s World 

Championships in Daegu was a washout, the 

latter sensationally disqualified from the final 

after false starting, leaving Blake a clear run to 

the gold medal. Winning the title at the age of 

21 years 245 days made the now 22-year-old 

the youngest ever winner of the world 100m. 

This year, Blake and Bolt avoided each other 

until they could no longer, lining up for a bat- 

sports 

Congress members furious over 

China-made Olympic uniforms 

US lawmaker wants outfits burned 

Steve Israel, D-NY. “Today there are 600,000 

vacant manufacturing jobs in this country and 

the Olympic committee is outsourcing the manufacturing 

of uniforms to China? That is not just 

outrageous, it’s just plain dumb. It is self-defeating.” 

Israel urged the USOC to reverse the decision 

and ensure US athletes wear uniforms that 

are made in America. Sens Sherrod Brown, D- 

Ohio, and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, separately 

sent letters to Lawrence Probst III, chairman of 

the USOC, complaining about the made-in- 

China uniforms. Brown suggested that the 

USOC find a manufacturer with a facility in the 

United States, suggesting the Hugo Boss plant 

in Cleveland. “There is no compelling reason 

why all of the uniforms cannot be made here on 

US soil at the same price, at better quality,” 

Gillibrand wrote along with Israel. Sen Bernie 

Sanders, D-Vt, said that while millions of 

Americans are unemployed, “there is no reason 

why US Olympic uniforms are not being manufactured 

in the US. 

This action on the part of the US Olympic 

Committee is symbolic of a disastrous trade policy 

which has cost us millions of decent-paying 

jobs and must be changed.” In a tweet, US track 

and field Olympian Nick Symmonds, who will 

compete in the 800-meter run at the London 

Games, wrote: “Our Ralph Lauren outfits for the 

Olympic opening ceremonies were made in 

China. So, um, thanks China.” This is hardly the 

first time patriotism has been discussed when it 

comes to Olympic clothing. The must-have souvenir 

of the 2002 Salt Lake Games was a fleece 

beret, something that athletes wore in the 

opening ceremony and prompted countless 

people to spend hours on lines waiting to purchase 

during those Olympics. 

Those berets were made by Roots, a 

Canadian company that was the official US 

team outfitter for that opening ceremony. In the 

last four years, the USOC has faced criticism for 

some of its sponsorship deals as it has scrambled 

to deal with the economic downturn. 

When General Motors left as a sponsor, the 

USOC signed a $24 million deal with German 

automaker BMW that raised eyebrows. At the 

time, the USOC highlighted the carmaker’s 42year 

history of selling cars in the United States 

and the fact that BMW has 7,000 American 

employees. The USOC and the International 

Olympic Committee also were criticized for 

sticking with BP as a sponsor after the deadly oil 

spills in the Gulf of Mexico.—AP 

Blake the pretender 

ready to usurp Bolt 

tle royale at the Jamaican Olympic trials. 

And Blake pulled off what many observers 

had long been predicting would happen: he 

trumped the towering Bolt in both the 100 

and 200m to send an almighty tremor 

through the world of athletics just weeks 

before the start of the London Games. The 22year-old 

Blake, standing 5ft 11in (1.80m) and 

weighing 78kg, set two world leads of 9.75 

and 19.80sec in the two events and promised 

that there is more to come. “It’s not over. I still 

have the Olympics to go. I just wanted to keep 

performing and keep going,” said Blake, born 

on December 26, 1989, in St James. Blake’s 

100m personal best of 9.75sec makes him the 

fourth fastest man ever, after Bolt, Tyson Gay 

and Asafa Powell. —AFP


The greenest 

Olympics ever-but 

is it good enough? 

LONDON: Despite dozens of compromises since London’s winning 

bid seven years ago promised an idyllic eco-Olympics with 

a “clean” flame, this year’s Games are still set to be the greenest 

ever. Even environmental campaigners say London 2012 will 

surpass all others in the modern era, with Sydney in 2000 the 

only serious runner-up and the smog-clogged Beijing Olympics 

in 2008 lagging behind. Friends of the Earth senior campaigner 

Jane Thomas said: “There’s been some huge principles that 

have been good-about no private vehicles arriving, recycling, 

the water supply, the principle of reusing the facilities. 

“That’s already set a benchmark for things that come in the 

future, and that can only be applauded.” When the Games start 

on July 27, spectators will take public transport-thanks to a 

deliberate lack of parking spaces-to an east London Olympic 

park studded with recycling bins aimed at a tough “zero waste 

to landfill” target. The former industrial site has been cleaned 

up, with two million tons of contaminated soil washed in an onsite 

“soil hospital”, to become a wetland park planted with 

300,000 plants and 2,000 native trees. 

Millions of meals of sustainably-sourced fish and local meat 

in compostable containers will be bought at a giant, entirely 

recyclable McDonald’s, whose cooking oil will become biodiesel 

to power its trucks. And fans will watch cycling greats in a showpiece 

energy-efficient, naturally ventilated arena, half the 

weight of the Beijing velodrome. “We’ve put a marker in the 

sand for managing sustainable events,” David Stubbs, head of 

sustainability for London 2012 said. Sydney’s Games left a legacy 

of solar panels and a big urban renewal project, but Stubbs 

said London had gone much further. 

Beijing installed large areas of solar panels but sustainability 

standards were patchy in other areas, while many of that 

Games’ lavish purpose-built venues are now crumbling. “The 

Green Games program in Sydney was brilliant but Athens and 

Beijing didn’t really follow up,” said Shaun McCarthy, head of 

the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012, a watchdog for 

the Games. London has, however, made its own concessions to 

practicality. These have included axing an on-site wind turbine, 

halving renewable energy use from a planned 20 percent, and 

lighting the Olympic flame with ordinary propane and butane. 

The sustainability commission criticized other decisions including 

heavy steel use in the “pointless” Arcelor Mittal Orbit, a 

114.5-metre tall, 1,500-tonne tower. 

It also lamented the production of tons of merchandise from 

polluting plastics with no guarantee of an ethical supply chain. 

Games sponsorship has meanwhile become so contentious that 

campaigners set up an ironic award, “Greenwash Gold”, for the 

sponsor covering up the worst environmental offences. The 

main stadium’s wrap advertises Dow Chemical, which owns the 

firm behind the 1984 Bhopal disaster, while metal for the prized 

Olympic medals comes from a Utah mine where owners Rio 

Tinto face a pollution lawsuit. “Dow, with the Union Carbide factory, 

is particularly problematic... they could have done an awful 

lot more to have progressed that satisfactorily and taken on the 

moral responsibility,” said Friends of the Earth’s Thomas. 

Some London green activists have meanwhile wrangled 

with whether to support a one-off event requiring huge construction 

work and mass air travel. Jenny Jones, Green Party 

member of the London Assembly, said: “If we wanted to keep 

hosting these extravagant Games every four years, the greenest 

option would be to tour around four or five cities that already 

have everything in place.” Campaigners say the Games’ green 

credentials can only really be assessed afterwards. Keen to avoid 

“white elephant” venues, organizers want the site to stay in use 

and regenerate a deprived area. 

But the main stadium has yet to find a long-term occupant, 

and in an unpromising sign, Andy Altman, head of the London 

Legacy Development Corporation, recently announced he 

would resign in August. Sponsor Coca-Cola has however developed 

a permanent new recycling plant in Lincolnshire in the 

east, while McDonald’s says it will make lasting changes to its 

British supply chain. McCarthy said the International Olympic 

Committee should demand far more such commitments. “The 

sponsors are keen to get involved-they’re not dragging them 

there kicking and screaming,” he said. Thomas said the very 

prominence of the green debate was a sign of progress. “It’s the 

first time anyone’s tried to judge it through a green prism, and 

that tells us we’re moving in the right direction,” she said. — AFP 

CAIRO: Across the world, word that Saudi 

Arabia would send female athletes to the 

Olympics for the first time immediately rocketed 

to the top of websites and broadcasts. 

In Saudi Arabia’s official media? Not even a 

hint. The state-sponsored silent treatment 

was indicative of the deep sensitivities inside 

the kingdom about the measured steps the 

country makes from its ultraconservative traditions. 

While Saudi rulers accommodated 

the urgings of the International Olympic 

Committee to include female athletes, the 

lack of domestic news coverage showed that 

- in their view at least - the change was not a 

pivotal moment of reform in a nation that still 

bans women from driving or traveling without 

the approval of a male guardian. 

“It does not change the fact that Saudi 

women are not free to move and to choose,” 

said political analyst Mona Abass in neighboring 

Bahrain. “The Saudis may use it to 

boost their image, but it changes little.” Even 

the two women selected to compete under 

the Saudi flag - 800-meter runner Sarah Attar 

from Pepperdine University in California and 

Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani in 

judo - live outside the kingdom and carry 

almost no influence as sports figures. That’s 

no surprise given female sports remain nearly 

an underground activity in Saudi Arabia. 

Ahmed Al-Marzooqi, editor of a website 

that aims to cover women and men’s sporting 

events in Saudi Arabia, said Thursday’s 

announcement was less about genuine 

change than it was about placating international 

organizations which had pressured 

SPORTS 

Andiego punches 

hole in stereotype 

Women’s boxing included for first time since 1904 

NAIROBI: Elizabeth Andiego grew up in Nairobi’s badlands. 

When she turned up at a boxing training session in the Kenyan 

capital in 2007 the coach thought she would bail out of a sport 

still widely seen in the east African country as for men only. Five 

years on, Andiego is London-bound after getting a wild card for 

the Olympic Games. , Andiego packs a powerful punch and has a 

fistful of weeks to quicken her footwork. “The coach thought I was 

joking around. So he said: ‘If you really want to train, come and 

train, I won’t stop you,’” Andiego told Reuters after a punishing 

training session. “He thought I would just be there two days and 

then I would be gone. But I kept on training.” 

Andiego, 25, trains with four male boxers in a rundown gymnasium 

in the Chinese-built Moi International Sports Centre that 

lies neglected on the city’s northern outskirts. In a grubby boxing 

ring she spars with the team’s coach Patrick Waweru while the 

men shadow box against the stop-watch. Waweru spits out the 

combinations as Andiego’s hands fly. Beads of sweat sting her 

eyes as she pummels Waweru’s pads. “Pah-pah, pah-pah-pah out, 

pah-pah, pah-pah-pah out,” Waweru says, urging her to keep her 

hands high and goading her with slaps to the legs to move her 

feet faster. In May, Andiego returned dejected from the London 

qualifiers held in Beijing after failing to win a win a place. 

‘SPARKS IN THE RING’ 

“I thought my dreams were over when I came back from China 

and I had lost. From there onwards my morale was down. I didn’t 

think I had an upcoming tournament,” she said. The judges in 

Beijing, however, had seen enough. “Now I am working hard to 

improve my endurance and speed. Getting that chance to represent 

in the Olympics is my greatest achievement so far.” Women’s boxing 

was a relative unknown in Kenya until a single-mother, 

Conjestina Achieng, nicknamed “Hands of Stone”, set the ring alight 

in the mid 2000s, becoming the first African woman to hold an 

international title. Kenyan boxers have not stood on the Olympic 

podium since Robert Wangila Napunyi won gold in the men’s welterweight 

category 1988. His compatriot Chris Sande picked up a 

bronze in the middleweight class at the same Games in Seoul. 

Looking to end the drought with Andiego will be 27-year-old 

flyweight Benson Gicharu, who darts terrier-like around the ring. 

“I believe in myself and I believe in God. I think my boxing 

prowess is a gift from God, and it even says so on my gown,” 

Gicharu said. However, government support for training facilities 

and equipment is limited. John Kameta, who heads Kenya’s 

Amateur Boxing Association, says Kenyan boxing is strapped for 

cash and wants corporate sponsors to inject money into the 

sport. “I’m telling you there are going to be sparks in the ring 

when (the boxers) see that they are earning something,” Kameta 

said. Asked about Kenya’s medal prospects, Kameta said: “That 

boy is sharp,” referring to Gicharu. “That girl is good, I’m sure she’s 

going to shock the world.” — Reuters 

ATHENS: In this file photo, Hadi Soua An Al Somaily carries the flag of Saudi Arabia during opening ceremonies of the Olympic 

Games in Athens, Greece. Every country competing at the London Games will include female athletes for the first time in 

Olympic history after Saudi Arabia agreed to send two women to compete in judo and track and field.— AP 

Saudi Olympic opening to women a ‘small step’ 

Saudi overturns decades-old taboo 

the lone nation trying to stick with an allmale 

Olympic team. The other former holdouts, 

Brunei and Qatar, had already added 

female Olympic athletes - with Qatar even 

planning to have a woman carry its flag in 

London later this month. “We are still disappointed 

here,” Al-Marzooqi said from the 

Saudi city of Jiddah. “I should be happy for 

them, but this will do nothing for women 

who want to be in sport in Saudi Arabia.” 

Still, the move is not without significance. 

The Saudi decision must have received at 

least some nod from the nation’s Islamic religious 

establishment, which hold de facto 

veto power over nearly all key moves by the 

Western-allied monarchy and gives the royal 

court its legitimacy to rule over a nation with 

Islam’s holiest sites.—AP


Politicians urge Blatter to 

explain payments scandal 

ZURICH: FIFA President Sepp Blatter has questions 

to answer over a bribery scandal that has further 

damaged the image of world soccer’s governing 

body, a group of European politicians said yesterday. 

A Swiss prosecutor said in a legal document 

released this week that former FIFA President Joao 

Havelange and former executive committee member 

Ricardo Teixeira took multi-million bribes on 

World Cup deals in the 1990s. Blatter, who has 

been with FIFA since 1975, and succeeded 

Havelange as president in 1998, said on Thursday 

he knew that payments were being made. He 

referred to them as “commission” and said they 

were not illegal at the time. 

Politicians from the parliamentary arm of the 

47-nation Council of Europe condemned FIFA for 

trying to hush up the affair. “If FIFA managers - 

including its current President - were aware of 

these bribes, they should have been doing everything 

in their power to prosecute, rather than protect, 

the officials concerned,” French politician 

Francois Rochebloine said. He urged Blatter to 

come clean on his role in a scandal that occurred 

when he was FIFA General Secretary. “When exactly 

did he become aware of these payments? Why 

did FIFA hide wrongdoing and fail to take action 

against its perpetrators? Above all, what steps will 

he now take to stop this happening again?,” he 

added. 

TAX DEDUCTIBLE 

Asked in a question-and-answer session with 

FIFA’s own website on Thursday if he had known of 

payments, Blatter replied: “Known what? That commission 

was paid? Back then, such payments could 

MIAMI: CONCACAF could move its lucrative 

Gold Cup tournament outside its traditional 

home in the United States and also introduce 

a women’s tournament as President Jeffrey 

Webb looks to refocus the scandal-hit body. 

Webb was elected president in May after the 

confederation for North and Central America 

and the Caribbean (CONCACAF) was thrown 

into turmoil after a financial scandal that led 

to the departure of former president Jack 

Warner. In an interview with Reuters, Webb 

said an investigation of past issues is being 

conducted in a bid to tackle problems from 

the era of Warner and former General 

Secretary Chuck Blazer. 

But while a detailed report on the organization’s 

past is expected in about nine 

months, Webb wants to see energy put into 

future plans and a refocus on the grassroots. 

The biennial Gold Cup, the continental tournament, 

is the main source of revenue for the 

confederation and every edition since it 

began in 1991 has been held in the United 

States. Next year’s Gold Cup will again be 

played in the United States but Webb feels it 

is time to consider alternatives for the 2015 

edition and beyond. 

“We have to look at other options and 

opportunities. We have to look at Canada ... 

we must look at Mexico and some of the other 

countries as well,” said Webb. “We have to. 

We are not going to approach it saying that it 

has to, it must, continue in the United States. I 

think we have a responsibility to all 40 countries 

to look at what is best for CONCACAF.” 

Mexico jointly hosted the 1993 and 2003 

tournaments with the United States and has 

plenty of stadium options, as does Canada. 

But alternatives outside of those countries are 

even be deducted from tax as a business expense. 

“Today, that would be punishable under law. You 

can’t judge the past on the basis of today’s standards.” 

Brazilian Havelange, who recently celebrated 

his 96th birthday, was head of FIFA from 1974 to 

1998. He received a payment of 1.5 million Swiss 

francs ($1.53 million) in March 1997 from nowdefunct 

sports marketing body ISL, the Swiss prosecutor 

said. 

Teixeira, 65, who led the Brazilian Football 

Confederation (CBF) from 1989 until stepping 

down earlier this year, took 12.7 million francs 

between 1992 and 1997, the prosecutor said. ISL 

sold the commercial rights to broadcast World Cup 

competitions on behalf of FIFA. It collapsed with 

debts of around $300 million in 2001. Blatter, who 

has been president for 14 years since succeeding 

Havelange, said FIFA had reacted by “strengthening 

our control mechanisms.” “The ethics committee, 

which was created in 2006 on my initiative, is a 

direct result of the ISL case,” he said. “The reform 

process is moving exactly in this direction. 

“To strengthen FIFA’s judicial system, some 

important steps have already been taken with the 

introduction of a two-chamber system - an adjudicatory 

body and an investigatory body. The executive 

committee will appoint the chairmen of these 

two chambers next week.” Havelange is still FIFA’s 

honorary president while Teixeira quit his post earlier 

this year, shortly after resigning as president of 

the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF). “I don’t 

have the power to call him to account,” said Blatter 

of Havelange. “The Congress named him as 

Honorary President. Only the Congress can decide 

his future.” — Reuters 

Webb keen to usher in 

new era for CONCACAF 

limited, unless there is a switch to joint-hosting. 

“There will only be a few countries that 

will have the facilities and capability of hosting 

a tournament,” said Webb. 

As well as wanting to see an increase in 

resources for the club competition, the CON- 

CACAF Champions League, the Cayman 

Islander said he wants the body to also look 

into fresh ideas for the women’s game. 

“Should we have a women’s Gold Cup? 

Should we have a women’s club championship? 

What are we doing with women’s 

football?” said Webb, adding that smaller 

age-group youth competitions could also be 

introduced. Women’s tournaments in the 

region have generally served as qualifying 

events for the Women’s World Cup rather 

than as stand-alone continental championships. 

CONCACAF found itself at the heart of a 

cash-for-votes scandal during the last FIFA 

presidential election, in which former Asian 

soccer chief Mohammed Bin Hammam was 

accused of giving cash gifts to Caribbean officials. 

Webb says the organization is now committed 

to open governance and is trying to 

change its image. “We do it one step at a 

time. We must of course regain our credibility. 

We must show people that we are transparent 

and serious about the business of football,” 

said Webb. “We do have a responsibility 

to society at large. Hopefully over time we 

develop some stability and consistency and 

that will regain the credibility and integrity 

that the game deserves.” The changes are 

likely to include moving CONCACAF’s headquarters 

away from the controversial rented 

accommodation in a luxury apartment complex 

in Manhattan.—Reuters 

Didier Drogba 

BEIJING: Didier Drogba arrives in China this 

weekend amid a spending spree on foreign talent 

that football chiefs hope will give the local 

league a much-needed boost but critics say is 

ruining the sport. The former Chelsea striker will 

join his new team, Shanghai Shenhua today, 

making him the highest-profile overseas player 

in the Chinese Super League as it tries to rebuild 

after years of corruption and scandal. He will 

join the likes of French striker Nicholas Anelka, 

Nigerian Ayegbeni Yakubu and World Cup winning 

Italian coach Marcello Lippi on mega-contracts 

in China, with those deals funded mostly 

by local business titans. 

Drogba and Anelka will play together at 

Shenhua, with each reported to be on salaries of 

more than $15 million a year-roughly double 

the amount they received in the English Premier 

League. The Chinese Football Association 

believes the domestic game, which has endured 

years of corruption and repeated failures by the 

national team, is set to take off on the back of 

the influx of expensive foreign talent. “The highlevel 

world-class players and coaches will be 

able to provide a learning opportunity to our 

domestic players and coaches,” CFA spokesman 

Dong Hua said. 

“I hope our coaches and players can improve 

through this exchange and enhance the level of 

Chinese football as a whole.” But football analysts 

and players with experience in both the 

Chinese and English leagues say the big spending 

amounts to little more than the vanity projects 

of club owners who should instead be 

pouring cash into grassroots development. “The 

spending is ego-fuelled craziness coming from 

these big owners, which is not sustainable and 

will end in disaster in the long run,” Rowan 

Simons, a prominent Beijing-based commentator 

on Chinese football said. “The level of investment 

required to bring Drogba and Anelka is 

totally out of sync with the scale of football. 

“When a single player’s salary is several times 

the entire revenue of the club in a year, I think it 

is fairly obvious that we have gone the wrong 

way in one direction.” Concerns from football 

purists also centre on the star signings being 

drafted in to promote the commercial interests 

of the mega-rich Chinese club owners. State 

media have reported that part of Drogba’s deal 

SPORTS 

Doubts as Drogba 

hits China jackpot 

includes him being a spokesman for a Chinese 

online gaming company. Anelka was reportedly 

paid millions to endorse an online game developed 

by Internet company The9, whose chairman 

Zhu Jun is also the chief investor in 

Shenhua. 

Guangzhou Evergrande, who currently top 

the CSL, are owned by Evergrande Real Estate 

Group, which is controlled by tycoon Xu Jiayin. 

Xu, one of China’s richest me, reportedly has a 

fortune of $7.2 billion and a war chest of $70 

million for his club. Part of that was spent on luring 

Lippi for an annual salary of $12.66 million, 

according to Chinese Internet portal Sohu.com. 

“These are not investments in football for football’s 

sake... and it is definitely not sustainable,” 

Yan Qiang, football commentator and vice-president 

of Titan Media, one of China’s leading 

sports publishers said. “Some of these owners 

are investing like they are carrying out some 

sort of personal public relations exercise, while 

others are doing it to increase the awareness of 

their own companies.” 

Another former English Premier League star, 

Marlon Harewood, was credited with helping 

Guangzhou R&F, the second team from the 

booming southern Chinese city, rise into the top 

division last season during a short-term contract. 

The former Aston Villa and West Ham 

United striker said that club owners were 

ploughing cash into the wrong areas of the 

game. “They need to invest in grass roots players 

who are homegrown as the gap is huge 

between local players and the ones taken in 

from overseas,” Harewood said. 

“It is no use just having one top level striker 

in the team and expecting him to score goals in 

every game. They need a better class of players 

all around the field.” The quality of Chinese 

players has been under intense scrutiny in 

recent years, with China already out of the running 

for the 2014 World Cup after it failed to 

get through a qualifying group topped by Iraq. 

The failure to qualify came despite the CFA luring 

ex-Real Madrid and Spain boss Jose Antonio 

Camacho as manager on a reported $8 milliona-year 

contract. The national team has only 

qualified for one World Cup, in 2002, when it 

lost all three games and failed to score a single 

goal. — AFP


Sports 

Millar wins 

12th stage 

41 

LONDON: In this file photo, Queens Park Rangers’ Anton Ferdinand, and Chelsea Captain John Terry (left) is seen during an FA Cup 4th round soccer match against Chelsea, at Loftus Road 

ground in London. — AFP 

Terry cleared of racial abuse 

Rangers demoted 

LONDON: Cash-strapped Glasgow giants 

Rangers will play in the Third Division next season 

following a vote of Scottish Football 

League clubs yesterday in a move that could 

have enormous consequences for the entire 

future of Scottish football. Already expelled 

from the Scottish Premier League (SPL), following 

the formation of a new company or newco 

that took place after Rangers entered administration, 

they were dropped to the lowest 

league tier of Scottish football following a 

meeting of Scottish Football League chairmen. 

Scottish Football Association chief executive 

Stewart Regan had said that demoting Rangers 

to the Third Division would cause financial 

catastrophe and a “slow, lingering death” of the 

Scottish game and said they should be 

dropped to the First Division instead. But at a 

news conference after yesterday’s meeting it 

was announced that 25 out of the 30 SFL clubs 

had voted for Rangers to be entered into the 

Third Division. 

The chairmen of rival clubs arrived for a 

meeting regarding the future of financially 

stricken Rangers yesterday insisting it would 

not be the end of Scottish football if they were 

demoted to the Third Division. Rangers, 

Scotland’s most successful side, will either be in 

the First Division or Third Division next term 

depending upon the outcome of a meeting at 

Glasgow’s Hampden Park, the headquarters of 

the Scottish Football Association. 

It appears the vast majority of the voting 

clubs want the 140-year-old Rangers demoted 

to the Third Division. 

Safeguarding the multi-million pound commercial 

deals on which Scotland’s professional 

clubs rely so heavily is central to Regan’s stance, 

with a new television deal worth £80 million 

($125m) over five seasons reputedly dependent 

on the screening of four Rangers v Celtic Old 

Firm derbies a season. Broadcasters are said to 

be prepared to go no more than one year without 

these showcase matches. But Dunfermline 

chairman John Yorkston said yesterday that 

even if talk of a £16 million ‘black hole’ was 

accurate, the SFL clubs would deal with it. “I 

don’t think everybody necessarily believes 

those figures we’ve been given but if the figures 

are correct it is part of the pain we have to 

bear.” 

Raith Rovers chairman Turnbull Hutton 

accused officials of exaggerating the scale of 

the problem were Rangers to play in the Third 

Division. “Some of the horror stories about the 

finances...15 months ago Neil Doncaster (SPL 

chief executive) and Henry McLeish (author of 

the Review of Scottish Football) stood there 

and said it had to be a 10-team SPL or it was 

going to be financial Armageddon if that didn’t 

happen. “Now we are talking about a 16-team 

SPL.” Newco Rangers chief executive Charles 

Green, speaking ahead of yesterday’s vote, said: 

“I think the vilification and persecution has to 

end and common sense has to prevail and I 

think it will.” — Agencies 

LONDON: Chelsea captain John Terry was 

cleared yesterday of racially abusing an opponent 

during a Premier League match after one of 

the most high-profile trials involving a soccer 

player. The case led to Terry being stripped of the 

England captaincy by the Football Association 

ahead of the European Championship and the 

departure of coach Fabio Capello who disagreed 

with the decision. But after hearing four days of 

evidence at a London court, chief magistrate 

Howard Riddle found he was not convinced that 

Terry had committed a racially aggravated public 

order offense in a confrontation with Queens 

Park Rangers player Anton Ferdinand during the 

match in October. Terry’s legal team said in a 

statement: “He did not racially abuse Ferdinand 

and the court has accepted this.” 

Terry maintained he only used an offensive 

term sarcastically to counter the obscenity he 

claims Ferdinand was accusing him of using. It 

followed Ferdinand goading Terry about an 

alleged extramarital affair with then-England 

teammate Wayne Bridge’s former girlfriend. And 

Riddle was persuaded by the defense claim that 

Terry could have misheard “Bridge” as “black,” 

prompting his belief that a claim of racism was 

being wrongly claimed. “It is highly unlikely that 

Ferdinand accused Terry on the pitch of calling 

him a black (expletive),” Riddle wrote in his judgment. 

“However I accept that it is possible that 

Mr. Terry believed at the time, and believes now, 

that such an accusation was made. 

“The prosecution evidence as to what was 

said by Ferdinand at this point is not strong. 

(Ashley) Cole (the Chelsea defender) gives cor- 

roborating (although far from compelling corroborating) 

evidence on this point. It is therefore 

possible that what he said was not intended as 

an insult, but rather as a challenge to what he 

believed had been said to him.” There were 

cheers in Court One at Westminster Magistrates’ 

Court from members of Terry’s family after the 

verdict. “We are pleased that John can now put 

his mind to football and go back to training and 

do what he’s done for many years,” Chelsea chairman 

Bruce Buck said outside Westminster 

Magistrates’ Court. 

Riddle said there was no evidence Terry has 

lied and called him a “credible witness.” “The lip 

readers do not provide evidence that categorically 

contradicts his account,” he said of the incident 

that spread on YouTube after the game. 

“What may at first sight have seemed clear to the 

non-expert, is less clear now. There are limitations 

to lip reading, even by an expert. I have 

assessed John Terry as a credible witness.” 

Ferdinand had been reluctant to pursue a criminal 

case, which was prompted by an off-duty 

police officer making the complaint. 

Prosecutors accepted the verdict, but 

defended the decision to take action. “The very 

serious allegation at the heart of this case was 

one of racial abuse,” Alison Saunders, Chief 

Crown Prosecutor for London, said. “It was our 

view that this was not ‘banter’ on the football 

pitch and that the allegation should be judged 

by a court. “The Chief Magistrate agreed that Mr. 

Terry had a case to answer, but having heard all 

of the evidence he acquitted Mr. Terry of a racially 

aggravated offense.” — AP

TROOPS MASSACRE 220 iN SyRiA'S TREMSEh ... - Kuwait Times

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