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GULF TIMES
SATURDAY Vol. XXXV No. 9619
January 31, 2015
Rabia II 11, 1436 AH
www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals
Qatar Airways
buys 10% stake
in British
Airways-owner
In brief
AFP
London
REGION | Crime
Q
Gunmen attack two
Americans in Saudi
Gunmen yesterday fired at two
US citizens on a road in Eastern
Province, leaving one wounded, in
the fourth anti-Western attack in
Saudi Arabia in as many months,
police said in Riyadh. “At 2pm
today... a car carrying two American
nationals... came under fire from
an unknown source, resulting
in one of them being wounded
and hospitalised,” said a police
spokesman, quoted by the official
SPA news agency. Page 3
PALESTINE | Tensions
Israeli settlement
plan raises concern
The White House yesterday
condemned Israeli plans to build
450 new settler homes in the
West Bank as “illegitimate and
counterproductive” to achieving
peace. “We have deep concerns
about these highly contentious
settlement construction
announcements,” said a White
House spokesman. Page 4
PAKISTAN | Violence
Qatar team members celebrating after winning the Men’s Handball World Championship semi-final match with Poland yesterday. PICTURE: Jayan Orma.
Qatar to take on France
in world handball final
Blast at mosque
kills dozens
Qatar’s team shakes up
handball’s world order
A powerful bomb tore through
a busy Shia mosque in southern
Pakistan yesterday, killing close to
60 people in the country’s deadliest
sectarian attack in nearly two years.
Page 11
atar became the first nonEuropean side ever to reach a
World handball final after beating Poland 31-29 yesterday.
In a historic night for the sport at a
jubilant and packed 15,300-seater Lu-
Q
sail Multipurpose Hall, Qatar overcame
a hesitant start to beat a dogged Polish
side and shake up handball’s world order.
Previously, no Asian team had
got further than the quarter-finals
and only two African sides had ever
reached the semi-finals.
The hosts, who went into the tour-
nament ranked 36, had said at the beginning of the cup that their aim was to
reach the last eight.
But after three straight victories in
the knockout phase against strong European teams - Austria, Germany and
Poland - Qatar will now face Olympic
and European champions France in tomorrow’s title match.
Qatar’s Spanish-born coach Valero
Rivera said it was a “great day”.
“My aim was to play the final and
today I am the most happy man in the
world. I am very, very happy for the
country,” he said.
At the final whistle, Qatar’s team
celebrated in front of an ecstatic
crowd. Sport pages 1, 2, 3, 4
atar Airways yesterday snapped
up almost 10% of International
Airlines Group (IAG), parent
of British Airways and Spanish carrier
Iberia.
“As part of efforts to enhance operations and strengthen existing commercial ties... Qatar Airways has acquired a
9.99% stake in IAG,” the company said
in a statement.
The airline’s chief executive, Akbar
al-Baker, said International Airlines
Group “represents an excellent opportunity to further develop our westwards strategy”.
The stake is worth an estimated
£1.1bn ($1.65bn).
The three Gulf carriers - Qatar
Airways, Emirates and Etihad - have
snatched a sizeable share of the longhaul sector, turning their home cities
into major hubs on routes to Asia-Pacific destinations.
Qatar Airways noted EU rules would
not let it take a majority stake.
“Qatar Airways may consider increasing its stake further over time
although this is not currently intended
to exceed 9.99%,” it added.
IAG chief executive Willie Walsh
expressed delight at having Qatar Airways “as a long term supportive shareholder”.
He added in a company statement:
“We will talk to them about what opportunities exist to work more closely
together and further IAG’s ambitions
as the leading global airline group.”
IAG, meanwhile, is hoping to buy
Irish airline Aer Lingus, which this
week backed a 1.35bn euro ($1.53bn)
takeover bid. Business page 1
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
2
QATAR
More govt services
complexes soon
S
ervice
administration
complexes would be
opened in more areas
across the country, said HE
the Minister of Administrative
Development Dr Essa bin Saad
al-Nuami, reported local daily
Arrayah.
The minister said this
while opening the Government Service Complex in
Al Shahaniya recently.
The services complex in AlShahaniya, he said, has been
built on the directions of HE the
Prime Minister and Minister of
Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin
Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani.
The aim of the complexes is
to make the government services available under one roof
at locations closest to one’s
residence.
The facility gives people
the access to the government
services in a shorter duration
and reduces crowds at the
main services centres.
The Ministry of Administrative Development, in coordination with other government agencies and authorities
that provide similar services
to the public, are working on
to make their services available to people at the fastest
possible time.
The complex in Al Shahhaniya is the fifth after the
establishment
of
service
complexes in Al Wakrah,
Mesaimeer, Umm Salal and
Al Zabarah.
A Government Services
Complex in Al Daayen Municipality will open in February. A
similar complex is expected to
be ready in Al Hilal in March.
Ministry of Economy’s
new service hailed
A
number of Qatari nationals have lauded the
new service launched
by the Ministry of Economy and Commerce through
which it informs the residents regarding the 10 main
complaints that the ministry received about the goods
sold in the country, local daily
Al Sharq has reported.
While confirming that
the step would contribute to
raising awareness about the
goods before their purchase,
the citizens felt the new service would encourage them to
interact with the Consumer
Protection Department at
regular intervals.
The service, it is felt, would
raise awareness about the consumer’s rights and obligations.
The people feel the information regarding the 10 main
complaints about the goods
during a month is very useful.
While hailing the new service Qatari national Abdul Aziz
Marafi has appealed to the
residents to be careful while
making a purchase.
He said the service would
force the managers of the
shops, malls and supermarkets to be more careful about
the quality and genuineness of
the goods that they sell to the
consumers.
Another national Badr alKalbani has said the ministry’s new service would help
distinguish between good
and bad things reaching the
market.
Among the 10 main complaints of December that the
ministry received and prominently displayed on its website
were regarding some brands of
the mobile telephones, printer
devices, ironing equipment,
doors, water tanks, clothes,
refrigerators and spare parts.
QRC signs deal to help
hospital in Jerusalem
Q
atar Red Crescent (QRC)
has signed an agreement
with the World Health
Organisation (WHO) to provide
Al-Makassed Islamic Charitable Society Hospital in Jerusalem $500,000 for medicines and
medical consumables.
QRC seeks to overcome the
severe lack of such essential
supplies in the hospital, due to
a protracted financial squeeze
amid the Israeli crackdown
on the Palestinian people and
institutions.
Recently, the hospital received
more than 300 critical cases referred from Gaza following last
year’s war, who were all treated
for free. It has also accommodated the injured in the West
Bank and Jerusalem clashes as a
result of the war on Gaza. Obviously, this additional burden
caused an overconsumption and
subsequently depletion of many
crucial medications and medical
consumables.
In partnership with Islamic
Development Bank (IDB), QRC
is currently conducting a major
project to develop the hospital,
to enable it to continue its medical and educational services for
the Palestinians.
Established in 1968, the
8,000sq m, Aqsa hospital offers
cheap medical care for Palestinians at minimal prices to suit the
poor and low-income patients,
amid the Israeli tight economic
blockade. In some cases, the
poorest are even served for free.
With a capacity of 250 beds,
70 of which are in the ICU, the
hospital is run by 800 medical,
technical, and administrative
staff. It is the largest and oldest
medical facility to serve Jerusalem Arab inhabitants and the
comers from the West bank and
the Gaza Strip.
The hospital is also a leading
Palestinian medical education
institution, and it is recognised
by the Palestine Medical Council (PMC) as a training centre
for resident physicians in nine
specialties: obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, internal medicine, general surgery,
orthopaedics, cardiac surgery,
neurosurgery, anaesthesia, and
diagnostic radiology.
QC reaches out to
Gaza fishermen
Q
Students presenting a project.
Man jailed for
drug peddling
A
Doha Criminal Court
has sentenced an Arab
man in absentia to 10
years in jail and imposed a
fine of QR400,000 for drug
peddling.
The court also ordered that
the expatriate be deported
upon completion of the sentence. The accused was convicted of receiving and dealing
in narcotic hashish.
According to the prosecution, he had offered to
sell hashish to an undercover police agent in exchange for a certain sum of
money. The agent agreed to
meet the accused to receive
the drug, while he arranged
for the police to watch the
delivery process from afar.
Eventually, the drug dealer
met the undercover agent
and asked him to take him
in his vehicle to a place at Al
Rayyan area. Then, he left him
and came back with a packet
containing hashish, which he
gave to the agent for a sum of
QR1,000. Police overseeing
the operation arrested the culprit and a body search yielded
more hashish ready for sale.
A blood sample of the suspect was also sent to the forensic lab, which confirmed
the existence of the drug in
his blood. The man confessed
to possessing and consuming such drugs during police
interrogation.
Al-Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem.
TAMU-Q honours
high school students
T
exas A&M University at
Qatar (TAMU-Q) recognised 15 high school students for their winning projects
during two research competitions - the Secondary School
Research
Experience
Programme and the Intel Science
Competition Arab World 2014.
The winning projects were
displayed during the Science
and Engineering Showcase at
the Link Atrium of the campus.
The ceremony was presided over
by Dr Mark H Weichold, dean
and CEO, TAMU-Q.
“We are proud to feature your
outstanding winning projects from
the Secondary School Research
Experience Programme and 5th
Intel Science Competition Arab
World 2014,” Dr Weichold said.
Awqaf receives 66 new mosques
“Because of the students’
innovation and perseverance,
we saw those award-winning,
thought-provoking and inventive projects last week. Those
winning projects illustrate how
these concepts are fundamental
in engineering the world around
us and making it a better place,”
he added.
The competitions this year
were intense and made students
employ their best interview and
presentation skills to compete
with more than 100 students
from nine countries across
Mena.
TAMU-Q students, faculty
and staff attended the showcase of winning projects to
support and encourage these
outstanding students.
atar Charity (QC) has
signed an agreement
for the implementation
of the training of Gaza fishermen on occupational safety,
building new workshops, and
building offices for the fishermen’s union in Rafah and Deir
al-Balah for worth $250,000.
For more than four years, QC
has been committed to promote the fishing industry and
fisheries in Gaza while assisting 4,000 fishermen and their
families, who struggle even in
times of peace to ply their trade
due to the blockades.
This has been part of an
agriculture and fisheries programme valued at $10mn that
has helped more than 210,000
people under the projects, QC
said in a statement.
The projects also included
rehabilitation and maintenance of fishing boats and creation of 85 equipment storage
sheds for fishermen, renovated
118 homes of fishermen, in addition to the rehabilitation of
agricultural land and drilling
of wells.
Last year’s aggression on the
Gaza Strip cost fishermen an
estimated $9mn, according to
official sources. This was split
between direct losses amounting to $6mn and indirect losses
of $3mn. More than 50 fishing
boats were destroyed, includ-
ing a similar number of equipment storage sheds.
In early 2014, QC’s work with
the fishing community included a vocational training programme for the 280 children
of fishermen in the Gaza Strip
with a budget of $140,000.
The 13 vocational courses
offered ranged from repair and
maintenance of marine engines and electricity, sewing
and embroidery, computer and
mobile phone repair and maintenance, to language skills and
office management. Trainees
were also being provided with
relevant and related incomegenerating projects prior to the
aggression.
Fishermen benefit from QC training programmes.
Book features NU-Q alumnae
A
The Ministry of Endowment and Islamic Affairs (Awqaf) received 66 new mosques last year, in addition
to 79 houses for Imams and 37 empty plots of land assigned by the state for building new mosques
and prayer yards. The new mosques, which are spacious enough for thousands of believers, are
located in various areas around the country. One of the new mosques is seen in the picture.
book has featured two
Northwestern University
in Qatar (NU-Q) alumnae - Sara al-Derham and Dana
al-Meslemani - and praised
them as “up and coming and
talented women who innovate
and are Qatar’s future.”
The book, Qatar Success
Stories: Inspiring Women, celebrates the local and international achievements of Qatari
women, outlining their contributions to Qatar’s development
and influence.
“Sara and Dana are extraordinary young women making
strides in the media industry. This is the objective of the
book: to pay tribute to successful women and their vision,”
says author Caroline Carpentier, adding: “After reading the
profiles, I hope readers will have
a new perception of the crucial
role women play in shaping
Qatar’s future.”
Al-Derham, who graduated
in 2014 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication,
is recognised for her academic
successes, commitment to the
Dana during her graduation ceremony.
local community and excellence as an upcoming filmmaker and director. While at NU-Q,
al-Derham played a leadership
role in both the Student Union
and Culture Club, where she
served as president.
In 2011, she co-founded
‘Ta2heel,’ a not-for-profit
summer programme to help
high school students prepare
for university life and find their
Sara at her graduation.
passions. Sara is now in graduate school studying critical media and cultural studies at the
School of Oriental and African
Studies, University of London.
Al-Meslemani
graduated
from NU-Q with a Bachelor of
Science degree in Communication. She has held marketing
internships at leading international organistions and is a
published photographer in lo-
cal and international magazines
and journals. In her time at
NU-Q she was a student government class representative
and graphic designer, as well as
‘Oh Snap!’ treasurer. With her
acceptance into King’s College,
London, Dana will be studying
for a Master of Arts in cultural
and creative industries. Dana
is co-owner of Al Thumama
Arabian Horse Stud in Qatar.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
3
REGION/ARAB WORLD
One hurt in gun attack on Americans in Saudi
AFP
Riyadh
G
unmen fired at two US citizens yesterday on a road in
Eastern Province, leaving
one wounded, in the fourth antiWestern attack in Saudi Arabia in
as many months, police said.
“At 2pm today... a car carrying two American nationals...
came under fire from an unknown
source, resulting in one of them
being wounded and hospitalised,”
said a police spokesman, quoted
by the official SPA news agency.
He was “in stable condition”.
The two Americans were travelling on a road in Shia-populated
Al Ihsaa governorate of eastern
Saudi Arabia, he said.
A resident of Al Ihsaa said police blocked off a part of the city
where a National Guard facility
and a Saudi Aramco hospital and
training school are located.
No other details were immediately available.
US embassy spokesman Johann
Schmonsees said: “We are aware
of the reports and are looking into
them.”
It was the fourth attack since
October on Westerners in the
kingdom, which in September
joined a US-led coalition against
the Islamic State (IS) militant
group in Syria and Iraq.
Last month, Saudi authorities
arrested three IS supporters for
allegedly shooting and wounding
a Dane in his car in Riyadh.
The interior ministry said authorities arrested the suspected
gunmen, driver and videographer, who wore masks during the
shooting which was filmed and
posted online by IS.
The suspects, all Saudis, had
“trained for two weeks” before the
attack, authorities said.
Also in December, an assailant
stabbed and wounded a Canadian
as he shopped at a mall in Dhahran
on the Gulf coast.
Canada and Denmark are also
taking part in the US-led air campaign against IS.
And in October, a Saudi-Amer-
ican fired from his job with a US
defence contractor shot dead an
American former colleague and
wounded another in Riyadh.
In November, Saudi Arabia
blamed IS-linked suspects for the
killing of seven Shias, including
children, in Eastern Province.
In a video posted on Tuesday,
Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch (AQAP)
called for lone-wolf attacks
against the United States and the
West, with one of the group’s
ideologues, Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, urging supporters to carry out
“individual jihad”.
A recording was released in
November attributed to Abu Mohamed al-Adnani, the IS spokesman, that urged Muslims to attack
Westerners by any means, even if
only to “spit on their faces”.
The video on the Dane being
attacked came with an audio recording, purportedly of IS leader
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, warning
that Riyadh will see “no more security or rest”.
Last year, Saudi authorities arrested a man wanted for a number
of violent crimes, including
shooting at the car of two German
diplomats in January 2013.
The Germans escaped unharmed in the incident in the Shia
village of Awamiya in Qatif governorate of Eastern Province.
Awamiya has been a focus of
clashes between security forces
and protesters from Saudi Arabia’s
Shia Muslim minority.
Several Westerners in Saudi
Arabia were killed in a wave of Al
Qaeda violence between 2003 and
2007.
Top officer
dies as Iraq
Kurds repel
IS offensive
AFP
Kirkuk
I
raqi Kurdish forces repelled a major attack by
the Islamic State group in
Kirkuk province that killed
a top officer yesterday, while
violence elsewhere left at least
19 dead.
The IS assault on areas south
and west of the northern city of
Kirkuk began at around midnight, sparking fighting with
medium and heavy weapons in
which the militants were ultimately held off.
Kirkuk Governor Najm alDin Karim said Kurdish forces,
supported by US-led air strikes,
“foiled the Daesh (IS) attacks”
which were “carried out toward
oil and gas facilities and stations... from three directions
leading to the city of Kirkuk”.
Damage to Kirkuk oil facilities would pose a serious problem for Iraq, which is counting
on crude exports of 300,000
barrels per day from the province in its 2015 budget.
Brigadier General Shirko
Rauf and five other members of
the Kurdish peshmerga forces
were killed and 46 more were
wounded in the fighting, a police brigadier general and a doctor said, but the final casualty
figure for Kurdish troops was
unclear.
Officials put IS casualties at
dozens of dead, but that could
not be independently confirmed.
The Kirkuk province security
committee announced a curfew
beginning at 10am yesterday,
but it was lifted later in the day,
police said.
Dozens of Kirkuk residents
fired weapons in the air to celebrate the victory over IS, witnesses said.
Militants struck inside the
city itself yesterday, detonating a car bomb near security
headquarters and wounding five
people, a police colonel and the
doctor said.
According to the colonel,
armed suicide bombers tried to
take up positions on the roof of a
hotel in the city, but were killed
by security forces before they
could do so.
In Jalawla, an area in Diyala
province south of Kirkuk that
was retaken from IS at the end
of last year, a suicide bomber
attacked peshmerga forces, killing seven and wounding seven
more, Brigadier General Barzan
Ali said.
Violence also struck Samarra, home to a revered Shia
shrine that was bombed in
2006, setting off a wave of
Sunni-Shia sectarian violence
that killed tens of thousands of
people.
One suicide bomber detonated a car bomb at a police checkpoint at an entrance to the city,
while two more struck a police headquarters and a fourth
bomber was shot dead.
The bombings and sporadic
clashes between IS and security
forces west of Samarra killed
seven people and wounded 31,
police and a doctor said.
In Baghdad, at least one bomb
exploded in a used clothes market in the central Bab al-Sharji
area, killing at least five people
and wounding 17, officials said.
IS spearheaded an offensive
that has overrun much of Iraq’s
Sunni Arab heartland since
June, presenting both an opportunity for territorial expansion
and a threat to the country’s
three-province
autonomous
Kurdish region.
Several Iraqi divisions collapsed in the early days of the
offensive, clearing the way for
the Kurds to take control of a
swathe of disputed territory
they have long wanted to incorporate into their region over
Baghdad’s objections.
But after driving south towards Baghdad, IS turned its
attention to the Kurds, pushing them back towards their
regional capital Arbil in a move
that helped spark US strikes
against the militants.
Houthi fighters sit on a patrol truck securing the vicinity of a gathering of followers of the Houthi movement in Sanaa yesterday.
US drone war flounders
in Yemen, Qaeda gains
The drone campaign against
Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula has caused public
anger in Yemen
Reuters
Sanaa
S
choolboy Mohamed Taeiman died this week on a
remote Yemeni road, a
casualty of a US drone campaign
against the local branch of Al
Qaeda that seems to be sliding
into disarray.
The sixth-grader’s death as
he returned home with a family
friend aroused the kind of anger
that has long helped Al Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to
recruit fighters.
But in recent months convulsions in Yemeni politics have
pushed President Barack Obama’s
strategy close to failure as the
group, known locally as Ansar
al-Shariah, has broken out of its
mountain bastions to stage attacks across the country.
While the exact circumstances
of Monday’s incident remain unclear, relatives say the boy was
travelling in a car with the family
friend, Abdullah al-Zindani, to his
village in the central province of
Marib.
Returning from visiting an acquaintance in southern Yemen,
they were driving along a 160km
road that threads its way between
mountains and desert. But just after 11am, mobile phones of people
in their home area began beeping with pictures showing the
remains of a black Suzuki, hit by
what appeared to have been a devastating force.
“Zindani’s name started circulating, and I knew my brother
was with him,” said Mohamed’s
17-year-old brother, Ezz el-Deen.
“My brother was not armed. Mohamed was killed, he was a child,”
Alwaleed to
launch news
channel
Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal
will tomorrow launch a pan-Arab
satellite news channel aimed at
challenging established networks
in the region.
Broadcasting from 1300 GMT
tomorrow, his Bahrain-based
Alarab News Channel will be the
latest player in the Arabic-language
television market, after Al Jazeera
became the first regional news
broadcaster 19 years ago.
It will also be a rival for Dubaibased Al Arabiya, established in
2003.
Jamal Khashoggi, Alarab’s general
manager, said the new channel will
be even-handed.
“We are not going to take sides,” he
told AFP.
“I think a news channel should
not have a political agenda... We
should just be a news channel
that provides accurate, objective
information.”
Khashoggi declined to reveal
Alarab’s budget but said the
channel will have about 280 staff,
including correspondents in 30
countries.
Riyadh will be the largest bureau
with around 20 employees.
said Ezz el-Deen, who himself
survived a drone strike that killed
his father and brother in 2011.
“Bring justice to those who
killed him otherwise we will cut
off the oil, we will be saboteurs.
We will join Ansar al-Shariah,” he
yelled down the phone to Reuters.
The drone campaign against
AQAP, Obama’s preferred tactic
in fighting the group that claimed
responsibility for the attack on
Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris
on January 7, has always caused
public anger in Yemen. Critics
say the attacks often kill low-level
militants and sometimes civilians,
not the top plotters Washington
says it goes after.
But AQAP has begun winning
more allies among Yemen’s majority Sunnis since Shia Houthi
rebels began pushing into the
capital Sanaa and other areas in
September.
Last year, a Yemeni army campaign backed by US drone strikes
tried to dislodge AQAP from the
south, where it had training camps
in mountainous regions, mostly
co-existing with local villagers.
But less than a year later, AQAP
attacks have happened in provinces across Yemen, partly because militants were often allowed
to leave their bastions in deals
with tribesmen who did not want
the army to fight in their backyards.
The rapid rise of the Iranianallied Houthis as Yemen’s main
power has prompted some Sunni
tribes to join AQAP in fighting the
Zaidi Shias, whom the militants
view as heretics.
“The Sunni tribes are enemies
of the Houthis but they can’t confront them alone,” said Abdulrazzaq al-Jamal, a local journalist
who has contacts with AQAP. “For
Al Qaeda that is a big victory - for
the tribes to join it in one war, that
has never happened before.”
Evidence of this alliance is
growing. Ibb and Hodeidah, two
provinces that experienced little
AQAP violence before the Houthis
arrived, now suffer frequent attacks. In the coastal city of Hodeidah, port worker Sharaf al-Batool
said “big operations” by Al Qaeda
had become a feature of life after
the Houthis deployed there.
The Houthis say they are fighting AQAP to protect members of
their community, but they are also
stirring great resentment.
April Longley Alley, of the International Crisis Group, said the
Houthis were winning some victories against Al Qaeda. But if they
did not help to build a legitimate
state, they “are going to unintentionally strengthen (Al Qaeda) recruitment”, she said.
Despite a power vacuum since
President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi resigned last week in a
standoff with the Houthis, Monday’s drone strike in Marib suggests the campaign will continue.
Flogging of blogger
is postponed again
Agencies
Riyadh
S
Alarab News Channel staff are seen on duty at the editorial office in Manama.
audi Arabian authorities
yesterday postponed the
planned flogging of liberal blogger Reif Badawi.
Amnesty
International
said the imprisoned 31-yearold’s lashing was not carried
out.
Badawi’s last two scheduled floggings - on the
two Fridays since his first
flogging on January 9 were postponed on medical grounds, after doctors
declared him unfit to be
flogged, the international
rights group said.
There was no official explanation for the latest postponement.
Badawi was last year sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10
years in prison for insulting
Islam in an Internet forum.
He was also fined 1mn Saudi
riyals.
Badawi’s wife Ensaf Haider, who lives in Canada, said
he was in poor health and renewed her call for his release.
Also yesterday, Saudi authorities released Suad alShammari, who along with
Badawi co-founded the online forum, her family said.
The mother of six was arrested in November for allegedly insulting Islam.
“I have good news to you.
My mother has been cleared
of all charges,” al-Shammari’s daughter posted on Twitter.
Badawi was initially sentenced to seven years in jail
and 600 lashes, but an appeals court overturned the
original verdict, sending his
case back for retrial.
His sentence was then increased to 10 years and 1,000
lashes.
4
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
ARAB WORLD
Netanyahu denies wife pocketed ‘bottle money’
AFP
Jerusalem
I
srael’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday
dismissed as “false” reports
that his wife Sara had pocketed
at least $1,000 worth of public
money by returning empty bottles to supermarkets.
The reports, which were
cause for ridicule in local media, come as the head of the
right-wing Likud party prepares to seek re-election in a
snap March vote.
In a long Facebook post,
Netanyahu hit out at “false accusations against me and my
wife that seek to topple the Likud
and bring the left to power”.
“All of this aims to detract
attention from what is really
important—who will lead the
country,” he wrote.
Earlier this week, reports
emerged that Sara Netanyahu
had during her husband’s second
term as prime minister (20092013) collected a vast amount
of empty bottles bought by the
premier’s office and returned
them to supermarkets, pocketing the money herself.
Over several years, the Netanyahus through this practice
earned at least 4,000 shekels
($1,000) of what should have
been public money, the reports
said.
They returned $1,000 to the
state in 2013, the Haaretz website reported.
But Haaretz also cited a former
employee of the Netanyahus as
saying that the figure was in fact
thousands of shekels higher.
The matter is being turned
over to Israel’s attorney general’s
office, Haaretz said.
Local media were quick to ridicule Sara.
Haaretz published a cartoon
featuring her sitting in her liv-
ing room, surrounded by empty
bottles and pointing at a TV
showing the latest frontier flareup between Israel and Lebanese
militant group Hezbollah.
“I need them to take something to the supermarket,” she
barks down a telephone, pointing at attack helicopters shown
on the TV.
Pro-Netanyahu freesheet Is-
rael Hayom slammed the reports
as “defamation” as the country’s
political parties prepared for the
campaign trail.
The snap vote on March 17
will pit Netanyahu’s Likud and
other possible right-wing allies
against a united centre-left front
that includes former justice
minister Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah
and the Labor party.
Israel plans
new settler
homes, US
slams move
Israel publishes tenders for
the construction of 450 new
housing units in occupied
Palestinian territory, a move
that critics denounce as a
political gesture ahead of a
March general election
AFP
Jerusalem
I
srael yesterday published tenders to build 450 new settler
homes in the occupied West
Bank, a watchdog said, in a plan
denounced by the Palestinians as
a “war crime”.
The White House condemned
the plan as “illegitimate and
counter-productive” to achieving peace.
“We have deep concerns
about these highly contentious
settlement construction announcements,” said White House
spokesman Josh Earnest.
“They will have detrimental
impacts on the ground, enflame
already heightened tensions with
the Palestinians and further isolate the Israelis internationally.”
Settlements watchdog Peace
Now tied the move to Israel’s
March 17 general election in
which Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s Likud is competing
with other right-wing parties for
the settler vote.
“It is a pre-election grab to establish facts on the ground made
by the Netanyahu government,” a
Peace Now statement said.
Daniel Seidemann, head of
the Terrestrial Jerusalem group
which also monitors settlement,
said the latest plans were the first
of their kind to be announced in
several months and unlikely to be
the last before the election.
“It’s the opening of the settlement floodgates,” he said.
“This could hardly be an accident,” he said. “It could not have
taken place without Netanyahu’s
knowledge and consent.”
The Israeli construction ministry, headed by minister Uri Ariel
of the hardline nationalist Jewish
Home party, denied that the timing was politically motivated.
“The tenders were offered last
year and failed (to attract contractors),” a ministry statement
said. “Unsuccessful tenders are
automatically reissued by the
professional officials at the Israel
Lands Administration.”
Peace Now said the new homes
were to be built in four exiswting
settlements across the West Bank
- 114 in Adam, 156 in Elkana, 78 in
Alfei Menashe and 102 in Kiryat
Arba.
Seidemann, who had earlier
spoken of 430 new settler homes,
said the figures given by Peace
Now were correct.
Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) official Wassel Abu
Yusef slammed the project.
“What the Israelis announced
is part of a wider war... against
the Palestinian people,” Abu
Yusef said.
“This is a war crime which
should push the settlements issue to the International Criminal
Court.”
Seidemann, whose group particularly monitors settlement in
Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem,
predicted that building plans
there were likely to be announced
soon.
“Netanyahu has a tendency,
especially when he’s having trouble in the polls, to do something
outrageous in Jerusalem,” he said.
He pointed to Givat Hamatos,
where Peace Now revealed on
October 1 that final approval had
been granted for the construction
of 2,610 settler homes.
“I don’t think it’s over,” he said.
“I would be very concerned and
keep a close eye on things like Givat Hamatos.”
A poll published in yesterday’s
Jerusalem Post showed Likud rallying, after weeks of lagging behind the Zionist Union alliance of
Labour and the centrist Hatnuah
party of former justice minister
Tzipi Livni.
The Post linked the surge to
a Hezbollah missile strike on
Wednesday which killed two Israeli soldiers, at the time the survey was being conducted by the
Panels Research organisation.
It gave Likud a projected 25
places in the 120-seat parliament, just ahead of the Zionist
Union’s 24.
“Last week the Zionist Union
was ahead of the Likud by two
seats and two weeks ago the lead
was three,” the daily wrote.
But in a contradictory finding
not unusual in Israeli polls, it said
that 52% percent of respondents
did not want Netanyahu to remain premier.
The poll of 514 respondents
had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
Israel occupied the West Bank
and East Jerusalem in the 1967
Six-Day war.
Building settlements there
is illegal under international
law and opposed by the United
States and the international
community as an obstacle to an
eventual peace deal with the Palestinians.
Supporters watch Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah give a televised address in the southern suburbs of Beirut yesterday.
Hezbollah not seeking war
but militarily ready: chief
AFP
Beirut
H
ezbollah chief Hassan
Nasrallah said yesterday his Shia militant
group is not seeking confrontation with Israel but warned
their conflict could go beyond
Lebanon’s borders in any new
war.
Its response to any future
Israeli attack will no longer be
limited to Lebanese territory,
he said in an address via video
link to thousands of supporters
gathered in Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold.
He said Hezbollah would no
longer respect “the rules of engagement”.
“We do not want war... but
the resistance is militarily
ready, and we are not afraid of
war,” Nasrallah said, using the
term “resistance” to refer to
Hezbollah.
“You tested us, do not test us
again,” he warned.
His address came two days
after Hezbollah carried out a
missile strike that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven others in south Lebanon’s
occupied Shebaa Farms area on
the border.
The Shebaa Farms have been
under Israeli occupation since
the 1967 Middle East war. Lebanon says the Shebaa Farms is
Lebanese territory, while the
UN says it was annexed from
Syria.
The strike was in retaliation
for a January 18 Israeli air strike
inside Syria that killed six Hezbollah fighters and an Iranian
general.
The Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee head, Alaeddin
Boroujerdi, visited Beirut yesterday for the Hezbollah rally.
“I want to be clear: the resistance will no longer recognise any such thing as the rules
of engagement, or of confrontation,” said Nasrallah, appearing both defiant and relaxed.
“It is our right—legally, in
human terms and morally—to
face the enemy anywhere, any
time and in any way we deem
appropriate,” he warned.
Nasrallah condemned Israel’s air strike on the Syrian-held
sector of the Golan Heights as
“an assassination carried out in
broad daylight”.
“We will bear Israel responsible for any (future) killing
in cold blood of a Hezbollah
youth,” he added.
Nasrallah also said the fact
that an Iranian general had
been killed alongside Hezbollah fighters on Syrian territory
proved their “unity in cause,
fate and battle”.
He said Hezbollah planned
its counter-strike against Israel, which he described as
“highly professional... and intelligent”, just a few hours after
the Golan attack.
“They killed us in broad
daylight, and we did too,” said
Nasrallah, adding that Israel’s
strike was at “11.30am or 11.45,
and ours was at 11.25 or 11.35”.
He added: “They killed and
wounded our men, we killed
and wounded theirs. Missiles
for missiles.”
Posters of the Lebanese and
the Iranian killed were plastered in the hall where the Hezbollah supporters gathered for
the speech.
The supporters waved the
movement’s green and yellow
flags, chanting slogans in support of Nasrallah.
Clashes in Sinai after 30 die in militant attacks
AFP
Cairo
E
gypt’s army and militants
clashed in Sinai yesterday,
leaving two children dead,
as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
flew home early from an African
summit after militant attacks
killed at least 30 people.
The top brass vowed to hunt
down those behind the violence.
Health officials said a sixmonth-old baby was hit in the
head by a bullet during the clashes
and a six-year-old was killed in a
rocket blast in the Sinai Peninsula.
Two more people including a
12-year-old were badly wounded.
Yesterday’s violence came a day
after militants targeted security
forces with rockets and a car bomb
in North Sinai province in simultaneous attacks claimed by an affiliate of the Islamic State group.
Security officials said the bodies of the 30 victims, most of them
soldiers, had been flown to Cairo.
Sisi pulled out of an African
Union summit in Ethiopia and
flew home “to monitor the situation”, his office said.
Relatives of the members of security forces who were killed in North Sinai during attacks the day before
arrive at Al Maza military airport where the bodies had been flown yesterday in Cairo.
It was the deadliest wave of
attacks since October when 30
soldiers were killed and scores
wounded in simultaneous assaults.
“The army and police will in-
tensify their raids against terrorist
and extremist elements in Sinai
and across the country,” a military
statement said.
The fresh bloodshed came despite new security measures.
Militants have regularly targeted security forces in the Sinai
since Islamist president Mohamed Mursi was ousted by then army
chief Sisi in 2013.
The militants say the attacks
are in retaliation for a government
crackdown on Mursi supporters in
which hundreds have been killed,
thousands jailed and dozens sentenced to death.
US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki condemned
Thursday’s attacks and said
Washington “remains steadfast in
its support of the Egyptian government’s efforts to combat the
threat of terrorism”.
Late last year, Washington delivered 10 Apache helicopters to
Egypt, which has poured troops
and armour into the peninsula,
for joint counter-terrorism operations in the Sinai.
Yesterday, Iran stressed the
need for regional co-operation
“to combat the terrorist menace
in Egypt”.
The main focus of Thursday’s
attacks was El Arish, the provincial capital, where militants fired
rockets at a police headquarters,
a military base and a residential
complex for security forces, officials said.
This was followed by a suicide
car bombing and an attack on a
military checkpoint south of El
Arish.
Separately an army officer
was killed when a rocket struck a
checkpoint in Rafah, on the border
with the Gaza Strip.
Officials said at least 62 people
were wounded in the attacks.
The Islamic State group’s
Egyptian affiliate, Ansar Beit alMaqdis, claimed the assaults, saying on Twitter it had “executed
extensive, simultaneous attacks in
the cities of El-Arish, Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah”.
The organisation in November
pledged allegiance to IS, which has
captured large chunks of territory
in Syria and Iraq.
Elsewhere, a policeman was
killed by a bombing in the canal
city of Suez, and a suspected militant accidentally blew himself up
in Port Said while planting a device.
The October attack, also near El
Arish, prompted the authorities
to build a buffer zone along the
Gaza border to prevent militants
infiltrating from the Palestinian
enclave.
They have also imposed a state
of emergency and night-time curfew in parts of North Sinai.
“These measures are just ran-
dom retaliation that creates more
terrorism, and what is worse is
that it could make residents sympathise” with the extremists, said
Ahmed Abdel Rabo, political science professor at Cairo University.
The military said Thursday’s
attack was the result of “the failure of Muslim Brotherhood... in
spreading chaos on the fourth anniversary of the 25 January revolution”.
On January 25, 2011, millions of
Egyptians protested against president Hosni Mubarak, eventually
forcing him to step down.
As Egypt marked the anniversary on Sunday, clashes between
protesters and police left 20 people dead, mostly in Cairo.
Since Mubarak’s ouster Egypt
has been rocked by political and
economic turmoil.
Militants have killed scores
of police and soldiers, mostly in
the Sinai. The authorities have
blamed these attacks on Mursi’s
Muslim Brotherhood, which denies the charges.
Ansar Beit al-Maqdis has
claimed most of the attacks, including the deadly October assault.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
5
AFRICA
S Africa’s ‘Prime Evil’ killer freed
Reuters
Pretoria
A
partheid
death-squad
leader Eugene de Kock,
dubbed “Prime Evil” for
his role in the torture and murder
of scores of black South African
activists in the 1980s and early
1990s, was granted parole yesterday after more than 20 years
in prison.
Justice Minister Michael Masutha said that de Kock would
be released “in the interests of
Masutha at the press conference announcing the outcome on the
parole application for de Kock.
Private
school
company
denies
class split
by race
Reuters
Johannesburg
A
popular South African
private school firm has
denied charges of racially
segregating classrooms, saying
it sometimes separates children
based on culture, a policy that
has provoked public anger 20
years after the end of apartheid.
A group of around 30 parents signed a petition this week
against what they said was racial
segregation at the Curro Foundation School in Roodeplaat, a
town near Pretoria, according to
local media reports.
The school is one of more than
40 run by Cape Town-based
Curro Holdings, which has seen
explosive growth since listing on
the Johannesburg exchange in
2011, reflecting surging demand
for private education from a
growing black middle class.
Curro chief executive Chris
van der Merwe told Talk Radio
702 that the school did not separate students based on race.
“This is not so simple as referring to a policy of segregation.
Just to remind the folks and supporters that we don’t stand for
segregation, not at all,” van der
Merwe said, adding that twothirds of its 36,000 students
were black.
However, he said that in yeargroups with few white children,
the students were sometimes
kept together in a group to help
them make friends within their
own “culture”.
As soon as there were 12 white
children, they were divided
evenly between classrooms, he
said.
Van der Merwe also said that
apparent racial separation may
be a consequence of choice of
language – white Afrikaans parents are likely to opt for tuition
in Afrikaans, a language that
few black parents are likely to
choose.
nation-building and reconciliation” and because he had expressed remorse at his crimes
and helped authorities recover
the remains of some of his victims.
The decision, which had been
deferred several times over the
last year, is contentious in a
country still dealing with the
legacy of repression and brutality
meted out by the white-minority
regime that prevailed from 1948
to 1994.
“He is not supposed to be
freed. The atrocities he did to
our people were very bad,” Aniel
Motlhake, 35, a financial planner,
told Reuters after the decision.
Many South Africans, however, believe forgiveness is the
only way to leave the memories
of apartheid behind.
“There are some of our black
brothers that killed many white
people and also white people
that killed,” Joseph Dlamini, a
taxi driver in Johannesburg, told
Reuters. “At some point we need
to forgive one another.”
The date of the 66-year-old’s
release from Pretoria “C-Max”
High Security prison would be
kept secret, Minister Masutha
added.
De Kock’s lawyer, Julian
Knight, said he had been unable
to contact his client and so could
not comment on his state of mind
or future plans.
As head of an apartheid counter-insurgency unit at Vlakplaas,
a farm 20km west of Pretoria,
de Kock is believed to have been
responsible for more atrocities
than any other man in the efforts
to preserve white rule.
Arrested in 1994, the year
Nelson Mandela and the African
National Congress (ANC) came
to power, he was sentenced two
years later to 212 years in prison
on charges ranging from murder
and attempted murder to kidnapping and fraud.
However, at a Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up
in 1995 to try to unearth – and,
in some cases, forgive – crimes
committed by both sides, de
Kock came clean about the killing
of many ANC activists.
Even from behind bars, the
bespectacled de Kock continued
to cast his shadow over the postapartheid South Africa.
In a 2007 radio interview, he
accused FW de Klerk, the last
white president, of having hands
“soaked in blood” for ordering
political killings.
De Klerk, who won the Nobel
Peace Prize jointly with the late
Mandela, has denied the allegations.
However, in 2012 he met Marcia Khoza, the daughter of ANC
activist Portia Shabangu, whom
de Kock executed after an ambush in Swaziland in 1989.
“We greeted each other and
shook hands. His handshake was
firm,” she said after the meeting,
at which de Kock described how
he shot Khoza’s mother twice in
the head before pushing the vehicle in which she was travelling
down a slope.
“I thought I would cry but
strangely enough had the courage
to continue to listen to him. I was
not jolted because I had long forgiven him,” she said.
At the same news conference,
Masutha, the justice minister,
denied medical parole to Clive
A file picture of de Kock during his hearing in 1998.
Derby-Lewis, an ultra-right
wing politician who masterminded the 1993 assassination
of Communist Party leader Chris
Hani in an attempt to trigger a
race war.
Derby-Lewis is reported to be
dying of cancer.
AU call for 7,500-strong
anti-Boko Haram force
AFP
Addis Ababa
T
he African Union has
called for a regional fivenation force of 7,500
troops to defeat the “horrendous” rise of Nigeria’s Boko
Haram Islamist militants.
The call for collective action
came as leaders of the 54-member bloc opened their two-day
annual summit in the Ethiopian
capital Addis Ababa, where they
were addressing a string of crises across the continent.
“Terrorism, in particular the
brutality of Boko Haram against
our people, (is) a threat to our
collective safety, security and
development. This has now
spread to the region beyond Nigeria and requires a collective,
effective and decisive response,”
AU commission chair Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said in a
speech opening the summit.
Conflicts elsewhere, including civil war in South Sudan and
the Central African Republic, as
well as a new offensive launched
on Thursday by the Democratic
Republic of the Congo against
Rwandan ethnic Hutu rebels in
the east of the country, are also
expected to be discussed.
The AU Peace and Security
Council called for a regional
five-nation force of 7,500 troops
to stop the “horrendous” rise of
the Boko Haram insurgents.
The proposed force will have
the backing of the AU, and will
seek UN Security Council approval, plus a “Trust Fund” to
pay for it, Dlamini-Zuma said.
More than 13,000 people have
been killed and more than a million made homeless by Boko
Haram violence since 2009.
UN Secretary General Ban Kimoon told African leaders that
Boko Haram is “a clear danger to
national, regional and international peace and security”.
African leaders also named
Zimbabwe’s President Robert
Mugabe to the bloc’s one-year
rotating chair, replacing Mau-
ritania’s President Mohamed
Ould Abdel Aziz.
Mugabe, a former liberation
war hero who aged 90 is Africa’s
oldest president and its thirdlongest serving leader, is viewed
with deep respect by many on
the continent – but he is also
subject to travel bans from both
the United States and European
Union in protest at political violence and intimidation of opponents.
He gave a welcome speech in
which he said Africa’s resources
should be protected from outside exploitation.
“African resources should belong to Africa and no one else except those we invite as friends,”
he said. “Friends we shall have,
but imperialists and colonialists
no more. Africa is for Africans.”
The leaders gathered in Ethiopia are also discussing the economic recovery of countries affected by the Ebola virus, setting
up a “solidarity fund” and planning a proposed African Centre
for Disease Control.
The worst outbreak of the virus in history has seen nearly
9,000 deaths in a year – almost
all of them in the west African
nations of Liberia, Guinea and
Sierra Leone – and sparked a
major health scare worldwide.
With over a dozen elections
due to take place this year across
Africa, the focus at the talks will
also be on how to ensure peaceful polls – likely leaving little
time for discussions on the official summit theme of women’s
empowerment.
The Institute for Security
Studies, an African think-tank,
warns that many of these elections “are being held in a context
that increases the risk of political violence”.
UN chief Ban also told African
leaders they “cannot afford” to
ignore the wishes of their citizens.
“People around the world
have expressed their concern
about leaders who refuse to leave
office when their terms end. I
share those concerns. Undemo-
A handout picture made available by the Office of the Egyptian President shows African leaders posing for a group picture at the opening
ceremony of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa. The fight against Boko Haram topped the agenda of the two-day summit.
cratic constitutional changes
and legal loopholes should never
be used to cling to power,” Ban
said.
South Sudan’s warring parties
met on the sidelines of the AU
talks on Thursday, in the latest
push for a lasting peace deal.
Six previous ceasefire commitments, however, have failed
to end the 13-month-old civil
war in the world’s youngest nation.
The South Sudan talks, which
are being brokered by the regional East African bloc IGAD,
are due to resume today.
Also topping the agenda is the
question of financing regional
forces, amid broader debates on
funding the AU, a thorny issue
for the bloc, once heavily bankrolled by toppled Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe becomes African Union chairman
Ninety-year-old Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe,
one of Africa’s most divisive figures, ascended to the
rotating chairmanship of the African Union (AU) yesterday, casting a shadow over the continental body’s
relations with the West.
The only leader Zimbabwe has known since independence from Britain in 1980 assumed the largely
ceremonial role when he was handed the AU flag and
gavel at a summit in Addis Ababa.
In his acceptance speech, Africa’s oldest head of state
spoke of the need to guard against foreigners exploiting the continent’s mineral wealth and called for more
assistance for African farmers.
“African resources should belong to Africa and to no
one else, except to those we invite as friends. Friends
we shall have, yes, but imperialists and colonialists no
more,” he said, to applause from his peers.
In some corners, Mugabe is feted as a nationalist hero
who triumphed over colonial power Britain on the
battlefield and at the ballot box, and who remained
steadfast in his commitment to the promotion of
black African power in the 34 years since.
“Zimbabwe is an important member state, a very
committed country,” Algerian Foreign Minister
Ramtane Lamamra told Reuters on the sidelines of
the summit.
In other corners, however, he is seen as a despotic
pariah responsible for human rights abuses, rigged
elections and turning one of Africa’s most promising
nations into a basket case.
It is a view shared in the European Union and United
States, which imposed travel and financial sanctions
on Mugabe and his acolytes after election victories
over the MDC in 2002 and 2008 marred by violence
and charges of vote-rigging and intimidation.
Mugabe denies any wrongdoing.
Some Western nations were “not thrilled” about Mugabe’s appointment, a Western diplomat who follows
African affairs said, though adding that it would not
disrupt relations with the AU.
“We are working with the African Union regardless of
the president,” the diplomat added.
Liberia delays school reopening
Ebola likely to stay as communities resist aid: Red Cross
Reuters
Geneva
W
est Africa will be lucky
to wipe out Ebola this
year, as the local population remains suspicious of aid
workers, especially in Guinea, the
Red Cross said yesterday.
The virus is “flaring up” in new
areas in the region and not all infections are being reported, said
Birte Hald, who leads the Ebola
coordination and support unit
of the International Federation
of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies.
“We are also seeing that in
places like Sierra Leone and especially in Guinea that it is flaring up in new districts all the
time, with small new chains of
transmission, which means that
it’s not under control and it could
flare up big-time again,” Hald
told a news briefing in Geneva.
“I think that we should consider ourselves lucky and fortunate if we are able to stop it in
2015,” she said.
More than 6,000 Red Cross
volunteers are deployed in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone,
tracing contacts of those infected, isolating suspect cases and
ensuring safe burials, she said.
But the Red Cross still has “no
access” to some communities in
Guinea, Hald said.
It saw “quite a number of incidents” of backlash in January.
“There are still communities
that think, for instance, Ebola is
spreading with spraying chlorine, disinfecting of the houses,
and it is the Red Cross team that
are coming with the chlorine, so
they are making that connection,” she said.
To de-escalate tensions, the
Red Cross is sending police and
authorities a day in advance to
prepare the villages for the arrival
of its teams, Hald said.
“If we don’t get full access in
Guinea, then we definitely risk
that this will become something
permanent. If it’s permanent in
Guinea, then we know also that
it will be in the whole region, because there are porous borders,”
Hald said.
The number of new confirmed
Ebola cases totalled 99 in the
week to January 25, the lowest tally since June, the World
Health Organisation (WHO) said
on Thursday, signalling the tide
might have turned against the
epidemic.
The outbreak has killed 8,810
people out of 22,092 known cases.
Some 27 sub-prefectures in
Guinea reported at least one security incident or other form of
refusal to co-operate in the week
to January 21.
Two districts in Liberia and
four in Sierra Leone reported at
least one similar incident, WHO
spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said
yesterday.
The decline in new cases
should not lead to complacency,
she said: “Because one unsafe
burial – only one – can really create a new chain of transmission
and cause other cases of Ebola.”
Liberia said yesterday that it would delay reopening schools for two
weeks in order to better prepare safety measures against the Ebola
virus, which has killed more than 3,650 people in the country but now
appears to be receding.
Liberian schools, shut since August due to the outbreak, had initially
been scheduled to reopen on February 2, but the education ministry
said it had pushed back that date to allow parents and students more
time to prepare.
A ministry statement said it wanted to “raise awareness about safety
protocols, logistics and training requirements”, adding: “Actual teaching
will begin on Monday, February 16, 2015.”
Some Liberian opposition parties and members of parliament had
called for the reopening date to be moved to March 2, concerned that
the Ebola epidemic is not yet fully under control.
Liberia and neighbouring nations Sierra Leone and Guinea have been
hardest hit in the worst outbreak of the viral haemorrhagic fever on
record.
The epidemic has killed 8,810 people in total out of 22,092 cases,
mostly in the three West African countries, since it was first identified
early last year.
Guinea reopened schools earlier this month, while Sierra Leone plans to
reopen its schools in March.
6
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
AMERICAS
Romney opts out of 2016 run
Reuters/AFP
Washington
R
epublican Mitt Romney
bowed out of the 2016 US
presidential race yesterday
after considering a third run, and
told supporters that it was time
for the next generation of party
leaders to seek the White House.
Romney’s decision will probably boost the fortunes of former
Florida governor Jeb Bush, a
probable presidential candidate who, like Romney, is widely
viewed as representing the Republican establishment.
Many who had raised money
for Romney were already looking
elsewhere, concerned that the
former Massachusetts governor
did not make sufficient changes
from his 2012 campaign, when
President Barack Obama defeated him.
“After putting considerable
thought into making another run
for president, I’ve decided it is
best to give other leaders in the
party the opportunity to become
our next nominee,” Romney said
in a statement he read to supporters in a conference call from
New York.
Romney told a private donors
meeting in New York three weeks
ago that he was considering
jumping into the race.
Yesterday, he sounded reluctant to bow out.
The reaction to his potential
candidacy was both surprising
and heartening, he said, noting that he was leading in many
national polls as well as in key
swing states.
“So I am convinced that we
could win the nomination, but
fully realise it would have been
difficult test and a hard fight,”
Romney said.
Romney said he still believed
he would have the best chance of
beating the eventual Democratic
nominee because of his message
of “making the world safer” and
improving the US economy for
the middle class.
But he said he did not want to
make it more difficult for someone who might have a better
chance of getting elected.
“I believe that one of our next
generation of Republican leaders, one who may not be as wellknown as I am today, one who
has not yet taken their message
across the country, one who is
just getting started, may well
emerge as being better able to
defeat the Democrat nominee,”
he said.
Romney said that it was “unlikely” that circumstances would
change his mind about running.
“Accordingly, I’m not ... taking
donations; I’m not hiring a campaign team,” he said.
Bush said he recognised how
hard the decision was for Romney.
“Mitt is a patriot, and I join
many in hoping his days of serving our nation and our party are
not over,” he said in a statement.
Romney and Bush were seen
to be headed for a heated clash
in the early months of the campaign, battling for crucial donor
support and the backing of politicos, and hiring top campaign
staff.
The two of them met in Utah
last week.
“Politics is a zero sum game.
There’s always a winner and a
loser in every transaction,” Quinnipiac University Poll assistant
director Peter Brown told AFP of
Romney’s announcement. “The
winner is Jeb Bush. Bush just lost
his major competitor to be the
center right candidate in the Republican Party.”
Romney, who also ran for the
White House in 2008, would
have faced difficulties raising
money in a third run.
Some of his fund-raisers said
they were inclined to move on to
other potential candidates like
Bush.
Theresa Kostrzewa, a Raleigh,
North Carolina, Republican who
raised money for Romney in
2012, said she had wanted to hear
him say he had learned from his
mistakes in 2012 and would run a
different campaign.
“What I think right now is his
time has come and gone,” she
said. “I think he missed the boat.”
In another troubling sign
for Romney, David Kochel, a
Republican strategist in Iowa
who backed the candidate in
past campaigns, was named on
Thursday as a senior strategist
for Bush.
Iowa
Republican
Renee
Schulte, who had been a Romney
supporter since 2006 and raised
money for him in 2012, said she
still thought he would be a great
president if elected, but she did
not see a path to victory.
“I’ve asked questions about
what would be different, and I’m
still waiting for answers,” she
said. “What’s different?”
This March 15, 2013 file photo shows Romney at the Conservative
Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbour, Maryland.
Having lost the Republican primary in 2008, and beaten by Barack
Obama in 2012, Romney has decided against a third run.
Obama unveils
$215mn plan for
medical research
AFP/Reuters
Washington
P
resident Barack Obama
has unveiled plans to
plough $215mn into “precision medicine” research,
a field that he said provided
“boundless” promise for the
treatment of diseases like cancer
and diabetes.
The field – which aims to
tailor treatment to individual
patients – “gives us one of the
greatest opportunities for new
medical breakthrough that we
have ever seen”, Obama said.
The funding would be used in
part to collect gene, biochemical, lifestyle and other data from
one million volunteers.
Scientists believe that vast
bank of information could then
lead to better classification of
diseases – based on molecular
causes rather than symptoms
– as well as tailored treatment
that replaces a “one size fits all”
approach.
The proposal is part of
Obama’s 2016 budget plan,
which would first have to be approved by a hostile Republicancontrolled Congress.
“The time is right to unleash
a new wave of advancements in
this area,” Obama said.
He said the move would “lay
Obama makes remarks highlighting investments to improve health
and treat disease through precision medicine while in the East
Room of the White House in Washington. A 17 base pair DNA model
is seen next to Obama.
the foundation for a new generation of lifesaving discoveries”.
“There is no telling how many
lives we could change,” he said.
During his recent State of the
Union address, Obama said he
wanted “the country that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome to lead a new era of
medicine.”
Officials hope genetic data
from several hundred thousand
participants in ongoing genetic
studies would be used, and other volunteers recruited to reach
the 1mn total.
The near-term goal is to create more and better treatments
for cancer, Dr Francis Collins,
director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), told reporters on a conference call on
Thursday.
Longer term, he said, the
project would provide information on how to individualise
treatment for a range of diseases.
The initial focus on cancer, he
said, is due partly to the lethality of the disease and partly because targeted medicine, known
also as precision medicine, has
made significant advances in
cancer, although much more
work is needed.
Out of the $215mn for the initiative, $130mn would go to the
NIH to fund the research cohort
and $70mn to NIH’s National
Cancer Institute to intensify efforts to identify molecular drivers of cancer and apply that
knowledge to drug development.
A further $10mn would go to
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to develop databases on which to build an appropriate regulatory structure;
$5mn would go to the Office of
the National Co-ordinator for
Health Information Technology
to develop privacy standards
and ensure the secure exchange
of data.
The funding is not nearly
enough to sequence 1mn genomes from scratch.
Whole-genome sequencing,
though plummeting in price,
still costs about $1,000 per genome, Collins said, meaning
this component alone would
cost $1bn.
Instead, he said, the national
cohort would be assembled both
from new volunteers interested
in “an opportunity to take part
in something historic”, and existing cohorts that are already
linking genomic data to medical
outcomes.
„ See also Page 8
Funding impasse blocks
US Secret Service hires
Reuters
Washington
T
he US Secret Service cannot
hire new agents for the next
presidential election or make
improvements at the agency until
Congress settles a dispute over funding, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh
Johnson said on Thursday.
Johnson said in a speech in Washington that uncertainty over the budget for the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), which secures US borders, airports and coastal waters and
protects the president, had put security initiatives on hold.
These included recommendations
made in December by a review panel on the Secret Service, which has
been plagued with a series of security
lapses, among them a White House intruder and a drone that landed on the
mansion’s lawn early on Monday.
The agency’s director stepped down
in October.
Secret Service protection extends
to major presidential and vice-presidential candidates and their spouses
within four months of a presidential
election.
The next election is in November
2016, but the review found the agency
was stretched “beyond its limits” and
needs to hire new agents and provide
more training.
The spending authority of the DHS
expires on February 27 and Republicans
in the House of Representatives have
tacked measures onto a DHS spending bill to block Democratic President
Barack Obama’s executive orders that
provide legal protection for about 5mn
undocumented immigrants.
“This means we cannot invest in the
things the independent panel recommended to improve the Secret Service; we cannot hire new Secret Service agents for the coming presidential
election cycle,” Johnson said of the
budget uncertainty during an address
at the Woodrow Wilson Centre.
The White House has said it will veto
any funding bill that takes money away
from Obama’s immigration initiatives.
Canada gives spy agency
new anti-terror powers
AFP
Ottawa
C
Issued in Public Interest by
anada’s spy agency will be
granted new powers to thwart
terror plots in a security overhaul precipitated by twin jihadist attacks three months ago.
The October 20 and 22 attacks in
Quebec province and in the capital Ottawa, targeting soldiers and Parliament,
revealed gaps in Canadian defences
against terrorism.
In the aftermath of the terror attacks
– the first ever on Canadian soil – Prime
Minister Stephen Harper pledged to
beef up security, recently giving hints
of the changes to come in speeches and
public appearances.
The new legislation will contain
measures “designed to help authorities
stop planned attacks, get threats off our
streets, criminalise the promotion of
terrorism and prevent terrorists from
travelling and recruiting others”, he said
last week.
The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), Canada’s spy
service, is expected to be granted additional powers to track and detain suspects, including preventing them from
travelling abroad for terror purposes.
Until now, the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police (RCMP) has been responsible for investigating and acting
on terror threats.
The CSIS was created in the early
1980s after an inquiry into RCMP illegal activities and rights abuses recommended a separation of policing and
intelligence gathering.
Today, the CSIS hands cases to the
RCMP to investigate and make arrests.
“We are not under any illusion of the
evolving multiple threats that we face,”
Harper said on Thursday. “It’s difficult
to predict them all, but we must continually evolve and improve our tools to do
everything we can in what are obviously
dangerous situations for the Canadian
public, situations that we are seeing
more and more frequently all over the
world.”
The House bill, which provides
$39.7bn for the DHS, has not been taken up yet in the US Senate.
The Senate’s number two Republican John Cornyn said on Thursday
that he expects a procedural vote next
Tuesday on whether to take up the
House-passed bill.
The bill will need the support of at
least half a dozen Senate Democrats to
advance, which seems unlikely. Democrats dislike the House language on
immigration.
Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski urged the Senate Republican leadership on Thursday to bring a “clean”
bill to the floor to fund the DHS, without the amendments the House had
passed.
“Do not play politics with the security of the United States of America,”
she said, citing the January 7 attacks in
Paris by Islamist militants.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said there will be no shutdown of the DHS, but has not outlined
a path to get a bill to Obama that he
would sign into law.
Lawsuit over loss
of tenured post
A professor who lost out on a
tenured position at the University
of Illinois after he made Twitter
postings critical of Israel claimed
in a lawsuit on Thursday that
the university violated his rights
to free speech under the US
Constitution.
Steven Salaita said in his lawsuit
that university donors pressured
trustees to withdraw their offer of
a tenured position due to public
criticisms he made about Israeli
military strikes in Gaza.
Salaita, 39, left a tenured position
at Virginia Tech to take the job in
Illinois.
Salaita is seeking reinstatement
of the position as an indigenous
studies professor in the American
Indian Studies programme at
the University of Illinois campus
in Urbana-Champaign, and
monetary compensation.
The university denied that its
actions were based on donor
influence and said on Thursday
that Salaita was aware the offer
of a tenured position he received
in October 2013 was dependent
upon a board vote the following
year.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
7
ASIA/AUSTRALASIA
LEGAL
TRIAL
CRIME
OFFBEAT
NUCLEAR
Thai officials prosecuted
for human trafficking
Aussies on Indonesia death
row file fresh legal appeal
Tourists arrested for nude
photos at Cambodia temple
Controversy over McDonald’s
plan on famed West Lake
Fiji N-payout closes
‘unfortunate chapter’
More than a dozen Thai government officials —
including senior policemen and a navy officer — are
being prosecuted for human trafficking, junta officials said yesterday, as they vowed “zero tolerance”
of the trade. Thailand officials have been accused of
not doing enough to halt the trade and even being
active participants. In June the US dumped Thailand
to the bottom of its list of countries accused of
failing to tackle human trafficking. The kingdom’s
junta, which took over in a May coup, has vowed
to crack down on the trade and said yesterday that
they had launched a string of prosecutions against
senior officials.
Two Australians on death row in Indonesia
applied for a new judicial review of their cases
yesterday in a bid to halt their executions, with
their lawyer calling for the men to be given a
“second chance”. However, the attorney general’s office in Jakarta said judges would likely reject the request for a fresh judicial review from
the leaders of the “Bali Nine” drug-smuggling
gang. Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran
were arrested in Bali in 2005 and sentenced
to death the following year for attempting to
smuggle eight kilograms of heroin out of the
Indonesian holiday island.
Three French tourists in their early twenties have
been arrested by Cambodian authorities for taking
nude photos of each other inside the country’s famed
Angkor temple complex, officials said yesterday. The
male tourists were discovered inside the Banteay Kdei
temple at the world heritage site on Thursday, Chau
Sun Kerya, spokeswoman for the Apsara Authority —the government agency managing the Angkor
complex — said. “The temple is a worship site and their
behaviour is inappropriate. They were nude,” she said.
Keat Bunthan, a senior heritage police official in northwestern Siem Reap province, said many Cambodians
would be offended by the tourists’ actions.
US fast food giant McDonald’s has served up a
super-sized order of controversy by proposing a
branch in a historic building in one of China’s most
frequently painted landscapes, Hangzhou’s West
Lake. The government agency that manages the
lake and its surroundings this week posted a proposal to allow a McDonald’s into the former home
of the late Taiwanese leader Chiang Ching-kuo, the
son of Kuomintang chief Chiang Kai-shek. The plan
described the outlet as a coffee shop, suggesting
a McCafe. It will have 100 seats in a building with
an area of 3,600 square feet and serve French fries
among other items, the proposal said.
Fiji closed “an unfortunate chapter” yesterday with
a compensation payout to soldiers exposed to
radiation during British nuclear tests in the Pacific
more than 56 years ago, the prime minister said.
The payments ended decades of campaigning by
veterans and their children for recognition of the
serious health problems they suffered after more
than 70 Fijians were stationed on Kiritimati, then
known as Christmas Island, during the 1957 and
1958 tests. The British government has refused
to pay any compensation, but Fiji Prime Minister
Voreqe Bainimarama said the Pacific nation could
wait no longer.
China vows no
‘Western values’
in universities
AFP
Beijing
C
hina’s education minister has vowed
to ban university textbooks which
promote “Western values”, state media said, in the latest sign of ideological tightening under President Xi Jinping.
“Never let textbooks promoting Western
values appear in our classes,” minister Yuan
Guiren said, according to a report late Thursday by China’s official Xinhua news agency.
“Remarks that slander the leadership of
the Communist Party of China” and “smear
socialism” must never appear in college
classrooms, he added.
China’s universities are run by the ruling
Communist party, which tightly controls
discussions of history and other topics it
construes as a potential threat to its grip on
power.
The party often brands concepts such as
multiparty elections and the separation of
powers as “Western”, despite their global appeal and application.
Beijing and Hong Kong authorities blamed
recent student-led demonstrations in Hong
Kong calling for greater democracy in the
former British colony on “foreign forces”, although no evidence has been cited.
China has tightened controls on academics since Xi assumed the party leadership
in 2012, with several outspoken professors
sacked or jailed.
Xia Yeliang, an economics professor at the
prestigious Peking University, was fired from
his post in 2013 after a 13-year tenure in a
decision he attributed to persistent calls for
political change in China.
Xia was one of the original signatories of
the reformist petition Charter 08, whose
main author Liu Xiaobo remains in prison
even after winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
The university attributed the dismissal to
poor teaching, and he moved to the US last
year.
The minister’s remarks came shortly after Xi called for authorities to increase the
party’s leadership of universities, and to
“strengthen and improve ideological work”.
“We should never allow teachers to complain or vent grievances in the classroom, so
as not to transfer negative emotions to the
students,” Yuan said according to Xinhua.
Teachers must adhere to the “political,
legal and moral bottom line,” Yuan added,
using a common expression for support of
China’s authoritarian political system.
He also suggested Xi’s own speeches -recently officially published in book form -should “enter teaching materials, enter the
classroom and enter the minds” of students.
China has greatly expanded its higher
education system as its economy has grown,
with the total number of universities and colleges more than doubling in the past decade.
But many children of the country’s political and business elite prefer to study at institutions in the US and Europe, including Xi’s
own daughter, who has reportedly attended
Harvard University since 2010.
Most of the Tiananmen Square protesters
in 1989 were students from Beijing univer-
sities and their demands included increased
funding for education and a free press, both
firmly under government control today.
Commentators on Chinese social media
site likened Yuan’s ideas to “brainwashing”
and China’s dark past, when teachers and intellectuals were paraded through the streets
as enemies of the revolution.
“I guess these commands are more strict
than those during the Cultural Revolution,”
said one user on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like
service, referring to the decade of chaos under Mao Zedong when nearly all schools were
shuttered. “Finally, there will be nothing
keeping me awake in class, I can sleep all day,”
another user wrote.
Many of China’s current leaders, including
Yuan, were forced to postpone higher education for the turbulent years of the Cultural
Revolution, when Communist orthodoxy
was the most important lesson.
Analysts say this may incline them against
change in a range of areas, including education, media and Party ideology.
A Chinese province last month announced
plans to install CCTV cameras in university
classrooms, sparking an outcry from lawyers
who say the move would further curb academic freedom.
Authorities have in the past installed video
equipment in the classrooms of outspoken
academics, most notably Uighur economics
professor Ilham Tohti, who was sentenced to
life in prison for separatism in September.
Evidence from the classroom cameras was
used to convict the scholar, in a case that was
condemned by human rights groups.
French judge to probe AirAsia crash
AFP
Paris
F
rance has opened a formal criminal investigation into the crash of an
AirAsia plane in the Java Sea
last month while a French copilot was at the controls, a judicial source said yesterday.
A judge will investigate possible “manslaughter” in connection with the crash that
killed all 162 people on board.
Flight QZ8501 went down in
stormy weather on December
28 in the Java Sea during what
was supposed to be a short trip
from the Indonesian city of
Surabaya to Singapore. Only
72 bodies have so far been recovered.
On Thursday, Indonesia’s
National Transportation Safety Committee, which has been
analysing the plane’s black
boxes, said that prior to the
crash, the aircraft had climbed
fast in an area packed with
huge storm clouds, and the
stall alarms started going off.
They also revealed that the
Airbus A320-200’s less experienced French co-pilot,
Remi Plesel, was flying the
plane before it went down,
rather than Captain Iriyanto,
a former fighter pilot who
had around 20,000 hours of
flying time. Plesel’s family in
France separately filed charges
against AirAsia Indonesia for
“endangering the life of others” as the airline did not have
permission to carry out the
flight between Surabaya and
Singapore on the day of the
crash.
“Remi Plesel’s family are
delighted at this criminal investigation which, we hope,
will reveal the truth,” said
their lawyer Eddy Arneton.
“It will allow us to finally
ask the right questions.”
Policemen move in to stop family members (left), whose relatives were onboard the missing Malaysia Airlines
Flight MH370, giving an interview to the media, in front of Yonghegong Lama Temple in Beijing yesterday.
Next-of-kin bash Malaysian
declaration on MH370
AFP
Beijing
T
raumatised relatives of
those aboard missing
flight MH370 yesterday
blasted the Malaysian government for declaring the passengers and crew dead without evidence of the plane’s fate, and
rejected compensation offers.
Malaysian authorities a day
earlier had said they were now
classifying the unexplained disappearance of the plane as an
“accident” under global aviation
conventions and said for the first
time that all 239 on board were
presumed dead.
But relatives in both Malaysia and China — two-thirds of
the passengers were Chinese
nationals — rejected that declaration. “We call on Malaysia
to withdraw their statement. It
lacks a basis in evidence,” said
Jiang Hui, whose mother was on
the plane, calling on authorities
to apologise.
More than 100 Chinese relatives of the lost passengers are
Thorn Birds author McCullough dies
AFP
Sydney
T
ributes for renowned
Australian author Colleen McCullough, whose
romantic saga The Thorn Birds
sold more than 30mn copies,
poured in yesterday from the
publishing world to politics following her death at the age of
77.
The best-selling writer,
known for her wit and warmth,
passed away in hospital on the
remote Pacific outcrop of Norfolk Island where she lived for
most of the last four decades,
after suffering a series of small
strokes.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott
described her as “a unique Australian personality and Norfolk
Island’s most famous resident”.
“She enthralled readers for
decades and she will be missed,”
he said. Her publisher HarperCollins Australia said McCullough had fought through
File photo shows Colleen McCullough, in a shop doorway in Rome.
a string of health problems to
continue writing via dictation.
“Ever quick-witted and direct, we looked forward to her
visits from Norfolk Island and
the arrival of each new manuscript delivered in hard copy in
custom-made maroon manuscript boxes inscribed with
her name,” publishing director
Shona Martyn said. “The world
is a less colourful place without
Col.” Martyn said she was proud
to be an author of popular fiction
“writing for a broad audience
rather than the elite.”
McCullough penned 25 novels,
including her first, Tim, which
was made into a 1979 film starring Mel Gibson. The last, Bittersweet, was published in 2013.
The paperback rights for the
1977 novel The Thorn Birds, her
second book set on a fictional
sheep station, were auctioned
for $1.9mn, reportedly a record
at the time. In 1983 it became a
top-rating television mini-series
starring Richard Chamberlain
and Rachel Ward, but an unimpressed McCullough told the
Daily Mail it was “instant vomit”.
The Australian newspaper
described her as a “true national
treasure” who “told a good story
— usually peppered with profanities — about the most intimate
details of her life.”
Fellow Australian author Tara
Moss described her as irreplaceable. “She was fierce, funny and
so supportive of other writers.
Irreplaceable. RIP Colleen,” she
said on Twitter. Literary ageny
Selwa Anthony, a close friend of
McCullough’s, said: “She wrote
what she wanted”.
When publishers demanded
another Thorn Birds, McCullough wrote a series of thrillers,
Anthony told the Sydney Morning Herald. “RIP Colleen Mc-
Cullough. I can’t think of anyone who took such a miserable
childhood and turned into a life
of such luminous achievement,”
tweeted 702 ABC Sydney presenter Richard Glover.
McCullough, who is survived
by her husband Ric Robinson,
a Norfolk Islander, was born in
Wellington in New South Wales
state but spent most of her childhood in Sydney. In interviews,
she spoke of growing up amid
warring parents, with a mother
she once called “deliberately
cruel” and an itinerant worker
father who was found out after
his death to have had at least two
other wives.
In a happier memory, the Australian Broadcasting Corp described her telling of having once
gone to town on a coat-buying
mission with money from her
mother, but deciding on a typewriter instead. “So I went to town
with the five pounds to buy an
overcoat, and I saw a Blue Bird
portable typewriter for five pounds
so I bought that instead,” she said.
demanding Malaysia withdraw
the statement, according to
posts in an online group they use.
In Kuala Lumpur, some 20
relatives held a briefing to blast
Malaysia’s move and demand
answers to a 10-month-old
mystery they said has been
mishandled from the start and
marked by secrecy on the part of
the government and flag carrier.
“Almost all families are unanimous in our stand that we do not
want to declare our loved ones
dead without a shred of evidence,” they said in a prepared
statement.
“We, the next of kin of MH370,
are perplexed as to why the Malaysian authorities are jumping
the gun in wanting to make any
announcements while the search
is a long way from completion.”
Family members in Beijing,
some of whom burst into tears
as they spoke to reporters near a
Buddhist temple, said they had
received little advance warning
of the announcement - echoing
complaints from furious relatives in Kuala Lumpur.
“Malaysia ignored the right of
relatives to know the news first,”
Jiang added.
Malaysia’s declaration opens
the door for compensation payments, but many relatives said
they wanted answers before any
compensation.
“We don’t want money. We
want the truth about what happened,” said Hu Xiufang, whose
only child, daughter-in-law and
grandson were on the plane.
Chinese media reported on
Friday that the father of an
MH370 passenger died suddenly
at his home three hours after
hearing the plane was missing.
Li Xiaohui, 60, whose son was
onboard, had no known serious
medical problems at the time
of his death, a state-run outlet
called The Paper reported.
The plane vanished en route
from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing
last March 8 in one of history’s
great aviation mysteries.
Malaysia’s government says
satellite data indicates the plane
inexplicably detoured to the remote southern Indian Ocean,
which they suspect was due to
“deliberate” action onboard.
Airline chief apologises
for daughter’s ‘nut rage’
AFP
Seoul
K
orean Air chief Cho YangHo yesterday apologised
for his daughter’s behaviour to a South Korean court,
where she is on trial for air safety
violations after a now notorious
“nut rage” incident.
Cho Hyun-Ah faces a maximum 10-year sentence if convicted of the charges, which
stem from an episode in December when she allegedly forced
the chief purser off a New YorkSeoul flight, compelling the taxiing plane to return to the gate so
he could disembark.
The 40-year-old, who was a
KAL vice president at the time,
took exception to being served
macadamia nuts she had not
asked for — and in a bag, not a
bowl — in an incident that has
sparked public outrage in South
Korea. Speaking from the wit-
ness stand yesterday, Cho YangHo said his daughter was to
blame for the outburst and that
she should not have forced the
crew off the plane under any circumstances. “It was all her fault
because she could not control
her emotions,” he told the court,
pledging to reform the airline’s
corporate culture after the incident.
“I sincerely apologise to the
flight attendants involved...
and company employees. I also
apologise for causing public
concern.”
Cho Hyun-Ah has been in custody since December 30 ahead of
the trial, where she also faces another five years in jail on additional charges of coercing staff to give
false testimony and interfering
in the execution of duty. She has
denied physically assaulting the
chief steward, Park Chang-Jin,
who says she made him kneel and
beg for forgiveness while jabbing
him with a service manual.
8
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
BRITAIN/IRELAND
UK to launch project to analyse 100,000 genomes
Reuters
London
G
ene research is getting a
boost on both sides of the
Atlantic, with scientists
in England set to launch a project
on February 2 to analyse 100,000
entire human genomes and US
President Barack Obama backing
a big new DNA data drive.
The twin projects show the accelerating work by researchers to
understand the underlying basis
of diseases and develop medicines targeted to the genetic profile of individual patients.
Obama was due to announce
the US plan to analyse genetic
information from more than 1mn
American volunteers as a central
part of an initiative to promote
so-called precision medicine, officials said (see report on page
6).
The 100,000 genomes project
in England, meanwhile, was first
unveiled by the British government two years ago – but the 11
centres charged with collecting
samples will only begin full-scale
recruitment from next week.
The aim is to complete the programme by the end of 2017.
Such large-scale genomic
research has become possible
because the cost of genome sequencing has plummeted in recent years to around $1,000 per
genome.
That is a far cry from 15 years
ago when it cost some $3bn to get
the first human genome.
In the case of the British
project, all the sequencing will be
carried out by US biotech company Illumina, which has pioneered fast and cheap technology
to read genetic code.
The 100,000 genomes project
is focusing on patients with rare
diseases, and their families, as
well as people with common
cancers.
The idea is to tease out the
common drivers of disease to
help develop better drugs and diagnostic tests.
In addition to helping doctors
understand more about disease,
the government also hopes the
scheme will make the state-run
National Health Service a world
leader in science and boost Britain’s life sciences industry.
The genome project will actually recruit around 75,000 participants, rather than 100,000,
since people with cancer will be
providing two genomes – one
derived from the healthy cells in
their body and one from their tumour.
By comparing the two, experts
hope to find the exact genetic
changes causing cancer.
Britain pays
tribute to
Churchill
AFP/Reuters
London
F
ifty years after Winston
Churchill’s death, Britain
paid tribute yesterday to
its war-time prime minister, who
remains a touchstone of political
life and a reminder of a faded age
of global influence.
London’s Tower Bridge was
raised and the HMS Belfast warship fired a gun salute as the boat
that carried his coffin up the
River Thames in 1965 retraced
its procession, with music from
bagpipers on board.
Family members cast a wreath
in the water at Westminster and
Prime Minister David Cameron
attended a memorial ceremony
in front of a statue of the cigarchomping leader inside the
Houses of Parliament.
Britain’s current leader, David
Cameron, began the remembrance events at a ceremony in
parliament, laying a wreath at a
statue of Churchill, a man he described as “a great Briton” who
should never be forgotten.
“A full 50 years since his funeral when the cranes along
the Thames dipped low and the
streets were lined with vast silent
crowds, the sheer brilliance of
Winston Churchill remains undimmed,” he said. “He left a Britain more free, more secure, more
brave and more proud, for that
we will always be grateful to him.”
“His enduring legacy and influence on political life and British culture is testament to his
formidable strength of character
and remarkable achievements,”
Cameron said.
To this day, British politicians often evoke Churchill to
add weight to their arguments,
tapping into a deep attachment
felt by many who lived through
World War II.
Cameron’s Conservative colleague, London Mayor Boris
Johnson, has just penned a biography entitled The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History.
“For many people he’s not a
historical figure – people continue to feel an emotional connection to him,” said Richard Toye,
a historian at the University of
Exeter.
Before World War II, Churchill
was seen as a maverick, discredited by the huge loss of life during the poorly-planned Gallipoli
campaign of World War I, and
with a reputation as a political
opportunist for switching sides
from the Conservatives to the
Liberal Party and back.
But the image that endures
of Churchill was forged in 1940,
when he was appointed prime
minister.
A charismatic figure in a
bowler hat, bow tie, and fat cigar
clamped in his mouth, he came to
embody resistance to Nazi Germany’s leader Adolf Hitler.
Chris Ryland, now 65, travelled
to London aged 15 to see Churchill lying in state.
“It was a sombre moment. We
were aware that something great
had passed, whether Churchill or the whole of that era,” said
Ryland, who now owns the boat
that carried Churchill’s coffin,
the Havengore. “Churchill remains hugely relevant today because without him the history of
the world would be very different.”
Born to an aristocratic family at the height of British imperial power, Churchill had the
unquestioning belief in English
superiority common to his era,
and always had plenty of critics.
Black spots include his contempt for Indian leader Mahatma
Gandhi, failure to send food to
Bengal as a famine killed millions
during World War II, and brutality in Ireland on his watch at the
War Office after World War I.
There was anger in Britain last
The Havengore, carrying a wreath, sails through the raised Tower
Bridge during a re-enactment yesterday of Churchill’s funeral
procession 50 years ago.
year after an election candidate
was arrested for quoting critical
comments by Churchill about Islam, but historian Warren Dockter told AFP it is a “myth” that he
was Islamophobic.
While he was “a hardcore imperialist”, Churchill nonetheless
believed that Islam was “a civilising force”, Dockter said.
Broadcaster Jeremy Paxman
this month called Churchill a
“ruthless egotist” who would be
unelectable today.
Yet to many Britons, he remains a link to a proud past at a
time when much of the country
is haunted by a sense of decline.
The anti-European Union UK
Independence Party has used an
image of Churchill making his
V for victory sign as a symbol of
defiance against Europe – despite Churchill famously having
called after the war for a “kind of
United States of Europe”.
Foreign affairs panel chief
frustrated over Iraq report
By Denise Marray
Gulf Times London Correspondent
T
he chair of the Foreign
Affairs Select Committee
to which Sir John Chilcot
will give evidence on February
4 on the preparation of his report into the 2003 Iraq war and
on the obstacles which remain
before he can submit it to the
prime minister, is deeply frustrated by the long drawn-out
process.
Sir Richard Ottaway, speaking to Gulf Times in the aftermath of Thursday’s House of
Commons debate on the motion
“That this House regrets that
the Iraq Inquiry has decided
to defer publication of its report until after 7 May 2015; and
calls on the Inquiry to publish
a timetable for publication and
an explanation of the causes of
the delay by 12 February 2015”,
said that he hoped Chilcot could
give a satisfactory explanation
about the reasons for the delay
in publishing the report which
was officially launched on July
30, 2009.
Ottaway recalled how in
2004 he had questioned thenprime minister Tony Blair on the
floor of the House of Commons
about what he knew about Iraq’s
weapons capability at the time
of the crucial March 18, 2003
debate when Parliament voted
on whether or not to go to war.
(At the conclusion of the
debate, a motion backing the
government’s position to go to
war with Iraq was passed by 412
votes to 149)
Ottaway asked about the
claim in a document titled Iraq’s
Weapons of Mass Destruction:
The Assessment of the British
Government, also known as the
“September Dossier”, published
by the British government on
September 24, 2002, that Iraq
could use weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of
an order being given.
The official Hansard record
of the February 4, 2004 Hutton
Report debate records the exchange:
“Richard Ottaway (Croydon,
South) (Con): The Prime Minister says that all the intelligence about the 45 minutes was
made available. As he will be
well aware, it has subsequently
emerged that this related to
battlefield weapons or smallcalibre weaponry. In the eyes of
many, if that information had
been available, those weapons
might not have been described
as weapons of mass destruction
threatening the region and the
stability of the world. When did
the Prime Minister know that
information? In particular, did
he know it when the House divided on 18 March?
The Prime Minister: No. I
have already indicated exactly
when this came to my attention.
It was not before the debate on
18 March last year. The honourable Gentleman says that a
battlefield weapon would not
be a weapon of mass destruction, but if there were chemical,
biological or nuclear battlefield
weapons, they most certainly
would be weapons of mass destruction. The idea that their
use would not threaten the region’s stability I find somewhat
eccentric.”
The 2003 Intelligence and Security Committee Iraqi Weapons
of Mass Destruction – Intel-
ligence and Assessments report
made the following observation
about the September 24 dossier:
“The dossier was for public
consumption and not for experienced readers of intelligence
material. The 45 minutes claim,
included four times, was always
likely to attract attention because it was arresting detail that
the public had not seen before.
“As the 45 minutes claim was
new to its readers, the context of
the intelligence and any assessment needed to be explained.
The fact that it was assessed to
refer to battlefield chemical and
biological munitions and their
movement on the battlefield,
not to any other form of chemical or biological attack, should
have been highlighted in the
dossier.
“The omission of the context
and assessment allowed speculation as to its exact meaning.
This was unhelpful to an understanding of this issue.”
Ottaway observed: “The
government had the benefit of
information from the entire Intelligence services. What came
out was that the weapons of
mass destruction that we were
going to remove because it was
reported that they threatened
the security of the world were
in fact battlefield weapons – in
other words they were defensive
rather than offensive weapons –
they were not strategic – that is
at the heart of the complaint.
“I asked Tony Blair if he knew
that when he made his speech to
the House of Commons before
we voted to go to war and he said
that he did not know this at that
time.
“He said to me on the floor of
the House that he didn’t know
Churchill was acutely conscious of his own legacy, shaping
his memoirs to “put himself in
the best possible light”, Toye said.
Randolph Churchill, born two
days before his great-grandfather’s death, told AFP that his
ancestor lived on in the freedoms
enjoyed in Britain to this day.
“Fifty years on, what I feel is
we’re really doffing our hat to
Churchill,” he said.
Thousands of visitors still
flock to his homes and the underground bunker from which he
governed Britain during the Blitz
air raids.
Auctions of Churchill’s possessions draw significant interest
and extracts from his speeches,
including the famous “we shall
fight them on the beaches” address, still draw millions of listeners on YouTube.
Present-day politicians in
Britain can only dream of the kind
Cameron addressing a wreath-laying ceremony at the Houses of
Parliament marking the 50th anniversary of Churchill’s state funeral.
of popularity enjoyed by a man
whose biographer Roy Jenkins
called the “greatest human being
ever to occupy Downing Street”.
Churchill died on January 24,
1965 aged 90.
Queen Elizabeth granted him
the rare honour of a state funeral
and more than 320,000 people
filed past his coffin to pay their
respects during three days of lying in state.
His funeral was the world’s
largest at the time, attended
by leaders from more than 100
countries, as well as the queen,
another unusual tribute for a
prime minister.
The procession began at parliament, with the chimes of Big
Ben silenced for the rest of the
day, and the coffin was taken to
St Paul’s Cathedral for the funeral service.
He was buried in Bladon, Oxfordshire, in central England.
Greece’s poll outcome stokes
anti-austerity mood in Ireland
AFP
Dublin
I
Ottaway: There is a lot of
frustration that this report isn’t
out before the election.
that and I leave it to others to
make a judgment as to whether
or not they believe him.
“I haven’t seen the intelligence but two inquiries in 2003
and 2004 have said that the intelligence was that they were
battlefield weapons. This is all
in the public domain.”
He concluded: “Of the four
inquiries that we have had so far,
none of them had completely
unlimited access to all the information, and the most likely
thing to come out of the Chilcot
inquiry is the motive for going
to war.
“There is a lot of frustration
that this report isn’t out before
the election; this was a political decision to go to war, and the
way the public pass judgment
on political decisions is at General Elections and so it would be
thoroughly appropriate that if
it was available it should be got
out now. But it isn’t available.
“What I want Sir John to do is
to explain why there is a delay.”
reland’s economy is speeding
ahead and unemployment is
dropping, but the coming to
power of a radical new government in fellow eurozone member
Greece has revived debate about
the pain of austerity.
Support for opposition parties
– including for the radical leftwing Sinn Fein party – has been
surging for months on the back
of their anti-austerity stance,
and Syriza’s win in Greece is an
extra boost.
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams
spoke to Prime Minister Alexis
Tsipras this week, backing the
new Greek leader’s campaign for
a European Debt conference like
the one that wrote off German
debt after World War II.
“Austerity has heaped severe
hardship on citizens in Greece,
Ireland and across Europe,” Adams said, according to a statement on Sinn Fein’s website.
The Greek vote “has given renewed hope to working people
across Europe, including Ireland,
that there is a fairer and more just
way to deal with the economic
challenges that we face”, he said.
Ireland estimates its 2014
growth at 4.7 percent and forecasts 3.9% for 2015, while unemployment is predicted to fall to
9.8% this year.
The country is no longer taking on new EU/IMF bailout loans
but is still stuck with repayment
and Sinn Fein wants a renegotiation, in particular of the €64bn
pumped into the banks since
2008.
Despite some similarities, the
Irish government has stressed
that it is not Greece, and points
to the positive macroeconomic
data.
“There’s a situation here
where media speculation and
political speculation is ahead of
where the Greek government is,”
said Simon Harris, junior minister at the department of finance.
“We don’t know what the Greek
government is going to ask for.”
Harris also pointed out that
Ireland had already restructured
its bailout debts four times by
striking deals to repay the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
loans early, cut interest rates, extend maturities and restructure
loans.
This week the IMF said Ireland’s recovery is off to a “good
start” but efforts were needed to
put “the public debt on a firmly
downward path.”
“Ireland’s medium term prospects are positive, yet euro area
stagnation poses downsides,” the
IMF said in its latest post-bailout
review.
The introduction of new water
charges from January 1 this year,
as well as a string of political
mishaps in 2014, has seen support for the governing parties
fall to an all-time low in recent
months, although it rebounded
slightly in a poll last weekend.
The water tax was the final
piece of almost €30bn in tax
hikes and spending cuts since
2008 which has hit all citizens, in
a country where unemployment
surged to 15.1% in 2012.
This month, however, there
were modest tax cuts from Ireland’s first expansionary budget
in seven years and cabinet ministers sold the message of economic recovery at every opportunity.
But the outcome of the Greek
vote proves results deemed incredible “even five years ago are
now a possibility”, according to
Nat O’Connor from Tasc, an independent think tank.
“We now have the potential for
a similar electoral upheaval here
in Ireland but also in Portugal
and Spain,” he said.
Ireland is facing the possibility
that neither of the two historically dominant parties, Fine Gael
or Fianna Fail, will be in power
after an election for the first time
since the foundation of the state.
With a general election due
in 2016, the Greek negotiations
on debt re-restructuring will be
watched closely in Ireland.
“If the Greeks get some kind
of better deal because of the
government that they voted in,
then the Irish will follow suit and
say this is the real answer to our
problems,” political commentator Johnny Fallon told AFP.
But chief economist with KBC
Bank Austin Hughes, while acknowledging similarities between Greece and Ireland, says
there are striking differences.
“The critical lesson is that you
need to have an economy that
produces at least the promise of
rising incomes and employment
and Ireland is probably at that
stage now,” he said.
He pointed to the flexibility
of the Irish economy and its export-driven recovery as well as
the extensive structural reforms
already undertaken by Dublin.
“The challenge facing government is striking a balance that
makes people confident that
they are on the right road but
that their expectations do not
become detached from what the
economy can reasonably deliver,”
Hughes said.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
9
EUROPE
Russia wants UN Security Council help on conflict zone flight risk
Reuters
Toronto
R
ussia is calling on the United Nations Security Council to help protect civilian
jets from anti-aircraft weapons
after the downing of a Malaysian
airliner in Ukraine last year.
The Russian position comes
after it dismissed proposals by
Erdogan
says he’s
no sultan
AFP
Istanbul
T
urkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan brushed
off criticism that he’s trying to amass sultan-like powers,
saying he really just wants to be
more like Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
Erdogan told state-run TRT
channel on Thursday that his
desire for an expanded presidential role would not undermine
democracy – and he pointed to
the UK as an example.
“In my opinion, even the UK
is a semi-presidency. And the
dominant element is the Queen,”
Erdogan said.
The UK is a constitutional
monarchy, governed by a parliamentary system, but its hereditary monarch wields only symbolic power.
Erdogan’s comments came after fresh criticism from the opposition that he would act like an
“Ottoman sultan” once his presidential role has been boosted.
Erdogan said that leaders of
presidential systems in the US,
Brazil, South Korea, and Mexico
are not accused of acting like
monarchs.
“I mean, why is it only a monarchy when an idea like this is
floated in Turkey?” Erdogan
asked.
“We need to speed up to close
the gap in this race,” he said.
“The biggest advantage ... would
be in abolishing policy-making
through multiple channels.”
Erdogan became president in
August after more than a decade
as prime minister, but the opposition accuses him of transforming the state by imposing a
gradual Islamisation and riding
roughshod over democracy.
The August elections were the
first time a Turkish president,
traditionally a ceremonial role,
has been directly elected by the
people.
In the wake of his victory, Erdogan insisted he now has a popular mandate to be an active and
powerful leader.
Turkey is set to hold parliamentary elections in June, with
the pro-Erdogan ruling Justice
and Development Party (AKP)
aiming for a thumping majority to change the constitution
and boost Erdogan’s presidential
powers.
“A new constitution is a must
for a new Turkey,” Erdogan said.
the UN’s aviation body, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), as “superficial”.
The Security Council is much
more powerful than Montrealbased ICAO, a specialised agency
that sets safety standards for global aviation.
Its guidelines typically become
regulatory requirements in its 191
member states.
The ICAO needs “a mechanism
of co-operation with the UN Security Council, state military authorities and military-political
unions in order to timely detect
potential threats to civil aviation flight safety and to respond
to these threats”, said Russia’s
Interstate Aviation Committee,
which oversees civil aviation in
the former Soviet Union.
Russia outlined its stance in
documents released ahead of a
major UN air safety conference
in Montreal from February 2 to
February 5.
The ICAO’s proposal, which
is on next week’s agenda, has
gotten US backing.
The ICAO has been under
pressure to come up with new
systems to protect aircraft from
risks in conflict zones after Malaysia Airlines MH17, flying from
Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur,
Last week, Reuters reported
that the United States would
back an ICAO proposal on flight
safety over conflict zones, which
would test a central website
where states and agencies could
publish public warnings about
conflict zones.
Russia has not commented
on that proposal, but in October
the country lashed out in a paper
obtained by Reuters, calling the
ICAO’s ongoing work on conflict
zones “superficial” and outside
its mandate.
Russia is in an unusual position at the ICAO.
Blamed by the West for supplying rebels with anti-aircraft
missiles, a charge it denies, it
must still work closely with
Ukraine and other powers at the
ICAO to keep the global aviation
system running smoothly.
Ukrainian separatists
abort Minsk peace talks
Reuters
Donetsk/Minsk
C
ivilians were killed on
both sides in heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine
yesterday, while an attempt to
reopen peace talks in neighbouring Belarus was aborted before it
began.
Rebel delegates flew to the
Belarus capital Minsk, only to
announce that no talks would
take place and they were flying
straight back to Moscow.
Any talks would be the first
since a five-month-old ceasefire
collapsed with a new rebel advance last week.
The main rebel stronghold
Donetsk echoed to the sound
of heavy artillery fire, including salvoes from multiple rocket
launchers and heavier thuds
from artillery coming from the
direction of the airport, a constant battlefield.
A Reuters cameraman in
Donetsk saw four covered bodies
near a cultural centre that had
been hit by artillery while residents were queuing outside for
humanitarian aid.
A fifth body lay in a badlydamaged car nearby. A woman
was weeping by one of the bodies. A kilometre away, a sixth
dead person lay where a trolleybus had been hit.
The separatists said the total
death toll in those two strikes
was seven, blaming government
forces.
Kiev said the shelling was carried out by the rebels to ruin the
chance of peace talks.
Both sides have made similar allegations throughout the
conflict, which are impossible to
verify.
“We are already used to this
artillery and there’s nothing we
can do about it. Our boys are
defending us,” said Alla, a shopkeeper in downtown Donetsk.
In Debaltseve, east of Donetsk, seven civilians were killed
yesterday by separatist shelling
of their homes, regional police
chief Vyacheslav Abroskin said
in a Facebook post.
Earlier he reported another
seven civilians killed in and
around the town in the previous
24 hours.
The government-held town is
a key rail and road junction in the
east. It and nearby Vuhlehirsk
have come under fierce attack
from rebels encircling government garrisons there, with water
and electricity supplies cut off.
In the nearby rebel-held
frontline town of Horlivka, eight
civilians were killed in rocket attacks the previous day, the mayor’s office said. Ukraine authorities did not comment.
Kiev’s military said five of its
servicemen had also been killed
and 23 wounded in fighting in
the past 24 hours, describing the
situation in the conflict zone as
“hard”.
“They are repeatedly using
Grad (missiles), artillery, mortars, tanks and rocket launchers,” spokesman Andriy Lysenko
said in a televised briefing.
The past week has seen by
far the worst fighting since the
ceasefire was signed five months
ago, with rebels announcing an
offensive that Kiev says amounts
to a repudiation of the truce.
Nato and Kiev accuse Russia
of sending thousands of troops
Men look at the covered bodies of victims at a site hit by shelling in Donetsk yesterday.
to support the rebel advance
with heavy weapons and tanks.
Moscow denies it is directly
involved in fighting over territory that the Kremlin refers to as
“New Russia”.
European Union foreign ministers agreed at an emergency
meeting on Thursday to extend
for another six months economic sanctions against Russia that
had been due to expire soon.
Washington has promised to
tighten its own sanctions, which
have helped feed an economic
crisis in Russia.
The arrival of two rebel negotiators in Minsk was the first
sign of a reopening of negotiations since the rebels launched
their latest advance.
But neither Kiev nor Moscow
confirmed that they were ready
for talks, and one of the rebel
delegates, Denis Pushilin, swiftly announced they were heading
back to Moscow.
He said the rebels were prepared to press on with their offensive and seize more territory
if artillery continues to fall on
their cities.
“If shelling resumes, then we
reserve for ourselves the right to
continue the offensive and go to
the very borders of Donetsk and
Luhansk regions,” he said, referring to the two provinces where
separatists have declared “people’s republics”.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry said it was ready to partici-
pate in talks but was waiting for
an agreement on draft documents.
The immediate fear of Kiev
and its Nato allies is of a rebel
offensive on Mariupol, with
500,000 people by far the biggest government-held city in the
two restive provinces.
It was hit by shelling last Saturday which Kiev said killed 30
civilians, although the rebels
have since denied it is a target.
They halted at its gates during their last big advance five
months ago.
The rebels have said their
principal aims for now are to
push government guns out of
range of their cities and make
their positions more secure by
“straightening out the front” –
choking off a government-held
pocket around Debaltseve.
Both are moves that would
make existing rebel areas more
defensible if, as many Western
countries suspect, Moscow’s
aim is to pursue a stable “frozen
conflict” in eastern Ukraine.
A rebel assault on Mariupol,
with the potential to unleash
unprecedented urban warfare, is
a far more dangerous prospect.
While the rebels say that they
are not trying to capture it yet,
they have repeatedly said they
reserve the right to do so.
The leaders of France and Poland, two of Europe’s strongest
advocates for tighter sanctions
against Russia, met in Paris
and called for EU relations with
Moscow to be “rethought”.
Donetsk, a city of a million
people before the war, has become a desolate frontline town.
“I have nothing to sell to leave.
I am a pensioner and if I have to
die here, so be it,” said Leonid, in
his 70s, dressed in a shabby winter coat and leaning on a cane.
He and his wife moved in with
relatives after their apartment
was destroyed a month ago. He
has received no pension since
Ukraine cut off funding three
months ago.
Dozens of cars and trucks
queued at a Ukrainian checkpoint outside Donetsk, where a
crowd of people were filling in
applications to enter government-held territory.
“All civilians should be evacuated, but neither (the rebels) nor
the Ukrainians could care less,
and we are dying every day,” said
schoolteacher Martina Alexandrovna, 46.
Italy presidential vote heads into third day
AFP
Rome
I
German military in
poor state: report
Germany’s armed forces are
overstretched to unacceptable
levels and their equipment and
accommodation is substandard,
according to an annual report
released this week by the
ombudsman for German military
forces.
The German Army is at the very
limits of its capabilities, Hellmut
Koenigshaus – the armed forces
commissioner, whose job also is
to facilitate legislative oversight
of the military – said in Berlin as
he published a 115-page report on
the state of the armed forces.
“The year 2014 was a year of
truth for the Germany army,”
he said as he presented the
annual report. “The arrears in the
physical maintenance and repairs
to equipment have reached a
level that cannot continue much
longer.”
“A lot of items that are not
absolutely relevant for
running operations has been
neglected.” Koenigshaus said
that the defence ministry had
concentrated on equipping
soldiers fighting abroad, but had
neglected the army at home.
That resulted in about 38% of
barracks being substandard
and 9%, or 269 out of 3,000,
uninhabitable.
was shot down in Ukraine last
July, killing all 298 people on
board.
The incident occurred during
fighting between Ukraine and
pro-Russian separatist rebels in
eastern Ukraine.
The United States said the
plane was hit with a ground-toair missile by rebels.
Russia says a Ukrainian military aircraft downed it.
Assistants open a ballot box at the end of the vote session at the Chambers of Deputies in Rome
yesterday. The Italian lawmakers failed to elect a new president yesterday, leaving Prime Minister
Renzi hoping to push through his candidate only in a fourth round this morning, when the required
threshold of votes is lower.
taly’s presidential election
will go into a fourth and likely
decisive round today more
after two more inconclusive
votes yesterday.
Under constitutional rules, a
fourth round of voting sees the
threshold for victory dropped
to a simple majority in the
1,009-member electoral college, down from the two-thirds
required in the first three rounds.
The fourth vote will take place
this morning with the candidate of Prime Minister Matteo
Renzi’s ruling Democratic Party
(PD) looking well placed to succeed Giorgio Napolitano as head
of state.
Renzi on Thursday declared
his support for Sergio Mattarella,
73, a Sicilian judge at the constitutional court who is littleknown to the general public.
But he is widely respected in
politics after a 25-year stint as
a parliamentarian and minister
with a reputation for integrity.
He is also regarded as a symbol
of Italy’s battle against organised
crime, having entered politics
after his elder brother was murdered by the Sicilian mafia.
Mattarella is expected to be
able to rely on the backing of
most of the 415 PD politicians in
the electoral college made up of
members of the two houses of
parliament – the Senate and the
Chamber of Deputies – and 58
representatives of the regions.
With dozens of other lawmakers closely aligned to the ruling
party, the former academic will
need only limited cross-bench
support to get over the winning
line.
But Italian presidential elections are nothing if not unpredictable.
In 2013 a revolt within the PD
scuppered the favourite Romano
Prodi’s chances and blocked a
decision, forcing Napolitano
to agree to start a second mandate which he always insisted he
would not finish.
Now 89, the hugely popular
figure announced earlier this
month that he was too tired to
carry on in what is a largely ceremonial role but can become politically significant during times
of crisis over the formation of
new governments.
Renzi’s backing for Mattarella
has been interpreted as the end of
a temporary alliance the premier
forged with disgraced former
prime minister Silvio Berlusconi
to help drive labour market and
electoral reforms through parliament.
Mattarella is seen as an “anti-Berlusconi” figure, having
severed his ties with the centreright in Italian politics partly
because of his distaste for the
media tycoon, who still heads the
opposition Forza Italia party despite a tax fraud conviction.
Berlusconi was reported yesterday to be feeling “betrayed”
by Renzi.
A popular theory is that the
Forza Italia leader was hoping
for a sympathetic figure to be
installed as president to increase
his chances of winning a pardon over his criminal conviction
which would allow him to return
to parliament.
UN court upholds life for two convicted in Srebrenica massacre
AFP
The Hague
T
he UN’s Yugoslav war
crimes court upheld yesterday life convictions of
two Bosnian Serbs for their role
in the Srebrenica massacre of
almost 8,000 Muslim men and
boys in 1995.
The Appeal Chamber “affirms
the life sentence” against former
Bosnian Serb Vujadin Popovic,
57, and Ljubisa Beara, 75, Judge
Patrick Robinson said at a hearing at the Hague-based tribunal.
Both men are former officers
in the Bosnian Serb army blamed
for the mid-July 1995 massacre.
Popovic, wearing a dark suit
and black T-shirt shook his head
as the appeals verdict was read
out, while Beara, also in a dark
suit and white shirt, stood motionless.
The two men were sentenced
to life on genocide, war crimes
and crimes against humanity
charges in 2010, together with
five co-accused by the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Four other army officers and a
police official found guilty of war
crimes were jailed for between
five and 35 years. Three of the officers appealed their sentences.
The court upheld a 35-year
sentence against Bosnian army
security chief Drago Nikolic, 57
and a 13 year sentence against
brigade commander Vinko Pandurevic, 55.
It reduced a 19-year sentence
against Bosnian army operations
chief Radivoje Miletic, 67, by one
year.
The Appeals Chamber dismissed, unanimously or by majority, most of the appellants’
other challenges in the case,
which is the ICTY’s largest completed case to date.
10
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
INDIA
Top Congress figure lashes out at Rahul Gandhi
Agencies
New Delhi
B
eleaguered Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi
came under new pressure
yesterday when a former minister accused his aides of waging a
dirty tricks campaign against her
and said his Congress party was
undemocratic.
Jayanthi Natarajan, environment minister in the last Congress government, said she was
resigning from the centre-left
party and aimed several parting
shots at the 44-year-old Gandhi who oversaw its disastrous
showing in last May’s general
election.
In a letter to party president
Sonia Gandhi, Natarajan accused
his office of “planting stories”
in the media and making her a
scapegoat for delays in environmentally sensitive projects.
“A hysterical, vicious, false
and motivated campaign was orchestrated against me,” Natarajan said at a subsequent press
conference in the southern city
of Chennai.
Natarajan said she had come
under pressure from Gandhi
while in office to hold back approval for mega projects and
was then stunned to hear him
publicly criticise the delays in a
speech to industrialists.
“I was never a bottleneck,
nor was I ever responsible for
unwarranted delays in major
projects, and I can prove this at
any time,” said Natarajan, who
quit the government months
before the elections, which were
won by the right-wing Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP).
Rahul has been heavily criticised in the media for his lacklustre leadership in the elections,
in which Congress recorded its
worst ever showing and lost
power to new Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s BJP.
However few in the party have
gone public in criticising either
Rahul or his mother Sonia.
Natarajan said there was no
“inner democracy” in the party
and she felt she could no longer
function in such a “suffocating
atmosphere”.
Congress leader and former
union minister Veerappa Moily,
however, said Sonia and Rahul
Gandhi never interfered.
“...I have not come across any
instance where the Congress
president or vice president interfered with administration,”
Moily told reporters in Bangalore.
Congress leader Digvijaya
Singh said in Delhi: “...it is total-
ly wrong that either Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi ever interfered in the functioning of UPA
government. Ministers were free
to take decisions.”
Granddaughter of former
Tamil Nadu chief minister M
Bhaktavatsalam, Natarajan hails
from a family of Congress veterans who were associated with
the Indian National Congress
since its inception in 1885.
Her great-grandfather was a
member of India’s Constituent
Assembly.
A Chennai-based lawyer,
Natarajan entered politics as a
Youth Congress worker in the
1980s. Becoming a member of
the Rajya Sabha for the first time
in 1986, she was re-elected to
the upper house of parliament in
1992, 1997 and 2008.
She was dropped as a Congress
spokesperson in January 2014.
Natarajan said on becoming
the environment minister, Sonia
Gandhi had told her to maintain
the Congress tradition of protecting the environment as was
done by former prime ministers
Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.
Despite withstanding the
“anger and wrath of all the colleagues who protested that
economic progress was being
blocked”, Natarajan said she was
told to resign from the cabinet.
“After the Congress, I intend
to think about my life and future,” she said.
“I have absolutely no plan to
join any party,” she said, adding
that no BJP leader has met her in
this connection.
She welcomed a government probe into environmental
clearances given by her and demanded that the probe should be
transparent.
“I have to set the record
straight to uphold the legacy of
my family and my reputation. It
has been a bitter experience for
me for the past one-and-half
years. My own party treated me
badly,” she said.
Police rescue
hundreds of
child slaves
in Hyderabad
The children complained
of being forced to work 16
hours a day without breaks,
and were threatened with
violence and no food if they
disobeyed orders
AFP
New Delhi
I
ndian police have rescued
hundreds of child slaves as
young as six during days of
raids on workshops in the central
city of Hyderabad, a senior officer said yesterday.
Police discovered 120 children—some of them sick, underweight and traumatised—
during raids on workshops that
make bangles and other goods
late on Thursday, as part of a
city-wide crackdown on child
slavery.
“They have chronic skin diseases and were underfed. They
are in trauma and visibly shaken,” V Satyanarayana, deputy
police commissioner for south
Hyderabad, said.
The children complained of
being forced to work 16 hours
a day without breaks, and were
threatened with violence and no
food if they disobeyed orders,
the officer said.
Many were transported from
the impoverished northern
state of Bihar last year after
their parents sold them to traffickers for 5,000-10,000 rupees ($80-$160), according to
rescuers.
“They were kept in dingy
rooms with no ventilation and
Skeletons found
at police campus
Dozens of human skeletons
have been found inside an
unused room at a police
campus in India, prompting
an investigation, officials said
yesterday.
Sacks containing the human
remains and decayed body
parts were found on Thursday
in a room at the police
campus in the city of Unnao in
Uttar Pradesh.
Media reports said between
60 and 100 skeletons were
found in the bags.
“We believe this place
was called the viscera
room where body parts
and viscera samples of
unclaimed and unidentified
bodies were used for postmortems,” Unnao police
chief Mahendra Pal Singh
told reporters.
“The skeletons must be
of bodies not disposed of
after investigations. A probe
and DNA testing has been
ordered to get the answers,”
he said.
Local politician Pankaj Gupta
said the skeletons could be of
people killed for illegal organ
trade or those of political
opposition workers.
exposure to harmful gases,” said
Satyanarayana.
“The campaign against bonded labour and trafficking will
continue.”
Police began a massive clampdown last week against dozens
of workshops tucked away in the
city’s narrow alleys, after tipoffs from child rights activists
and police informers.
Some 220 children were rescued last week when police
stormed similar workshops in
the city’s south, Satyanarayana
said.
“The rescue of child
slaves is the beginning.
We have to ensure they
get rehabilitated and
compensated for the work.
Also, the offenders are
penalised for the crime”
Thirty-one traffickers and
agents have been arrested and
charged with child slavery and
police are making efforts to reunite children with their families,
the commissioner added.
TV footage taken after the
raids showed cramped and dirty
workshops with no windows and
discarded clothes. Children were
seen huddled in a room, looking
bewildered and being watched
over by police officers.
Eleven children are reported
missing in India every hour and
almost 40% remain untraceable.
Many are trapped by gangs and
forced into prostitution, child
labour and slavery, according to
police and activists.
Activists, who have criticised
police for turning a blind eye to
child trafficking, welcomed the
police crackdown but cautioned
the youngsters could become
easy prey for criminals if they are
not cared for.
“This is an excellent initiative”, Bhuvan Ribhu, an activist
and lawyer with Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood
Movement), said.
“The rescue of child slaves is
the beginning. We have to ensure they get rehabilitated and
compensated for the work. Also,
the offenders are penalised for
the crime,” he said.
India’s mega cities such as
Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai are
particular targets for gangs,
which entice poor parents from
rural areas with the promise of
jobs and monthly wages but then
sell the children into bonded labour.
Most of them end up as construction or domestic workers.
Others take up rag picking, agricultural work and in industries such as fireworks, tobacco, bangle making and carpet
weaving.
Some 4mn Indian children
work as domestic helpers, in
roadside restaurants and in factories making clothes and other
items, according to government
figures released last year. Experts say the actual figures are
much higher.
Indian rights activist Kailash
Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace
Prize last year for his efforts to
halt child labour, including the
trafficking of children into slavery.
A visitor looks at an exhibit titled “The Threshold into a Dream” by artist T V Santhosh at the India Art Fair in New Delhi on Thursday.
Contemporary themes in
focus at Delhi’s art fair
Reuters
New Delhi
I
ndia’s biggest art fair
opened in New Delhi this
week with a focus on homegrown artists and exhibits inspired by contemporary themes
such as the worst floods in the
Kashmir region in more than a
century.
A smorgasbord of works by
1,100 artists lured art lovers,
gallerists and gawkers to a cavernous exhibition space in the
capital, cementing the annual
fair’s reputation as one of South
Asia’s top cultural events.
Each year, an estimated
100,000 visitors flock to the
four-day fair with entry tickets
that cost no more than $6.
The city’s glitterati strolled
past exhibits by 85 galleries at
Thursday’s preview clutching
glasses of red wine, with several
displays sold before the seventh
edition of the fair opened for
public viewing yesterday. The
show runs until tomorrow.
“We’ve had five or six sell-
out booths and several galleries
have done exceptionally well,”
founder Neha Kirpal said.
India’s art scene has been expanding for the past few years,
with auctioneer Christie’s second Mumbai auction in December generating sales of $12mn.
A report by analysts ArtTactic
said confidence in the market
was at its highest since 2007.
For four days each year, New
Delhi becomes a centre for the
visual arts, with the India Art
Fair at the hub of several spinoff events such as museum
shows, seminars and glamorous
parties.
“Beyond the fair itself, the
effect it has on the art scene in
Delhi at large ... and almost collaterally, the rest of Delhi programmes its art agendas,” said
artist Jitish Kallat, who said he
would be lucky to attend half
the events on the schedule.
A life-size wooden replica of
a typical Kashmiri house lies on
its side at the fair’s entrance,
a reminder of the destruction
wreaked by floods in the Himalayan state last year.
Spelling out the message
Kashmiri artist Veer Munshi,
who lives in Delhi, took nearly
three months to complete the
house, and said he would use
proceeds from its cost of about
3mn rupees ($48,500) to rehabilitate artists and writers from
his native land.
Inside the fair, among an array of paintings, sculpture,
video installations and photographs is another wooden
exhibit - one inspired by a
militant assault on Mumbai in
2008.
Mumbai artist T V Santhosh’s
installation tilts the city’s historic railway station at an angle,
with several digital clocks on its
walls counting down time in the
Mumbai landmark.
Elsewhere, metallic beads
take the shape of four men
hanging on for dear life on a
Mumbai train while an army
of giant ants, with their bodies sculpted from motorbike
parts, bask under the winter
sun.
Like other years, customs
duty and red tape threatens
to temper the enthusiasm of
Rape victim sues
Uber in US court
AFP
New Delhi
A
Students of Saint Francis Girls High School form the word “peace” as they participate in a ‘Non-violence and Peace’ rally in
Secunderabad yesterday, the 67th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination.
Western gallery owners attending the fair.
“I was told that a lot of the
galleries from the United States
stopped (coming) because of all
the taxes and all the paperwork
involved,” said Clarita Brinkerhoff, whose Florida-based gallery is exhibiting for the first
time in India.
Brinkerhoff’s metal sculptures
of peacocks, India’s national
bird, studded with Swarovski
crystals found favour with the
Delhi crowd, with five of her exhibits sold on the first day.
She wants to be back next
year, but said she hoped “the
process would not be so complicated”.
It may be years before New
Delhi can hope to match art
fairs in Hong Kong or Dubai,
but director Kirpal is unperturbed. She describes India as
an emerging market in contrast
to several art markets that have
stagnated.
“The good news is that we are
at the beginning of our growth
curve for the market,” she said.
“There’s only one way to go.”
woman who alleges an
Uber driver raped her in
the Indian capital has
sued the online taxi service in a
US court, accusing it of failing to
provide passenger safety.
In her lawsuit, the Indian woman accuses Uber of putting profits
over safety, calling the US-based
company the “modern day equivalent of electronic hitchhiking”.
In an e-mail to AFP late
Thursday, the American lawyer for the 25-year-old woman,
who cannot be named for legal
reasons, said Uber was being
sued for unspecified damages for
“physical and emotional harm”.
“Despite its self-proclaimed
commitment to safety, opening the Uber app and setting the
pick-up location has proven to
be the modern day equivalent of
electronic hitchhiking,” according to the lawsuit filed in a court
in California.
“Buyer beware—we all know
how those horror movies end,”
the lawsuit said, accusing Uber
of negligence.
The woman’s lawyer, Douglas H Wigdor, had earlier represented a hotel maid who accused
former International Monetary
Fund chief Dominique StraussKahn of sexual assault in 2012.
The San Francisco-based
company did not comment on
the lawsuit but said “our deepest
sympathies remain with the victim of this horrific crime”.
A spokesman said the company was also “co-operating fully”
with authorities to ensure the
person responsible for the crime
was brought to justice.
Uber was banned from Delhi’s
streets in the aftermath of the
December 5 attack on the woman, which sparked new safety
fears in a city with a high record
of sexual violence.
The trial of the accused driver, who allegedly attacked the
woman as she was on her way
home from dinner, is under way.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
11
PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN
TRIAL
PENALTY
CAMPAIGN
WARNING
RESTRAINT
KP province refers 423
cases to military courts
Convict to be executed
on non-terror charge
Pakistan blocks over 2mn
unverified SIM cards
EU agency urges ‘extreme
caution’ in Pak airspace
Musharraf’s request for
visit to Saudi rejected
The government of Pakistan’s KhyberPakhtunkhwa (KP) province yesterday
referred a list of terror suspects to the federal
government for trial by newly formed militant
courts. The 45-page report contains 423 cases
of terror suspects for trial by military courts,
which also includes the name of Tehreek-iTaliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Mullah Fazlullah,
Dawn reported. At 116, Peshawar has the
highest number of cases to be tried by military
courts, whereas the remaining 307 cases are
from other areas of the province. Most of the
terror suspects were charged with attacks on
security forces, government buildings, state
installations and killing of civilians.
Another Pakistani convict will be hanged
in Punjab province’s Haripur central jail as
the prison authorities received his death
warrant yesterday. Shoaib Sarwar, who was
awarded the death sentence on murder
charges, is likely to be executed within
the next three days, The Nation reported.
Sarwar will be the first civilian to be hanged
for a non-terror related charge since 2008.
Pakistan lifted a six-year moratorium on
the death penalty last month in the case of
convicted terrorists following the Peshawar
school attack, which killed over 140. Since
then, 20 convicts have been hanged. Nearly
8,000 are on death row.
More than 2mn mobile SIM cards have been
blocked across Pakistan, a media report said
yesterday. The cards have been blocked under
a campaign launched by the government
for verification of mobile phone subscribers’
details. Earlier this month, the government
gave Pakistan Telecommunication Authority
(PTA) 91 days to verify 103mn SIM cards issued
before August 2013 but not verified through the
biometric verification system (BVS). Since the
exercise began on January 12 this year, PTA has
re-verified 8.72mn subscribers. The three-month
period to verify mobile phone connections
through the BVS expires April 13. The process of
verification was to be completed in a year.
The European air safety agency has warned
airline operators to show “extreme caution”
when flying over Pakistan amid fears of
possible terror attacks. The European
Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) “recommends
all operators to exercise extreme caution”
when flying over the country and not to
fly below 24,000ft (7,300m), it said on its
website dated January 22. The appeal by
EASA, which does not refer to any specific
threat of attack, applies to flights into, out of
or within Pakistan airspace, it said. It said that
“national aviation authorities are reporting an
increased risk to flight operation safety due to
potential terrorist attacks in Pakistan”.
The interior ministry turned down yesterday
General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s request to
be allowed to travel to Saudi Arabia to offer
condolences on the death of King Abdullah, a
ministry’s official said. The request was made
to the interior ministry on January 23 through
his counsel. The ministry responded to the
letter yesterday expressing the government’s
inability to accede to the request. “Assuming
that you represent retired Gen Pervez
Musharraf, it is informed that the Supreme
Court of Pakistan restrained your client from
moving out of Pakistan until its orders were
varied or modified,” reads the letter issued by
the interior ministry.
Govt fails
to protect
religious
freedom,
says HRW
Bomb attack at Pakistani
mosque kills over 60
AFP
Shikarpur
Internews
Islamabad
A
iolent attacks on members of religious minorities rose significantly in
2014 as Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif’s government failed to ensure protection of religious freedom, says a report of the Human
Rights Watch (HRW).
Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at the New York-based
HRW, regretted that “the Pakistan government is failing at
the most basic duty to protect
its citizens and enforce rule
of law”.
“The Pakistan government did
little in 2014 to stop the rising
toll of killings and repression by
extremist groups that target religious minorities,” he added.
HRW representative in Pakistan Saroop Ijaz said that in its
656-page report the HRW had
reviewed human rights practices in more than 90 countries.
He said the report had been
launched globally yesterday
and the main event was held in
Beirut.
The report has termed 2014 “a
tumultuous year” for Pakistan in
which “sectarian attacks continued with impunity, military
operations in North Waziristan
displaced more than 1mn people, and massive floods wrought
devastation in Sindh and Punjab
provinces”.
“Violent attacks on religious
minorities, fostered in part by
the institutionalised discrimination of the blasphemy laws continued,” says the Pakistan chapter of the annual report.
“Sectarian violence, particularly attacks against the already
beleaguered Shia community,
continued to claim a high toll in
2014,” the report says, adding:
“The militant group Lashkari-Jhangvi continued attacks on
Shia-Hazaras in Balochistan and
the government failed to successfully prosecute and imprison
suspects, in part due to sympathy for the group within the
security forces.”
According to the HRW, Karachi remained a “hotbed” of sectarian violence, with at least 750
sectarian targeted killings occurring in the city from September
2013 to September 2014.
powerful bomb tore
through a busy Shia
mosque in southern Pakistan yesterday, killing more than
60 people in the country’s deadliest sectarian attack in nearly
two years.
The blast hit the mosque in
Shikarpur in Sindh province,
around 470km (300 miles)
north of Karachi, as hundreds
of worshippers attended Friday
prayers.
Sindh health minister Jam
Mehtab Daher said that “the
death toll from the attack has
increased to 61”.
“There are 54 dead bodies in
Shikarpur hospital. Seven others died in Sukkur and Larkana
hospitals,” he said.
Shaukat Ali Memon, the
medical superintendent of Civil
Hospital in Shikarpur, earlier
gave a death toll of 48.
Hundreds of people rushed to
the scene after the blast to try to
dig out survivors trapped under
the roof of the mosque, which
collapsed in the explosion,
witness Zahid Noon said.
Television footage of the aftermath showed chaotic rescue scenes as people piled the
wounded into cars, motorbikes
and rickshaws to take them for
treatment.
“The area is scattered with
blood and flesh and it smells of
burnt meat, people are screaming at each other... it is chaos,”
Noon said.
“A huge contingent of police
and rangers is present here and
ambulances from the nearby
towns have started to arrive.”
Local resident Mohammad
Jehangir said he had “felt the
earth move beneath my feet”
as he prayed at another mosque
around 1.5km away.
An official with a national Shia
organisation, Rahat Kazmi, said
that up to 400 people were worshipping in the mosque when
the blast struck.
Sainrakhio Mirani, police
chief of the region, said officers
were still working to determine
whether it was a suicide bombing or whether the 6-7kg (13-15
pound) bomb was detonated remotely.
V
Security officials gathering at the scene following a bomb attack at a Shia mosque in Shikarpur in Sindh province, some 470km north of Karachi, yesterday.
It is the bloodiest single sectarian attack in Pakistan since
March 2013, when a car bomb in
a Shia neighbourhood of Karachi
killed 45.
A spokesman for the shadowy
Jandullah militant group, a splinter faction of the Pakistani Taliban, said they were behind the
blast.
“We claim responsibility for
attack on Shias in Shikarpur very
happily,” Ahmed Marwat said.
Locals said many people lost
relatives in the attack.
Mohabbat Ali Bablani, a
Shikarpur local, said four of his
cousins, aged between 30 and 40,
were killed in the blast while his
friend had lost five children, all
under 13.
“My
friend
Nizamuddin
Sheikh has lost his five sons. He
had taken them with him to offer prayers and all of them were
killed in the attack,” he said.
Yesterday’s attack came as
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited Karachi, the capital of Sindh
province, to discuss the law and
order situation in the city.
Karachi,
Pakistan’s
big-
Lahore mulls DNA
profiling of criminals
Internews
Lahore
T
he Lahore police in Pakistan mull starting deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
profiling of all arrested, jailed
and freed criminals of last fiveyear cases after February 15.
The DNA profiling will be the
first-ever facility utilised by
any police department in the
country to streamline databank
of criminals to prevent and detect crime against person and
property cases in a more professional and authentic way.
Forensic experts in the police department are currently
getting only finger-printing
and photographing of criminals to maintain a databank
which is not up to the mark
and lack centralised system.
The capital city police have
only three mobile forensic labs
which have low-quality investigation kits.
Senior Superintendent of Police (investigation) Rana Ayyaz
Saleem, who has initiated the
project, said yesterday that the
initiative was being taken to
bring the criminals in a profiling
which would restrict repetition
of crimes especially rape and
crime against property.
He said it was generally observed that the criminals of heinous cases like dacoity, robbery,
theft, burglary and rape were
usually habitual repeaters and
police were unable to monitor
and bind them after their release.
He said as the Punjab Forensic Science Agency had acquired state-of-the-art soft-
ware worth $1.5mn for DNA
sampling, the arrangements
had been finalised to start getting DNA samples from criminals especially categorised in
returnees from jails.
Saleem said joint teams of police and PFSA would be formed
to initiate DNA sampling and
profiling of arrested criminals
and those who will be sent to
jails by courts in six police divisions after Feb 15, adding the
DNA coding would be saved in
the software to help detect cases.
He said the exercise would
provide four major benefits
as police would receive surety
bonds from criminals, who were
out of jails, receive surety bonds
from their guarantors, identify
missing criminals and those who
change their places, and identify
those who abandon crimes.
gest city and economic heart,
has wrestled for several years
with a bloody wave of criminal,
sectarian and political murders.
After yesterday’s attack, a
group of Shia Muslims came out
in streets and blocked main traffic artery in the central Karachi
city during evening rush hours.
They chanted slogans against the
attackers and beat their chests in
protest.
Anti-Shia attacks have been
increasing in recent years in Karachi and also in the southwestern city of Quetta, the north-
western area of Parachinar and
the far northeastern town of
Gilgit.
Around 1,000 Shias have been
killed in the past two years in Pakistan, with many of the attacks
claimed by the hardline Sunni
group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).
A report by the US Institute
of Peace this week warned that
sectarian militant groups were
growing in strength in rural areas of Sindh, a province which
has escaped much of the worst
of the violence that has wracked
Pakistan over the last decade.
Pakistan has stepped up its
fight against militants in the past
month, following a Taliban massacre at a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
Heavily armed gunmen went
from room to room at the armyrun school gunning down 150
people, most of them children, in
an attack that horrified the world.
Since then, the government
has ended a six-year moratorium
on executions in terror-related
cases and pledged to crack down
on all militant groups.
Taliban claim Kabul airport killings
AFP
Kabul
T
he Taliban yesterday
claimed responsibility for
an apparent “insider attack” at Kabul airport in which
three American contractors and
an Afghan were killed.
Details of the Thursday evening
shooting are still unclear, with a
spokesman for Nato’s Resolute Support mission saying the incident is
under investigation.
A US defence official in Washington said that the American victims, who were employed under a
US Defense Department contract
to help train the Afghan air force,
died from gunshot wounds.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah
Mujahid said a member of the insurgent movement was responsible for the attack.
“A brave Afghan mujahid infiltrator working in the military
side of Kabul airport opened fire
on invading American soldiers,
killing three Americans,” he said
Afghan security vehicles patrol near a military airport in Kabul yesterday.
in a statement sent to media.
Western troops and civilians
training Afghan security forces
have faced lethal assaults from
Afghans in uniform who turn
their guns on their counterparts.
Nato troops have adopted special security measures in recent
years to try to counter the threat.
The airport in the Afghan
capital is heavily guarded, with
one section devoted to commercial aircraft and another area set
aside for a Nato contingent.
Thursday’s attack came after a
surge in Taliban violence over the
past year.
At least nine people were killed
earlier Thursday in the country’s east when a suicide bomber
struck at a funeral for victims of a
roadside bomb attack.
Most Nato combat troops
pulled out of Afghanistan last
year but a small contingent of
about 12,000 remain in the country, including roughly 10,600
American forces.
The American soldiers, along
with other Nato troops and private contractors, are helping the
Afghans improve their logistics
and build up a fledgling air force.
12
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
PHILIPPINES
Aquino vows justice
for dead commandos
AFP
Manila
P
Members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) participate in a
“walk for sympathy and justice” for the 44 slain Special Action Force
personnel who were killed in Sunday’s clash with rebels, along a
main street in Taguig City, south of Manila yesterday.
hilippine President Benigno Aquino pledged
justice for the families of
44 police commandos killed by
rebels during a botched antiterror operation, as he led tributes yesterday — a national day
of mourning.
The men were killed in confrontations with two rebel
groups in the southern Philippines on Sunday while on a mission to catch or kill Malaysian
bomb-maker Zulkifli bin Hir
alias Marwan, who is accused
of involvement in the 2002 Bali
bombings in Indonesia in which
202 people died.
“I feel your pain,” Aquino told
weeping widows, parents and
children of the police commandos at an emotional memorial
service inside a police camp in
suburban Manila.
“I pledge to bring justice to
all those who were killed,” said
the president, sporting the same
black armband worn by police
attending the ceremony.
An awkward silence, broken
only by the sound of infants crying, filled the cramped gymnasium as Aquino personally offered
his condolences to victims for
the first time since the massacre,
praying briefly before each white
casket.
Elisa Esmulla, unemployed
and widowed with five young
children, said she could not take
a combat medal from the president’s hands as she was overcome with grief.
“My head was spinning. I was
confused. I still can’t believe
Govt, rebels hold talks on
disarming in shadow of clash
AFP
Kuala Lumpur
P
hilippine government and
rebel negotiators met in
Malaysia yesterday, forging ahead with talks on disarming the guerrillas despite a historic peace deal struck last year
being thrown into doubt by a
deadly clash.
The discussions marked the
first formal sit-down between
the two sides since a botched
Philippine police anti-terror raid
in the country’s south last Sunday resulted in a firefight that
killed 44 police commandos and
shook the peace effort.
The Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF), which has waged
a decades-long bloody insurgency, signed a protocol during
an initial encounter Thursday
in Kuala Lumpur that paves the
way for disarmament.
Talks are expected to continue
into the weekend at an undisclosed location as procedures are
hammered out.
But the future of the entire
peace effort has been called into
doubt by the clash in Mindanao, with public calls growing in
the Philippines for retribution
against the rebels.
The police raid was aimed at
capturing or killing a wanted
Malaysian terrorism suspect
but turned into a debacle when
commandos were ambushed
by fighters from MILF and the
Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom
Fighters (BIFF), a MILF splinter
group.
MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said by phone that
11 MILF fighters also were killed,
and 15 wounded, some seriously.
Last year’s peace deal would
create a southern autonomous
region for the Philippines’ Muslim minority with locally elected
leaders by mid-2016.
Representatives of both sides
at the Malaysia-hosted talks said
they would not allow the bloodshed to derail the painstakingly achieved peace agreement
signed last March.
“There is no other way to
move forward,” Iqbal said.
President Benigno Aquino talks to relatives of one of the slain police commandos. Right: Relatives cry at the coffin of one of the 44 police
commandos killed in a botched anti-terror operation during a funeral service at the Camp Bagong Diwa, in Manila.
what happened to my husband,”
Esmulla, 33, said, carrying her
one-year-old daughter.
Aquino was attacked by many
for failing to attend a parade ceremony Thursday that saw uniformed commandos bearing the
coffins of their fallen comrades
as they arrived home in Manila.
He vowed yesterday that one
of his government’s top priorities would be to go after Philippine militant Abdul Basit Usman, a suspect in at least nine
bombings in the south, who escaped from the weekend fighting.
And in his eulogy, Chief Superintendent Noli Talino repeated a Philippine government
claim -- not yet independently
verified -- that Zulkifli was
killed by a small assault force.
The 44 men lost their lives in
gun battles with large units of
V
ice President Jejomar
Binay yesterday challenged suspended Philippine National Police chief Director General Alan Purisima to
speak up about the Maguindanao “misencounter” as he called
for justice for the 44 PNP Special Action Force (SAF) commandos killed in action.
“Reports show that Gen.
Purisima played a major role in
the planning and implementation of the SAF operation despite being suspended from
duty. He should speak up,” Binay said.
At the House of Representatives, lawmakers said Purisima
should face investigation and
spill the beans on his alleged
involvement in the execution
of the deadly Mamasapano
mission.Lawmakers Sherwin
Gatchalian of Valenzuela City
(Metro Manila), Carol Jayne
Lopez of You Against Corrup-
Jejomar Binay: call for justice
tion party-list and Rodel Batocabe of Ako Bicol party-list
made the call amid reports
from police ranks that Purisima
hatched the Mamasapano mission to pursue international
terrorist Sulkifli bin Hir alias
Marwan without proper co-ordination in an attempt to keep
his post as PNP chief.
“Purisima cannot escape
responsibility from the mas-
sacre of 44 SAF commandos
since he was identified by
relieved SAF commander Director Getulio Napenas as the
one calling the shots and that
the SAF director was directly
reporting to him. Even President Aquino admitted that
Gen. Purisima was giving him
briefings on the top secret SAF
operation to neutralise Marwan,” Gatchalian said.
way to move forward” except to
implement the peace treaty.
The other group that attacked
the policemen, officials said, is a
MILF splinter group called the
Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom
Fighters (BIFF), which last year
pledged allegiance to Islamic
State fighters in Iraq and Syria.
Eyewitness accounts by at
least one police survivor allege
that some of the dead policemen had surrendered, only to be
executed by the rebels who also
desecrated some of the corpses,
triggering mounting calls for
retribution.
Yesterday, the Philippine government and rebel negotiators
announced that they had signed
a protocol for the disarmament
of guerillas.
The two sides started threeday talks in Kuala Lumpur from
Thursday, their first formal sit-
down since the botched raid.
The president stressed during the ceremony that what was
the worst loss of life suffered by
the country’s police or military
forces in recent memory would
not stop his government from
enforcing a peace agreement
reached last year with the country’s largest guerrilla force.
But analysts said the bloodbath cast doubts over the future
of the peace accord aimed at
ending the decades-long armed
conflict in impoverished Muslim
regions of the Philippines.
To keep the peace timetable on
track, Aquino needs parliament
to pass by March a self-rule law
for minority Muslims in several
southern provinces.
However, legislators admitted
this week that the incident will
likely cause parliament to miss
the deadline.
China media labels Manila a ‘crying
baby’ for opposing island-building
AFP
Beijing
C
hina’s official news
agency yesterday likened the Philippines
to a “crying baby” for seeking
international support against
island-building in disputed
waters by Beijing, denouncing
its efforts as “pathetic”.
The caustic commentary by
the Xinhua news agency came
two days after foreign ministers
from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)
voiced concern over Beijing’s
land reclamation efforts in the
South China Sea.
Manila -- which has challenged
China’s
territorial
Binay urges Purisima to reveal details
on Maguindanao ‘misencounter’
By Llanesca T Panti
& Jefferson Antiporda
Manila Times
Filipino rebels who surrounded
them, according to officials, including the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which
signed a peace agreement with
Manila last year.
The MILF maintains that it
acted in self-defence and has
vowed to pursue the peace process, as it seeks regional self-rule.
The rebels were not harbouring Zulkifli or Usman, MILF
chief peace negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said, despite military
claims in the past they had been
offered shelter.
“We don’t know anything
about their movements... They
don’t have contact with the
MILF at all,” Iqbal said, adding
11 MILF fighters died as a result
of the encounter while 15 were
wounded, with some in a “serious condition”.
Iqbal said there was “no other
At the Senate, the committee on public order and dangerous drugs disclosed plans
to invite Purisima to shed light
on its inquiry into the bloody
clash between members of the
PNP-SAF and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF),
if it could get solid proof on
reports that he “directed” the
operations, according to Sen.
Grace Poe, committee chairman.
Four separate Senate resolutions have been filed calling
for an investigation of the SAF
operation that resulted in the
death of the 44 police officers.
In a statement on the National Day of Mourning for
the fallen 44, Binay said there
should be an honest and transparent investigation of the Mamasapano clash.
The Vice President noted
that a number of questions have
been left unanswered, including the most important question about who was accountable for the bloodshed. He called
on the public to let calm prevail
over anger.
claims at a UN tribunal — had
urged the 10-country grouping
to take a firmer stand against
Beijing on the issue.
“Only one month after an arbitration farce, the Philippines
is putting up another pathetic
show in an attempt to lobby international sympathy and support in its territorial spat with
China,” Xinhua wrote.
“Manila should be fully
aware that acting like a crying
baby and begging for compassion from the international
community would never help
justify its claims in the South
China Sea dispute,” it said.
The dispute “should and
could be properly handled only
by the parties directly concerned”, it added. China says it
controls almost all of the South
China Sea, a claim which conflicts with those of Asean members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam as well as
non-member Taiwan.
Manila
accused
Beijing
last year of reclamation work
around isolated reefs in the
Spratly islands, which could
hold fortified positions or even
airstrips. Beijing has repeatedly
rejected Philippine protests,
saying that the projects were
being conducted in Chinese
sovereign territory.
On Wednesday, following
a two-day ministers’ meeting in Malaysia, Asean foreign
ministers expressed concern at
China’s island-building efforts
-- although their statement
mentioned no specific countries, saying instead that they
“shared the concern raised by
some foreign ministers on land
reclamation in the South China
Sea”. The statement came after
Philippine foreign minister Albert del Rosario urged the international community to “say
to China that what it is doing
is wrong — that it must stop its
reclamation activities at once”.
But Xinhua argued that such
efforts represented a “selfish,
futile” attempt by Manila to
“poison” China-Asean ties.
“To drive a wedge between
Asean and China — its nearest neighbour and partner — at
such a critical time will be extremely unwise and selfish,” the
news agency wrote.
Mongolia jails American, two
Filipinos in tax evasion case
Reuters
Beijing
R
esource-rich
Mongolia
yesterday jailed an American and two Filipinos for
more than five years after finding
them guilty of tax evasion, ending a three-year case that deterred investors.
Perceived resource nationalism in Mongolia, fed by suspicion at foreigners taking
control of some of the world’s
largest coal and copper deposits, has led to an annual decline
of 71% in foreign investment in
the year to November 2014.
Prosecutors said a panel of
judges levied a fine of $35bn tugrik ($18mn) on Toronto-listed
SouthGobi Resources Ltd, besides the prison terms for the
men, former employees of the
firm.
The “verdict was guilty,” the
general prosecutor’s office said
in a brief statement.
The three men were US citizen Justin Kapla, and Philippine citizens Hilarion Cajucom
Jr and Cristobal David.
US Ambassador Piper Campbell and some embassy staff
attended the trial, where they
noted “several interpretation
problems”, the US embassy in
Mongolia said in a statement.
“Because of these problems,
the defendants stated during
the trial that they could not
understand the interpretation,
nor could they express themselves clearly,” the embassy
added.
The Philippines embassy
could not be reached for immediate comment.
Earlier, judges had twice returned the case to prosecutors,
citing insufficient evidence.
Travel bans during the investigations have kept the convicted men in Mongolia since
May 2012. Kapla registered
a case with the UN Human
Rights Committee after being
unable to leave for more than
two years.
The case began after Mongolian authorities raided the offices of SouthGobi Resources’
mining unit, SouthGobi Sands,
in May 2012. SouthGobi mines
the Ovoot Tolgoi coal deposit
in the Gobi desert, 40 km from
the Chinese border.
The case began after
Mongolian authorities raided
the offices of SouthGobi
Resources’ mining unit,
SouthGobi Sands, in May 2012.
SouthGobi mines the Ovoot
Tolgoi coal deposit in the
Gobi desert, 40 km from the
Chinese border
The raid followed SouthGobi Resources’ acceptance of
an offer from Aluminum Corp
of China Ltd to buy a majority
stake.
The deal sparked controversy
over the prospect of a Chinese
state-owned company taking
control of the mine. Mongolia
adopted new laws that year to
curb foreign investment, effectively blocking the deal.
Mongolia has historically
been hesitant to hand strategic assets to China after centuries of feuding between the
neighbours.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
13
SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH
Bodies found after
migrant boat sinks
AFP
Dhaka
Govt hikes
taxes
to raise
revenue
AFP
Colombo
S
ri Lanka’s new government
has announced hefty taxes
on top companies in a bid
to raise revenue, accusing the
previous regime of fudging the
figures and leaving the economy
in a “sad state”.
Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake also said prices of
essential food items would be
slashed to cut the cost of living
for average Sri Lankans, as he
unveiled his government’s supplementary budget.
Karunanayake said public debt
had been hidden and growth artificially inflated by the regime of Mahinda Rajapakse, who was ousted after
10 years in elections this month on
claims of corruption and cronyism.
“The officials and economic
experts have looked into the figures and now the economics of
deceit and falsehood had surfaced,” Karunanayake told parliament on Thursday.
“The bad news is that economy is in a sad state, and the good
news it is not beyond resurrection and is in safe and sound
hands,” he said, pledging a transparent government.
Karunanayake announced a
“super” tax of 25% on companies which earn annual net profit
of more than Rs2bn ($15.38mn),
and a Rs1bn ($7.56mn) tax on Sri
Lanka’s handful of local casinos.
He revealed tax cuts on a dozen essential food items including milk powder and bread, and
granted a Rs10,000 ($76) salary increase to more than 1.6mn
public servants.
A “mansion” tax of Rs1mn
($7,700) will also be imposed annually on owners of large homes,
the minister said.
The new government last week reduced fuel by 20% and pledged further reductions, in populist measures
ahead of parliamentary polls.
Sri Lanka’s new President
Maithripala Sirisena has pledged
to dissolve parliament in April,
two years ahead of time, and call
an election aimed at strengthening his hold on power.
Karunanayake said debt was
88.9% of GDP, sharply higher
than the Sri Lankan central
bank’s figure of 74.5% given before the change of government.
Sri Lanka reported more than
8% in the first two years after the
end of a decades-long separatist
war in 2009, and has recorded
steady growth since then.
AFP
Colombo
S
R
escuers pulled seven bodies yesterday from a fishing boat that sank off the
Bangladesh coast carrying migrants to Malaysia, as a search
continued for a dozen still
missing, an official said.
Emergency workers have
rescued 43 Bangladeshis in the
Bay of Bengal since the trawler
capsized in strong currents
some 2.5km (1.5 miles) offshore
on Thursday, officials have
said.
“We recovered seven bodies
from the lower deck of the boat
on Friday morning,” coastguard
captain Shahidul Islam said.
The bodies were found after
the coastguard towed the boat
to shore, Islam said.
Although dozens were initially feared missing, Islam said
yesterday officials now believe
the figure is lower after interviewing more of the survivors.
“We don’t know how many
people are still missing because
the survivors gave us different
estimates as to how many people were aboard the boat when it
capsized,” he said.
“But it was a small boat and
we think the number of missing
Lanka names
Tamil as new
chief justice
The Bangladesh coastguard searching for survivors of the sunken trawler after it sank carrying more than 100 passengers travelling to Malaysia,
at the Khudiyar Tek Point in the Kutubdiya Channel, off Bangladesh, yesterday.
won’t be more than a dozen.”
The coastguard, along with the
Bangladesh navy, was scouring
the sea, but with more than 24
hours elapsing since the disaster, hopes were fading of finding
them alive, he said.
All of the passengers were
Bangladeshis who were heading
to Malaysia by sea illegally, police
have said.
The boat hit strong currents in
a channel shortly after leaving a
coastal town near the southern
port city of Chittagong.
Thousands of impoverished
Bangladeshis and ethnic Rohingya refugees from Myanmar
attempt the perilous journey to
Malaysia every year.
Ferry and other boating accidents are common in Bangla-
desh, home to thousands of small
and medium-sized boats, 95% of
which officials say do not meet
minimum safety regulations.
Rights groups say thousands
have perished attempting the
3,200km (2,000-mile) journey to
Malaysia, with many falling into
the hands of people traffickers.
Some 100 Rohingya refugees lost their lives in two boat-
ing tragedies off the Bangladesh coast in October and
November 2012.
Bangladesh’s coastguard and
border forces have launched
crackdowns on economic migrants, while also arresting a
number of human traffickers
and confiscating their ships. But
there has been no noticeable
impact.
Australia’s gaming mogul
quits Lankan project
AFP
Colombo
A
ustralian gaming mogul
James Packer’s Crown
Group said yesterday
it has scrapped plans for a
$350mn resort in Sri Lanka after the new government banned
casinos and axed tax breaks for
the project.
Packer had been planning the
450-room luxury resort after
the previous regime offered the
tax concessions in efforts to turn
the Sri Lankan capital Colombo
into a regional gaming hub.
But President Maithripala Sirisena’s government on
Thursday cancelled the concessions and said it would not
allow casinos in the resort after
opposition from Sri Lanka’s influential Buddhist monks.
“Crown Resorts respects the
(government’s) decision and
on that basis the project would
not be going ahead,” a Crown
spokesperson said in an e-mail.
The company had not begun
construction although regulatory approvals were granted in
December 2013.
President Sirisena, who
swept to victory in January 8
Bangladesh
opposition
calls strike
By Mizan Rahman
Dhaka
T
he Bangladesh National
Party (BNP)-led alliance yesterday called a
72-hour nationwide general
strike from 6am tomorrow as
part of its transport blockade
movement.
In a statement, BNP joint
secretary general Ruhul
Kabir Rizvi, announced
the shutdown programme,
which will end on Wednesday morning.
He said the strike has been
called to register protest
against the ruling party leaders’ threat to ‘blow out’ the
BNP chairperson’s Gulshan
office and arrest her, the prime
minister’s instruction to police to suppress the movement
by any means.
The shutdown will also be
observed in addition to the
ongoing blockade protesting
the recent killing of 21 opposition men by law enforcers,
arrest of over 15,000 leaders
of alliance partners, and filing
of around 150,000 ‘false’ cases
against them.
Rizvi cited harassment
of opposition men by joint
forces’ drives and shifting the
blame on the opposition after
carrying out acts of sabotage
by throwing petrol bombs at
public transports by government agents as reason for
toughening the opposition
stance.
Earlier in the day, the party
turned down Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid’s
call to lift the blockade programme for smooth holding of
the Secondary Scholl Certificate (SSC) exams, saying the
‘peaceful’ action programme
will continue.
BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia last week renewed
her appeal to her arch political rival to hold talks to
finds ways to hold an early
credible
parliamentary
poll but the prime minister
outright rejected her call,
saying the opposition is an
anti-liberation force and it
must be eliminated by all
means.
Almost all political parties except the ruling Awami
League and foreign countries
have also called for a dialogue
to settle the poll issue.
Even some of Hasina’s allies
also pleaded for holding talks
with the opposition to end the
ongoing political turmoil in
Bangladesh.
elections backed by the country’s main party of monks,
pledged to end the tax breaks
during his campaign.
The previous government led
by Mahinda Rajapakse had introduced concessions, including a five percent rate for gambling operators, in a bid to boost
tourism numbers. Another casino resort approved at the same
time, a $650mn development by
local conglomerate John Keells
Holdings, is still going ahead —
but without the casino.
John Keells said in a stock
exchange filing yesterday that
the resort project was still vi-
able without the casino.
The future of the third
project, a $300mn resort by
local businessman Dhammika
Perera, who has sought overseas funding, was unclear.
Several local, low-key casinos have been in operation for
decades, exploiting loopholes
in a law that bans such gaming
operations.
Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said on Thursday he
would give those existing casinos, thought to number about
five, a deadline of mid-April to
pay a flat fee of Rs1bn ($7.6mn)
to remain in business.
ri Lanka’s President
Maithripala
Sirisena
yesterday appointed a
Tamil judge as the country’s
chief justice, the first member
of the minority community to
hold the post in more than two
decades.
Kanagasabapathy Sripavan, 62, was sworn in yesterday, ending a crisis in the Supreme Court triggered by the
sacking of former chief justice Shirani Bandaranayake
two years ago.
Sripavan becomes the first
Tamil to occupy the top judicial position in 24 years as Sri
Lanka’s new leaders seek to
mend ties with the country’s
largest ethnic minority after a
bloody 37-year war.
“Justice Sripavan was sworn
in before President Sirisena,”
the presidential secretariat
said in a statement.
The appointment comes
two days after Sirisena declared the controversial im-
peachment of Bandaranayake
by the previous regime illegal,
fulfilling one of the pledges he
made before his surprise win
of this month’s election.
Bandaranayake
stepped
down on Thursday, a day after
being formally restored to the
post, which she lost in January 2013 after angering former
president Mahinda Rajapakse
with her judgements against
his regime.
Bandaranayake’s
sacking
was widely criticised, with
the UN Human Rights Council
calling it an assault on judicial
independence.
The Supreme Court had
been accused of political bias
since she was replaced by
Mohan Peiris.
The government of Sirisena,
a member of the majority Sinhalese community, has vowed
reconciliation with Tamils six
years after the end of separatist war that claimed at least
100,000 lives between 1972
and 2009.
The last Tamil chief justice
was Herbert Thambiah, who
left the position in 1991.
Govt ‘keen to co-operate with UN investigation’
Sri Lanka’s government has
received encouragement
from the UN to co-operate
in an ongoing investigation
into its human rights record,
the foreign ministry said
yesterday.
President Maithripala
Sirisena’s senior adviser on
foreign affairs, Jayantha
Dhanapala met UN High
Commissioner for Human
Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein
in Geneva and briefed him
on the new government’s
policies, Xinhua reported.
The former diplomat, who
has termed his visit an
“exploratory visit”, briefed top
UN officials on the policies of
the newly elected President
Sirisena and his government.
The meeting in Geneva came
as Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein
prepares to submit in March
a report that includes
investigations into alleged
war crimes to the UN Human
Rights Council.
Sri Lanka’s previous
government under former
president Mahinda Rajapakse
had steadfastly refused to
cooperate in what it termed
as a “flawed” investigation.
Rajapakse ended a threedecade war with the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) in 2009 but his
government was dogged by
allegations of civilian deaths
during the last phase of the
war and other rights abuses.
Rajapakse was defeated in
the January 8 presidential
election by his former cabinet
member Sirisena. The UN
is trying to verify how Sri
Lanka will co-operate on the
investigation.
The new government has
said it will launch a domestic
probe into the war while the
UN said the investigation
should meet international
standards and it will monitor
the latest developments.
“We’re trying to figure out
what it means in terms of
cooperation with the UN
human rights investigation.
And we hope that there is
positive movement in the
cooperation between Sri
Lanka and the UN system
on the investigation of what
happened,” UN spokesman
Stephane Dujarric said.
In absence funeral prayers
The Awami League-led 14-party alliance holds a ‘gayebana namaz-e-janaza’ or ‘in absence funeral prayers’ for those who died in violence
during the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led 20-party alliance blockade and strike this year, in Dhaka yesterday. At least 33 people
were killed and scores have been injured in the recent political unrest. Mostly civilians have died in the petrol bomb attacks.
President Hamid decries transport blockade
IANS
Dhaka
B
angladesh President Abdul Hamid has called on
law enforcers to take stern
action against troublemak-
ers during the BNP-sponsored
countrywide blockade.
The president labelled the
pro-blockade elements as “enemies of democracy”, bdnews24.
com reported.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday ordered the
police to stop violence “at any
cost” and “without hesitation”.
Speaking at the Bangabhaban,
where the president’s office located, the president in an event
on Thursday marking Police
Week, said: “I am deeply hurt
by the recent killings of inno-
cent people by petrol bombs and
arson.”
“Those involved in such anarchy are enemies of democracy,
humanity and civilisation. I call
upon the country’s law enforcing
agencies to take stern measures
against them.”
14
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
COMMENT
Chairman: Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah
Editor-in-Chief : Darwish S Ahmed
Production Editor: C P Ravindran
P.O.Box 2888
Doha, Qatar
[email protected]
Telephone 44350478 (news),
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Fax 44350474
GULF TIMES
Old names set to
dominate 2016 US
presidential talk
The US is a large country with more than 300mn
people. There would seem to be an abundant supply
of ambitious, fresh hopefuls for the White House.
But right now, the 2016 race looks like a tired re-run
despite Mitt Romney opting out of it.
Romney, the 2012 Republican candidate for
president, said yesterday that he would not make
another bid for the White House.
“After putting considerable thought into making
another run for president, I’ve decided it is best to
give other leaders in the party the opportunity to
become our next nominee,” Romney told his financial
supporters and party leaders in a conference call.
But on the Democratic side, expectation is still
growing that Hillary Clinton - the former first lady,
senator and secretary of state - will enter the race after
losing the party’s nomination in 2008 to President
Barack Obama. Given her towering stature, that
possibility has sucked most of the air out of the room
for other potential Democratic candidates.
Yet another familiar surname - former Florida
governor Jeb Bush - announced late last year that he
was “actively” exploring a presidential run, a move
that could propel
a third member of
the Bush political
dynasty into the
White House.
Then there are
Rand Paul, Mike
Huckabee and Rick
Santorum who
could make bids, with an appeal to the party’s archconservative faction.
“Overall, 2016 is shaping up to be the year of the
retreads: the reduce, reuse and recycle election,”
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote the
other day.
If Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush wins the White House
in 2016 and serves a second term, it would mean the
two families would have occupied the White House for
28 of the 36 years since 1988, Milbank calculated.
It does seem puzzling for a country founded on
rebellion against monarchic rule. Even Barbara Bush,
wife and mother of two ex presidents, considers the
prospect absurd.
“If we can’t find more than two, three families to
run for higher office, that’s silly,” she said last year. “I
refuse to accept that this great country isn’t raising
other wonderful people.”
Maybe Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey
who has been travelling the country and is seen as a
Republican moderate? Or Senators Marco Rubio of
Florida or Ted Cruz of Texas, darlings of the extreme
conservative wing? Those would be fresh faces for
Republicans. But would they stand a chance against
Hillary Clinton?
In any case, what the Republicans have going for
them is that they have a large field of candidates - one
that is more qualified than during the last selection
process in 2012.
On the Democratic side, it’s an open question who
will dare take on the role of challenging Hillary Clinton
in the party primary elections - if she chooses to
run. The Clinton family, after all, is one of the most
powerful political families in the country.
A strategy towards stagnant
wages and consumption
Given that wealthy people
have a higher propensity to
save, increased inequality
tends to produce sluggish
demand growth
By Adair Turner
London
A
s 2015 begins, the reality
of deficient global demand
and deflationary risks in the
world’s major economies
is starkly apparent. In the eurozone,
GDP growth is slowing, and inflation
has turned negative. Japan’s progress
toward its 2% inflation target has
stalled.
Even economies experiencing more
robust economic growth will miss
their targets: inflation in the United
States will not reach 1.5% this year, and
China’s rate reached a five-year low of
1.4% last November.
In the advanced economies, low
inflation reflects not just the temporary
impact of falling commodity prices,
but also longer-term wage stagnation.
In the US, the United Kingdom, Japan,
and several eurozone countries,
median real (inflation-adjusted) wages
remain below their 2007 levels.
Indeed, in the US, real wages for the
bottom quartile have not risen in three
decades. And, though the US created
295,000 new jobs last December,
actual cash wages fell.
The developing world is not doing
much better. As the International
Labour Organisation’s latest Global
Wage Report shows, wage gains
are lagging far behind productivity
growth.
Because real income growth is vital
to boost consumption and prices,
central bankers and politicians are now
in the novel business of encouraging
wage increases.
Last July, Bundesbank president
Jens Weidmann welcomed the fact that
some German companies had raised
wages above inflation. Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe has gone a step
further, repeatedly urging companies
to increase wages – and encouraging
them to do so by reducing corporate
tax. So far, however, jawboning has had
little effect.
This failure would not have
surprised the monetarist economists
who observed the high inflation of the
1970s. At the time, many policymakers
blamed rapid price increases on “cost
push” factors, such as pressure from
trade unions for excessive wage hikes.
Finance ministers and central banks
frequently urged wage moderation,
with many countries even introducing
formal policies governing wages and
prices.
Just as la bour
markets can be
too rigid, they
can be too flexible
But these policies proved largely
ineffective. Instead, it seemed
increasingly clear that, as Milton
Friedman put it, “inflation is
always and everywhere a monetary
phenomenon”. If nominal demand
grows faster than real potential growth,
inflation is inevitable; and nominal
demand growth can be constrained
only through a mix of fiscal and
monetary policy. Indeed, inflation
was finally crushed in the early 1980s,
when central banks raised interest
rates to whatever level was required to
constrain nominal demand, even if it
led to high transitional unemployment.
But, though central banks claimed
credit for the “Great Moderation”
of global inflation that followed,
structural factors (which determine
the intensity of cost-push effects)
also played a crucial role. For starters,
the entry of China’s massive labour
force into the global market economy
changed the power balance between
capital and labor in the advanced
economies. Trade unions’ membership
and influence declined sharply, owing
to increased global competition and,
in some countries, deliberate legal
reforms. Minimum wages, particularly
in the US, were allowed to fall relative
to median incomes.
More recently, technological
advances have become an increasingly
important driver of structural
transformation, with information
technology and job automation
reducing wage rates for low-skill jobs
and further eroding the political and
market power of organized labor.
Today’s ultra-flexible labor markets,
characterised by part-time, temporary,
and zero-hours contracts, are very
different from those that generated
cost-push inflation in the 1960s and
1970s.
The result in many countries has
been stagnant real wages, increased
inequality, and a potential structural
bias toward deficient nominal demand.
Given that wealthy people have a
higher propensity to save, increased
inequality tends to produce sluggish
demand growth – unless, that is, the
savings of the wealthy are lent to the
poor.
As a result, while central bankers
before the 2008 financial crisis viewed
themselves as heroes in a battle
against inflation, they increasingly
found themselves offsetting structural
deflationary pressures by setting
interest rates low enough to stimulate
credit booms. This led to excessive
debt creation, financial crisis and now
a chronic aggregate-demand shortfall,
with households, companies, and
governments all seeking to reduce their
debt.
But, though structural factors
and debt overhangs underpin
today’s inadequate demand, a purely
macroeconomic response might still
solve the problem. Just as determined
monetary restraint 30 years ago
ultimately overwhelmed cost-push
pressures, an equally determined
policy in the other direction could, in
theory, boost nominal demand growth
today.
The best way to achieve that is not
through the current mix of ultra-low
interest rates and quantitative easing.
After all, though this approach would
eventually stimulate demand, it would
do so by driving up asset prices –
thereby exacerbating wealth inequality
– and by re-stimulating the privatecredit growth that fueled the financial
crisis.
But policymakers always have
another option for creating nominal
demand: printing money to finance
their fiscal deficits. The permanent
availability of this approach – what
Friedman called “helicopter” money –
makes deficient nominal demand one
of the very few economic problems for
which there is always an answer.
Nonetheless, such a purely
macroeconomic approach to the
battle against deflation would almost
certainly not be optimal. A better
strategy would also entail policies
that address the structural drivers of
stagnant wages and consumption.
One of those drivers is excessive
labour-market flexibility. Though the
easing of rules for hiring and firing
workers has probably helped to boost
employment in some countries, such
as the UK, it may also be depressing
real wages. Just as labour markets can
be too rigid, they can be too flexible.
Raising minimum wages could help
limit the erosion of real earnings in the
bottom quartile. And tax and socialwelfare systems can be used to channel
income toward those most likely to
spend it.
Because deflation, like inflation, is
ultimately a monetary phenomenon,
fiscal and monetary weapons are the
most critical means to combating
it. But the potential importance of
structural policies should not be
ignored.
Weidmann and Abe are right: some
cost-push pressure would be useful.
But deliberate policies will be needed
to stimulate it. - Project Syndicate
zAidar Turner is a senior fellow at the
Institute for New Economic Thinking
and at the Center for Financial Studies
in Frankfurt.
“Overall, 2016 is
shaping up to be
the year of the
retreads”
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2014 Gulf Times. All rights reserved
New Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, left, talking to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the start of an extraordinary meeting of the European
Foreign Affairs Council, in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday.
Showdowns over sanctions and bailouts
By Alexandra Mayer-Hohdahl
Brussels/DPA
N
ikos Kotzias had had
enough. It was his first
visit to Brussels as Greece’s
new foreign minister and
he was being relentlessly peppered
with questions about whether his
government was pro-Russian and
would break ranks with the European
Union on sanctions against Moscow.
“My duty is to make negotiations
and not explain to journalists if I’m
a good or a bad boy,” he snapped
at a press conference on Thursday
evening. “We have the same rights (as
everyone else), even if we are in a deep
financial crisis.”
After the euphoria of a resounding
election victory, Greece’s new far-left
Syriza government this week had its
first taste of the fights it will need to
lead with the EU - a bloc that twice
helped the country avoid bankruptcy.
Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras
campaigned on promises to
renegotiate the bailouts granted to
Greece by its European neighbours
and the International Monetary Fund,
which came with painful requirements
for budget cuts and austerity
measures.
In his first cabinet meeting, Tsipras
announced that he would turn his
back on several bailout-associated
measures, including by blocking plans
to privatise two public companies and
by increasing the minimum wage.
“All of these actions are contrary
to key structural reforms demanded
by the troika (of European and IMF
creditors) to improve competitiveness
and streamline the functioning of the
Greek economy,” analysts at Barclays
wrote in a research note released
yesterday.
“Syriza must realise
that it is now the
Greek government,
not a party running
an election campaign”
“Cancelling them would very likely
be a clear provocation to Greece’s
creditors and significantly reduce the
possibility of a positive outcome of
the upcoming negotiations with the
troika,” they added.
Senior European officials
have warned Tsipras to stick by
commitments that past governments
made, with several arguing that the
bailouts were ultimately granted
by European taxpayers - many of
which faced a challenging economic
situation in their own countries.
Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis
nevertheless declared yesterday
that Greece refuses to work with the
troika, which comprises the European
Commission, the European Central
Bank and the International Monetary
Fund.
A senior official at the Greek finance
ministry had earlier told DPA that
Greece is ready to go to the European
Court of Justice if its loans are cut off.
The statements came despite a
warning by European Parliament
president Martin Schulz - the first
EU official to visit Athens after the
elections - that “pragmatic solutions
which can work for both sides” were
needed.
“Syriza must realise that it is now
the Greek government, not a party
running an election campaign,” Schulz
told the Kathimerini newspaper.
“Everyone must realise that
grandstanding and headline-grabbing
comments may not be the best tool for
the coming weeks.”
The clash over the bailout follows
tensions between Brussels and Athens
over EU sanctions against Russia.
The new government had publicly
objected on Tuesday to a statement by
EU leaders raising the prospect of new
sanctions against Moscow. The move
fuelled speculation that Athens was
ready to veto further measures against
Russia.
Several Greek ministers later
clarified that the problem had not
been the sanctions per se, but the
way the statement was approved. The
damage was already done, however.
“Through the new stance of the
Greek government, the debate today
has not become easier,” German
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter
Steinmeier said on Thursday ahead
of emergency talks with his EU
counterparts - including Kotzias - on
the crisis in Ukraine.
“It is difficult to expect a revised
common approach to your country,
and then take a different policy
stance to the rest as your first act in
government,” Schulz told Kathimerini.
Kotzias said he was happy with the
outcome of the ministers’ meeting,
pointing out that no new sanctions
had immediately been issued, as
Greece had wished. There will now be
a “last chance” for a dialogue between
the EU and Moscow, the minister said.
Greece will have to take a clear
position on EU sanctions sooner than
later, however. The ministers will
reconvene on February 9 to decide on
new travel bans and asset freezes over
the crisis in Ukraine, and the issue of
further economic sanctions against
Russia could come up at an EU summit
on February 12.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
15
COMMENT
The new healthcare continuum
Healthcare needs to become
connected
By Frans van Houten
Davos
T
he healthcare industry
has changed dramatically
over the past few decades.
Research and development
have given us astonishing new
treatments, powerful diagnostics
and a rapidly growing wealth of
knowledge.
Medical specialisations and
providers have proliferated.
Governments and insurers have
become powerful players.
And the patient has become a vocal
and proactive consumer, ready to
search for better options, even if that
means going abroad.
But, even as health care has become
more effective, it has also become
more complex and costly. Growing
and ageing populations are putting
increased pressure on health-care
systems that are already buckling
under the burden of chronic diseases
like cancer and diabetes.
The Institute of Medicine estimates
that in the US alone, some $750bn a
year – about 30% of total healthcare
spending – is “wasted on unnecessary
services, excessive administrative
costs, fraud, and other problems.”
If we are to ensure that health
care remains affordable and widely
available for future generations, we
need to rethink radically how we
provide and manage it.
Crucially, healthcare needs to
become connected. It should become
effortless for medical professionals
to share relevant data with colleagues
around the world.
Medical devices and systems in
hospitals should be able to combine
multiple sources of information.
A new generation of consumer
provide access to life-saving
treatment to more people, particularly
in developing countries and rural
areas. In Indonesia, which has one of
the world’s highest infant mortality
rates, midwives in the rural area of
Medan collect medical data from
pregnant women using a mobile app.
The data are analysed by obstetricians
and gynaecologists elsewhere,
allowing women at high risk of illness
to be identified and treated early.
In Uganda, midwives in village
health centres send compressed
ultrasound scans to remote specialists,
nearly doubling the number of
newborns that can be delivered by a
skilled health worker.
More broadly, connected health
technology will cause professional
health care and consumer markets to
converge. This will create a continuum
that starts with a focus on healthy
living and prevention, empowers
consumers to take control of their
own health, and enables countries
to improve their citizens’ overall
wellbeing.
The continuum will then move on to
definitive diagnostics and minimally
invasive treatments, optimised for
quality and cost, and, finally, to
recovery and home care, shifting
medical care as soon as possible to
more comfortable and cost-effective
non-hospital settings.
Governments, insurers, medical
professionals, patients and caregivers
need to work together to ensure that
the transition to this health continuum
is well managed, so that access can be
expanded, outcomes can be improved,
and productivity can be enhanced.
Together, we have the opportunity
to improve the lives ofbns of people,
create healthier societies, save costs
and boost economic growth. - Project
Syndicate
technology, such as wearable health
sensors, could automatically alert
doctors to potential medical problems
before they become acute episodes.
Though such innovations must
confront challenges like system
interoperability and the need
to protect patients’ privacy, the
Internet’s integration into the travel
and banking industries shows what is
possible.
Indeed, connected healthcare is
already becoming a reality. Philips,
for example, has developed a
technology that allows doctors to
share medical data from a prostate
cancer biopsy with colleagues around
the world.
In the past, the biopsy could be
shared only physically, which made
diagnosing the exact type of prostate
cancer difficult. As a result, surgeons
and patients may have opted for
invasive surgery just to be safe.
Now, teams of doctors worldwide
have an additional tool, enabling them
to work together toward more accurate
diagnoses and enhanced treatment
plans for individual patients.
The entire patient experience will be
transformed, with better prevention,
quicker diagnoses, shorter hospital
stays, and longer independent living
becoming the norm.
If patients return to the hospital,
they will bring useful data, captured
by wearable devices, about the
evolution of their vital signs.
They can continue to track
themselves as their treatments
progress, and their data can be
integrated with medical records to
provide a long-term view of their
health, rather than an episodic
snapshot of the day they visit a doctor.
With access to professional
coaching and support around
the clock, patients will feel more
empowered to manage their own
physical wellbeing.
Connected healthcare can also
zFrans van Houten is chief executive
officer of Royal Philips.
Weather report
LEGAL HELPLINE
Three-day forecast
Employee rights and contracts
Any condition contrary to
Labour Law’s provisions
shall be null and void unless
it is more beneficial to the
employee
By Nizar Kochery
Doha
QUESTION: In my employment
contract, the annual leave is given
as 45 days and the notice for
termination is three months. But
the company has been extending
me only 30 days of leave. I have
just been terminated but the
company gave me only 30 days of
notice. referring to the provision
in the Labour Law. Am I not
eligible for three months’ notice as
per the contract? Also, was I not
entitled for 45 days of leave a year
during my service?
AQ, Doha
ANSWER: As per law, any condition
contrary to the provisions of the
Labour Law, even if was made prior to
its commencement, shall be null and
void unless it is more beneficial to the
employee. The employee’s rights given
under the Labour Law is part of public
policy.
Matters of public policy are not
matters which can be waived or
conciliated. Therefore a labour
contract may grant an employee
more rights than the ones provided
by law; however, an employee may
not waive his rights under the law
as this waiver would be contrary to
public policy.
Accordingly, the employee will be
entitled for three months payment in
lieu of notice based on a clause in the
employee’s contract which granted
the employee more benefits than the
Labour Law.
On the other hand, an employee’s
agreement to clauses in a labour
contract which lessens his rights as
compared to the basic rights in the
Labour Law is seen as waiver and is
invalid.
Supervisory
council
Q: We are partners in a company
registered with the Commerce
Ministry for educational
activities. The number of
partners exceeds 25. Managers
are appointed in the CR. All
members interfere in the day-today activities and create a lot of
unpleasant situation. How do we
tackle this legally?
DR, Doha
A: As per Commercial Company
Law of Qatar, a partner who is not a
manager in a company that does not
have a supervisory council may offer
advice to the managers, demand to
review the activities of the company
at its place of business and inspect its
books and documents.
Any condition providing
otherwise shall be void. However,
Article 244 provides constitution
of Supervisory council when
number of partners exceeds 20. The
company’s memorandum and Articles
of Association shall appoint of a
supervisory council to be comprised
of at least three partners for a specific
period. The general assembly may
reappoint the council after the expiry
of such period or appoint other
partners or dismiss them.
The supervisory council shall have
the right to inspect the company
books and documents etc. and may ask
the managers to present a report on
their management.
Supervisory council members shall
not be responsible for the activities
of the mangers unless they are aware
of their mistakes and fail to report
these in their report submitted to the
partners General Assembly.
Restraint
of profession
Q: I have been working with a
company under a contract for
three years’ duration. But the
company is asking me to sign a
new contract for another term,
with a reduction in my salary.
When a contract is renewed how
is the period of service calculated?
Will that be a new term of
contract? The company is ready
to offer release for sponsorship
change but they ask me to sign
not to take up a design job. I could
have any other job. But I am a
graphic designer by profession.
PD, Doha
A: As per Law, when a contract of
service is renewed, the period of renewal
shall be considered as extension of the
previous period. The service of the
worker shall be considered as started
from the date of first engagement for
calculation of benefits.
Agreement in restraint of profession
is void. According to Article 43 of
the Labour Laws, if the nature of the
work allows the worker to know the
clients of the employer or the secrets
of the business of the establishment,
the employer may stipulate that the
worker shall not compete with him
or participate in any undertaking
competing with him after expiry of the
contract.
Such stipulation shall be valid only
if it is restricted as to its duration
and place and to type of the work
to the extent necessary for the
protection of the legitimate interests
of the employer. The period of such
undertaking shall not exceed two
years.
TODAY
High: 29 C
Low: 18 C
Hazy to Misty, may be foggy at
places at first becomes moderate
temperature daytime with some
clouds relatively cold by night
Invocation
of prescription
SUNDAY
High: 29 C
Low : 17 C
P Cloudy
Q: A case was filed against us in
Qatar. The case was time barred
and we didn’t attend the case.
Now the judgment is issued
and what are the chances to get
the case dismissed? Will it be
possible to defend in appeal on
the lapse of time? Earlier the
same case was filed in the UAE
and the court dismissed the case
because of the issue of Qatar
business matter.
SM, Doha
A: According to Article 417 of the
civil laws, the court of its own
initiative cannot invoke prescription.
Prescription must be invoked by the
debtor, or by his creditors, or by any
interested party, even if the debtor
has failed to do so. However, the
prescription may be invoked at any
stage of the proceedings, even before
the Court of Appeal.
Prescription is interrupted by
legal proceedings even if instituted
in a court without jurisdiction, by a
summons or by an attachment, by
the application of a creditor for the
admission of his claim in a bankruptcy
or in a distribution, or by any act of a
creditor to claim his right in the course
of legal proceedings.
MONDAY
High: 23 C
Low : 16 C
Clear
Fishermen’s forecast
OFFSHORE DOHA
Wind: SE-SW 05-15/22 KT
Waves: 2-45 & 5/7 Feet
INSHORE DOHA
Wind: SE-SW 03-13-20 KT
Waves: 1-3/4 Feet
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zPlease send your questions by
e-mail to: [email protected]
LEGAL SYSTEM IN QATAR
Under Article 5, bank transactions,
the business of money exchange
firms, financial exchanges,
investment and financing;
commercial agency and brokerage;
supply contracts; public depositories
and pledges arranged on property
deposited in them; extractive
operations for resources of natural
wealth, such as mines, oil, gas
and others; insurance of all types;
business and activities in places
prepared for the public, such as
public sports places, cinemas, hotels,
restaurants and premises for sale
by auction; business and activities
of places of education and private
hospitals; concessions of public
utilities, such as the distribution
of water, electricity, gas and the
provision of postal, telegram and
telephone communications and so
on; transportation on land, sea and
air; the business of maintenance,
cleaning and other commercial
services; Business agencies, tourism
offices, exportation, importation,
customs clearance and employment
of foreign workers; works related
to printing, publishing, the press,
radio, television, the carrying of
news or pictures, advertisements and
the sale of books; Industry, even if
related to agricultural investments,
and contracting for erections
and manufacture; works related
to contracting for construction,
structures, repairs and demolition
shall be considered commercial
acts irrespective of the capacity or
intention of the person performing
the same.
All business activities related to sea
and air navigation are considered to
be commercial work by Article 6.
Accordingly the construction of
ships or aircraft, their sale, purchase,
letting, leasing and repair; lending
and borrowing; contracts related to
the employment of a ship’s master
and sailors, and an aircraft captain
and crew, and other personnel
onboard ships and aircraft; sea and
air transportation and all operations
related to this, such as the purchase
or sale of their requirements for
supplies, equipment, stores, fuel,
ropes, sails, provisions and materials
for the provisioning of aircraft; and
marine and air insurance of all types
are commercial work.
In short all acts relating to
commercial transactions specified
above or facilitating the same and
all acts performed by the trader for
the need of his business shall also be
considered as commercial acts.
Fundamentally the contracts and
obligations of a trader are commercial
except when it is proved that such
contracts and obligation pertain to
civil transactions.
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16
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
QATAR
A walrus also enthralled spectators with its antics.
Spring Festival performers pose in colourful costumes.
The performance by dolphins captivated the crowd. PICTURES: Jayaram
Dolphins delight crowds
at Souq Waqif celebration
By Joey Aguilar
Staff Reporter
Unique characters entertain visitors at Souq Waqif.
Lighted robots lead the parade along the souq alley.
T
he Souq Waqif Spring
Festival continues to attract a large number of
visitors, who spent their weekend watching several shows and
activities at various venues.
The dolphin show seemed to
be the most anticipated event
at the festival. Dolphins have
continued to enthrall a huge
crowd with their spectacular
acrobats, singing, drawing and
dancing prowess.
As early as 5.45pm, hundreds
of people have already been
queuing at the entrance behind
the Al Rayyan Channel to buy
tickets (which cost QR50 and
QR100).
“This was the first time I
watched a dolphin show and it
really amazed me and my kids,”
said Pradeep, who was busy
filming and taking photos of
the show.
“I hope a similar show will be
held in Al Khor.” Along the major street of the souq, a parade
of unique characters wearing
colourful costumes such as the
Stripes Circus, Palettes and
Roaming Clowns entertained
visitors.
Traditional shows of local
performers also highlighted the
celebration, attracting many
spectators and tourists.
Besides food served at many
Arab
restaurants,
different street foods such as local
crepes flavoured with honey,
egg and cheese were also a big
hit.At the Al Ahmed Square,
pony and camel rides, as well as
extreme rides, were a big draw
especially for children.
Many residents also lauded
the opening of Souq Waqif’s
underground parking saying it
provided a relief to thousands
of motorists. An Egyptian couple said they used to spend
more than 30 minutes to find
a parking slot. But yesterday,
it only took them less than five
minutes.
A huge crowd thronged the dolphin show yesterday.
Falcon festival to conclude with Mazayen contest
Q
atar International Falcon and Hunting Festival
concludes today at Katara, the Cultural Village Foundation, with Mazayen (the most
beautiful falcon) competition as
well as the awards ceremony at
5.30pm.
The final rounds to determine
the top three winners for events
including the Dau (local division), Hudud Al Saluki and the
Hudud Al Tahaddi challenge
were held yesterday.
Summing up the month-long
festival, Ali bin Khatim al-Mahshadi, chairman of the Supreme
Organising Committee said:
“This edition of the festival has
achieved success beyond our
expectations, which is ample
reward for the extensive efforts
of preparation and receiving
visitors at the festival grounds .
We thank everyone who participated in the festival and visited.
We hope they have enjoyed the
many exciting events.”
The results of the local division of the Dau event saw
several winners including Mohamed Saleh al-Qamra al-Nabet
al-Marri, Ahmed Misnad alMisnad, Khaled Rashid Saleh
Aba al-Zamat al-Marri, Misnad
Ahmed al-Misnad, Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Jabor al Thani and
Mana Abdulhadi al-Shahwani
al-Hajri.
A falcon hunting a homing pigeon.
The winners in the Hudud
Al Saluki event were Sheikh Ali
Abdullah Khaled Hamad alThani and Saud Ahmed Mubarak
BuGhanem al-Sulaiti.
Hudud Al Tahaddi challenge
Visitors enjoy the exciting events at the festival.
winners were Mohamed Saleh
al-Qamra al-Marri and Mohamd
Saad al-Rumaihi.
The Dau event showcases the
skills of a falconer in training
his falcon. A falcon is required
to cross a distance of 400 metres
to reach the finish line, with the
help of a signal from its owner in
the shortest possible time. The
Hudud Al Saluki event is a race in
which salukis, or Arabian grey-
hounds, try to cover a distance
of two kilometres in the shortest
time.
The Hudud Al Tahaddi challenge is a competition in which
falcons seek to obstruct the
flight of homing pigeons which
are specially trained to fly to a
point many kilometers away, and
causing them to land.
The sixth edition of the Qatar
International Falcons and Hunt-
ing Festival is being organised by
the Gannas Society under the
patronage of HE Sheikh Joaan
bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani
at Sabkhet Marmi near Sealine,
Mesaieed.
OIL PLUNGE | Page 2
BANKS FALL | Page 10
Iraq adopts
revised
2015 budget
India stock
index sheds
499 points
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Rabia II 11, 1436 AH
RECESSION FEARS MOUNT: Page 11
GULF TIMES
Russian central bank
makes surprise
interest rate cut
BUSINESS
Qatar Airways buys
$1.73bn stake in British
Airways parent IAG
QA may consider increasing
investment in IAG; EU rules limit the
Gulf carrier to a 49% holding; IAG
itself contemplating a $1.52bn bid for
Ireland’s Aer Lingus
Bloomberg
London
Q
atar Airways bought a 9.99% stake
in British Airways parent IAG,
drawing closer to its main European ally in a partnership that promises
better access to the Americas and traffic
flows through its expanded Doha hub.
Qatar Airways may consider increasing the investment — valued at £1.15bn
($1.73bn) based on Thursday’s close —
over time, but will stick with the holding
for now, it said in a statement.
European Union rules limit the Gulf
carrier to a 49% holding in London-based
IAG.
The companies have grown increasingly close since Qatar Airways chief executive officer Akbar al-Baker joined IAG’s
Oneworld Alliance in 2013, sponsored by
the European carrier’s CEO Willie Walsh.
The surprise purchase, after Qatar built
a 20% stake in BA’s London Heathrow
hub, comes as IAG itself contemplates a
$1.52bn bid for Ireland’s Aer Lingus.
“Qatar’s thinking has three key elements,” said John Strickland, director at
aviation analysts JLS Consulting. “Oneworld and the relationship with the BA,
the good personal relationship between
Willie Walsh and Akbar al-Baker, and
Qatar as a shareholder in Heathrow. It’s
all about global flows and the importance
of London, Asia and their new hub in
Doha.”
Shares in IAG, which have risen 44%
in the last three months, jumped to 590
pence in early trade, their highest since
the group was formed four years ago, before giving up those gains to trade down
1.2% at 1408 GMT.
IAG’s stock has advanced 15% this year
after gaining 21% in 2014 and more than
doubling in value in 2013, outperforming
European peers Air France-KLM Group
and Deutsche Lufthansa as Walsh pushes
through savings at Spanish unit Iberia and
benefits from a booming trans-Atlantic
travel market.
IAG has also taken a more pragmatic
attitude the growth of the big three Gulf
carriers, also including Dubai-based
Mannai Corporation
in $14.5mn funding for
NEXThink expansion
Mannai Corporation, along
with other partners, has
pitched in with $14.5mn
funding for the Swiss IT
analytics firm NEXThink.
The funding will be deployed
for additional investment in
its existing markets such as
the UAE and Saudi Arabia,
for expansion and product
developments in the cloud
and mobility spaces, Pedro
Bados, the company’s CEO,
president and co-founder was
quoted as saying.
The other partners are Auriga
Partners, Venture Incubator
(VI) Partners. However, it was
not known as to how much
did the partners individually
participated in the funding.
NEXThink was founded
in 2004 with the vision of
transforming how the Global
5000 and service providers
see, use and operate their IT
infrastructure. NEXThink has
the most advanced intelligent
monitoring, discovery
and analytics solution on
the market that audits IT
infrastructure in real-time
from the perspective of end
users’ workplaces, physical
or virtual, and it is integrated
into leading management
software solutions for true
end-to-end IT management.
The entity — which is
into banking, telecom,
hydrocarbons and
government sectors — is
also eyeing other social
infrastructure sectors in view
of the critical importance
to the respective national
economies.
In 2012, Mannai Corporation
had joined Auriga Partners
and Venture Incubator, in the
$5.5mn Series C funding.
“We were impressed with
the NEXThink team and saw
that they had created a truly
innovative and disruptive
product which is why we
became their first VAR in
the Middle East a couple of
years ago,” Alekh Grewal,
Mannai Corporation CEO and
NEXThink Board Member, had
said at that time.
Morocco’s Attijariwafa
Bank to grow Islamic
business without help
Reuters
Rabat
Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al-Baker with IAG CEO Willie Walsh. “IAG represents an excellent opportunity to further develop our
westwards strategy,” al-Baker said in the statement yesterday.
Emirates and Etihad Airways of Abu
Dhabi, by opting to bring Qatar into the
Oneworld fold and embrace the links it
can provide with Asia, rather than railing
against the new threat.
“This strategy could be seen as a defensive ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’
move and should in time improve IAG’s
structural and competitive positioning,”
Jefferies analyst Mark Irvine-Fortescue
said in an investor note. “The core structural difficulty for European airlines relates to huge capacity growth from Middle
East carriers.”
Walsh said yesterday that the Qatar investment should further IAG’s ambitions
to be the top global airline group.
“We will talk to them about what opportunities exist to work more closely together,” he said in a statement from IAG.
The Qatari stake in a leading global carrier contrasts with investments by Etihad,
the Gulf No 3, which has built an alliance
based around equity stakes in struggling
airlines in need of investent, including Air
Berlin and Alitalia.
Emirates — which has eschewed purchases in recent years — Qatar Air and
Etihad have all exploited the Gulf’s position at a crossroads for global flight-paths
to funnel more traffic through their hubs,
with Dubai International airport last year
toppling Heathrow as the No 1 airport by
international traffic.
Qatar has sought to invest its wealth
from natural-gas resources with a variety of purchases involving well-known
brands from car maker Volkswagen to
the Harrods department store in London,
though most have been made through its
sovereign wealth fund rather than an industrial partnership.
“IAG represents an excellent opportunity to further develop our westwards
strategy,” al-Baker said in the statement.
“It makes sense for us to work more closely together in the near term.”
Both Walsh and his Qatar counterpart
are known as tough taskmasters, willing
to squeeze manufacturers. Walsh earned
the nickname “Slasher Walsh” in his
former job as boss of Aer Lingus, while
al-Baker has refused to accept planes
from Airbus Group that were not up to
his standards.
Walsh has been the prime proponent
of consolidation in the European aviation market, pushing through the merger
of British Airways and Iberia to create IAG
in 2011. IAG added Deutsche Lufthansa’s
BMI unit — previously British Midland —
a year later and then bought Spanish discounter Vueling in 2013.
Buying Aer Lingus would win IAG
scarce take-off and landing positions at
Heathrow airport, Europe’s top hub.
M
orocco’s Attijariwafa
Bank plans to build its
own Islamic finance
business rather than tying up
with a foreign partner, it said
yesterday, as the north African
country opens up to shariacompliant banking.
Morocco’s parliament gave
final approval in November to
an Islamic finance bill that will
allow the creation of Islamic
banks and enable private firms
to issue Islamic debt.
The move has led other
Moroccan banks, including
Banque Centrale Populaire and
BMCE Bank to hold talks with
foreign banks about launching
local Islamic offshoots.
“We have got many propositions from international Islamic banks, but we are not really
looking for a partner,” Moham-
ed Kettani, Attijariwafa’s chief
executive, told Reuters.
“At least for now, we will
keep Dar Assafaa 100% for us,”
he added, referring to the company’s Islamic business.
Morocco’s Islamic finance
drive accelerated after a moderate Islamist-led government
took power through elections
in late 2011, and as the government has struggled with a big
budget deficit. One of the hopes
is that Islamic bond issues
could attract wealthy investors
from the Gulf.
Attijariwafa Bank, controlled
by the Moroccan royal family’s
investment holding company
SNI, has been the only local
bank to create an Islamic subsidiary since the country began
allowing conventional banks to
offer a limited set of Islamic financial services in 2010.
“We have already done most
of the work, so we will see how
the market goes,” Kettani said.
Greece says will not co-operate with troika or seek aid extension
Reuters
Athens
T
he new leftwing government in
Athens opened negotiations on
its bailout package with European partners yesterday by flatly rejecting the expected extension of the
programme and the international inspectors overseeing it.
Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis
met Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the
eurozone finance ministers’ group,
in Athens for what both described as
“constructive” discussions on the new
government’s aims.
But the hour-long meeting appeared
to do nothing to bridge the gap between
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ government and European partners who have
insisted that Greece must respect its
obligations under the €240bn bailout.
The meeting with Dijsselbloem was
the first in a series for Varoufakis, who
travels to London, Paris and Rome next
week as the government looks to build
support.
Tsipras, who makes his first foreign
visit as prime minister to Cyprus on
Monday, will also be in Rome on Tuesday for meetings with Italian Prime
Minister Matteo Renzi, one of the
leading voices in Europe against strict
budget austerity.
But he said Greece had no intention
of cooperating with a mission from the
“troika” of European and International
Monetary Fund lenders and would not
be seeking an extension to a February 28
deadline with eurozone lenders.
“This platform enabled us to win the
confidence of the Greek people,” he told
reporters after the meeting. “Our first
action as a government will not be to
reject the rationale of questioning this
programme through a request to extend
it.”
Dijsselbloem said a decision on the
deadline would be reached before the
end of February but rejected Greece’s
push for a special conference on debt,
saying a conference already existed in
the form of the Eurogroup of eurozone
finance ministers.
Varoufakis gave no indication of
what Greece, which must be under a
EU/IMF bailout programme to ensure
its banks have continued access to ECB
funding, would do if it cannot reach an
agreement by the deadline.
Athens is waiting on a final bailout
tranche of €7.2bn ($8.13bn) and has
been shut out of international bond
markets faces but faces around 10bn
euros in debt repayments this summer.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang
Schaeuble repeated a message hammered home by Berlin since the new
Greek government’s arrival, saying
German generosity had already been
stretched to its limit and that it could
not accept blackmail.
Tsipras’ government has taken office showing it has no intention of
softening its opposition to the bailout
programme, halting privatisations, reinstating hundreds of laid-off public
sector workers and increasing low-income pensions.
Varoufakis said he had assured Dijsselbloem that Athens planned to implement reforms to make the economy
more competitive and have balanced
budgets but that it would not accept a
“self-fed crisis” of deflation and nonviable debt.
In turn, Dijsselbloem said he had
told the new government to respect
the terms of the existing agreement
between Greece and the eurozone and
warned against taking unilateral steps,
saying it was important not to reverse
progress made so far.
He said eurozone partners were ready
to continue supporting Greece until
it can begin borrowing on the markets
again “provided that Greece fully complies with the requirements and objectives of the programme”.
Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem (left) and Greek Finance Minister Yanis
Varoufakis speak during a press conference following a meeting at the Finance
Ministry in Athens yesterday. Their hour-long meeting appeared to do nothing to
bridge the gap between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ government and European
partners who have insisted that Greece must respect its obligations under the
€240bn bailout.
2
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
BUSINESS
Centurion said to plan Travelex, UAE Exchange merger, IPO
Bloomberg
Dubai
A
bu Dhabi-based Centurion Investments plans to
merge Travelex Holdings
with UAE Exchange and sell a
stake in the merged entity to the
public, two people with knowl-
Orpic plans IPO no
earlier than 2017
amid market woes
Oman Oil Refineries &
Petroleum Industries Co plans
to sell its first shares to the
public no earlier than 2017,
amid market turmoil and
unfinished projects to upgrade
a refinery and build a plastics
factory, Bloomberg reported.
Orpic is making $2.1bn in
improvements to its oil
refinery in the city of Sohar,
including the addition of
a hydrocracker unit, the
state-run company said in
an e-mailed response to
questions from Bloomberg.
It plans to commission the
$3.6bn Liwa plastics plant at
Sohar in 2018, it said. Brent
crude has dropped 54% in the
last 12 months amid a global
oversupply of oil and slower
demand growth in China.
“In light of the above projects
and the current market
conditions, the company and
its shareholders will decide
the appropriate timing of such
IPO, and it is likely to take
place not earlier than 2017,”
after completion of the Sohar
refinery improvements, Orpic
said. It didn’t elaborate on the
market conditions.
Oman, the largest non-Opec
oil producer in the Arabian
Peninsula, plans to reduce
stakes in some state-run
assets, and the Muscat
Securities Market has held
talks with the government
about IPOs in the energy
industry, Ahmed Saleh
al-Marhoon, the bourse’s
director general, said in an
interview in February 2014.
The government asked
energy companies to review
their costs after crude fell
to ensure they can produce
economically at lower prices,
the Times of Oman reported
yesterday, citing oil ministry
Undersecretary Salim al-Aufi.
Brent, a pricing benchmark
for more than half of the
world’s crude, has slumped
14% this year. Oman’s oil
production declined in
November to 926,000 bpd,
the lowest level since May
2013, according to figures on
the Joint Organisations Data
Initiative website. The country
expects to pump an average
of 980,000 bpd in 2015, the
Times of Oman reported.
edge of the matter said. Saeed
bin Butti’s Centurion, which acquired a majority stake in Travelex with Bavaguthu Raghuram
Shetty, is aiming for an initial
public offering in 2016 and is
talking to banks to appoint an
adviser for the deal, the people
said, asking not to be identified
because the matter is private.
The company will probably be
listed in the UAE, they said.
Apax Partners, one of Europe’s largest private-equity
firms, agreed in May to sell its
majority stake in Travelex, a retail currency exchange, to Centurion and Shetty, the founder
of UAE Exchange. Apax, which
had been poised to take Trave-
lex public, bought control of the
chain in 2005 in a deal that valued the company at about 1.1bn
pounds ($1.7bn).
The Centurion deal is now
complete, the people said. Khalifa
bin Butti bin Omeir, whose KBBO
Group owns Centurion, will be
appointed chairman of Travelex and Shetty will be appointed
vice chairman, the people said.
A spokesman for UAE Exchange
said the company doesn’t comment on speculation.
Travelex, which has more
than 1,500 outlets and more
than 1,300 cash machines in 27
countries, sold assets including
a card-programme management
unit to MasterCard Inc in 2011
and a business-payments unit
to Western Union Co to focus on
its consumer business. Shetty
founded UAE Exchange in 1980 in
Abu Dhabi, according to its website. The currency-exchange and
money-transfer company now
has 750 offices in 32 countries.
Shetty raised $750mn to help
fund the acquisition of a stake
in Travelex, three people with
knowledge of the matter said
in December. Goldman Sachs
and QNB arranged the loan and
were lenders with Doha Bank,
National Bank of Fujairah and
Commercial Bank International,
the people said, asking not to be
identified as the information is
private.
Iraq adopts revised ’15
budget curbed by oil
Forecasts oil at $56, above current
market price; seals oil-sharing deal
with Kurdish region; PM fears low
oil revenue could hurt campaign
against IS
Reuters
Baghdad
I
raq’s parliament has approved a
budget worth 119tn Iraqi dinars
($105bn), made possible by improved ties between Baghdad and
the autonomous Kurdish region but
constrained by plunging global oil
prices.
Passage represents a victory for
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who
fears lower oil revenues could hurt
Iraq’s military campaign against Islamic State, which swept across northern
Iraq last summer, prompting US-led air
strikes.
The budget, revised to trim the expected price of oil to $56 a barrel, down
from the $70 originally assumed, foresees a 25tn dinar deficit.
The adjusted oil forecast may have
satisfied some MPs who saw previous
estimates as unrealistic, but others remain critical.
“I don’t know if they are deceiving
themselves or the Iraqi people by saying the price of oil is $56,” MP Kadhim
al-Saidi told reporters before voting
began.
Brent crude has been trading just below $50 this week, down from $115 in
June.
The budget seals a financial arrangement between Baghdad and the Kurdish region that will see the Kurds export
300,000 bpd of oil from Kirkuk and
250,000 bpd from their own fields in
return for a 17% share of the budget.
Opponents decried the size of
Kurdistan’s share as unfair.
“There is no legal formulation or
constitutional cover for this agreement. It appears the political blocs ...
robbed the Iraqi people,” said Saidi.
For al-Abadi, the budget is a sign of
growing goodwill between Baghdad
The company of Lukoil is seen in West Qurna oilfield in Iraq’s southern province of Basra. Iraq’s budget, revised to trim the expected price of oil to $56 a barrel, down
from the $70 originally assumed, foresees a 25tn dinar deficit.
and the Kurdish region as they both
fight Islamic State.
Kurdish peshmerga forces rolled
back the radical militants after they
surged across the Syrian border last
summer, threatening the regional capital Arbil.
But Islamic State, holding large
swaths of Iraq’s north and west, remains a threat to the country’s security
and unity. Defence alone is expected to
take up 20% of 2015 budget expenditure.
In addition, the state must ensure the
payment of its civil servants, with more
than 5mn state employees. It is withholding 15% of high-level government
salaries, which are meant to be paid
back when the country is more financially stable.
Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister
of the Kurdish region, praised the 2015
budget but pointed out the country remains in dire financial straits.
“It is very good, but unfortunately
(Baghdad) doesn’t have money,” he told
Reuters.
The government is expected to finance the deficit through Treasury
bills, government bonds and borrow-
ing from local banks. In addition, Iraq
plans on drawing funds from the International Monetary Fund through
its Special Drawing Right, and will
introduce a tax on imported cars and
cellular telephone SIM cards and the
Internet.
Kuwait has agreed to defer for one
year Iraq’s reparations for its 1990 invasion of its neighbour.
Turkish trade deficit in line
with forecasts; lira plunges
Reuters
Istanbul
T
urkey’s trade deficit, the chief
contributor to a large current
account deficit seen as the
economy’s main weakness, shrank
14.6% to $8.51bn in December, in
line with expectations.
In 2014 as a whole, the deficit
narrowed 15.4% to $84.51bn, data
from the Turkish Statistics Institute
showed yesterday.
Turkish markets largely shrugged
off the data but the lira hovered close
to a record low hit on Thursday on
expectations the central bank will
cut interest rates at an extraordinary
policy meeting next week.
The central bank cut interest rates
earlier this month by 50 basis points,
facing renewed criticism from key
government figures for not cutting
it more sharply ahead of a general
election in June.
On Tuesday, Governor Erdem
Basci said that if the January inflation figures due to be released on
February 3 showed a sharp fall, then
the bank could convene a monetary
policy meeting (MPC) as early as the
following day.
Analysts say the lira was also
under pressure from the US Federal Reserve’s potential rate hikes for
later this year and a politicisation of
monetary policy could further add
downward pressure on the Turkish
currency.
“The central bank governor’s
A money changer counts Turkish lira bills at a currency exchange office in
central Istanbul. The lira hovered close to a record low on expectations the
central bank will cut rates at an extraordinary policy meeting next week.
warnings that they may cut interest rates in an unscheduled meeting
within next week hit the Turkish Lira
to a record low against USD,” Oyak
Securities said in a research note.
The lira traded at 2.4150 against
the dollar at 0927 GMT, versus
2.4036 late on Thursday and a
record low of 2.4240. The main equities index gained 0.28% to trade
at 88,808.17 points by 0921 GMT,
while the emerging markets index
was down by 0.62%.
The benchmark 10-year government bond yield was at 7.09% versus
7.06% on Thursday.
Turkish central bank
seen cutting rates at
early policy meeting
The Turkish central bank
is expected to hold an
extraordinary monetary
policy committee (MPC)
meeting after the release of
inflation data on February 3
and to cut its policy rate by
50-75 basis points, according
to a Reuters poll.
The government has been
exerting growing pressure
on the central bank to
lower rates ahead of a June
parliamentary election.
The next scheduled policy
meeting was on February 24.
Central Bank Governor Erdem
Basci said on Tuesday an
early MPC meeting could be
held as soon as February 4
if annual inflation falls more
than one percentage point in
January.
According to the median
forecast of 17 economists
in the poll, consumer price
inflation was expected to
fall to 6.80% year-on-year
in January from 8.17% in
December.
Asked whether the inflation
data would be followed by
an early MPC meeting, all 15
who responded said they did
expect such a move, with
seven forecasting a 50 basis
point cut in the policy rate,
the one-week repo, and eight
a 75 bps reduction.
The central bank cut the
one-week repo rate last week
by 50 basis points to 7.75% in
response to slowing inflation,
but immediately drew a
rebuke from government
ministers who said it was not
enough to support growth.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
3
BUSINESS
Opec output rises in
January as its key
members stand firm
Supply rises by 130,000 bpd, led by Angola; Saudi
Arabia, Gulf members keep output steady to
higher; Iraq exports dip after December surge;
output 370,000 bpd above Opec’s 30mn bpd
target
Reuters
London
O
pec’s oil supply has risen this month due to
more Angolan exports and steady to higher output in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf producers, a
Reuters survey showed, a sign key members are standing firm in refusing to prop up prices.
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries at a November meeting decided to focus on market share rather than cutting output, despite concerns
from members such as Iran and Venezuela about falling
oil revenue.
Supply from Opec has averaged 30.37mn bpd in
January, up from a revised 30.24mn bpd in December,
according to the survey based on shipping data and
information from sources at oil companies, Opec and
consultants.
At the November 27 meeting, Opec retained its output target of 30mn bpd, sending oil prices to a fouryear low close to $71 a barrel. Crude since fell to a near
six-year low of $45.19 on January 13 and was trading
above $49 on Friday.
Opec secretary general Abdulla al-Badri, speaking in
London on Monday, defended the no-cut strategy and
said prices may have reached a floor, despite oversupply. Other Opec delegates have since echoed this message.
“Prices are stabilising,” said a delegate from a Gulf
producer. “But the world economy is not very strong
and stocks are too high.”
The largest boost this month has come from Angola,
which pumped 1.80mn bpd and exported about 57 cargoes, up 160,000 bpd from December. Output would
have been higher without some cargo delays, including
of new crude Sangos.
Opec’s other West African producer, Nigeria, also
managed to boost exports, the survey showed, although
the increase was restrained by outages of the Forcados
and Nembe Creek pipelines.
Smaller increases have come from Kuwait, Qatar and
the UAE.
Output in top Opec exporter Saudi Arabia has been
flat to slightly higher, sources said. Saudi Aramco chief
executive Khalid al-Falih said on Tuesday production
was currently at 9.8mn bpd, although it was unclear if
that was the daily rate or the January average.
“Steady is what I’m seeing,” said an industry source
who tracks Saudi supply. “Exports are a bit lower and
this is most likely offset by slightly higher refinery
runs.”
The largest reduction this month has come from Iraq,
where southern oil exports slipped from December’s
record high and flows from northern Iraq also declined,
according to loading data and an industry source.
Exports are likely to hit new records in coming
months, technical problems and weather delays permitting. A loading programme schedules record southern exports in February.
Opec’s other country with a notable decline in output this month is Libya, where ports and oilfields have
been shut due to fighting and supply fell further in January to 350,000 bpd.
A man walks past the Opec building in Vienna, Austria. Supply from Opec has averaged 30.37mn bpd in January, up
from a revised 30.24mn bpd in December, according to the survey based on shipping data and information from
sources at oil companies, Opec and consultants.
Oil plunge costs
North American
investors $390bn
since June
Bloomberg
New York
Investors have a message for
suffering US oil drillers: We feel
your pain.
They’ve pumped more than
$1.4tn into the oil and gas industry
the past five years as oil prices
averaged more than $91 a barrel.
The cash infusion helped push US
crude production to the highest in
more than 30 years, according to
data compiled by Bloomberg.
Now that oil prices have fallen
below $45, any euphoria over
cheaper energy will be tempered
by losses that are starting to
show up in investment funds,
retirement accounts and bank
balance sheets. The bear market
has wiped out a total of $393bn
since June - $353bn from the
shares of 76 companies in the
Bloomberg Intelligence North
America Exploration & Production
index, and almost $40bn from
high-yield energy bonds, issued by
many shale drillers, according to a
Bloomberg index.
“The only thing people are noticing now is that gas prices are
dropping,” said Sean Wheeler,
the Houston-based co-chairman
of the oil and gas industry team
for law firm Latham & Watkins.
“People haven’t noticed yet that
it’s also hitting their portfolios.”
The money flowing into oil and
gas companies around the world
in the last five years came from a
variety of sources. The industry
completed $286bn in joint ventures, investments and spinoffs,
raised $353bn in initial public offerings and follow-on share sales,
and borrowed $786bn in bonds
and loans.
The crash caught investors and
lenders by surprise. Eight months
ago, Houston-based oil producer
Energy XXI Ltd sold $650mn in
bonds. Demand was so high that
the company more than doubled
the size of the offering, company
records show. The debt is now
trading for less than 50 cents
on the dollar, and the stock has
declined 88%.
Energy XXI, which has more than
$3.8bn in debt, is one of more than
80 oil and gas companies whose
bonds have fallen to distressed
levels, meaning their yields are
more than 10 percentage points
above Treasury debt, as investors
bet the obligations won’t be repaid, according to data compiled
by Bloomberg.
The stocks and bonds of Energy
XXI and other struggling energy
firms have been bought up by
pension funds, insurance companies and savings plans that
are the mainstays of Americans’
retirement accounts. Institutional
investors had more than $963bn
tied up in energy stocks as of the
end of September, according to
Peter Laurelli, a New York-based
vice president of research with
eVestment, an analytics firm in
Marietta, Georgia, that gathers
data on about $22tn of institutional strategies.
Energy XXI’s second-largest
reported shareholder is a group
of funds managed by Vanguard
Group Inc, the biggest US
mutual-fund firm, according to
data compiled by Bloomberg.
The top reported owner of the
bonds Energy XXI issued in May
is Franklin Resources Inc in San
Mateo, California, also known as
Franklin Templeton Investments,
which manages multiple funds
that bought Energy XXI’s debt,
according to data compiled by
Bloomberg.
Energy XXI didn’t return calls and
e-mails seeking comment. The
company has “plenty of liquidity,”
Greg Smith, a spokesman, said in a
December interview.
A reckoning may also be in store
for Energy XXI’s bank lenders. The
company, which drills in the Gulf
of Mexico, has tapped $974mn of
a $1.5bn credit line extended by a
group of banks including Gulfport,
Mississippi-based Hancock Holding Co’s Whitney Bank; Amegy
Bank of Texas, a subsidiary of Salt
Lake City-based Zions BanCorp;
and Comerica Inc in Dallas,
according to data compiled by
Bloomberg. Energy XXI has also
borrowed money from banks in
the UK, Australia, Canada, Spain
and Japan.
The three US banks are also
among the lenders to other struggling drillers. The loans are backed
by oil reserves that are worth less
at today’s prices than they were
when banks last performed scheduled revaluations of the collateral.
Representatives of Amegy,
Comerica and Hancock declined
to comment on the performance
of specific loans. Shares of Zions
have declined 15% this month. Comerica is down 9.8%, and Hancock
slid 15%.
“This is a big deal for banks in
states like Texas where oil is one of
the most prominent businesses,”
said Brady Gailey, an Atlantabased analyst at Stifel Financial
Corp’s KBW unit. “There are going
to be loan losses and it’s going
to hit multiple banks that have
exposure to that credit. It will slow
economic growth, it could ding
real estate values, banks will lose
money and their stock will get
slammed.”One regional lender
with energy exposure is Lafayette,
Louisiana-based MidSouth Bancorp Inc, with 21% of its $1.25bn of
lending tied to oil and gas, according to regulatory filings.
Rusty Cloutier, MidSouth’s chief
executive officer, said he’s not worried about the oil decline hurting
his business because the bank’s
portfolio consists of experienced
oil and gas companies.
‘Big Oil’ cuts $20bn in five hours to shield dividends
Bloomberg
Houston/Chicago
T
he first major oil companies to report earnings
amid the worst oil crash
since 2009 all pledged to protect
shareholder payouts even as they
announced more than $20bn in
spending cuts in a span of five
hours.
By preserving and even increasing dividends, energy companies are attempting to keep
investors on board while they
wait for oil and natural gas prices
to rebound to more profitable
levels. Producers, meanwhile,
are choosing to cut drilling programmes and workforces to
weather a downturn that could
extend for years.
Royal Dutch Shell, Occidental Petroleum Corp and ConocoPhillips pledged to slash
spending by almost $10bn this
year alone - enough to drill more
than 1,400 shale wells. The risk:
cannibalising budgets to feed
cash to shareholders may leave
companies with reserves too
anaemic to fuel future output,
said Timothy Doubek, who helps
manage $26bn in corporate debt
at Columbia Management Advisors.
“It’s a pretty impressive axe
they’re taking to their drilling
budgets, but when the stock is
down 30% or 50%, what are they
trying to protect by preserving
dividends?” Doubek said in a
telephone interview from Minneapolis. “You’re protecting a
stock price that can’t be protected. Why don’t you keep as much
cash as possible so you can be the
first one to take advantage when
assets go up for sale?”
Shell, Occidental and ConocoPhillips handed over more
than $17bn in dividends to
shareholders last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. For the full year, Shell and
ConocoPhillips paid out $11.8bn
and $3.5bn, respectively. Occidental’s dividend bill for the
first nine months of 2014 was
$1.69bn; the company hasn’t
yet disclosed its fourth-quarter
payout.
The scaled-down 2015 investment programmes overshadowed a mixed bag of results the
companies announced as they
closed the books on the fourth
quarter. “We see pressure on our
investment programme,” Shell
chief executive officer Ben van
Beurden said on Bloomberg TV.
“It’s a game of being prudent,
but at the same time not overreacting.”
Crude oil fell below $44 a barrel in New York trading Thursday, the lowest in almost six
years, as rising US production
adds to oversupplies.
Statoil, Tullow Oil and Premier Oil said they’ve delayed
projects or cut exploration
spending. BP has frozen wages
and Chevron Corp delayed announcing its 2015 drilling budget
so that it could reassess the market.
By cutting spending, companies aim to protect returns to
energy investors who count on
dividends as a safe haven from
commodity price risks.
ConocoPhillips emphasised
on Thursday it will protect its
dividend above all else, even if
it has to increase its dependence
on debt. Additional borrowings
might reduce the company’s
credit rating, but not below investment grade levels, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Sheets said in
an interview.
ConocoPhillips investors need
to understand that the dividend
is “part of their return they will
get on our shares that they don’t
have to be concerned is going
down,” Sheets said. ’’The fact
that you’ve committed to that
level of payout is going to make
you very disciplined about your
level of capital investments as
well.’’
Occidental Thursday reported
its first quarterly loss in more
than a decade, and ConocoPhillips and Hess Corp also saw their
first three-month losses in years.
Shell reported higher fourth-
quarter earnings, but still fell
short of analysts’ expectations.
The severe spending cuts
aren’t a sustainable strategy for
oil companies, said Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire
Energy Institute at Southern
Methodist University in Dallas.
Producers must invest in new
oil and gas wells for the future
to replace dwindling production
from older wells.
Shell’s van Beurden on Thursday warned that cancelling
or delaying too many projects
could jeopardize supply over the
longer term.
“They find themselves with
the difficult choice of reducing
spending or dividends,” Bullock said. “Many are choosing
to continue paying shareholders,
since investing more amid low
prices would be seen as providing sub-par returns. Cutting
dividends could bring a crushing
response from investors.”
Some smaller companies are
making that hard choice. Canadian Oil Sands Ltd said on
Thursday it will reduce its dividend by 86% to 5 cents a share
from 35 cents. The cut helps
brace the company for “a prolonged period of low oil prices,”
Chief Executive Officer Ryan
Kubik said in a statement.
Larger companies so far are
holding fast.
“The dividend remains our
top priority for capital allocation,” ConocoPhillips chairman
and chief executive officer Ryan
Lance said in a conference call
with investors Thursday.
Shell plans to pay a first-quarter dividend of 47 cents a share,
unchanged from the previous
two quarters, the Hague-based
company said in a statement.
The company, which plans to
defer or cancel about 40 projects
worldwide, will cut spending by
$15bn over three years to make
it possible to keep paying shareholders, bringing total cuts announced on Thursday for all
three companies to $20bn.
“The dividend is an iconic
item at Shell and I will do everything to protect it,” Van Beurden
said.
Profit excluding one-time
items and inventory changes was
$3.3bn in the quarter, up from
$2.9bn a year earlier, Shell said.
That missed the $4.1bn average
of 13 analyst estimates compiled
by Bloomberg.
“Shell widely missed expectations in upstream, particularly
in the Americas, but performed
well in downstream — a key
cushion for integrated oil companies in a declining crude price
environment,” said Kim Fustier,
an analyst at Edison Investment
Research. Shell missing expectations by about 20% “doesn’t
bode well for competitors.”
Petrol prices are shown at a Shell station in Encinitas, California (file).
Royal Dutch Shell, Occidental Petroleum Corp and ConocoPhillips
pledged to slash spending by almost $10bn this year alone - enough
to drill more than 1,400 shale wells.
Occidental swung to a loss
of $3.41bn after the company
wrote down the value of oil and
gas fields it won’t drill until energy prices rise enough to make
them profitable. Houston-based
Occidental announced $2.9bn in
spending cuts.
ConocoPhillips, the thirdlargest US energy producer, said
it lost $39mn and announced
$2bn in additional spending cuts.
The Houston-based company
will spend $11.5bn drilling wells
from Colorado to Indonesia, a
decline of almost a third from
last year. Exxon Mobil Corp, the
world’s largest oil company by
market value, reports earnings
on Monday.
The average price in the quarter for Brent crude, the benchmark used by most of the world,
fell 30% from a year before to
$77 a barrel. This month the
benchmark extended its decline,
touching $45.19 a barrel on January 13.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
4
BUSINESS
DJIA
WORLD INDICES
Company Name
Exxon Mobil Corp
Microsoft Corp
Johnson & Johnson
Wal-Mart Stores Inc
General Electric Co
Procter & Gamble Co/The
Jpmorgan Chase & Co
Pfizer Inc
Chevron Corp
Verizon Communications Inc
Coca-Cola Co/The
Merck & Co. Inc.
At&T Inc
Intel Corp
Walt Disney Co/The
Intl Business Machines Corp
Visa Inc-Class A Shares
Home Depot Inc
Cisco Systems Inc
3M Co
United Technologies Corp
Boeing Co/The
Unitedhealth Group Inc
Mcdonald’s Corp
American Express Co
Nike Inc -Cl B
Goldman Sachs Group Inc
Du Pont (E.I.) De Nemours
Caterpillar Inc
Travelers Cos Inc/The
Lt Price
88.16
40.97
101.18
86.43
23.93
85.31
54.92
31.62
101.92
45.46
41.58
60.88
33.19
33.62
91.85
153.09
246.00
106.07
26.77
163.51
115.51
144.05
107.10
92.50
81.51
93.35
174.18
72.46
79.62
103.00
% Chg
0.66
-2.48
-1.18
-0.45
0.38
0.18
0.31
-1.03
-1.73
-1.28
-0.81
-0.93
0.68
-0.47
-0.88
1.02
-0.15
1.27
-0.14
-0.26
-0.81
3.15
-1.25
4.19
-0.27
0.04
0.65
-0.34
-0.48
-1.47
3,943,178
19,169,942
1,504,676
1,810,795
13,795,910
2,929,155
6,397,014
7,124,674
4,237,672
5,714,876
4,568,630
2,156,555
8,341,346
11,508,721
2,219,019
3,126,776
757,130
1,906,072
7,800,597
750,999
761,754
4,118,996
1,600,214
8,501,514
2,152,901
717,549
935,273
760,119
1,521,455
759,779
FTSE 100
Company Name
Wpp Plc
Wolseley Plc
Wm Morrison Supermarkets
Whitbread Plc
Weir Group Plc/The
Vodafone Group Plc
United Utilities Group Plc
Unilever Plc
Tullow Oil Plc
Tui Ag-New
Tui Ag-Di
Travis Perkins Plc
Tesco Plc
Taylor Wimpey Plc
Standard Life Plc
Standard Chartered Plc
St James’s Place Plc
Sse Plc
Sports Direct International
Smiths Group Plc
Smith & Nephew Plc
Sky Plc
Shire Plc
Severn Trent Plc
Schroders Plc
Sainsbury (J) Plc
Sage Group Plc/The
Sabmiller Plc
Rsa Insurance Group Plc
Royal Mail Plc
Royal Dutch Shell Plc-B Shs
Royal Dutch Shell Plc-A Shs
Royal Bank Of Scotland Group
Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc
Rio Tinto Plc
Reed Elsevier Plc
Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc
Randgold Resources Ltd
Prudential Plc
Persimmon Plc
Pearson Plc
Old Mutual Plc
Next Plc
National Grid Plc
Mondi Plc
Meggitt Plc
Marks & Spencer Group Plc
London Stock Exchange Group
Lloyds Banking Group Plc
Legal & General Group Plc
Land Securities Group Plc
Kingfisher Plc
Johnson Matthey Plc
Itv Plc
Intu Properties Plc
Intl Consolidated Airline-Di
Intertek Group Plc
Intercontinental Hotels Grou
Imperial Tobacco Group Plc
Hsbc Holdings Plc
Hargreaves Lansdown Plc
Hammerson Plc
Glencore Plc
Glaxosmithkline Plc
Gkn Plc
G4s Plc
Friends Life Group Ltd
Fresnillo Plc
Experian Plc
Easyjet Plc
Dixons Carphone Plc
Direct Line Insurance Group
Diageo Plc
Crh Plc
Compass Group Plc
Coca-Cola Hbc Ag-Cdi
Centrica Plc
Carnival Plc
Capita Plc
Burberry Group Plc
Bunzl Plc
Bt Group Plc
British Land Co Plc
British American Tobacco Plc
Bp Plc
Bhp Billiton Plc
Bg Group Plc
Barratt Developments Plc
Barclays Plc
Bae Systems Plc
Babcock Intl Group Plc
Aviva Plc
Astrazeneca Plc
Associated British Foods Plc
Ashtead Group Plc
Arm Holdings Plc
Antofagasta Plc
Anglo American Plc
Aggreko Plc
Admiral Group Plc
Aberdeen Asset Mgmt Plc
3I Group Plc
Lt Price
1,470.00
3,883.00
179.60
5,020.00
1,688.00
235.70
1,032.00
2,935.00
368.30
1,148.00
1,177.00
1,929.00
225.55
135.80
404.10
885.50
865.00
1,593.00
710.50
1,113.00
1,195.00
932.00
4,889.00
2,186.00
2,896.00
262.60
481.70
3,597.00
457.40
434.10
2,143.50
2,055.00
368.40
886.00
2,883.50
1,160.00
5,710.00
5,405.00
1,635.50
1,604.00
1,358.00
208.60
7,265.00
941.90
1,184.00
548.50
487.40
2,406.00
74.48
268.10
1,298.00
347.30
3,278.00
221.50
368.70
562.00
2,301.00
2,650.00
3,151.00
616.20
1,027.00
697.00
249.20
1,484.50
368.60
286.80
402.10
860.50
1,184.00
1,868.00
423.70
316.20
2,010.00
1,608.00
1,155.00
1,080.00
292.00
3,005.00
1,110.00
1,756.00
1,930.00
427.10
836.50
3,774.50
428.00
1,460.00
902.60
456.70
236.10
516.00
1,005.00
532.00
4,737.50
3,151.00
1,117.00
1,043.00
653.50
1,093.50
1,551.00
1,444.00
443.00
464.70
% Chg
1.38
0.26
-2.87
0.40
2.55
-0.82
-0.96
-0.58
4.96
0.97
0.94
-0.21
-0.92
-1.31
-0.25
-2.15
0.70
0.82
0.00
-0.27
0.34
-0.21
0.18
0.74
-0.86
-0.11
0.00
0.07
-0.44
-0.85
-4.65
-4.57
-1.73
0.40
-0.38
1.31
1.60
-3.22
-0.30
1.45
1.34
0.00
0.48
-1.00
0.59
0.92
2.05
0.92
-0.37
-0.45
0.70
-0.74
-3.16
-0.72
0.05
0.36
0.57
-0.26
1.74
-0.32
3.22
0.07
-3.39
-0.80
-0.14
-0.24
0.25
-5.44
0.00
5.72
-1.24
0.32
2.45
-0.74
0.96
0.75
1.53
-2.05
-0.72
-1.79
0.36
0.05
-0.65
-0.51
0.74
3.29
2.46
-2.91
-0.32
0.58
0.60
0.09
-0.13
0.96
-0.36
-0.57
-2.97
-1.93
1.31
-0.89
-0.43
0.13
Volume
2,780,472
647,959
10,729,490
176,168
815,053
39,764,444
1,083,760
2,140,308
5,628,587
824,425
962,169
297,110
16,998,180
10,409,085
2,728,713
7,958,327
730,831
1,475,319
626,047
710,945
2,107,794
3,234,183
1,089,462
938,299
203,857
4,280,213
1,990,665
1,543,996
1,886,766
1,656,322
6,694,046
9,364,859
6,803,751
3,408,815
3,303,008
2,764,487
1,249,210
401,858
2,284,335
611,013
1,772,818
4,231,956
270,790
5,804,218
1,133,567
1,465,337
4,253,828
458,144
59,332,938
5,883,489
933,269
3,677,624
727,514
7,721,146
1,784,976
6,038,395
614,701
341,710
1,881,167
11,621,493
1,049,949
1,886,251
23,081,726
4,297,486
3,557,082
1,086,872
7,672,411
1,212,847
2,060,852
2,496,946
3,646,308
2,104,532
7,938,253
1,040,109
2,288,196
488,931
11,200,433
1,411,076
896,916
1,157,704
471,411
9,184,303
1,581,491
1,811,756
29,783,780
6,634,516
7,920,766
3,536,824
17,977,802
3,733,354
1,038,527
6,641,234
1,950,754
418,622
1,642,528
2,542,506
3,514,199
3,656,318
389,003
353,958
2,421,110
1,150,022
TOKYO
Company Name
Inpex Corp
Daiwa House Industry Co Ltd
Sekisui House Ltd
Kirin Holdings Co Ltd
Japan Tobacco Inc
Seven & I Holdings Co Ltd
Toray Industries Inc
Asahi Kasei Corp
Sumitomo Chemical Co Ltd
Shin-Etsu Chemical Co Ltd
Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings
Kao Corp
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd
Astellas Pharma Inc
Eisai Co Ltd
Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd
Fujifilm Holdings Corp
Shiseido Co Ltd
Jx Holdings Inc
Lt Price
1,304.00
2,186.50
1,526.00
1,590.00
3,232.50
4,337.50
1,009.50
1,172.00
468.00
7,848.00
614.10
5,181.00
5,903.00
1,829.50
5,888.00
1,713.00
3,998.00
1,898.00
435.80
% Chg
0.97
-1.06
0.36
0.89
0.61
0.15
1.38
1.43
-1.06
-0.44
0.56
2.98
0.73
0.36
5.29
2.27
0.33
4.11
0.00
Indices
Volume
Volume
3,706,100
2,110,900
4,769,600
4,398,000
6,021,100
2,719,600
11,276,000
5,079,000
7,419,000
1,580,700
7,486,900
3,585,600
4,487,900
8,889,700
4,477,500
5,444,000
4,831,600
5,096,400
10,330,100
Lt Price
Change
Dow Jones Indus. Avg
S&P 500 Index
Nasdaq Composite Index
S&P/Tsx Composite Index
Mexico Bolsa Index
Brazil Bovespa Stock Idx
Ftse 100 Index
Cac 40 Index
Dax Index
Ibex 35 Tr
17,299.00
2,007.83
4,662.64
14,623.54
41,529.71
46,991.26
6,791.27
4,609.43
10,710.91
10,426.50
-117.85
-13.42
-20.76
-13.74
-332.62
-770.98
-19.33
-22.00
-26.96
-81.10
Nikkei 225
Japan Topix
Hang Seng Index
All Ordinaries Indx
Nzx All Index
Bse Sensex 30 Index
Nse S&P Cnx Nifty Index
Straits Times Index
Karachi All Share Index
Jakarta Composite Index
17,674.39
1,415.07
24,507.05
5,551.58
1,154.97
29,182.95
8,808.90
3,391.20
24,730.26
5,289.40
+68.17
+1.49
-88.80
+19.35
-3.20
-498.82
-143.45
-27.85
+41.34
+26.69
TOKYO
Company Name
Bridgestone Corp
Asahi Glass Co Ltd
Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Meta
Sumitomo Metal Industries
Kobe Steel Ltd
Jfe Holdings Inc
Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd
Sumitomo Electric Industries
Smc Corp
Komatsu Ltd
Kubota Corp
Daikin Industries Ltd
Hitachi Ltd
Toshiba Corp
Mitsubishi Electric Corp
Nidec Corp
Nec Corp
Fujitsu Ltd
Panasonic Corp
Sharp Corp
Sony Corp
Tdk Corp
Keyence Corp
Denso Corp
Fanuc Corp
Rohm Co Ltd
Kyocera Corp
Murata Manufacturing Co Ltd
Nitto Denko Corp
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
Nissan Motor Co Ltd
Toyota Motor Corp
Honda Motor Co Ltd
Suzuki Motor Corp
Nikon Corp
Hoya Corp
Canon Inc
Ricoh Co Ltd
Dai Nippon Printing Co Ltd
Nintendo Co Ltd
Itochu Corp
Marubeni Corp
Mitsui & Co Ltd
Tokyo Electron Ltd
Sumitomo Corp
Mitsubishi Corp
Aeon Co Ltd
Mitsubishi Ufj Financial Gro
Resona Holdings Inc
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdin
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Gr
Bank Of Yokohama Ltd/The
Mizuho Financial Group Inc
Orix Corp
Daiwa Securities Group Inc
Nomura Holdings Inc
Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Holdin
Ms&Ad Insurance Group Holdin
Dai-Ichi Life Insurance
Tokio Marine Holdings Inc
T&D Holdings Inc
Mitsui Fudosan Co Ltd
Mitsubishi Estate Co Ltd
Sumitomo Realty & Developmen
East Japan Railway Co
West Japan Railway Co
Central Japan Railway Co
Ana Holdings Inc
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone
Kddi Corp
Ntt Docomo Inc
Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc
Chubu Electric Power Co Inc
Kansai Electric Power Co Inc
Tohoku Electric Power Co Inc
Kyushu Electric Power Co Inc
Tokyo Gas Co Ltd
Secom Co Ltd
Yamada Denki Co Ltd
Fast Retailing Co Ltd
Softbank Corp
Lt Price
4,738.00
630.00
277.50
0.00
208.00
2,611.50
1,698.00
1,530.00
31,870.00
2,332.00
1,763.50
8,275.00
897.30
474.60
1,376.50
8,074.00
334.00
625.60
1,352.00
232.00
2,774.00
7,410.00
55,490.00
5,251.00
19,890.00
7,650.00
5,224.00
12,820.00
7,085.00
655.10
1,016.50
7,645.00
3,581.00
3,756.00
1,504.00
4,599.00
3,740.50
1,157.00
1,065.50
11,430.00
1,200.00
653.50
1,507.00
8,476.00
1,168.00
2,068.00
1,249.50
632.30
588.40
416.50
3,990.50
639.80
194.00
1,367.00
862.50
634.50
3,300.00
2,889.50
1,594.00
4,140.00
1,339.50
3,000.50
2,383.50
3,785.00
9,130.00
6,078.00
20,320.00
326.20
7,020.00
8,363.00
2,005.00
502.00
1,562.00
1,143.00
1,492.00
1,143.00
706.30
6,874.00
440.00
44,020.00
6,963.00
% Chg
1.38
1.94
-4.01
0.00
-1.42
1.03
-0.35
0.13
0.97
-1.44
1.03
2.06
-0.21
2.31
1.03
0.12
-7.48
-2.01
-1.35
0.43
-0.04
0.68
-0.52
0.57
-1.19
1.06
-2.63
-1.35
-0.55
1.17
-1.12
-1.09
-0.78
0.04
-0.07
1.32
-0.01
-0.47
-1.21
1.74
0.17
-0.58
-0.10
1.48
-0.34
-0.96
-0.52
0.24
0.70
1.24
-0.29
0.42
-0.92
-3.49
-0.86
1.46
4.71
0.66
0.22
0.72
-0.07
-1.22
-0.60
-1.24
-0.84
-0.51
-0.12
-0.55
1.33
1.81
1.42
1.62
3.72
1.51
2.68
3.44
0.53
1.33
-0.90
0.79
-3.37
Volume
3,101,700
8,056,000
75,341,000
42,571,000
4,903,000
2,932,000
3,767,300
303,700
8,149,500
4,136,000
1,703,800
17,344,000
46,075,000
8,463,000
1,529,400
67,896,000
12,067,000
9,386,700
17,459,000
8,537,500
893,900
159,600
1,557,800
1,735,100
667,200
1,971,600
1,000,900
1,261,600
20,402,000
10,170,400
10,001,400
5,736,300
1,658,600
2,768,600
2,732,500
4,772,600
4,722,800
3,820,000
1,468,800
5,151,100
18,165,800
7,912,800
467,600
5,218,400
5,459,100
4,036,500
53,589,100
13,219,100
50,104,000
9,416,700
4,820,000
149,554,800
16,372,300
10,900,000
40,480,300
3,435,300
1,944,900
3,919,200
4,004,400
3,226,600
5,528,000
7,060,000
2,390,000
768,000
814,700
564,400
17,713,000
4,300,400
2,933,800
10,199,200
60,011,300
5,500,000
3,536,900
2,208,600
3,741,800
11,061,000
846,300
12,502,800
577,500
14,739,400
SENSEX
Company Name
Zee Entertainment Enterprise
Wipro Ltd
Ultratech Cement Ltd
Tech Mahindra Ltd
Tata Steel Ltd
Tata Power Co Ltd
Tata Motors Ltd
Tata Consultancy Svcs Ltd
Sun Pharmaceutical Indus
State Bank Of India
Sesa Sterlite Ltd
Reliance Industries Ltd
Punjab National Bank
Power Grid Corp Of India Ltd
Oil & Natural Gas Corp Ltd
Ntpc Ltd
Nmdc Ltd
Maruti Suzuki India Ltd
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd
Lupin Ltd
Larsen & Toubro Ltd
Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd
Jindal Steel & Power Ltd
Itc Ltd
Infosys Ltd
Indusind Bank Ltd
Idfc Ltd
Icici Bank Ltd
Housing Development Finance
Hindustan Unilever Ltd
Hindalco Industries Ltd
Hero Motocorp Ltd
Hdfc Bank Limited
Hcl Technologies Ltd
Grasim Industries Ltd
Gail India Ltd
Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories
Dlf Ltd
Coal India Ltd
Cipla Ltd
Cairn India Ltd
Bharti Airtel Ltd
Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd
Bharat Heavy Electricals
Bank Of Baroda
Bajaj Auto Ltd
Axis Bank Ltd
Asian Paints Ltd
Ambuja Cements Ltd
Acc Ltd
Lt Price
376.75
606.55
3,140.35
2,868.50
390.45
90.50
585.15
2,482.05
917.75
308.95
201.95
915.25
189.65
148.00
351.35
143.65
141.50
3,647.35
1,265.10
1,585.30
1,700.55
1,322.20
158.65
368.55
2,141.90
870.20
172.05
360.70
1,262.50
932.55
139.70
2,865.50
1,077.35
1,791.75
3,884.05
423.00
3,233.25
169.90
360.85
695.75
232.85
373.70
748.85
291.75
193.15
2,391.70
588.10
857.75
248.75
1,560.45
% Chg
-2.41
0.64
-0.71
-1.24
0.01
2.67
-2.25
-2.46
-0.22
-5.52
0.25
-1.52
-4.75
-0.54
-0.16
1.27
0.96
-1.12
-2.44
1.98
-1.35
-0.69
0.79
-0.45
-0.17
-0.67
0.85
-5.15
-4.03
-0.96
-1.90
-0.38
-1.61
8.66
-1.22
-0.02
-3.87
1.95
-3.76
-0.24
-0.79
-0.56
2.04
1.34
-11.05
-0.54
-1.90
-2.67
-2.81
-1.42
Volume
1,960,137
1,855,737
178,930
1,244,277
4,176,948
5,383,266
4,524,385
3,059,475
1,982,800
33,513,118
6,202,266
5,213,006
13,178,432
2,113,088
4,375,567
20,528,837
4,047,782
314,933
901,546
769,239
1,737,673
1,454,635
4,538,787
9,545,974
2,950,289
957,461
20,735,439
30,635,114
4,057,663
1,647,445
8,823,642
473,857
2,856,405
5,657,577
116,612
1,175,075
690,525
13,335,697
16,107,319
1,202,410
2,966,555
5,043,724
2,657,673
6,624,985
30,570,222
275,989
5,115,168
3,582,395
2,660,442
404,243
Brokers work on their screens at the stock exchange in Frankfurt. The DAX 30 index yesterday shed 0.41% to 10,694.32 points.
Europe stock markets close
down as deflation fears bite
AFP
London
E
uropean stock markets closed
down yesterday, as deflation
worries deepened for the eurozone, which was locked in crucial talks
with Greece over a possible restructuring of debt.
London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index ended the week down 0.90% at
6,749.40 points.
Frankfurt’s DAX 30 index shed
0.41% to 10,694.32 points, and in Paris
the CAC 40 fell 0.59% to 4,604.25
points.
Eurozone consumer prices fell by a
record 0.6% in January, confirming deflation could be taking hold for the long
term, EU data showed.
The drop from minus 0.2% in December appears to back the European
Central Bank’s decision last week to
launch a bond-buying spree to drive up
prices.
Plummeting world oil prices were
largely to blame for the fall in the
19-country eurozone, already beset
by weak economic growth and high
unemployment, the EU’s data agency
Eurostat said.
“Big news out of the eurozone... as
falling energy prices continue to keep
the economic storm clouds hovering,”
said Daniel Sugarman, market strategist at ETX Capital trading group.
The minus 0.6 inflation rate matches
the same record drop in prices the eurozone set in July 2009 at the worst of
the global financial crisis.
Official data on Thursday showed
that inflation in Germany, Europe’s
biggest economy, dipped into negative
territory in January for the first time in
five years.
Investors were also watching with
concern the eurozone’s negotiations
with Greece, where the head of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem warned
the anti-austerity government against
reneging on reforms tied to a €240bn
($269bn) bailout.
The two sides appeared headed for a
clash as eurozone member Portugal —
which had doggedly carried out all the
HONG KONG
HONG KONG
Company Name
Aluminum Corp Of China Ltd-H
Bank Of East Asia
Bank Of China Ltd-H
Bank Of Communications Co-H
Belle International Holdings
Boc Hong Kong Holdings Ltd
Cathay Pacific Airways
Cheung Kong Holdings Ltd
China Coal Energy Co-H
China Construction Bank-H
China Life Insurance Co-H
China Merchants Hldgs Intl
China Mobile Ltd
China Overseas Land & Invest
China Petroleum & Chemical-H
China Resources Enterprise
China Resources Land Ltd
China Resources Power Holdin
China Shenhua Energy Co-H
China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd
Citic Ltd
Clp Holdings Ltd
Cnooc Ltd
Cosco Pacific Ltd
Esprit Holdings Ltd
Fih Mobile Ltd
Hang Lung Properties Ltd
Hang Seng Bank Ltd
Henderson Land Development
reforms required under its rescue programme — said it would not accept any
debt renegotiation for Greece.
European markets did not get any
support from across the Atlantic,
where US stocks were mostly trading
down.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
shed 0.18%, while the broad-based
S&P 500 fell 0.30%.
The euro weakened to $1.1296 from
$1.1317 late in New York on Thursday.
On the corporate front, shares in IAG,
parent of British Airways and Spanish
carrier Iberia, fell 3.46% to 544.50 pence
after Qatar Airways said it had purchased
almost 10% of the group.
The move represents something of a
change for Qatar Airways, as its chief
executive Akbar al-Baker has publicly
criticised European carriers, saying
earlier this month that they “cannot
keep up” with competition from Gulf
carriers.
IAG, meanwhile, is hoping to buy
Irish airline Aer Lingus, which this
week backed a €1.35bn ($1.53bn) takeover bid.
Lt Price
3.56
32.20
4.34
6.52
8.79
27.25
18.10
148.50
4.27
6.23
30.60
28.55
102.50
22.45
6.13
17.00
19.88
21.90
21.25
11.72
13.32
69.20
10.18
11.26
8.75
3.46
22.85
135.80
55.40
% Chg
-1.66
-0.16
-0.23
1.09
-0.57
2.06
0.56
2.13
0.71
-0.32
-0.49
0.00
-1.73
-1.97
-0.65
-2.30
-1.58
0.23
0.47
-0.17
-0.30
-0.43
-0.20
0.00
0.00
-2.54
0.44
-0.07
-0.18
Volume
15,446,000
1,572,177
278,776,672
34,097,115
8,538,461
40,159,528
5,707,346
9,326,251
22,369,284
212,098,877
27,581,382
4,778,504
14,413,840
35,557,982
60,633,706
5,740,000
7,666,356
6,157,259
13,833,487
18,420,558
6,709,733
2,270,844
70,206,062
4,614,292
3,254,046
9,025,224
7,200,576
2,152,439
5,169,311
Company Name
Hong Kong & China Gas
Hong Kong Exchanges & Clear
Hsbc Holdings Plc
Hutchison Whampoa Ltd
Ind & Comm Bk Of China-H
Li & Fung Ltd
Mtr Corp
New World Development
Petrochina Co Ltd-H
Ping An Insurance Group Co-H
Power Assets Holdings Ltd
Sino Land Co
Sun Hung Kai Properties
Swire Pacific Ltd-A
Tencent Holdings Ltd
Wharf Holdings Ltd
Lt Price
17.80
178.60
72.45
102.90
5.58
7.69
34.45
9.26
8.39
82.60
81.30
13.00
126.60
104.10
132.00
63.00
% Chg
-0.45
0.17
0.21
0.98
-0.36
1.05
-0.43
1.54
-0.36
-0.42
-1.16
-0.61
-1.25
-0.29
-1.93
0.48
Volume
8,147,033
3,995,925
11,676,459
7,486,717
207,769,546
21,046,060
3,300,500
39,243,974
70,878,729
17,117,876
2,697,877
8,973,514
5,885,428
1,525,748
29,375,696
5,692,506
GCC INDICES
Indices
Doha Securities Market
Saudi Tadawul
Kuwait Stocks Exchange
Bahrain Stock Exchage
Oman Stock Market
Abudhabi Stock Market
Dubai Financial Market
Lt Price
11,899.63
8,878.54
6,572.26
1,424.37
6,558.46
4,456.82
3,674.40
Change
-81.03
-33.96
-64.33
+0.36
-25.61
-59.30
-61.90
“Information contained herein is believed to be reliable and had been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. The
accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. This publication is for providing information only and is not intended
as an offer or solicitation for a purchase or sale of any of the financial instruments mentioned. Gulf Times and Doha Bank
or any of their employees shall not be held accountable and will not accept any losses or liabilities for actions based on
this data.”
CURRENCIES
DOLLAR
QATAR RIYAL
SAUDI RIYAL
UAE DIRHAMS
BAHRAINI
DINAR
KUWAITI
DINAR
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
5
BUSINESS/LEISURE
Adam
HBO tech executives leave ahead of Internet
launch as network’s strategy changes
Reuters
New York
T
ime Warner’s HBO is preparing to sell a standalone
service over the Internet for
the first time, in one of the most
closely watched moves in pay TV
history. Yet the road to the launch
has been far from an easy one —
marked by changes in strategy,
deadlines, and the departure of
its chief technology officer along
with two of his lieutenants.
Otto Berkes, who was previously a
Microsoft executive, resigned from
the CTO position in December, only
a matter of months before HBO is
expected to start selling the new
product, and two senior vicepresidents on the technology team,
Mark Thomas and Drew Angeloff,
are also leaving, sources familiar
with the situation said.
The original plan discussed by
the network’s top executives was
to spend hundreds of millions of
dollars to develop a sophisticated
streaming platform that would
make HBO, one of the best-known
premium channels in the US,
capable of challenging streaming
video services from Netflix and
Amazon head on. Berkes, who was
also a cofounder of Xbox, was a key
part of that ambitious project — he
had been hired by HBO in 2011
to set up a new office in Seattle,
initially hiring 80 engineers with
plans to grow much bigger.
The idea was that the technology
would not only support HBO
but potentially other Time
Warner offerings, such as Turner
Broadcasting and Warner Bros.
The platform, which would power
a product that doesn’t require a
cable subscription, would be used
globally and was supposed to be
ready in 2016, said the sources,
who worked on that effort.
But these sources said that much of
the plan was changed when Rupert
Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century
Pooch Cafe
Garfield
Bound And Gagged
Mall Cinema (1): Song Of The
Sea (2D) 2.30pm; Wild Card (2D)
4.15 & 9.30pm; Darker Than Night
(2D) 6 & 11.15pm; Robot Overlords
(2D) 7.45pm.
Mall Cinema (2): The Book Of
Life (2D) 2.15pm; Black Hat (2D)
4pm; Black Sea (2D) 6.15pm;
Nagara Varidhi Naduvil Njan
(Malayalam) 8.15pm; Baby (Hindi)
10.30pm.
Mall Cinema (3): American
Sniper (2D) 2.45pm; Robot
Overlords (2D) 5pm; Selma (2D)
6.45pm; Black Hat (2D) 9pm; Black
Sea (2D) 11.15pm.
Cinema Land Mark (1): Song Of
Cryptic Clues
Sudoku
Sudoku is a puzzle
based on a 9x9 grid.
The grid is also
divided into nine
(3x3) boxes. You are
given a selection of
values and to complete the puzzle,
you must fill the
grid so that every
column, every row
and every 3x3 box
contains the digits
1 to 9 and none is
repeated.
Weekly’s Solutions
ACROSS
1 Secret societies hold the
charge back (4)
3. Keeps saying troublesome
priests need direction (8)
8. One who’s entitled to
praise, we hear (4)
9. A North African is
producing this shrub (8)
11. Describes the background
to dramatic events (4,3,5)
13. Stick the head is upset
about! (6)
14. It’s easy to find in the
herb garden (6)
17. The results of a party
game (12)
20. It’s not stiff and starchy
to enlighten a learner (8)
21 and 23Ac. Unable to take
flight (8)
22. Some retreating into the
stronghold nearer the front
than anything else (8)
23. See 21 Across.
Fox made a surprise takeover bid
for Time Warner last summer.
To justify to shareholders why
they shouldn’t consider the
Australian-born media tycoon’s
overtures, Time Warner said that
its own strategic plan would deliver
more value to shareholders than
Murdoch could.
In October, at its first investor day
in four years, Time Warner outlined
a series of measures aimed at
bolstering revenue growth and
cutting costs. Among those was
an announcement by HBO’s CEO
Richard Plepler that the standalone
HBO was going to launch in 2015,
news that quickly became the main
headline from the event.
“Time Warner needed to show
investors that they had a plan that
the Murdoch bid was not factoring
in,” said Michael Nathanson, a
media analyst at MoffettNathanson
research.
At the time, HBO also decided to
cancel the internal technology
investment, and to use a third party
to provide the new HBO service, a
move in sync with a cost efficiency
plan driven by Time Warner’s Chief
Financial Officer Howard Averill.
The more ambitious platform was
going to eat up too many dollars
and be too slow to come to market,
sources familiar with Time Warner’s
thinking said.
The sources said the decision to
speed up the standalone product
was not related to the battle with
Murdoch. They said this year was
viewed as simply the right time
for the initiative given that rival
media companies were starting to
debut online offerings outside of a
traditional cable subscription. Dish
Network is launching its own $20
per month Internet service later
this month and CBS has said that
its Showtime network, the biggest
direct competitor to HBO, will sell
its own separate offering later this
year.
Shortly after the October
announcement, HBO told its
engineering team about the
decision to cancel plans to develop
its own technology platform.
Instead of being developed
internally, technology would be
handled by MLB Advanced Media,
a subsidiary of Major League
Baseball best known for powering
the technology that streams live
baseball games. Going with this
vendor would save millions, one of
the sources close to Time Warner
said.
A person who had worked on
the earlier HBO strategy said
that pulling back from building
its own platform may come back
to haunt the network. “HBO and
Time Warner lost the appetite for
the investment required to go big
here,” the person said. “Old media
lost its nerve.”
The people who worked on
the earlier effort say there are
drawbacks to having a third-party
handle distribution of the product,
including having less control over
how subscribers experience it.
They say HBO could be missing
out on the long-term potential of
owning all of the software behind
the standalone service.
An HBO spokesman, in a statement,
said “any business strategy
undergoes many iterations,” and
that it was confident in its decision.
“We believe we landed in exactly
the right place with MLB Advanced
Media as our partner, and we
will deliver a great product later
this year that fully lives up to the
reputation of the HBO brand,” he
said.
Among the casualties of the
decision was Berkes. He left amid
tensions with HBO management
over his role following the change
in strategy, the people who worked
on the effort said. Thomas and
Angeloff are leaving for similar
reasons, these people said.
The 80 or so employees in Seattle
still have jobs but HBO is without a
CTO and has no immediate plans to
hire a new one.
(2D) 9.30pm; Wild Card (2D)
11.30pm.
Royal Plaza Cinema Palace (1):
Song OF The Sea (2D) 2.30; Robot
The Sea (2D) 2.15pm; Selma (2D)
4pm; Black Sea (2D) 6.15pm; Black Overlords (2D) 4 & 7.30pm; Wild
Card (2D) 5.45 & 11.30pm; Black
Hat (2D) 8.15pm; Hawaizaada
Hat (2D) 9.15pm.
(Hindi) 10.30pm.
Cinema Land Mark (2): Seventh Royal Plaza Cinema Palace (2):
Dolly Ki Doli (Hindi) 2.30pm; Black
Son (2D) 3pm; Robot Overlords
(2D) 5pm; Darker than Night (2D) Hat (2D) 4.30pm; Selma (2D)
6.45pm; American Sniper (2D)
7 & 11pm; Robot Overlords (2D)
9pm; Black Hat (2D) 11.15pm.
9.00pm.
Royal Plaza Cinema Palace (3):
Cinema Land Mark (3):
The Book Of Life (2D) 3pm; Song
Hawaizaada (Hindi) 2.15pm;
Of The Sea (2D) 5pm; Darker Than
Black Hat (2D) 5pm; Nagara
Night (2D) 7 & 11.15pm; Black Sea
Varidhi Naduvil Njan
(2D) 9pm.
(Malayalam) 7.15pm; Black Sea
Quick Clues
DOWN
1. Large depreciation in fuel (8)
2. See 10 Down
4. One by one (6)
5. Generous underwriter? (10)
6. Back in the liner I spotted a
fascinating female (5)
7. Among the decorations a
showy piece of regalia (4)
10 and 2Dn. What the
unhandicapped beginner does
(6,4,7)
12. In the confusion wise
communications are required
(8)
15. To cram a wafer, maybe, with
cold, solid mass (4-3)
16. Has the same value as peers
(6)
18. Indicate one’s willingness to
remove the top from the moneybox (5)
19. A quarrel is apt to arise loudly
(4)
ACROSS
1. Assert (4)
3. Buy (8)
8. Change (4)
9. Enthusiasm (8)
11. Proportionate (12)
13. Middle (6)
14. Guidance (6)
17. Building (12)
20. Submissive (8)
21. Masculine (4)
22. Regularity (8)
23. Magnifier (4)
DOWN
1. Support (8)
2. Rower (7)
4. Restless (6)
5. Gainsay (10)
6. Prevent (5)
7. Orient (4)
10. Tyranny (10)
12. Parsimony (8)
15. Copy (7)
16. Beverages (6)
18. Fat (5)
19. Tree trunk (4)
Weekly’s Solutions
QUICK
Across: 1 Countenance; 9
Isthmus; 10 Owner; 11 Canon; 12
Element; 13 Mapped; 15 Candle;
18 Parable; 20 Match; 22 Canoe;
23 Tornado; 24 Trustworthy.
Down: 2 Often; 3 Nominee; 4
Ensued; 5 Adobe; 6 Contend; 7
Circumspect; 8 Brotherhood; 14
Partner; 16 Admirer; 17 Bestow;
19 Bless; 21 Teach.
CRYPTIC
Across: 1 Close second; 9 On
trial; 10 Blush; 11 Range; 12
Chagrin; 13 Obtuse; 15 Bellow; 18
Kindred; 20 Hello; 22 Urban; 23
Sackful; 24 Less and less.
Down: 2 Let in; 3 Shivers; 4
Solace; 5 Cobra; 6 Neutral; 7
Poor look-out; 8 The New World;
14 Tenable; 16 Ethical; 17 Oddson; 19 Ranks; 21 Lifts.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
7
BUSINESS
Overseas investors see London
home prices drop as they buy
Bloomberg
London
O
verseas investors are buying
new tower apartments in London’s Battersea Park district
just as existing home values there begin to fall. The area, which includes
the Nine Elms neighbourhood, was the
worst performer in “emerging prime”
London last year, broker Douglas &
Gordon Ltd said.
Existing home values in Battersea
Park, which includes the area around
Battersea Power Station and the new
US embassy, fell 2% after they led
gains in 2013. That compares with an
average increase of 5.4% in the 10 districts of London that the broker classes
as emerging upscale neighbourhoods
because wealthy English people priced
out of central London typically buy
there.
Central London’s six-year property
rally is waning as prices deter even
the rich. In areas where luxury homes
are increasing along the River Thames
such as Battersea, foreign investors
continue to snap up apartments in
high-profile developments marketed
extensively abroad even as the value of
existing homes begin to dip and signs
grow of an oversupply of homes to rent.
“I do have big concerns about new
buyers attempting quick re-sales as
the re-sale will almost certainly be at
a discount to purchase cost,” Michael
Lister, a lecturer at the University of
Westminster and a former head of UK
property lending at Bank of Ireland
Plc, said by e-mail. “If such sales were
to lead to bad press, this ought to have
the impact of forcing developer prices
down.”
The new homes were acquired by
overseas and UK buyers before or during construction, meaning many are
only being completed now and others
have yet to be built. That’s led to concern about an oversupply in the rental
market.
“The pool of buyers may extend to
the whole of China, but the pool of
tenants is pretty static,” Property Vision Ltd, a broker that advises prime
A Park Lane street sign sits on the wall of a Foxtons Ltd estate agents in the Westminster district in London. The new homes were acquired by overseas and UK buyers
before or during construction, meaning many are only being completed now and others have yet to be built. That has led to concern about an oversupply in the rental
market.
homebuyers, wrote in a January 26
report. “When this supply comes on,
most of it is going to be surrounded by
building sites and tenants are only going to be tempted by a real steal. If you
take the Battersea Power Station site,
for example, the sound of jackhammers is going to be ringing in the ears
for many years.”
A spokeswoman for Battersea Power
Station Development Co declined to
comment.
The volume of apartments under
construction may have a short-term
impact on rents when they are offered
to lease in the next two to three years,
Ed Mead, executive director at Douglas
& Gordon, said by phone.
For now, existing apartments still
outperformed house prices in Battersea Park last year and the district was
the best performer in 2013, Andrew
Monteath, head of research at Douglas
& Gordon’s asset-management unit,
said by phone. Even so, the premium
charged for new homes in London is
eroding amid a surge in building.
Average sale prices of new apartments in London’s most expensive
districts exceeded those of older flats
by 43% at the end of the first quarter in
2014, down from 68% in 2012, according to a September report by Londonbased broker Huntly Hooper Ltd. The
gap may have narrowed further since
then, Oliver Hooper, director of Huntly
Hooper, said in an interview.
In Battersea, new properties can
sell for more than £2,000 ($3,000)
a square foot, though the average is
about £1,400, according to Londonbased broker Chestertons. That compares with £800 to £1,000 for existing
homes, the broker said.
Buyers of homes in the district also
face higher stamp-duty sales taxes
after Chancellor of the Exchequer
George Osborne increased the levy for
the most expensive homes in December. A four-bedroom home at Battersea
Power Station priced at £3.2mn now
has a levy of £297,750, an increase of
about £74,000.
Overseas demand for prime London
homes is cooling, and some upscale
projects being marketed “have gone
over to Asia and probably haven’t done
as well as they would have” in early
2014, Jack Simmons, head of UK residential development and investment
at broker Cushman & Wakefield Inc,
said by e-mail.
The homes under construction
along the River Thames have transformed a previously industrial district.
The sale of apartments at St George
Wharf tower helped raise the average value of a home in the borough of
Lambeth by 40% in April from a year
earlier, according to researcher Acadata Ltd. That was the biggest gain for
any borough.
Some developers are now refocusing on homes locals can afford, rather
than luxury properties that appeal to
wealthy overseas buyers, Simmons
said.
“We are targeting areas outside of
prime central London where the right
property, at the right price and in the
right location will be highly sought
after by domestic purchasers,” said
Jon Di-Stefano, chief executive officer
of developer Telford Homes, which
focuses on building in north and east
London.
Others say the investment in infrastructure in Battersea and the surrounding area could reverse the dip in
home values.
“The longer-term outlook is positive with all of the regeneration going
on, on the back of the American embassy, the Northern Line extension and
its surrounding area,” Robert Bartlett,
CEO of Chestertons, said by phone.
“That whole part of London is going
to be becoming more and more gentrified.”
Prices in emerging prime London
fell 2% in the final quarter of 2014, according to Douglas & Gordon, which
compiled the index for the first time.
The best-performing district there
last year was East Putney, where values
rose 19%, according to the report.
Traditionally, “it wasn’t considered
as groovy as Battersea,” Mead said.
“The growth last year for flats was
about 30%.”
The other districts included in
Douglas & Gordon’s new index are
Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush,
Pimlico and Westminster, West
Putney, Fulham, Battersea, Clapham,
Southfields and Earlsfield and Balham.
8
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
BUSINESS
China’s
regulator
to punish 5
fund firms
Reuters
Beijing
China’s securities regulator
said yesterday it will punish five
fund management companies
for faulty internal controls
that led to insider trading,
another move in a Beijing’s
widening crackdown on
Chinese brokerages and fund
managers.
The China Securities
Regulatory Commission
(CSRC) named only two of the
five: China Asset Management
Co Ltd and HFT Investment
Management Co Ltd, a joint
venture between Haitong
Securities Co Ltd and BNP
Paribas Investment Partners BE
Holding.
Individuals responsible for the
insider trading have already
been turned over to the police
for investigation, the CSRC said
previously.
A China Asset Management
employee told Reuters, when
contacted by telephone, “We
attach great importance to
the regulatory measures and
are actively implementing
corrective measures to our
control systems in accordance
with the requirements.”
HFT declined to comment.
The regulator said the five
companies will be suspended
from issuing new mutual
fund products for three to six
months. Earlier this month,
China meted out similar
punishments to the country’s
three largest brokerages for
allegedly violating regulations
governing the issuance of
margin trading accounts.
This week, the regulator
launched a fresh investigation
into other brokerages, people
with direct knowledge of the
matter told Reuters.
It has also intensified
investigations into share sales
by corporate insiders during
valuation spikes.
At issue are concerns that
China’s stock rally – one of
the few bright spots in its
financial markets in recent
months – could be exploited by
unscrupulous insider trading
and distorted by excessive
use of leverage, which would
amplify damage if markets
crash. The CSRC has also
warned six other companies
to adjust their behaviour,
without punishing them,
the regulator said. Zhang
Xiaojun, a spokesman for the
China Securities Regulatory
Commission, made the
announcement at a weekly
news conference.
India’s biggest asset sale to
raise $3.6bn lures investors
Bloomberg
Mumbai
I
ndia’s biggest asset sale to help raise
at least $3.6bn selling shares of Coal
India got a boost as the offer was
fully subscribed by investors.
Bidding reached 662mn shares for
the 631.6mn on offer, or 10% of the
government’s stake that included the
greenshoe option, according to data
provided by BSE. The government had
set a minimum price of Rs358 a share for
the planned sale of 5% of its stake, with
an option to sell an additional 5%.
The success at yesterday’s sale may
provide a fillip to the government’s flagging programme to raise money from
such offerings. Falling oil prices and
proceeds from the sale will help Prime
Minister Narendra Modi meet his target
to cut a budget shortfall to the lowest in
seven years.
“It’s a monopoly business and will
benefit from the Modi government’s
focus on the power sector,” said Paras
Bothra, vice president of equity research at Ashika Stock Broking in
Mumbai. “It’s a good bet for the institutional investors.” The 10% sale in Coal
India will potentially make it the nation’s biggest public offering, according
to data compiled by Bloomberg.
In the current financial year ending March 31, counting out yesterday’s
Coal India auction, the government had
managed to meet only 3% of its goal of
raising Rs584bn ($9.4bn) from its asset
sale programme. It has missed its targets every year since fiscal 2011.
Prior to the sale, the government
owned 89.65% in the monopoly miner.
Individual investors, who got a 5% discount to the minimum bid price, bid for
less than half of the shares offered to
them.
The 10% share sale in Coal India will potentially make it the nation’s biggest public offering.
“Retail investors may not have the
patience to hold the stock for three to
five years,” Bothra said. “In a bull market there are many options in the mid-
cap space for them to invest.” Coal India
shares fell 3.8% to Rs360.85 in Mumbai
yesterday. The stock has declined 5.9%
this month, compared with a 6.1% gain
T
he strengthening dollar and
Swiss franc are upending the
most popular trading strategy in the $5.3tn- a-day foreignexchange market.
A Credit Suisse Group AG index
that tracks returns from so-called
carry trades, where investors borrow in nations with low interest
rates such as the US and Switzerland and invest the proceeds where
they are higher, has tumbled 6.6%
this month, the most in six years.
The trade can quickly go awry if the
funding currency appreciates, making it more expensive to pay back the
loans.
With the dollar and franc both
soaring, firms from Aberdeen Asset Management to Goldman Sachs
Group are changing tack, turning to
currencies such as the euro and yen
to buy India’s rupee, Turkey’s lira
or Mexico’s peso. That may breathe
new life into emerging-market currencies even as they languish at a 12year low against the dollar.
“You can still make money in
carry trades, but you have to be selective,” Viktor Szabo, who oversees
$12bn of developing-nation debt at
Aberdeen in London, said Thursday
by phone. Declines in developing
nations’ currencies are “not about
emerging-market weakness, but
Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JM Financial,
Kotak Mahindra Bank and SBI Capital
Markets were managers to the sale.
Thai central bank indexes show economy struggling
Reuters
Bangkok
T
hailand’s private consumption
contracted in December and
investment stalled, the latest
evidence that the country’s growth engines remain shaky and the economy is
not back on track.
Taken together with weak output
and import figures released during the
week, the data show the military junta
was unable to make much headway in
reviving the economy even after seizing
power in May to end months of paralysing political unrest.
The junta has pledged to ramp up infrastructure this year, but economists
say the full benefits of such projects may
only start to be felt late in 2015, while
years of political uncertainty could be
eroding the country’s competitiveness.
The central bank said yesterday its
index of private consumption, which
accounts for half of the economy, fell
0.7% in December. The last time it rose
was in September.
An index of private investment
gained 0.1% from November, a month
in which it climbed a revised 2.2%.
“Despite lower cost of living and
production cost benefits from falling
oil prices, private spending softened
as consumers remained cautious and
businesses awaited economic recovery
and clarity on government’s infrastructure investment,” the Bank of Thailand
(BOT) said in a statement.
Noting that recovery remained
“slow” and consumption declined,
it said “benefits from lower global oil
prices have not passed on to private
consumption as households remained
cautious in spending given elevated
debt levels and low farm prices.”
Although the army coup restored
some confidence, efforts to get the
economy growing have been stymied as
exports remain sluggish, domestic demand is still subdued and government
spending has not risen sharply.
“The economy has shown a recovery,
but at a very slow pace,” said Thammarat Kittisiripat, economist with TMB
Bank in Bangkok.
Southeast Asia’s second-largest
Emerging markets keep
allure, though not to dollar
Bloomberg
London
in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex, the
world’s best performer this year in dollar terms.
Bank of America Corp, Credit Suisse
dollar strength.” The dollar has effectively priced itself out of funding carry trades by strengthening
against all its major peers in the
past six months as the US prepares
to raise interest rates. At the same
time, the euro, yen and Swedish
krona are becoming more viable as
their central banks debase the currencies as part of efforts to stimulate
their economies.
The Indian rupee and the
Turkish lira are popular
buys right now because their
nations are net importers of
oil, meaning they can benefit
from lower crude prices. While
the lira has fallen more than
3% against the dollar this
month because of rate cuts by
the central bank, the rupee is
the best performer among 24
emerging-market currencies
tracked by Bloomberg,
strengthening almost 2%
Szabo said he’s buying the rupee,
Indonesian rupiah, Mexican peso
and Brazilian real in deals funded by
currencies including the euro and
Hungary’s forint.
The carry trade is the most widely
used foreign-exchange strategy, according to the Bank for International
Settlements in Basel, Switzerland.
Yet a benchmark index tracking the
deals fell the most since 2008 this
month as rising price swings eat into
profits. An index of global currency
volatility jumped to a 1 1/2-year high
this month, threatening returns.
Hence the need to be selective. Citigroup, the world’s largest
foreign-exchange trader, replaced
the Swiss franc for the Swedish
krona in one of its carry trades
this month after the Alpine nation
scrapped its exchange-rate cap,
sending its currency to a recordhigh versus the euro.The bank now
recommends clients buy the rupee,
lira and rupiah by selling the euro
and krona.
“We continue to hold an emerging-market carry trade,” Citigroup
strategists led by Jeremy Hale in
London said in a client note on
Thursday. “The trade makes sense
as it provides diversification to a
long-dollar portfolio.” Buying a
basket of the rupee, lira, real and
South African rand, funded using a
mixture of euros, yen, Czech koruna
and Taiwanese dollars, would have
made 3.9% this month, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Contrast that with the slump in
emerging-market currencies versus
the dollar. An index of 20 major developing-nation exchange rates fell
yesterday to the lowest since October 2002, leaving it just 0.6% from
its weakest level since the data began in 1993. The gauge fell 0.64% on
January. 26.
The rupee and the lira are popular buys right now because their
nations are net importers of oil,
meaning they can benefit from lower crude prices. While the lira has
fallen more than 3% against the dollar this month because of rate cuts
by the central bank, the rupee is the
best performer among 24 emerging-market currencies tracked by
Bloomberg, strengthening almost
2%.
On the other side of the deals,
surprise policy measures to loosen
the money supply of the euro region,
Canada and Norway this month
made their currencies more appealing for funding carry trades.
Canada and Norway both unexpectedly lowered interest rates,
while the European Central Bank
unveiled a larger-than- anticipated
1.1tn-euro ($1.3tn) quantitativeeasing programme last week, sending its currency to an 11-year low on
Jan. 26. The euro was at $1.1314 as of
9:33 am in London, down 6% this
year.
Euro-funded deals will continue
to do well, according to Goldman
Sachs, whose strategists recommend using the 19-nation currency
to buy rupees, Mexican pesos and
lira.“Low yields in developed markets make relatively high yields in
emerging economies very interesting,” Alejandro Urbina of Silva
Capital Management LLC, which
specialises in emerging-market
currencies, said from Chicago on
January 27.
economy grew only 0.2% in the first
nine months of 2014, and the government sees growth of less than 1% for the
full year. Official data will be released on
February 16.
Yesterday, the BOT said the economy
in October-December grew more than
2% for a year earlier. But the comparison base is low, because the annual pace
in the last quarter of 2013 – when antigovernment protests began - was 0.6%.
The central bank has forecast the economy will grow 4% this year, counting on
government spending and investment,
and benefiting from 2014’s low base.
The BOT yesterday said exports in
December rose 2.3% from a year earlier
while imports fell 7.9%. On Tuesday,
the Commerce Ministry gave its figures,
of a 1.9% gain for exports and an 8.74%
fall for imports.
The central bank and ministry agree
that exports – equal to more than 60%
of GDP – fell in 2014. The BOT expects
them to rise only 1% this year, due to
weak global demand and falling commodity prices.
Factory output slipped 4.6% last
year, after declining for the 21st straight
month in December. The government
predicts a 3-4% rise this year.
Fears of a resurgence of political tensions resurfaced this month after the
country’s junta-appointed assembly
impeached the ousted prime minister
and banned her from politics for five
years, though there have been no reports of fresh confrontations.
India seen holding rates steady
on Tuesday, analysts expect cut
Reuters
Bangalore
The Reserve Bank of India, having cut interest rates on January 15,
is likely to keep them steady at a
policy review next week, according
to economists in a Reuters poll who
said future moves could depend on
the government’s annual budget in
late February.
RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan,
who is mandated to set policy independently, signalled after an unscheduled rate cut earlier this month
that any further easing would depend on New Delhi’s commitment
to rein in spending and implement
reforms.
“The most important factor ...
will be fiscal consolidation by the
government, which will be a trigger
for the RBI to initiate further rate
cuts this year,” said VKVijayakumar,
investment strategist at Geojit BNP.
A majority of the 46 forecasters
in this week’s survey expected the
central bank to leave its benchmark
repo rate unchanged at 7.75% at its
policy review on Tuesday.
But around a quarter of them said
the bank could follow up January’s
rate cut with another 0.25% point
reduction to 7.50% in order to support Asia’s third largest economy
which has struggled to recover from
its slowest phase of growth since
since the 1980s. A bout of disinflation around the world has pushed
major central banks - from Canada
to Denmark to Singapore - to unexpectedly ease policy over the last
month.
Even in India, where controlling
stubbornly high inflation has been
one of the biggest challenges policymakers faced, price rises have cooled
significantly in recent months as oil
and commodity prices slumped.
Retail price inflation tumbled to
5% in December, auguring well for
the RBI’s chances of achieving its
target of 6% by January 2016.
Still, rapidly cooling inflation is unlikely to prompt the RBI to slash rates.
After leaving it at 8.0% through last
year, the bank is expected to cut 100
basis points over the next 1-1/2 years.
When asked how much of an influence the budget, due on February 28,
would have on the RBI’s next policy
move on a scale of one to ten with ten
being the highest, the median from 23
economists was seven.
Forecasters expect India’s finance
minister, Arun Jaitley, to set a deficit target of 3.8% of gross domestic
product for fiscal 2015/16, lower
than this year’s 4.1% target.
Most respondents in the survey,
17 of 23, also said the key theme of
Jaitley’s budget would be boosting
growth, the remaining chose fiscal
consolidation. None said it would
focus on populist measures.
A slim majority, 12 of 23, also
said the government would meet
the high expectations for economic
reforms raised by Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s election campaign.
They predict the government
would announce cuts to spending on
subsidies, increase levels of foreign
investment allowed in the insurance
and retail industries, and introduce
a nationwide goods and services tax.
Markets have also priced in expectations for reforms and India’s
benchmark BSE Sensex stock index
has regularly hit record highs since
Modi took office in May.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
9
BUSINESS
Japan’s inflation slows on
weak consumer spending
AFP
Tokyo
Reuters
Beijing/Sanfrancisco
J
apanese inflation slowed again in
December, official data showed yesterday, as weak consumer spending
and falling energy prices challenge Tokyo’s war on deflation, hiking pressure
on the Bank of Japan to unleash more
stimulus.
But an uptick in factory output suggests that the world’s number-three
economy may be crawling out of recession, analysts said, as the unemployment rate hit a 17-year low.
The mixed bag of economic data
published yesterday morning showed
core consumer inflation slowed for a
fifth straight month, while the internal
affairs ministry reported that spending among Japanese households fell a
greater-than-expected 3.4% from a
year ago, as a sales tax hike weighed on
shopping nationwide.
Inflation is a key measure for Tokyo’s
bid to end years of stagnant or falling
prices that have been blamed for holding back growth and denting firms’ expansion plans.
Prices were on the rise, largely due
to Japan’s heavy post-Fukushima energy bills, but oil rates have tumbled in
recent months and consumers snapped
their wallets shut after the government
raised sales taxes to 8% from 5% last
year.
The economy quickly fell into recession, prompting Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe to put off a second sales tax hike
this year, which was aimed at taming
Japan’s enormous national debt.
The figures yesterday showed the
inflation rate last month was at 2.5%,
down from 2.7% in November. Adjusted for the tax hike, the rate rose just
0.5% from a year earlier, well short of
the Bank of Japan’s 2.0% inflation goal
which it hopes to reach around the fiscal
year ending in April next year.
Earlier this month the central bank
slashed its inflation outlook as plunging
oil prices make the target look increasingly out of reach. The move boosted
speculation that the BoJ would have to
further expand its already huge monetary easing programme to counter the
downturn.
“Inflation is still likely to moderate
further,” Marcel Thieliant from Capital
Economics said in a commentary.
D
Shoppers walk past an apparel shop in Tokyo. Japanese inflation slowed again in December to 2.5%, down from 2.7% in November, official data showed yesterday.
“Less than half of the plunge in the
price of crude oil has been passed on to
consumers in the form of lower gasoline
prices so far.”
Japan’s central bank now expects
inflation for the fiscal year starting in
April to come in at 1%, well down from
an earlier 1.7% forecast and the BoJ’s
own ambitious target.
“The BoJ is expected to go ahead with
additional easing in April at the latest,”
SMBC Nikko Securities said.
“Prices are likely to return to deflation by early spring and it is highly pos-
sible that the bank will fail to achieve
the fiscal 2015 (inflation) outlook.
“If the BoJ leaves that unaddressed, it
will be called into question how serious
it is about raising prices.”
Taking office in late 2012, premier
Abe launched a growth blitz dubbed
Abenomics, which meshes government
spending with massive monetary easing
by the central bank and reforms to the
highly regulated economy.
The plan bore fruit in the beginning, but the more recent slowdown
has raised the stakes as the conserva-
tive leader struggles to contain Japan’s
finances - the country has one of the
world’s biggest debt burdens – while
dragging the economy out of a yearslong slump.
Last month, revised figures showed
that Japan’s economy shrank 0.5% in
the July-September quarter, marking
the second consecutive contraction.
Fourth-quarter GDP figures are due
on February 16.
In some more upbeat news yesterday,
industrial production in December rose
1% on-month, slightly below market
expectations, but reversing a surprise
drop in November.
The jobless rate edged down to 3.4%
from 3.5% a month earlier, hitting its
lowest level since mid-1997.
“The rebound in industrial production in December confirms that the
economy started to recover last quarter,” said Thieliant from Capital Economics.
“The labour market (also) continues
to tighten... However, there is no evidence that a tighter labour market has
strengthened price pressure.”
BoJ likely to hold policy steady until Oct
Reuters
Tokyo
T
Kuroda: Watering down two-year
time-frame for hitting the BoJ’s
inflation target.
China’s
new tech
rules play
to local
firms’
strengths
he Bank of Japan has put monetary policy on hold and found
backing for its wait-and-see
stance from advisers to Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe, who worry more easing
could send the yen to damagingly low
levels, according to officials in the administration and central bank.
This newfound caution from some
of the same Abe advisers who urged the
BoJ to launch its massive stimulus in
2013, means Japan is set to be an outlier at a time when central banks from
Canada to the eurozone to Singapore
have shocked markets by easing policy
in recent days.
Concerns about the yen, along with
a belief among central bank officials
– including Governor Haruhiko Kuroda – that coming wage increases will
support higher prices, suggest the BoJ
could hold policy steady until October,
months after many economists expect
it to be eased. “The environment under which the BoJ is working to hit 2%
inflation has changed dramatically. We
need to take that into account,” Eco-
nomics Minister Akira Amari said on
Tuesday. The BoJ stunned markets by
expanding its stimulus in October last
year to try to prevent slumping oil prices, and a subsequent slowdown in price
growth, from causing the central bank
to miss its 2% inflation target.
But since then, oil prices have fallen
by another 50%. Core inflation fell for
a fifth month to hit 0.5% in December,
data showed on Friday, stoking expectations the BoJ could face pressure to
ease again.
But Kozo Yamamoto, a leading expert on monetary policy in Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said last
week that he expected the BoJ could
even hold policy steady for the remainder of this year in the absence of some
external shock.
“What more can the BoJ do? I think
the central bank can hold off on action
and take a wait-and-see stance for the
time being,” Yamamoto told Reuters in
an interview last week.
The BoJ’s stimulus, dubbed “quantitative and qualitative easing,” or QQE,
has been a mainstay of Abe’s progrowth policies known as Abenomics,
an attempt to push Japan’s economy
out of the slow growth and deflation
that characterised the 15 years before
Abe took office.
Privately, government officials in
the Abe administration said the standback and wait comments by Amari and
Yamamoto reflect a caution that any further BOJ action could drive the yen lower.
That, in turn, could offset the gains to
consumer purchasing power from lower
prices for imported oil, they said.
“Further monetary easing is scary
because if the yen weakens more, that
could cause problems,” one official said.
The dollar has risen 9% against the
yen since early October and almost
30% since Abe was elected in December 2012. The weak currency has been a
boon to exporters like Toyota Motor but
has hurt companies like discount carrier Skymark Airlines, which cited higher
costs for its dollar-based aircraft leases
as a reason for its bankruptcy filing this
week. Kuroda has essentially watered
down his two-year time frame for hitting the BoJ’s inflation target, admitting earlier this month that Japan may
not see inflation hit 2% until fiscal 2016.
Many BoJ officials prefer to stand pat
for now on hopes that companies will
raise base salaries in trade union wage
talks in March. They also expect the
economy to rebound solidly from the
recession, helping offset the deflationary pressure of falling oil prices.
“I think inflation rates may even fall
in the short term. But we expect to see
price increases accelerating in the second half of next fiscal year,” Kuroda told
parliament on Thursday.
By October, the statistical impact of
oil prices compared to the prior year
would have partially washed out of the
inflation data. At that time, the central
bank will also be issuing new quarterly
forecasts for the economy and prices.
Some people close to the BoJ’s policymaking said they believed it could
stand pat until then.
“By sharply cutting its inflation forecast this month, the BoJ bought itself
about a year’s worth of time,” said a
former BoJ executive who remains in
close contact with incumbent officials.
The BoJ held policy steady in January
even as oil prices continued to fall and
forced it to cut its core consumer inflation forecast for next fiscal year to 1%.
In the latest survey of economists
by the Japan Center for Economic Research, 13 of 25 economists who expect
a further BoJ easing see it happening in
April or July.
raft Chinese government
regulation would force
technology vendors to
meet stringent security tests
before they can sell to China’s
banks, an acceleration of efforts
to curb the country’s reliance
on foreign technology that has
drawn a sharp response from US
business groups.
But a translation of the proposed rules viewed by Reuters
shows its immediate impact
on foreign firms may not be as
tough as feared.
The draft shows the regulation
would initially focus on types of
hardware and software where
domestic suppliers already have
a strong market position compared with their foreign rivals.
Western companies say the
rules have not yet been formally
adopted, and some said they believed Beijing would retreat on
some of the most onerous ideas,
including demanding that firms’
proprietary source code be reviewable.
Chinese leaders are to review
the plan next week, US tech industry sources said.
On Wednesday, 18 American
business groups urged Beijing to
postpone rolling out the regulation, which they argued were
motivated by protectionism as
well as security concerns that
intensified in the wake of disclosures of US spying techniques by
former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
The guidelines by the Chinese
Banking Regulatory Commission were issued on December
26 in a 22-page paper that outlines security criteria that tech
products must meet in order to
be considered “secure and controllable” for use in the financial
sector, according to sources with
knowledge of the matter.
A translation shows an exhaustive table of equipment it
applies to, containing 68 categories of tech products from
PC servers to wireless routers
to automatic teller machines to
air conditioners. Source code
powering operating systems,
database software, and middleware must be registered with
the commission to be considered
“secure and controllable,” while
only wireless routers that have
approved encryption or virtual
private networking (VPN) certificates may receive the designation.
The document also specified
what percentage of new purchases in each product category
in 2015 must be considered “secure and controllable”. Every
new PC purchased this year, for
instance, must carry the designation. The new regulations
represent one of China’s most
significant steps toward banishing foreign technology, 18
months after Snowden disclosed
that US spy agencies planted
code in American tech exports to
snoop on overseas targets.
The banking commission
briefed representatives from
major banks on the regulation
in January, Chinese sources with
knowledge of the matter said.
In order to meet the criteria,
a product will also be judged on
its “intellectual property and the
level of independence during its
development process.”
India’s banks say no room to cut lending rates, thwarting RBI easing
Reuters
Mumbai
Only three of India’s 45 commercial
banks have cut base lending rates
since the Reserve Bank of India’s
surprise easing this month, hurting
the government’s drive to lift business
investment.
Bank executives insist they cannot
lower loan rates despite the official rate
cut because cash conditions are tight,
and money markets are little changed
since the cut, but RBI insiders see that
as more an excuse to protect profit
margins.
The failure to pass on the January 15
rate cut to businesses and consumers
has both diluted the impact of
monetary policy and weakened
the push by the government to
quickly unlock more credit and spur
investments as the economy struggles
to recover from its slowest growth
rates since the 1980s.
“We are already providing liquidity
higher than what the banking
system requires. We do not plan to
increase that amount,” said a senior
policymaker with knowledge of the
RBI’s cash management strategy.
“Banks need to manage their assets
and liabilities more efficiently,” he
added.
Bankers say the average funds the RBI
provides the market has been steady at
around 1tn rupees ($16.2bn) a day since
the repurchase (repo) rate was cut by
25 basis points to 7.75%.
The RBI manages the amount
of liquidity in the market to aid
transmission of its rate decisions. The
next scheduled policy review is on
Tuesday, but analysts do not expect
it to ease again at least until after the
federal budget at the end of February.
“If RBI provided slightly more liquidity
than what it is providing now, it will
force banks to cut their base lending
rates,” said CVR Rajendran, chairman
and managing director at state-run
Andhra Bank.
The rate cut has had little impact
in financial markets, suggesting a
blockage in policy transmission.
The interbank overnight cash rate,
a key measure of cash conditions
that tends to track the repo rate, has
remained around 8% despite the rate
cut.
Furthermore, 3-month wholesale
deposit rates have held near 8.50% and
the one-year wholesale deposit rate
has risen 10 basis points to 8.60%.
Analysts say the RBI will eventually
have to inject more funds, although
may not as much as lenders want, if it
continues easing monetary policy.
Bank of America-Merrill Lynch believes
the RBI will need to inject around
$49bn in new money to the banking
system during 2015/16 (April-March)
if lenders are to lower lending rates
enough to meet the brokerage’s
projections for a recovery in credit
growth to 17.5% in the next fiscal year.
Credit grew at an annual rate of 10.7%
in early January, near decade lows, and
the government of Narendra Modi’s
government has been seeking lower
interest rates to help spark a revival in
lending to business.
Earlier this month, the RBI mandated
that lenders change the methodology
used to compute the base rate, or the
minimum lending rate, in a bid to spur
more lending.
Banks continue to suffer from
deteriorating asset quality, which
is pressuring earnings. Bank of
Baroda,India’s second-biggest lender
by assets, yesterday posted a 69%
fall in quarterly profit due to higher
provisions for bad loans and a surge in
tax expenses.
An executive at a state-run bank
acknowledged profit was a factor in the
reluctance to lower lending rates but
said liquidity was a bigger issue.
“There is a lot of micro-management
of liquidity by RBI. Banks are taking
their own time to cut lending rates
because we are still not sure about
RBI’s liquidity policy,” he said.
“Typically banks are faster in raising
lending rates than cutting to enjoy fat
interest margins.”
10
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
BUSINESS
Singapore
charges FX
traders for
cheating
HSBC and
Deutsche
Bank
Bloomberg
Singapore
Two former foreign exchange
traders from HSBC Holdings
and Deutsche Bank were
charged in Singapore for
allegedly cheating their
employers by making false
trades.
The two men, in unrelated
cases, bought and sold
about $1.1bn in US dollars
in November 2009 using
the banks’ accounts to
get preferential rates for
themselves, according
to charge sheets filed on
Thursday with a Singapore
state court. They allegedly
made wrongful gains of about
S$370,000 ($274,000).
Former HSBC senior dealer
Ivan Chng, 46, faces 149
charges for about $870mn
of trades to facilitate
transactions in his wife’s
accounts. He allegedly made
a wrongful gain of around
S$230,000. Toh Hway Khuan,
49, was charged with 39
counts and made almost
$300mn in US dollar trades.
The former Deutsche Bank
spot trader is accused of
unlawfully making about
S$140,000.
Each charge carries a
maximum seven-year jail
term and a fine of as much as
S$250,000.
Chng is no longer an
employee of the bank, said
Gareth Hewett, a Hong Kongbased HSBC spokesman,
declining to comment further.
No contact details were
available for Chng.
Deutsche Bank’s Hong Kongbased spokesman Michael
West said Toh’s employment
was terminated in 2010
and the bank has been
assisting the Commercial
Affairs Department in its
investigation. Toh’s lawyer
Lee Teck Leng didn’t
immediately return a call
seeking comment.
Both Chng and Toh are out
on bail and the next hearing
is scheduled for February 13,
according to the Straits Times,
which had earlier reported
the cases.
Sensex sheds 499 points
as bank stocks plummet
IANS
Mumbai
A
benchmark index of Indian equities markets closed yesterday’s
trade down 499 points or 1.68%,
as banking, automobile and consumer
durables stocks declined.
The markets plunged after scaling
a new high of 29,844.16 points in the
morning trade session. It surpassed
the previous high of 29,786.32 points
touched on January 28.
The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex)
of the S&P Mumbai Stock Exchange
(BSE), which opened at 29,801.60
points, closed at 29,182.95 points, down
498.82 points or 1.68% from the previous day’s close at 29,681.77 points.
The Sensex touched a high of
29,844.16 points and a low of 29,070.48
points in the intra-day trade.
“Market was impacted with poor
data coming from third quarter bank
results and fund requirement for divestment. This will continue to impact
the market in the near term,” said Vinod
Nair, head-fundamental research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.
“But Mid and beta stocks where outperforming the main benchmarks. If
this outperformance continues, it will
be due to improvement in business
confidence.”Heavy selling pressure
was observed in banking, automobile,
consumer durables, capital goods and
metal stocks, while healthy buying took
place in realty, information technology
(IT) and power sectors.
The S&P BSE bankex was down
737.58 points, followed by automobile
index which was lower by 245.19 points,
consumer durables index declined by
200.93 point, capital goods index decreased by 122.41 points and metal index lost 85.85 points.
However, realty index was up 38.55
points, IT index was higher by 22.27
points and power index gained 19.33
points.
The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed
143.45 points or 1.60% down at
8,808.90 points. The Nifty had touched
a new record high in the morning trade
at 8,996.60 points.
The major Sensex gainers were Tata
Power, up 2.90% at Rs90.55; BHEL,
up 1.62% at Rs291.80; NTPC, up
1.37% at Rs143.80; Wipro, up 0.79% at
Rs606.30; and Sesa Sterlite, up 0.67%
at Rs201.75.
Meanwhile, in a volatile trade, the
rupee yesterday recovered towards the
fag-end to end steady at 61.86 against
the American currency at the Interbank
Foreign Exchange due to mild selling of
dollars by banks and exporters.
The rupee yesterday resumed slightly
higher at 61.84 per dollar as against the
last closing level of 61.86 and firmed up
further to 61.70 on initial selling of dollars by exporters.
However, the domestic currency
failed to maintain initial gains and
dropped to 62.03 on month-end dollar
demand from importers, mainly oil refiners before ending at yesterday’s closing level of 61.86 per dollar.
A view of the Bombay Stock Exchange. The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) closed yesterday’s trade down 499 points at
29,182.95 points.
Asian markets mixed, Japan shares rise
AFP
Tokyo
A
sian stock markets were mixed
yesterday, with Tokyo’s main index rising as traders took heart
from news employment hit its lowest
level since 1997, despite a slowdown in
inflation and weak consumer spending.
Tokyo’s gains were in line with a
broad rally on Wall Street the day before, after the Federal Reserve signalled
that growth and jobs in the world’s top
economy remained robust and a raft of
generally solid US corporate earnings.
The benchmark Nikkei-225 index on
the Tokyo Stock Exchange rose 0.39%,
or 68.17 points, to 17,674.39 at the close,
with traders buoyed by a weaker yen,
which boosts Japanese exporters.
Sydney gained 18.82 points, or
0.34%, to close at 5,588.3 while Seoul
finished flat, closing down 1.76 points
at 1,949.26.
But in mainland China, shares closed
the week nearly 4% lower, pressured by
concerns about market liquidity and
regulatory inspections of margin trading, dealers said.
The Shanghai Composite index fell
1.59%, or 51.95 points, to 3,210.36 while
Hong Kong declined 0.36%, or 88.8
points, to 24,507.05.
Official data released yesterday
showed Japan’s consumer inflation
slowed for a fifth month in December to
2.5% year-on-year, down from 2.7% in
November, on the back of plummeting
oil prices and weaker consumer spending. Adjusted for a sales tax increase,
the rate rose just 0.5%, well short of the
Bank of Japan’s 2% inflation goal.
The news stoked fears Tokyo is losing
its war on deflation, hiking pressure on
the Bank of Japan to unleash more stimulus to combat the potentially damaging downward spiral of prices.
But analysts said lower energy costs
could boost economic growth in the
world’s third-largest economy, which is
a net importer of oil.
News that Japan’s jobless rate edged
down to 3.4%, from 3.5% in November,
to its lowest level since mid-1997 and a
pickup in industrial output also cheered
traders. “Investors feel bullish for Japa-
Some investors still upbeat on
Alibaba despite revenue miss
Reuters
New York
A
libaba Group’s surprise revenue miss
sent shares plunging on Thursday, but
some investors say their enthusiasm
for the Chinese e-commerce giant has not
cooled given its long-term potential.
“I don’t think it’s even a stumbling block,”
said Mark Yusko, head of the $4bn Morgan
Creek Capital Management. Alibaba shares
fell 8.8% on Thursday to close at $89.81,
sending the stock below its September 19
first-day opening price of $92.70, after reporting lower-than-expected revenues for
the third quarter.
The company’s record $25bn initial public
offering was met with great fanfare, attracting big purchases from hedge funds managers
eager for exposure to a company frequently
referred to as the ‘Amazon of China.’ Shares
soared, hitting a high of $120 in November,
but the stock has slumped since, losing 25%
of its value.
Despite the revenue miss and a migration
of customers to mobile devices, where margins are typically narrower, investors said the
stock remains attractive as a long-term play
on China’s burgeoning consumer market.
“We’re in this for the long term. We think
this is going to be a dominant franchise,” said
Yusko.
Yusko started buying shares of Alibaba
through private purchases well before the
company’s offering last September, and has
added to that position over time.
Hedge funds owned about 4% of Alibaba’s
equity - or nearly 100mn shares - as of September 30, with 27 different funds counting
it among their top 10 holdings, according to
Goldman Sachs data analysing hedge fund
filings. But the stock’s strong debut last year
- as well as gains in the four months since
- may have set expectations too high, said
Vince Rivers, senior portfolio manager at JO
Chinese online retail giant Alibaba founder Jack Ma smiles as he waits for the trading to open
on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange. Alibaba’s surprise revenue miss sent shares
plunging on Thursday.
Hambro Capital Management for the small/
mid-cap US equity strategy. “It’s not cheap,”
he said. “At a relatively high valuation, you’re
going to get this kind of reaction.”
Alibaba’s forward price-to-earnings ratio
fell to 29.7 on Thursday from 32.6 with the
stock’s decline, though that valuation makes
it still more expensive than auctions site eBay
Inc or Chinese rival Baidu Inc.
Yusko and Rivers both compared the
company to Facebook , another internet giant that similarly struggled to turn its large
customer base into financial gains, particularly as many people migrated from desktops
and laptops to their mobile phones. Facebook shares struggled for over a year after
their 2012 IPO. It now trades at more than
double its IPO price of $38 a share. Headed
into earnings, options trading in Alibaba
was largely dominated by bullish call bets,
but bearish put activity was stronger on
Thursday. Bets on the shares dropping to
$85 by March 20 were among the busiest
of the company’s options on Thursday, according to Thomson Reuters data. Alibaba’s
mobile monthly active users nearly doubled
from the same quarter the previous year to
265mn. Sales through mobile devices, which
typically have lower margins, accounted for
a bigger slice of total sales than in the previous quarter.
“We have to work through that growing
pains period of that transition” to mobile,
Rivers said.
nese stocks today,” Shigetoshi Kamata,
general manager of the research department at Tachibana Securities in Tokyo,
told Bloomberg News.
“Employment has gotten better and
the effects from cheaper oil have yet to
come.”
Benchmark US indices rallied on
Thursday after two days of losses, following generally positive corporate
earnings, including from Ford Motor
and Amazon.
Oil prices were mixed in Asian trade
– a day after they plunged to their lowest level in nearly six years. US oil stockpiles are at a record high.
US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for March delivery was up 12
cents at $44.65 a barrel in afternoon
Asian trade, after a volatile session the
day before that saw the contract plunge
below $44 for the first time since March
2009.
Brent crude for March was down 13
cents at $49a barrel.
Gold fetched $1,264.49 an ounce,
down from $1,265.97 on Thursday.
In other markets, Manila rose 0.95%,
or 72.61 points, to 7,689.91; Wellington was down 0.27%, or 15.82 points,
at 5,743.99; Taipei fell 0.69%, or 64.99
points, to 9,361.91; Bangkok closed
down 0.32%, or 5.15 points, to 1,581.25;
Singapore closed down 0.81%, or 27.85
points, to 3,391.20; Kuala Lumpur
ended largely flat, losing 0.92 points to
close at 1,781.26 and Jakarta ended up
0.51%, or 26.67 points, at 5,289.40.
Ant Financial plans IPO
Bloomberg
Beijing
Alibaba Group Holding’s finance affiliate, which
runs China’s biggest e-commerce payments
business, is planning an initial public offering next
year, according to people familiar with the matter.
Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financial Services
Group Co has an estimated value of about $50bn,
said the people, who asked not to be identified
because the discussions are private.
Ant Financial is weighing a private placement
before going public, and details of the planned
fundraising aren’t finalised, the people said.
China’s National Social Security Fund has been
invited to invest in Ant Financial, another person
familiar with the matter said. The $50bn valuation
is about twice the minimum threshold required
for an Ant Financial IPO, according to Alibaba’s
prospectus before its record share sale in
September.
“By raising funds through an IPO, the company
could have more money to develop a variety
of online finance products and cater to smaller
businesses,” said Wang Weidong, an analyst at
Shanghai-based Internet consultant IResearch.
The company has the potential to grow beyond a
valuation of $50bn, he said.
Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma has controlled Ant
Financial, including the Alipay payments business,
since spinning off the finance operations into a
new company in 2011, citing foreign ownership
restrictions. Prior to Alibaba’s own record IPO in
September, the companies struck a new deal that
entitled the e-commerce operator to a share of
earnings at Ant Financial, which is moving into new
businesses, including money-market funds.
Rachel Chan, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman
for Alibaba, declined to comment on behalf of
both Alibaba and Ant Financial. The National
Social Security Fund didn’t respond to a phone
message seeking comment. At $50bn, Ant
Financial would rank among the top 10 financial
institutions listed in China by market value,
according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Alibaba’s September IPO raised $25bn and the
stock has surged 32% since then. That helped
make Ma, who holds a 7.8% stake in Alibaba,
China’s second-richest man with a net worth of
$26.3bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires
Index.
His fortune dropped by about $1.4bn on Thursday
after Alibaba’s third-quarter revenue of 26.2bn
yuan ($4.2 billion) missed analyst estimates.
The company’s push into mobile curbed its
advertising sales growth, and the number of
transactions on its Tmall platform grew at a
smaller pace.
Alibaba also is embroiled in a dispute with a
state regulator, which criticised the company for
alleged lax oversight of its websites. Alibaba has
a “credibility crisis” fuelled by a failure to crack
down on shady merchants, counterfeit goods,
bribery and misleading promotions, the Chinese
government said on Wednesday.
Company Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai denied
those allegations Thursday and said the company
decided to file a complaint to the regulator.
Ma controls the voting rights to Ant Financial,
though his holding will be reduced to a
percentage not exceeding his Alibaba stake,
according to the prospectus.
Ant Financial hasn’t hired investment banks, one
of the people said. The company is planning an
A-share sale in China while not ruling out a dual
listing, another person familiar said.
Under the terms of last year’s revised agreement,
Alibaba is entitled to a payment of at least $9.4bn
if Alipay or its parent hold an IPO. Alibaba also
gets the perpetual right to 37.5% of the finance
arm’s pretax earnings and can buy a stake of
about one-third if regulators approve.
Employees, including Ma, would own the shares
in Ant Financial not held by new investors and
Alibaba, amounting to about 40%, the company
said in October.
The spinoff of Alipay was a point of contention
between Ma and key shareholder Yahoo! Inc,
which said it wasn’t informed of the sale at the
time, and led to the earlier 2011 agreement on
compensation. Since then, the business has
expanded into money markets and controls
more than 579bn yuan in a fund called Yu’E Bao,
according to the company’s website.
Alipay, which is similar to PayPal, has more
than 800 million registered users. Its mobile
application has 190mn active users and handles
45mn transactions a day, the company said in
October.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
11
BUSINESS
Russian central bank makes
surprise interest rate cut
Key rate cut two basis points to
15%; analysts had expected bank
to hold; move may reflect political
pressure, growth worries; rouble
falls after cut
Reuters
Moscow
R
ussia’s central bank unexpectedly cut its main interest rate
yesterday as fears of recession
mount in the country following the fall
in global oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.
The bank reduced its one-week
minimum auction repo rate by two
points to 15%, a little over a month after pushing it up by 6.5 points to 17%
after a run on the rouble.
The bank had been widely expected
not to change the rate. Following the
decision, the rouble extended losses
to trade as much as 4% down on the
day against the dollar, though it later
clawed back some of the losses.
The move implies a shift in the
Bank of Russia’s priorities away from
clamping down on rising inflation
and supporting the rouble, towards
trying to support economic activity,
which the bank expects to fall sharply
in the coming months. The decision
Russian Central Bank governor Elvira Nabiullina speaks in the lower house of
Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, in Moscow yesterday. Russia’s central bank
cut its main interest rate to 15% from 17% in a move that caught markets by
surprise, sending the rouble tumbling.
will also fuel speculation that recent
changes in the bank’s senior management have shifted the bank towards
more dovish monetary policy, possibly under pressure from the Kremlin,
banks and business lobbies. “Today’s
decision to lower key interest rate by 2
percentage points is intended to balance the goal of curbing inflation and
restore economic growth,” the bank’s
governor, Elvira Nabiullina, said in
an emailed statement after the announcement.
She said the rate remained high
enough to allow the bank to reach its
inflation target in the medium term.
President Vladimir Putin, who won
popularity by providing Russians with
more financial stability after the chaos
of the 1990s following the fall of the
Soviet Union, did not comment and
the Kremlin denies influencing central
bank decisions.
But Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said he backed the rate cut, and
that the central bank had good reason
to say the situation on the currency
market was under control.
“The decision appears to be politically driven, since it is a cut that shows
the central bank is worried about the
risks to the banking sector. It looks
like the central bank’s hand has been
forced,” said Nicholas Spiro, managing
director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy in
London.
Earlier this month the bank’s head
of monetary policy, Ksenia Yudayeva,
an anti-inflation hawk, was replaced
by Dmitry Tulin, a central bank veteran seen as more acceptable to bankers, who have called for lower interest rates. The shift in policy may also
reflect the realisation that Russia’s
economy is heading for a hard landing
as low oil prices look set to persist and
the conflict in Ukraine has worsened,
defying hopes of an early end to Western sanctions.
Data released this week showed real
wages slumping by 4.7% year-onyear in December and real disposable
income slumping by 7.3%, boding ill
for economic growth in the months
ahead.
The bank said it expected gross
domestic product to fall by 3.2% in
annual terms during the first half of
2015, following growth of 0.6% in
2014.
“This tells us they are looking beyond rising inflation in the coming
months to try to stimulate economic
growth,” said William Jackson, emerging markets economist at Capital Economics in London.
“But I don’t think the rate cut will
have much impact (on growth). If you
look at the stress on the banking sector,
capital flight, the real income squeeze
and collapse in oil prices, then a recession is inevitable.”
Analysts had nevertheless expected
the bank to hold rates this month, as
the bank had previously said it would
cut rates when inflation is on a sustained downward trend. Inflation has
instead been shooting up as a result
of the slide in the rouble. The bank
said that it saw conditions for lower
inflation in the medium term, but effectively acknowledged that inflation
would stay in double digits throughout
this year.
It said it expected inflation to fall below 10% in January 2016. Inflation was
13.2% as of January 26, the bank said,
up from 11.4% in December.
“I see big risks in today’s decision,”
said Rosbank economist Evgeny Koshelev.
“Now the geopolitical background is
unclear and inflation pressure remains
quite strong, as well as signals for the
outflow of capital... This (rate cut) is
probably a reason to sell the rouble
more in the short term.”
However, Renaissance Capital economist Oleg Kouzmin said he welcomed
the move: “It’s good that they are lowering now. This is a sensible step. This
will help the economy and allow stability to be preserved.”
He added that high interest rates do
not especially help the rouble as capital
outflows are largely linked to debt repayments.
“Will the capital outflow be stronger? Yes, but there will be a weaker rouble and a stronger current account,
which means it won’t be necessary to
spend more forex reserves.”
CORPORATE RESULTS
Honda Q3 operating profit skids 22.5% to $1.5bn
profit for the holiday shopping quarter as customers swiped their cards more often. The company,
whose shares were up 4% in premarket trading yesterday, said worldwide purchase volume increased
12.1% to $858bn in local currency terms during the
fourth quarter, while its cross-border volumes rose
19%.
“Despite a mixed global economy, we delivered
solid results for the quarter and for the full year in
2014,” chief executive Ajay Banga said in a statement.
US retail sales rose 5.5% from the day after
Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve as demand
for women’s apparel, jewellery and casual dining
offset sluggish sales of electronics, MasterCard said
in December.
The company’s net income rose to $801mn, or 69¢
per share, in the quarter ended December 31 from
$623mn, or 52¢ per share, a year earlier.
Net revenue rose 14% to $2.42bn.
AbbVie
Japan’s Honda Motor Co sliced 6.5% off its core annual profit forecast as it set aside hundreds of millions of dollars in extra cash to cover an extended
car recall to replace potentially faulty air bags made
by Takata Corp
Reporting its third-quarter earnings fell by nearly
a quarter as it soaked up recall costs, Japan’s
third-largest automaker said it now expects an
operating profit of ¥720bn ($6.1bn) for the year to
March 31.
It previously forecast ¥770bn, but has set aside an
extra ¥50bn to cover what it said were quality-related costs including the Takata air bag recalls. Still,
Honda’s Executive vice-president Tetsuo Iwamura
said, “We are not seeing a big impact on sales in
North America from the air bag issue.”
In the three months ended December, Honda said
operating profit skidded 22.5% to ¥177.2bn ($1.5bn)
from ¥228.57bn in the same period a year earlier.
That was below the ¥189.11bn forecast by Thomson
Reuters SmartEstimate from a poll of 10 analysts.
Honda also said it now expects to sell a total of
4.45mn cars this fiscal year, down from the 4.62mn
it previously forecast, as sales in Japan fall short of
its original target. With new model launch delays
and fierce competition in the domestic small car
market, Honda now expects to sell 790,000 cars
in Japan this year, 11% below the 890,000 it previously expected.
Speaking at a news conference in Tokyo, Honda’s
Iwamura said the impact of lower sales on its earnings will be cancelled out by the beneficial effect
of the weaker yen. The slide in the value of the
Japanese currency means sales booked overseas
now translate back into more yen.
Honda accounts for more than half of the Takatarelated recall of about 25mn vehicles since 2008.
Takata’s inflators can explode too forcefully and
send metal shards into cars, and have been linked
to five deaths, all on Honda’s cars.
Honda is paying for the voluntary recall of about
4mn cars in the US alone. But it expects to get those
costs back if investigations find Takata at fault, and
many analysts say reputational damage from the
recalls seems minimal, including in the US, Honda’s
most important market.
Potentially a bigger near-term concern is cheaper
fuel as global oil prices slide, with US sales of light
trucks up 10% in 2014 against a 1.8% rise for passenger cars. That’s a red flag for Honda, which excels
in cars that have attracted buyers concerned about
fuel economy.
Caixabank, Popular
Spain’s third-biggest lender Caixabank yesterday
said it expected earnings from loans to keep rising
in 2015, helping profits as its soured debts fall,
although it warned the pace of credit growth would
remain weak.
Barcelona-based Caixabank said its net interest
income (NII), a key measure of earnings from loans
minus deposit costs, rose 5% in 2014 to €4.155bn
($4.7bn). That was in line with forecasts in a Reuters
poll and was helped by falling payouts on deposits.
But its lending fell nearly 5% year-on-year, even
though credit growth improved in the fourth quarter of 2014, echoing trends observed by peers such
as Sabadell.
At smaller Banco Popular, which also reported 2014
results yesterday, lending was down 0.5% on the
year.
Popular said it saw signs of growing demand for
credit, though it too warned the Spanish economy
still faced headwinds, including from high unemployment.
Caixabank, which agreed to buy the Spanish retail
business of Britain’s Barclays last year, said it expected NII and earnings from fees to grow between
7 and 9% in 2015, even as low interest rates in the
eurozone weigh on margins.
The bank’s net profit rose 96% to €620mn
($703mn), below the €690.5mn expected in a
Reuters poll. Caixabank restated 2013 accounts to
reflect payments to the deposit guarantee fund.
Without this change, 2014 profit would only have
risen 23%.
MasterCard
MasterCard Inc, the world’s No 2 debit and credit
card company, reported a better-than-expected
US drugmaker AbbVie’s revenue beat analysts’
estimates for the fourth straight quarter as sales of
arthritis drug Humira jumped nearly 11%.
The company, however, reported a net loss of
$810mn, or 51¢ per share, for the fourth quarter,
mainly due to a charge related to its aborted $55bn
deal to buy British drugmaker Shire.
Excluding the charge and other special items,
AbbVie earned 89¢ per share. Analysts on average
had expected 86¢ per share, according to Thomson
Reuters I/B/E/S.
Revenue rose 6.7% to $5.45bn, above the average
analyst estimate of $5.36bn.
Sales of Humira, which AbbVie inherited from
Abbott Laboratories in 2013, rose to $3.36bn in the
fourth quarter ended December 31.
AbbVie kept its 2015 forecast from January 8
unchanged.
The company expects 2015 earnings of $4.25-$4.45
per share, up sharply from last year’s $3.32 per
share, citing demand for its all-oral Viekira Pak
hepatitis C treatment and growing sales of Humira.
Novo Nordisk
The world’s biggest insulin maker, Novo Nordisk,
yesterday reported a 5% rise in annual profit,
driven by sales of the group’s key drug Victoza and
modern insulin.
Net profit reached 26.48bn kroner (€3.56bn,
$4.03bn) as revenue grew six% to 88.8bn kroner,
helped by sales of Victoza, which controls blood
sugar levels by mimicking an intestinal hormone
called GLP-1, and long acting insulin Levemir.
The North American market accounted for 61% of
growth measured in local currencies, the group —
which holds 47% of the global insulin market — said
in a statement.
Novo Nordisk said sales were expected to grow
between six and 9% in local currencies in 2015,
reflecting strong performances from Victoza and
once-daily insulin Tresiba.
The launches of obesity drug Saxenda and Xultophy, which combines Tresiba and Victoza, would
result in “modest” growth contributions, it said.
Consol Energy
Consol Energy Inc said it hired advisers to evaluate a master limited partnership structure for its
thermal coal business, as it shifts focus to boosting
natural gas production.
The company said it expected to invest $1bn in its
oil and natural gas business in 2015, compared with
the $220mn in its coal business.
Consol said production in its natural gas business
would likely grow by 30% this year.
The company also said an initial public offering of
its metallurgical, or steel-making, coal business
is likely in the fourth quarter. Coal miners have
been weighed down by a switch by US utilities to
cheaper natural gas from power-generating coal,
and weaker demand from top consumer China for
steel-making coal.
Consol’s coal business accounts for more than half
of its total revenue.
Master Limited Partnership (MLPs) have become
increasingly popular as they pay no taxes at the
federal level and distribute most of their cash flows
as dividends to investors.
Revenue rose 13% to $935.7mn in the fourth quarter
ended December 31, boosted by sales of oil, natural
gas, and natural gas liquids.
Net income from continuing operations halved to
$73.7mn, or 32 cents per share.
Exploration and production costs rose nearly 24%
to $294.3mn.
Consol reported an adjusted profit of 25¢, 5¢ above
the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Google
Google profit jumped in the recently ended quarter,
but the leap fell short of market expectations as
smartphone-centric lifestyles brought with them a
shift to cheaper mobile ads.
Google has prospered on targeting ads served up
with Internet search results on computers.
Google is devoting resources to self-driving cars;
Glass eyewear; Fiber super-fast Internet networks,
and a Project Loon aimed at delivering Internet to
remote or rural areas using gear floating from highaltitude balloons.
While critics see such endeavours as Google
straying from its area of strength in online search,
some people view the moves as innovation aimed
at keeping the company relevant to evolving
lifestyles.
Google services such as search and maps could
become features in autonomous car consoles or
Internet-linked eye wear. More people using faster
Internet could increase the ranks of people tapping
into the Internet firm’s products from YouTube to
Gmail or cloud storage.
During an earnings call, Google chief financial
officer Patrick Pichette said it stuck to benchmarks
when it came to deciding whether to continue
backing projects such as Fiber.
This month, Google halted sales of its Internetlinked eyewear Glass but insisted the technology
would live on in a future consumer product.
Glass allowed users to share pictures or video and
search the Internet hands free. Google did not
indicate when a general consumer version of the
eyewear might debut.
Google’s Glass team became a separate company
unit answering to Tony Fadell, co-founder of Nest.
Google bought the smart thermostat maker early
last year in a multi billion-dollar deal and brought
the former Apple executive on board in the process.
The Internet colossus reported net profit up 41%
year-over-year at $4.76bn in the final three months
of 2014. The profit translates to $6.88 per share,
below the consensus forecast of $7.11 per share.
Revenues were up 15% in the quarter to $18.1bn,
also slower than anticipated as Google saw slowdowns in some of its online advertising metrics
such as costs per click.
Visa
Visa Inc, the world’s largest credit and debit card
company, reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit on Thursday as a strengthening US job
market and cheaper gasoline prices encouraged
people to spend.
The company said e-commerce, which mainly
uses cards, was “extraordinarily strong during the
holiday season.” But chief executive Charlie Scharf
said consumer spending on the whole, while at
“reasonable” levels, was not accelerating.
Shares of the company, which also announced a
4-for-1 split of its class A common stock, rose about
4% in extended trading.
Visa, which earns money from both the volume
and value of transactions using its cards, said total
volume increased to $1.90tn from $1.84tn.
The company stands to benefit from China’s recent
decision to allow foreign card networks to clear
domestic transactions, but Scharf said it remained
unclear when the Chinese market would actually
open and what the rules would look like.
Visa lost its right to process domestic payments in
Russia in the middle of last year when Moscow hit
back after the imposition of Western sanctions over
its role in Ukraine.
Visa reaffirmed its revenue and margin forecasts
for 2015 after taking into account an expected 2
percentage point negative impact from changes in
foreign exchange rates.
About 60% of Visa’s transaction volumes are
outside the US.
Visa, a Dow Jones Industrial Average component,
recorded cross-border volume growth of 8% on a
constant dollar basis, down from 12% in the yearearlier quarter.
The company’s net income rose to $1.57bn, or $2.53
per Class A share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31 from
$1.41bn, or $2.20 per Class A share, a year earlier.
Analysts on average had expected earnings of
$2.49 per share on revenue of $3.34bn for the company’s first fiscal quarter, according to Thomson
Reuters I/B/E/S.
Total operating revenue rose 7% to $3.38bn.
Amazon
Amazon.com Inc reported stronger than expected
earnings on Thursday as North American sales
surged during the crucial holiday quarter, sending
its shares up 9%.
The online commerce giant, which gets about a
third of its revenue from October to December,
reported earnings of 45¢ a share, trouncing Wall
Street’s average prediction for 17 cents.
Revenue climbed 15% to $29.3bn in the quarter,
compared to an average analyst estimate of nearly
$30bn. However, revenue rose 18% if $895mn in an
unfavourable impact from year-over-year changes
in foreign exchange rates were excluded, executives said on a conference call.
The sharply higher profit was a welcome surprise
for Wall Street, which has clamoured for Amazon
to come to grips with its growing investments in
everything from Hollywood-style television productions, and cloud computing and consumer devices
with mixed success.
In a conference call with reporters, chief financial
officer Tom Szkutak said Amazon is putting “a lot
more energy around making sure we get great
productivity around our various fixed and variable
assets.”
Even so, few analysts expect chief executive Officer
Jeff Bezos will rein in his spending significantly this
year, especially as Amazon beefs up its $99-a-year
Prime membership programme, which offers
standard two-day shipping, streaming video and
unlimited photo storage among other perks.
Worldwide, paying Prime membership rose
53% in 2014, and 50% in the US market. In 2014,
Amazon paid billions for Prime shipping and put
$1.3bn into its Prime video service, Bezos said in
a statement.
Net sales leapt 22% in North America, compared to
3% for everywhere else. Overall operating expenses
rose 14.6% in the quarter to $28.7bn. Net shipping
costs represented 4.6% of worldwide net sales,
slightly lower than the previous four quarters.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
BUSINESS
GULF TIMES
Southeast Asia’s
flag carriers under
massive pressure
By Arno Maierbrugger
Gulf Times Correspondent
Bangkok
A multitude of factors, including increasing
competition from Middle East carriers on
long-haul routes, a massive ticket price war
as a result of dropping kerosene prices and
improving economic dynamics of a growing
middle class, is radically changing the aviation market in Southeast Asia.
Latest news that Thai Airways will lay off
5,000 staff and cut 10% of its routes is just
another sign that the rapid rise of low-cost
carriers is challenging established airlines
to an extent that starts to become seriously
troubling for the latter.
Major national airlines in the region,
apart from Thai Airways Indonesia’s Garuda, Philippine Airlines, Singapore Airlines,
Malaysia Airlines and Vietnam Airlines
are either making continued operational
losses or just thin profits despite current
ultra-low oil prices and cheap refinancing
options on the capital market.
Most of the national airlines, suffering
from state bureaucracy and inert leadership structures, are being overrun by a
new generation of budget airlines that are
reacting much quicker to market conditions
and driving ticket prices down across the
region. For example, while Thai Airways
had to publicly deny bankruptcy rumours
to avoid ticket cancellations and has to deal
with unhappy government officials who are
no longer entitled to free flights for them
and their family, AirAsia, the region’s largest
budget airline, used the dropping oil price to
announce on January 26 that it will scrap its
fuel surcharges across all its carriers, which
led to bustling ticket sales.
Thailand, which is an especially important
destination for budget carriers, has seen
the market share of low-cost carriers seen
exploding to 44% in terms of passenger
movement and 39.7% of entire aircraft movements in 2014, airport operator Airports
of Thailand said last week. Moreover, the
already impressive number of 24 low-cost
carriers operating in Thailand is expected
to see more entrants in the budget travel
market, further eating into market shares of
full service operators.
In Indonesia, national carrier Garuda
obviously missed out on capitalising early
enough on the fact that a 250mn-population
spread over 17,000 islands has now more
money to travel as a result of improving
economic conditions.
But Lion Air, a budget carrier launched in
1999 that grew to Indonesia’s largest airline
by number of passengers flown and fleet
size, did not, which resulted in booming business for the carrier and rapid expansion. Lion
Air plans to list at the Jakarta stock exchange
this year, and its market valuation is put by
analysts at $2bn, double the value of listed
Garuda Indonesia. Lion Air has also become
known for placing largest-ever single commercial orders for planes from both Boeing
and Airbus in both plane makers’ history,
at purchase values exceeding $45bn, while
Garuda keeps “adjusting” its flight network
by cutting international routes.
Southeast Asia’s national carriers have
also lost the race in fast-growing emerging
destinations such as Cambodia, where now
low-cost airlines are more or less setting
the agenda. Cambodia’s aviation market
grew by 13% in 2014, the fastest rate in
Southeast Asia, a phenomenon well noticed
by regional budget carriers such as JetStar,
AirAsia, Vietjet, Cebu Pacific or Silkair which
are offering highly affordable regional
flights to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, as
opposed to Thai Airways, Malaysia Airlines
and Vietnam Airlines which stick to partly
exorbitant prices, completely ignoring the
growing mass market of travellers.
Airbus Military general director Domingo Urena-Raso posing
in front of an A400M European military transport plane and
an A330 MRTT military Multi Role Tanker Transport plane (left)
during a visit at the European Airbus production plant in Blagnac,
near the southern city of Toulouse (file). Airbus Defence and
Space announced on Thursday the departure of Urena-Raso
following delays in the delivery of the A400M plane.
Airbus shakes up
‘critical’ A400M
army plane project
Reuters
Paris/Munich
A
With regards to long-haul flights to Cambodia, Qatar Airways made a wise decision to
launch direct daily flights from Doha to Phnom
Penh as early as in 2013. It is now the only airline from outside East Asia serving Cambodia
directly on a well-booked connection.
US economy expands less
than forecast in 4th quarter
Bloomberg
Washington
T
he economy in the US expanded at a slower pace
than forecast in the fourth
quarter as cooling business investment, a slump in government outlays and a widening
trade gap took some of the lustre
off the biggest gain in consumer
spending in almost nine years.
Gross domestic product grew
at a 2.6% annualised rate after a 5% gain in the third quarter that was the fastest since
2003, Commerce Department
figures showed Thursday in
Washington. The median forecast of 85 economists surveyed
by Bloomberg called for a 3%
advance. Consumer spending,
which accounts for almost 70%
of the economy, climbed 4.3%,
more than projected.
Swept up by the cheapest
gasoline in years and the biggest employment increase since
1999, households are gaining the
confidence to spend more freely,
which will bolster the odds the
world’s biggest economy can
escape a global slowdown unscathed. Engaged consumers will
help ensure that most American
employers will look to expand,
even as the decline in oil hurts
companies such as Caterpillar.
“Consumers are feeling pretty
good about their wallets and
where things are headed, and
that means a lot,” Bricklin Dwyer, an economist at BNP Paribas in New York, said before
the report. “It’s businesses vs.
consumers that is telling the
story of what’s happening in
the economy, and ultimately we
think the consumer side is most
important.”
GDP estimates in the Bloomberg survey of economists for
fourth-quarter GDP, the value of
all goods and services produced,
ranged from 1.8% to 3.6%. The
GDP estimate is the first of three
for the quarter, with the other
releases scheduled for February
and March when more information becomes available.
The gain in household consumption was the biggest since
the first quarter of 2006 and
compared with a 4% median
forecast in the Bloomberg survey. It followed a 3.2% advance
from July through September.
Purchases added 2.9 percentage
points to growth.
For all of 2014, the US economy grew 2.4% from the year
before, the most in four years
and following a 2.2% advance
in 2013. Consumption climbed
2.5%, the most since 2006.
For the fourth quarter, fixed
business investment increased
at a 2.3% annualized rate, compared with a 7.7% gain in the third
quarter. Corporate spending on
equipment dropped at a 1.9%
pace, the biggest decline since
the second quarter of 2009.
The trade deficit widened to
$471.5bn, as imports climbed
three times faster than exports.
The gap subtracted 1 percentage
point from GDP.
A surge in inventories helped
make up for some of the shortfall in trade. Stockpiles grew at
a $113.1bn rate, an increase of
$30.9bn from the third quarter,
adding 0.8 percentage point to
growth.
The GDP report also showed
government spending decreased
at a 2.2% pace, subtracting
0.4 percentage point to overall growth as defence spending
slumped by the most in two years.
Federal Reserve policy makers are monitoring economic
progress as they weigh their first
interest rate increase since 2006.
In a statement following a meeting this week, the central bank
acknowledged global risks, saying that it will take into account
readings on “international de-
velopments” as it decides how
long to keep rates low.
Meanwhile, US “economic
activity has been expanding at
a solid pace,” the Fed said in the
statement as it maintained its
pledge to be “patient” on raising
interest rates. “Labour market
conditions have improved further, with strong job gains and a
lower unemployment rate.”
Companies and consumers will need more evidence
the US economy can sustain its
momentum in the face of global headwinds, which include a
plunge in commodity prices and
the threat of deflation in Europe.
The cost of oil had dropped almost 60% since last year’s peak,
resulting in a financial windfall
for consumers as gas prices also
declined. A regular gallon of
gasoline cost an average $2.05 as
of Jan. 29, hovering near the lowest level since March 2009.
That’s being reflected in consumer confidence. The University of Michigan preliminary
consumer sentiment index for
January rose to an 11-year high
while the Conference Board’s
measure increasing to the highest level since August 2007.
While the gas-fuelled confidence kicks may encourage
households to spend more, the
decline in oil prices has pinched
companies such as Caterpillar.
The Peoria, Illinois-based machinery manufacturer said lower
oil and gas prices are “without a
doubt” the biggest reason it’s expecting sales to decline to $50bn
in 2015, Michael DeWalt, Caterpillar’s vice president of finance
services, said on a Jan. 27 conference call. The median estimate
from analysts’ had projected
revenue of $55.2bn. “With oil this
low, we expect substantial reductions” in spending by fuel producers, he said.
The labour market has yet to
show any signs of slowing. Employment grew in 2014 by almost
3mn, the most in any year since
1999, Labor Department data
showed this month.
Those gains are helping worker pay grow. After-tax personal
income adjusted for inflation
climbed at a 3.8% annualized
rate in the fourth quarter, the
most since mid-2013.
One reason earnings are growing more quickly is that inflation
is tame. The price index tied to
consumer spending dropped at
a 0.5% rate in the fourth quarter, the most in almost six years.
Excluding food and fuel, it rose
1.1%, the smallest gain since the
second quarter of 2013.
irbus Group shook up
the management and
organisation of the
A400M military transport
programme yesterday after the
latest in a long series of delays
and technical problems to beset Europe’s largest defence
project.
Chief executive Tom Enders
acted two days after apologising in Britain over the problems
and promising to draw internal
“consequences,” in what appears to be a last-ditch effort
to stabilise a programme facing
possible new financial charges.
As part of the shake-up, the
head of Military Aircraft activities, Domingo Urena-Raso,
offered to step down from his
post and will be replaced by fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso
from March 1, the company
said.
But production of the aircraft, which has faced quality
woes and difficulties in the integration of advanced military
features, will be transferred to
the defence division’s Operations unit, which is in charge of
quality management.
In a letter to staff, the overall
head of defence and space activities at Europe’s largest aerospace group said the A400M
was in a “critical situation”
and announced the creation of
a new monitoring board under
his command.
“We apologise to our customers for the delayed deliveries and performance shortfalls.
They will be rigorously addressed and we will do our utmost to overcome them,” Bernhard Gerwert said, according to
the letter seen by Reuters.
Shares in Airbus Group fell
around 2% on the latest problems with the huge turboprop
plane, which could trigger financial provisions with annual
results next month.
“Investors have been steeling
themselves for A400M charges
since at least the third quarter
of last year,” said Sash Tusa,
aerospace analyst at Edison Investment Research. “This announcement suggests the risk
is still on the negative side.”
Announcing third-quarter
results in November, Airbus
said there had been delays in
adding tactical features and
refuelling on A400M aircraft,
some of which would have to be
retrofitted.
It did not rule out adding
to the pile of €4.2bn in provisions over the life of the €20bn
project.
The incoming head of the
Military Aircraft unit, Alonso,
58, currently runs Airbus commercial flight test operations
and has worked closely on the
A400M, the company said.
His predecessor Urena-Raso
led negotiations that resulted in
a €3.5bn bailout for the A400M
project in 2010 from seven
Nato nations: Britain, Belgium,
France, Germany, Luxembourg,
Spain and Turkey.
The bailout effectively rescued a project which had run
into difficulty over engine
problems, but failed to overcome problems of co-ordination and integration, people
familiar with the project have
said.
While struggling to overcome internal problems, Airbus
has also been increasingly at
odds with Berlin over delays to
the A400M as well as a raft of
spending cuts and export controls.
Airbus insiders say Germany’s insistence on unusually advanced features for a
transport carrier, including
ground-hugging navigational
software more akin to missile
technology, were partly driven
by a desire to protect domestic
high-skilled jobs and ended up
hindering the project.
Germany has long argued
Airbus should meet its promises.
Urena-Raso “is a good manager but he was caught between
the complexities of the German
specifications, Spanish concerns over control, and Airbus
in Toulouse who are fundamental to the whole project,” a
person familiar with the programme said.
Urena-Raso is likely to stay
in Europe’s largest aerospace
company but the move is a
setback for one of its most respected and charismatic executives, who was once seen as
a candidate to run the Airbus &
Space Division, now headed by
Gerwert.
One analyst, asking not to be
identified, said however that
Enders had “missed a chance”
to resolve the A400M problems
once and for all by uprooting it
from Spain, which has had the
lead on military transporters
since folding its CASA business
into a mainly Franco-German
merger that created Airbus
Group in 2000.
QSE WEEKLY REVIEW
Bourse gains 1.72% on strong buy interests in insurance, industrial, banking stocks
By Santhosh V Perumal
Business Reporter
The Qatar Stock Exchange appeared resilient to external shocks of weak oil price
as it gained 1.72% or more than 200 points
during the week.
Strong buying interests were visible,
especially in the insurance, industrial
and banking counters during the week
that saw Bank of America Merrill Lynch
(BofAML) view that Qatar’s infrastructure
pipeline appears most robust; even as
prolonged weakened oil price may precipitate the downsizing and consolidation of
capital expenditure in the Gulf countries.
Foreign institutions were seen instrumental in instilling the bullish momentum
to the bourse during the week, which
witnessed BofAML aver that every $10
per barrel drop in oil prices shaves 3.4%
and 4.2% of gross domestic product
off fiscal and current account balances,
respectively, in the Gulf Cooperation
Council region.
Local retail investors continued to be
bullish but with lesser intensity during the
week that saw weak oil prices have had its
debilitating effect on Qatar with its trade
surplus shrinking considerably in December in view of sharp decline in exports
coupled with robust imports.
Crude oil prices have corrected by more
than 40% from their highs in 2014 owing
to excess supply, driven by higher US shale
oil output and a fall in demand because of
slowdown in many major economies.
Large and mid cap stocks were seen the
most sought after in the market, where
real estate, banks, industrials and telecom
stocks dominated the trading ring with
them constituting more than 90% of the
total trade volume.
Insurance stocks appreciate the most
at 3.12%, industrials (2.24%), banks and financial services (2.02%), transport (1.44%),
consumer goods (0.35%) and telecom
(0.17%); whereas realty fell 0.21% during
the week that witnessed Barwa Real Estate
inked pact with Arab Engineering Bureau,
which will provide consultancy and design
services to the expansion project of Barwa
Village on Al Wakra Road.
The 20-stock Total Return Index
rose 1.72%, All Share Index (comprising
wider constituents) by 1.58% and Al Rayan
Islamic Index by 0.84% during the week
that featured QSE asked the country’s
corporate sector to more embrace technology through its social media and other
avenues to enhance information pass
through as part of concerted efforts to
instill investor confidence in the financial
market.
Of the 43 stocks, 25 gained, while 17
declined and one was unchanged. Six of
the 12 banks and financial services; six
of the nine industrials; five of the eight
consumer goods; three of the five insurers;
two each of the two telecom and the three
transport; and one of the four real estate
stocks closed higher during the week.
Major gainers included QNB, Industries
Qatar, Aamal Company, Gulf International
Services, Qatar Insurance, Commercial
Bank, Doha Bank, Salam International
Investment, Milaha and Gulf Warehousing
during the week.
However, International Islamic, Alijarah
Holding, Dlala, Islamic Holding Group,
Qatar Electricity and Water, Mannai Corporation, Doha Insurance, Barwa and Mazaya
Qatar bucked the trend.
Market capitalisation appended 1.73% or
more than QR10bn to QR648.79bn.
Foreign institutions turned net buyers
to the tune of QR85.09mn against net sellers of QR11.68mn the previous week.
Local retail investors’ net buying
plummeted to QR22.08mn compared to
QR122.62mn the week ended January 22.
Domestic institutions’ net profit booking fell to QR97.65mn against QR131.8mn
the previous week.
Non-Qatari retail investors turned net
sellers to the extent of QR9.32mn compared with net buyers of QR21.13mn the
week ended January 22.
A total of 43.69mn shares valued at
QR2.03bn changed hands across 27,118
transactions.
The real estate sector saw a total of
14.66mn equities worth QR342.92mn
change hands across 4,993 deals.
The banks and financial sector witnessed as many as 12.53mn stocks valued
at QR888.18mn change hands across
10,023 transactions.
As many as 6.65mn industrials stocks
valued at QR447.56mn trade across 6,145
deals and the telecom sector saw 5.51mn
equities worth QR125.31mn trade in 2,851
transactions.
The market saw a total of 1.85mn
consumer goods stocks worth QR78.23mn
change hands across 1,356 deals.
The transport segment recorded
1.25mn shares valued at QR49.15mn trade
in 870 transactions.
The insurance saw a total of 1.24mn
equities worth QR94.53mn trade across
880 deals.
In the debt market, there was no trading
of government bonds and treasury bills
during the week.
NBA | Page 7
TENNIS | Page 5
GOLF | Page 9
Seahawks
seek to topple
Pats dynasty
in Super Bowl
Djokovic
masters
Wawrinka to
reach final
McIlroy
seizes Dubai
lead with late
birdie blitz
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Rabia II 11, 1436 AH
GULF TIMES
FOCUS
‘We put in serious work to
ensure Qatar 2015 is a success’
Organising Committee director general Dr Thani al-Kuwari says that the delegates’
feedback proves that this is the best handball world championship in history
T
he Qatar 2015 Organising Committee held a press conference at
the Lusail Multipurpose Arena
on Thursday evening in the presence of the Organising Committee director general Dr Thani al-Kuwari, Marketing and Communication Committee head
Sheikha Asmaa Thani al-Thani, and Protocol Committee head Saeed Abdullah alEidah and Security Committee’s Abdullah Sultan al-Ghanim.
“The Organising committee was determined to put up a tournament according
to the promises we had made,” Dr al-Kuwari said. “There were rumours that Qatar cannot put up good facilities and there
was no readiness but since the beginning
of the tournament, we have proven the
contrary. Our work on the ground has
demonstrated that Qatar puts out serious
work and not just words.”
He added that there were a lot of meetings in the run up to the tournament with
the International Handball Federation
(IHF). “Headed by the Organising Committee chairman HE Sheikh Joaan bin
Hamad al-Thani, the committee looked
into all the details, small and large, and we
are proud of having a leader of his stature.
Our efforts have proven that Qatar has
people capable of achieving success,” Dr
al-Kuwari added.
“There was transparency with the IHF,
and there were visits by the international
federation to ensure that we meet the
deadline. And on the first day, everyone
was impressed by our facilities and the
event we put out.
“We always aspire for the better and
our goal is to offer the best tournament in
the history. And delegates, officials, have
said that Qatar has organised the best
World Championship in history. These
reactions are thanks to everyone’s efforts,
led by HE Sheikh Joaan.”
When asked about attendance, he said,
that the tournament caught on with the
masses as it progressed. “We know how
important handball is to Europeans, but
we were able to create awareness among
the Arabs and Asians, who eventually began to attend the matches in big numbers.
More than three thousand tickets were
sold for the semi-finals on the tourna-
ment website,” he said.
He added that the message sent out
by Qatar by successfully organising the
handball world championships is that
Qatar can successfully host the 2022
World Cup. “There were many campaigns
against Qatar and but our response to
such sceptics is hosting a successful
handball world championship in 2015.
Our efforts have proven that Qatar is capable of organising major events, even the
Olympics, not just the World Cup.”
Dr al-Kuwari said that the Organising
Committee for 2017 World Championship in France and European Championship in Poland have asked for sharing of
experiences in hosting this Championship, and that they will be happy to do so.
2
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
24TH MEN’S HANDBALL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
REPORT
Qatar continue dream run,
beat Poland to reach final
Hosts are the first non-European side ever to reach handball world championship final
By Yash Mudgal
Doha
Q
atar and Valero Rivera’s
‘dream’ continues at the
24th Men’s Handball World
Championship.
Yesterday, in the first semi-final at
Lusail Multipurpose Hall, the hosts
continued their historic run when they
beat Poland 31-29 in front of an ecstatic
crowd to become the first non-European side ever to reach a world championship final.
Before this tournament, no other Asian team had gone beyond the
quarter-finals, while only two African
sides – Tunisia and Egypt -- had ever
reached the semi-finals.
Qatar will meet Olympic and European champions France in the final.
“As I said earlier, to reach so far in the
championship is a dream for us and I
am happy that it’s continuing,” Rivera
said.
He gave full credit of the victory to
the hard work by the players. “It was a
team effort. We have given our 100 per
cent in all the matches and happy to
see the boys are playing. I am very, very
happy for the country,” he said.
“We had talked about the need for a
two or three goal lead at half-time as
we knew that so far in this tournament,
Poland had won the second-half in all
their matches, except against Denmark
and Croatia, against whom they drew in
the last 30 minutes.
“Therefore, we expected the task to
be impossible, if we did not lead by two
or three goals at half-time, but fortunately we did, and we managed to make
it to the end, though Poland played
very, very well,” the Spaniard said.
The hosts, who went into the tournament ranked 36, had said at the beginning of the event that their aim was to
reach the last eight.
Poland started better, but Rivero’s
decision to introduce goal-keeper Danijel Saric in place of Goran Stojanovic
changed the tide for the hosts in the last
10 minutes of the game.
Qatar opened the match with aggressive defense, but it provided Poland’s line player Kamil Syprzak room
to score first two goals for the visitors.
This made Rivera move his defense a bit
back soon and this gave opportunity to
other Polish players.
Qatar players celebrate their win over Poland in the 24th Men’s Handball World Championship semi-final at Lusail Multipurpose Arena yesterday. PICTURES: Jayan Orma
Within the first quarter, Poland
already had three two-minute suspensions, while Qatar had none, but
nonetheless Poland managed to take
lead. Polish defence was so strong that
Qatar’s top scorer Zarko Markovic (60
goals) scored only once in the first half.
Left back Rafael Capote was the only
Qatar player to cause the Polish defense
Qatar’s Youssef Benali celebrates yesterday’s win.
Qatar fans celebrate the semi-final win over Poland yesterday.
some trouble in that first phase of the
match, scoring four goals.
As half-time approached, Saric
saved some goals and with seven and a
half minutes left in the first half, Qatar
managed to take the lead for the first
time at 12-11.
That lead was extended to 13-11 and
15-12, as Qatar took the upper hand in
the last minutes of the first half. The
hosts went into halftime at 16-13.
Qatar continued increasing their lead
in the second half when they made it to
21-16 before Poland managed to crawl
closer. But they never got any closer
than being two goals down.
“In the last ten minutes of the match,
the decisions from the referees went in
favour of the hosts, but I think our team
can be proud of our performance and
our will to fight, and now we are aiming for the bronze medal,” said Poland
centre-back Piotr Maslowski.
Capote and Kamaladin Mallash
scored six goals each for the winners.
“I feel so proud to be part of this
team, we are in the final. Incredible! We
have worked so hard to reach this far
and now we can continue our dream,”
Qatar line player Borja Vidal said.
Left back Michal Jurecki, who netted nine for Poland, said: “I have highest respect for the fighting spirit of my
team. On Sunday we will have to fight
for bronze medal and we are eager to
return home with the medal.”
Qatar’s Rafael Capote (second from left) looks to score against Poland yesterday. Capote scored six goals.
Qatar coach Valero Rivera guides his players during the semi-final against Poland yesterday.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
3
24TH MEN’S HANDBALL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
REPORT
FOCUS
France down
holders Spain to
reach title decider
Denmark to take on Croatia for the fifth spot in the tournament
France’s Michael Guigou (top) shoots past Spain’s Valero Rivera during their 24th Men’s Handball World Championship semi-final in Doha yesterday. (Reuters)
By Yash Mudgal
Doha
R
eigning Olympic and European
champions France defeated
champions Spain 26-22 in a
keenly-fought semi-final at the
Lusail Multipurpose Hall yesterday.
France will meet Qatar in the final tomorrow.
Both teams opened the match at high
speed, playing the powerful kind of
handball they are both known for. It was
France who first managed to create a substantial lead, going ahead 10-6 and 12-7
after the first quarter of an hour.
Thierry Omeyer was key in France’s
strong performance during the period,
as the 38-year-old goalkeeper pulled off
some incredible saves.
Spain tried stemming the fluent attacking play by France through a 4-2 defence, but the Spaniards did not get any
closer than three for the rest of the first
half which France led 18-14.
It took France nearly five and a half
minutes to score their first goal in the
second half, with Guillaume Joli scoring a
penalty, which was also their only goal in
the first 10 minutes after the break.
France still held a slight upper hand, as
Spain were creeping closer all the time,
right up until right wing Valentin Porte
decided it all with his goal to make it 2522 with a little over a minute left.
Joan Canelles and Cristian Ugalde
scored five each for Spain, while Cedric
Sorhaindo also scored five for France.
DENMARK BEAT SLOVENIA
Denmark defeated Slovenia 36-33 in the
match for the fifth to eighth placements
at Ali Bin Hamad Al-Attiya Arena.
The powerful Danish squad will play
against Croatia, who defeated Germany
28-23, for the fifth spot in the last match
of the tournament.
Slovenia will face off with Germany for
the seventh and eighth spot.
Slovenian right wing Dragan Gajic
showed why he is the strongest candidate
to win the title of the top scorer, providing for his team with the goals very early
in the match.
The team who finished fourth in the
last world championship in Spain was
two goals up after 14 minutes (8-6), before right wing Lasse Svan Hansen kickstarted a strong period for the Danes.
SG Flensburg’s left-hander hit 100
percent of his shots up until the half-time
break (8/8). Svan Hansen was leading the
fast-breaks for the Danish squad.
The runners-up from the last two major competitions (Euro 2014 and World
Championship 2013), pulled off an impressive 7-0 run in only five minutes
which was the last action of the first-half
(13-8 on the 20th minute).
Slovenian coach Boris Denic was faced
with a possible problem in defence after
By Sports Reporter
Doha
A
bdulla
Mohamed
al-Hajri (pictured),
head of the Administration Committee of
Qatar 2015, has congratulated
the Organising Committee on
its collaborative efforts that
have helped ensure that the 24th
Men’s Handball World Championship has exceeded expectations.
“Everything we have achieved
has been possible because of the
leadership demonstrated by HE
Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad al-Thani, president of the Organising
Committee. The entire committee gathers for daily meetings to
discuss and address any issues.
This has ensured that proceedings have been smooth,” he said.
The Main Operations Centre has been the central hub of
the 24th Men’s Handball World
Championship and the daily meetings have encouraged
cross-committee dialogues that
have contributed to the success
of the event.
Speaking about the contributions made by whole team, he
added, “The dedication shown
by committee and workforce has
ensured that Qatar 2015 will be a
success. In particular, it has an
excellent opportunity for Qatar nationals to lead and demonstrate that we can produce a
world-class sporting event.
“Another crucial element has
been the Volunteers Programme,
which has brought together more
than 1,500 people to work for the
Championship. Potential volunteers registered on the official
website and the initial response
was overwhelming. We received
about 3,500 applications then
they were filtered down through
interviews. There are also a huge
number of Qataris that volunteered for the event, and we owe
thanks to Ministry of Administrative Development, Josoor Institute, Qatar University as well
as different schools under the
Supreme Education Council for
encouraging people to take part,”
he explains.
In addition to Qataris, volunteers from a wide range of nations – particularly the English,
German and Filipino communities – have contributed significantly to the success of the tournament.
Kylie live tomorrow
Australian singing star Kylie Minogue will perform live
tomorrow at Lusail Multipurpose Hall, Qatar 2015 Organising
Committee announced on Twitter yesterday. All those with a
ticket for the final can enjoy the live performance.
SPOTLIGHT
BOTTOMLINE
School benefits from Maersk
sponsorship of Qatar 2015
By Sports Reporter
Doha
A
s part of Maersk’s sponsorship of
the 24th World Men’s Handball
Championship, students at one
lucky school in Qatar have gained
the chance to rub shoulders with fans from
around the world. Twenty four teams are
competing in the tournament, which is expected to draw up to one billion TV viewers
worldwide over a fortnight of competition.
Twenty tickets to the championships
were handed over to Newton International
Academy by Maersk and handball mascot
Fahed, as part of the company’s support
and sponsorship for the Schools Olympic Program. As part of this sponsorship,
Maersk Oil promotes the benefits and the
importance of healthy lifestyles in enabling sporting and academic success.
The Schools Olympic Program (SOP) is
an annual multi-sport inter-school competition for more than 25,000 students
in Qatar aged 5 to 18 years old. It runs for
7-8 months and culminates in finals at the
Aspire Dome. It is designed to promote an
active, healthy lifestyle for young people
while also educating them on a particular
sporting theme. The eighth annual finals
day for the SOP will be held on March 20.
Lewis Affleck, Maersk Oil Qatar’s Managing Director, said: “Sport plays an important role in the social development
of Qatar, so we are proud to be a prestige
sponsor of the World Handball Championships. At Maersk, we are committed to
defensive specialist Matej Gaber was sent
off in the 32nd minute. However, the biggest problem was how to stop Lasse Svan
Hansen instead of the biggest star of the
team – Mikkel Hansen.
Denmark was up by seven in the 40th
minute (27-20), but the Slovenians,
similar to the quarter-final clash against
France, didn’t give up until the last second of the match.
Gajic, Cehte, Zvizej and their teammates put the pressure on Denmark by
eating into their lead in the 51st minute
(29-26).
Danish coach Gudmundur Gudmundsson called a time-out in a bid to bring
a lackluster period to an end, and it was
enough for the win, as the Balkan boys
didn’t come closer than three goals to the
Danish outfit.
Right wings of both teams were the top
scorers as Lasse Svan Hansen scored 13
for the winners, while Gajic ended with 12
goals Slovenia.
Qatar 2015 has
given nationals ‘a
chance to shine
on a world stage’
Qatar 2015 mascot Fahed visits Newton International Academy.
playing a part in the continued human,
social, environmental and economic development of Qatar as it works towards
achieving the ambitious goals of the Qatar
National Vision 2030”.
John Woolgar, Head of Sport at Newton
International Academy said: “Sports stars
have a strong influence on students so
I’m sure the handball championships will
further embed how important a healthy
lifestyle is for success in sport but also in
life generally. It’s great that our students
got to experience such a world-class competition here in Doha, and I’m sure that it
will inspire them to pursue their sporting
goals.”
Maersk Oil Qatar – the operator of one
of the world’s most complex oil fields at
Al Shaheen, offshore Qatar – has an active
social investment programme, focused on
delivering and supporting projects and
partnerships that can make a positive and
lasting contribution to the economic and
social development of Qatar.
African teams
missed out again
E
uropean teams have continued to dominate in
major handball events while the African nations have been trying hard to get noticed on
the world stage. It was the same script here in
Doha at the 24th Men’s Handball World Championship.
Tunisia and Egypt showed a good run in the competition qualifying to the eighth-finals but their efforts
were not sufficient as they were overpowered by Germany and defending champions Spain respectively,
while African champions Algeria got a rude shock in
the competition ending their campaign without a win.
Reached for a comment on the team’s poor performance, right back Khaled Chentout, who plays for
Notteroy HB Norvege, found that inexperience contributed to the poor results compared to their opponents.
“Nothing really went wrong in the championship.
We played our game but playing with the World’s best
sides is not easy because they play higher leagues in
other developed countries. The style of play is also
different,” said Khaled
The Algerian team had only four players in the
squad who play professionally — Sassi Boultif (Nasr
Emirat, Dubai), Rabah Soudan (Cherbourg, France), El
Hadi Biloum (Martigues HB, France) and Aski Mokran
(US Dunkerrque, France).
African Handball Federation (CAHB) president
Aremou Mansourou was still satisfied with the performance of the teams pointing to the fact that the
Algerian team fielded a young squad.
“I expected more from Algeria but I am happy for
them because they have a young team in the championship. Tunisia and Egypt have done a good job qualifying for the next round.”
But he also noted that the continent has to do more
Algeria’s Sassi Boultif is one of only four players in
the African team’s handball Worlds squad who play
professionally. Boultif plays for Dubai’s Nas Emirat. (EPA)
in order to improve the results in the big championships in the future.
“After the championship, we will organise a meeting with top African countries to share how we can
move forward. In order to improve the sport we must
have facilities. We also want to look into having our
best players play in European leagues to improve their
game. That is the only way we can do better in the international championships.”
4
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
24TH MEN’S HANDBALL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
PICTURE PERFECT
Fans created an electric atmosphere during the semi-finals in the Lusail Multipurpose Arena yesterday. PICTURES: Jayan Orma
A dedicated team has been posted to cater to the entire media present at the Handball World Championship. Every day thousands of media personnel are enjoying the meals and
snacks at the Losail Multipurpose Hall, Ali Bin Hamad Al Attiya Arena and Duhail Handball Complex.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
5
TENNIS
SPOTLIGHT
WOMEN’S FINAL PREVIEW
Djokovic prevails
over Wawrinka in
tense five-setter
Sharapova aims
to bury the past
with fresh start
against Williams
‘I did not play on the level that I intended’
DPA
Melbourne
F
Take that...Novak Djokovic of Serbia in action against Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland during their semi-final match at the Australian Open yesterday.
AFP
Melbourne
W
orld number one Novak
Djokovic fought off Stan
Wawrinka over five tense
sets to master the defending
champion and reach his fifth Australian
Open final yesterday, where he will meet
Andy Murray.
The Serb top seed won 7-6 (7/1), 3-6,
6-4, 4-6, 6-0 in 3hr 30mins and will face
the British sixth seed for a third time in tomorrow’s Grand Slam decider.
It was Djokovic’s toughest match of
the tournament and his serve was broken
five times in another titanic duel with the
Swiss world number four.
The clash was their fourth straight
Grand Slam encounter to go to five sets
with Djokovic winning three of them. He
lost to Wawrinka in the quarter-finals at
last year’s Australian Open.
“I did not play on the level that I in-
tended,” he said. “There were parts of
the match where I stepped in and played
a game I needed to play, but other parts
where I played too defensive and allowed
him to dictate the play from the baseline.
“He has great depth in his shots. Once
he has control of the rallies it’s very difficult to play against him.
“So it was very emotional, very tense,
as it always is against a top player in semifinals of a Grand Slam.”
The top seed won through to his fifth
Australian Open final, having won his previous four deciders in Melbourne. He beat
Murray in the 2011 and 2013 finals.
But Murray also has form against Djokovic, beating him in the 2012 US Open and
2013 Wimbledon finals, setting up an unpredictable Melbourne Park decider.
It was not a convincing performance
from the Serb, who made 49 unforced errors to 27 winners and won just 70 percent
of his first serves, but crucially he broke
Wawrinka’s strong serve seven times.
“I think it was more mental because
once you back up and start playing defensively you spend a lot of energy,” Djokovic
said of his mid-match lapses.
“He was the one that was dictating the
rallies. There’s no question about it.
“Some points of the match I did struggle physically to recover for the next one
because I run a lot and he was getting a lot
of balls back in play.
“I didn’t have many free points on the
firs=t serve as I did throughout the tournament, so that was a significant change.”
Wawrinka said he too struggled mentally and was not at his best.
“I was telling my box it was tough for
me to stay with him, to find a way to win
points,” he said.
“Because I was just trying to fight and
to make some good choice, but today I was
just not there.”
Djokovic had lost only one of his 74
service games prior to the semi-final, but
Wawrinka broke him in the seventh game
of the match with a series of withering
backhands.
Results
Men’s singles semi-finals:
Novak Djokovic (SRB x1) bt
Stan Wawrinka (SUI x4) 7-6
(7/1), 3-6, 6-4, 4-6, 6-0
Women’s doubles final:
Bethanie Mattek-Sands (USA)/
Lucie Safarova (CZE) bt Chan
Yung-Jan (TPE)/Zheng Jie
(CHN x14) 6-4, 7-6 (7/5)
Mixed doubles
semi-finals: Martina Hingis
(SUI)/Leander Paes (IND x7)
bt Hsieh Su-Wei (TPE)/Pablo
Cuevas (URU) 7-5, 6-4
Daniel Nestor (CAN)/Kristina
Mladenovic (FRA x3) bt Sania
Mirza (IND)/Bruno Soares
(BRA x1) 3-6, 6-2 (10/8)
ive-time grand slam winner Maria Sharapova is not
letting thoughts of her 2-16
record against Australian
Open opponent Serena Williams
colour her preparation for today’s
final with her biggest rival.
Sharapova last won a match in
the series a decade ago and lost to
the American twice last season. For
the world number two, this latest
final is all about starting a fresh and
burying the past.
“I’m going into a Grand Slam
final, I don’t want to focus on (the
record). This is a new match,” said
the 27-year-old Russian who holds
five grand slam titles against 18 for
Williams.
“My confidence should be pretty high going into a final of a grand
slam no matter who I’m facing.
Even if I’ve had a terrible record, to
say the least, against someone, it
doesn’t matter.
“I got to the final for a reason. I
belong in that spot. I will do everything I can to get the title.”
Sharapova lifted the Melbourne
title in 2009 while Williams holds
five, the last one earned in 2010.
“It’s been a really long time since
I won here. It would be extremely
meaningful for me to win it again,”
said the Russian, who will be competing in her fourth Melbourne final. “I’ve had really good matches
and a good record here in Australia,
even since the junior days.
“I’ve been able to carry it over as
a professional. I’ve had many great
memories on Rod Laver Arena. I’ve
hopefully set myself up for another
good one.”
Sharapova knows she can’t rely
on the same tired tactics against
Williams if she is to stop the rot.
“Her power and her aggressiveness, have always made me a little
bit too aggressive, maybe going for
a little bit more than I had to.
“She’s great at making players
hit that shot that you don’t necessarily have to go for. It’s been a really difficult matchup for me, but
I’m a competitor. I will go out and
I will do everything I can to try to
change that (losing) result around.”
Williams will be trying to win
her second straight major after the
US Open last September with the
33-year-old now assured of holding onto the WTA top ranking no
matter what happens as she meets
the number two player.
“Maria is playing great. she’s a
fighter and she refuses to give up.
This will be a new match. She has
nothing to lose, once again - she
has only things to gain.
“I feel that way, too. I’ve won
this tournament several times. I
don’t have to go out there and have
another title. I want it - but it’s not
life or death for me.
“That helps me he relax. Neither
of us have anything to lose, so it
will be fun.”
Williams has her strategy
mapped out. “It’s going to be important for me to get off to a good
start. If not, I’m going to be ready
to fight. I can see that she wants to
do well.”
Yui Kamiji (L) of Japan and Jordanne Whiley of Great Britain in action
against Jiske Griffioen and Aniel Van Koot of the Netherlands in the
women’s wheelchair doubles match at the Australian Open yesterday.
BOTTOMLINE
Wawrinka ‘mentally dead’ after Open exit
AFP
Melbourne
S
tan Wawrinka said he was
“mentally completely dead”
after bowing out in five sets to
Novak Djokovic to end his Australian Open title defence in the semifinal yesterday.
The Swiss fourth seed had his moments during the intense 3hr 30min
match on Rod Laver Arena but it was
the Serb world number one progressing
to tomorrow’s final against Andy Murray after winning 7-6 (7/1), 3-6, 6-4,
4-6, 6-0.
“I’m really happy with my level. It
was mentally that I think I’m paying for
the price to finish off the season with
Davis Cup and not having a bigger offseason,” he said.
“I was trying to focus really well to
start the year well with winning Chennai and being here trying to do the best.
“I told my coach before the match
that I was mentally completely dead
and had no battery.
“It was tough to focus on what I want
to do. Tough to focus on my game. And
Stanislas Wawrinka of
Switzerland returns to
Novak Djokovic.
that’s what happened today.”
Wawrinka said the match was not top
quality, compared to sixth seed Murray
excelling in beating seventh seed Tomas Berdych in the other semi-final on
Thursday.
The Swiss upset Djokovic in last
year’s quarter-finals on the way to winning the Australian Open for his first
major title, but Friday’s match was nowhere near that standard.
“Describe the match? Strange. Not
the best, for sure. I think there were a
lot of ups and downs,” he said.
“At the beginning conditions weren’t
too good. The balls were flying about
and were not easy to control. It was not
the best match, for sure.
“I’m surprised we went five sets
again, but, no, we had some great battles here last two years. He was there
playing good enough to win and he deserved to win and play the final.”
Wawrinka, sporting a ‘Stan the Man’
shirt, said he was planning to take a
week’s break before his next tournament and had adjusted his playing
schedule this year to allow for more rest
and practice.
“I think I have a good schedule for the
year. I will try to have some moments
when I can practice with my coach and
fitness trainer, when I can have some
holiday,” he said.
“So it should be fine for the year
again. I think it’s about the right schedule for the year.”
Melbourne: The unseeded pairing of
American Bethanie Mattek-Sands and
Czech Lucie Safarova won the Australian Open women’s doubles title yesterday, their first Grand Slam success.
The two were playing together in
Melbourne for the first time and clicked
immediately, downing the 14th seeded
Zheng Jie of China and Taiwan’s Chan
Yung-Jan 6-4, 7-6 (7/5).
“I mean, our name is carved on this
trophy. It’s pretty cool,” said a delighted
Mattek-Sands, who slipped to 258 in
the singles rankings after injuring her
hip last year.
“This trophy at least started in 1922,
I think. It’s got a lot of great names on
there. We get to add ours now.”
They beat five seeds to clinch the title
and in doing so became the first unseeded women’s duo to claim the Australian
crown since Svetlana Kuznetsova and
Vera Zvonareva in 2012.
6
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
CRICKET
SPOTLIGHT
RECOVERY
Dhoni insists out of
form India primed
for the World Cup
‘From a confidence point of view we are quite good. It has been a long tour so far but
with this break now will really help us. The guys should be able to come back strong’
Scoreboard
INDIA INNINGS
A. Rahane c Buttler b Finn
73
S. Dhawan c Buttler b Woakes
38
V. Kohli c Root b Ali
8
S. Raina c Woakes b Ali
1
A. Rayudu c Buttler b Broad
12
MS Dhoni lbw Anderson
17
S. Binny c Bell b Finn
7
R. Jadeja c Finn b Broad
5
A. Patel c Bell b Finn
1
M. Sharma not out
7
M. Shami c Buttler b Woakes
25
Extras (lb2, w4)
6
Total (all out, 48.1 overs)
200
Fall of wickets: 1-83 (Dhawan), 2-103
(Kohli), 3-107 (Raina), 4-134 (Rayudu), 5-136
(Rahane), 6-152 (Binny), 7-164 (Dhoni), 8-164
(Jadeja), 9-165 (Patel), 10-200 (Shami).
Bowling: Anderson 9-1-24-1, Woakes 9.11-47-2, Broad 10-1-56-2, Finn 10-0-36-3, Ali
10-0-35-2
ENGLAND INNINGS
I. Bell lbw Sharma
10
M. Ali c Rayudu b Patel
17
J. Taylor c Raina b Sharma
82
J. Root c and b Binny
3
E. Morgan c Dhawan b Binny
2
R. Bopara c Jadeja b Binny
4
J. Buttler c Rayudu b Shami
67
C. Woakes not out
4
S. Broad not out
3
Extras (w7,nb2)
9
Total (7 wickets, 46.5 overs)
201
Fall of wickets: 1-14 (Bell), 2-40 (Ali), 3-44
(Root), 4-54 (Morgan), 5-66 (Bopara), 6-191
(Taylor), 7-193 (Buttler).
Bowling: Binny 8-0-33-3, Sharma 10-1-36-2,
Shami 9-0-31-1, Patel 10-1-39-1, Jadeja 9.50-62-0
Virat Kohli of India grimaces after being dismissed against England at the Western Australian Cricket Association (WACA) ground in Perth.
AFP
Perth
I
ndia captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni
insisted yesterday his team will be
primed for their upcoming World
Cup title defence, despite ending a
miserable tour of Australia without a win.
India bowed out of the one-day international tri-series with another poor
batting effort, which condemned them to
defeat in their clash with England at the
WACA Ground in Perth.
Sent in to bat, India were dismissed for
200 and although England stumbled early, they recovered to edge their way to 201
for seven and win with 19 balls to spare.
That booked England a berth in tomorrow’s final against Australia at the
same venue.
It ended a fruitless three-month tour
for India ahead of next month’s World
Cup in Australia and New Zealand, in
which they failed to notch a win in 10
matches, including four Tests and four
one-day internationals.
Dhoni conceded their batting had been
a concern. However, he expected his
batsmen to regain their best form before
the World Cup and said the focus would
be on recharging their batteries in the
coming weeks.
“From a confidence point of view we
are quite good,” he said.
“It has been a long tour so far but with
this break now, it will really help us. The
guys should be able to come back strong.”
With the winner of the game advancing to tomorrow’s final, England looked
in deep trouble when they slumped to 66
for five in their run chase.
However, James Taylor and wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler rescued their
cause. The pair rode their luck to put on
125 for the sixth wicket and carry their
side to within 10 runs of victory, before
both fell in quick succession.
Taylor made 82 (122 balls) before holing out to deep fine leg from the bowling
of Mohit Sharma in the dying stages of
the chase.
Buttler made the most of an early reprieve, when he should have been run
out.
He went on to make a match-winning
67 from 78 balls before falling just two
runs after Taylor, caught on the boundary
from the bowling of Mohammed Shami.
Taylor said England was looking forward to the final with a win handing them
a psychological advantage ahead of their
World Cup opener in Melbourne.
“It would make a massive statement,
no doubt,” he said.
“It is going to be a challenge, they are
playing some great cricket at the moment, but we are all looking forward to it.
“We know if we string all three facets
together and do them to the best of our
ability, which we are getting close to doing, we know we are going to put in a real
good performance on Sunday”
Having been sent in to bat, India
squandered the good platform provided
by their openers.
They lost six wickets for just 31 runs
to slump to 165-9, before some late hit-
ting from Mohammed Shami (25 from 18
balls) and Mohit Sharma boosted their
total.
The Indians made an encouraging start
to their innings through the previously
out-of-form Shikhar Dhawan and opening partner Ajinkya Rahane.
The pair put on 83, but the innings
started to unravel when Dhawan was
caught behind by Buttler from the bowling of Chris Woakes for 38.
Virat Kohli’s poor series then continued when he was caught by Joe Root from
the bowling of spinner Moeen Ali (2-35)
for just eight.
Kohli averaged 86.50 during the Test
series against Australia, which India lost
2-0, but has been unable to continue that
form into the limited overs format, making just 24 runs at 8.00.
From there, wickets fell steadily, with
only Rahane offering serious resistance
with 73.
Steven Finn’s good series continued
when he claimed 3-36 for England, with
every English bowler tasting success.
‘Positive’ Clarke to
test fitness on road
AFP
Sydney
A
ustralia
captain
Michael Clarke will
bat in a local game this
weekend as he embarks
on a gradual return to competitive cricket in a bid to be fully
fit for the World Cup after hamstring surgery.
Cricket Australia said the
33-year-old, who also suffers
from a chronic degenerative back
condition, would turn out for
Sydney’s Western Suburbs today
and tomorrow.
Then, if all goes well, for a
Cricket Australia XI against a
Bangladesh XI on February 5,
adding a limited fielding capacity
to his batting.
“He remains on track for a return in Australia’s second ICC
Cricket World Cup match on 21
February,” a statement said yesterday.
“Michael is making good
progress following his injury and
the subsequent surgery six weeks
ago,” said physiotherapist Alex
Kountouris.
Clarke had surgery in December after badly tearing his right
hamstring during the first Test
against India.
That ruled him out of the following three Tests and threat-
ened his involvement in the
world one-day tournament
which begins on February 14 in
Australia and New Zealand.
Kountouris said Clarke was on
track to play the second match of
Australia’s World Cup campaign
against Bangladesh in Brisbane
on February 21.
Clarke said the weekend knock
was “a positive step on my road
to a return to full fitness.
“It is exciting to be at this stage
where I can consider walking
onto a cricket field again ... the
signs are positive.
“I know I need to take things
one step and one day at a time
and so, for now, all I am doing
is focusing on things day by day
and with a belief in a positive
outcome.”
The news came after a week of
headlines suggesting Clarke was
on a collision course with Cricket
Australia over World Cup selection if he failed to regain fitness
in time.
Fairfax Media has also reported that the team are very settled
and successful under laid-back
young stand-in captain Steve
Smith, raising questions about
whether the more aggressive
Clarke would get his place back.
A Cricket Australia XI will also
play against the Bangladeshis on
February 3 as part of the tourists’
build up to the World Cup.
Miller replaces Narine in Windies WC squad
Left-arm spinner Nikita Miller
will replace Sunil Narine in the
West Indies squad for next
month’s World Cup, the West
Indies Cricket Board said.
Off-spinner Narine, who was
reported for a suspect action
during the Champions League
Twenty20 tournament in September, has withdrawn from
the squad, saying he needed
more time to bowl confidently
with his remodelled action.
Miller, 32, has taken 40 wickets
in 45 One Day Internationals,
the last match being against
England last March.
West Indies begin their World
Cup campaign against Ireland
at Nelson on Feb 16.
Bangladesh need to be realistic about World Cup
chances, says former skipper Athar Ali
Former Bangladesh captain
Athar Ali Khan yesterday
stated that the country needs
to be realistic about the team’s
chances in the World Cup.
“I know about the expectations
16 crore people have from our
cricket team, but it has to be
realistic. We must take our
opponents into consideration,”
Khan was quoted as saying by
the Dailystar.
“They are capable of winning
matches against any team. But
even India is struggling in Australia after playing four Tests,
so we have to be realistic.”
Khan also said the team needs
to take one game at a time.
“Right at this moment I am not
looking beyond Feb 18 (first
game). We need to win our first
game against Afghanistan and
after that many things can happen in favour of the Tigers,”
he said.
The 52-year-old also believes
that given the talent that the
team has with the world’s best
all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan
and batsman Tamim Iqbal leading the pack, they would surely
put up a fight in the quadrennial tournament.
BOTTOMLINE
Afghan cricketers prepare for ‘dream’ debut
AFP
Kabul
A
t an indoor academy in Kabul,
Afghanistan’s cricketers are
training hard for their debut
in the upcoming World Cup
tournament in Australia and New Zealand next month.
Shuttle runs and lifting weights help
keep out the bitter chill of the Afghan
winter as the players tune up for the tournament on warmer antipodean shores.
The Afghans’ opening match against
Bangladesh in Canberra on February 18
will mark the culmination of a fairytale journey for a team born in the ashes
of decades of war.
Afghanistan qualified for the last two
World Twenty20 tournaments in 2010
and 2012 but lost all their matches,
however this will be their first time in
the 50-over tournament.
“It really means so much to play
in a mega event like the World Cup,”
Mohammad Nabi Eisakhil, the team’s
30-year-old captain, wearing a thick
jersey and winter hat inside the chilly
training facility, told AFP.
Cricket came to Afghanistan through
Afghan cricketers practice at the Kabul Cricket Academy training centre in Kabul.
refugee camps in Pakistan, where
countless Afghans fled the 1979 Soviet
invasion of their homeland.
After learning it in exile, young Afghans brought cricket back with them
when the Taliban fell in 2001 and
the game has gone from strength to
strength ever since.
Afghanistan face a tough fight to
get out of their group, which includes
Test powerhouses Australia, Sri Lanka,
England and New Zealand. Only the top
four in each group go through to the
knockout stages.
But the side are buoyant after beating Bangladesh in the Asia Cup last year
and know the big-name sides will be
wary of a possible giant-killing.
“We have a chance, if we play to our
potential, to qualify for the quarterfinals,” said Nabi, an off-spinning allrounder with 43 one-day internation-
Afghan cricketers pose after practice at the Kabul Cricket Academy in Kabul.
als under his belt.
“This is a game that can bring Afghanistan together and be a very good
tool for peace and stability.”
The Taliban are gone from power in
Afghanistan but their resilient insurgency still exacts a bloody toll, particularly on civilians.
The country’s cricket board chairman Nasimullah Danish agreed with his
captain that the game is a good way to
inspire the country—and spread a more
positive image abroad.
“We will rock the World Cup, all the
boys are in confidence,” Danish said.
“We will show to the world that we
are cricketers, and we are the people of
peace, and we are the people of sports.”
A lack of facilities and security issues
have been major challenges for the cricket team, but the Afghans’ wholehearted
approach—not to mention their fairy-
tale rise—won over many neutrals in their
World Twenty20 appearances.
The team’s English head coach Andy
Moles, a solid opening batsman for
Warwickshire in his playing days, said
part of his role was to channel and focus
their fearsome competitiveness.
“The overriding factor for my team is
their passion and their excitement for the
game,” said Moles, who has previously
coached Scotland and New Zealand.
“They play very instinctive cricket,
and a big point for me is the challenge to
get them to stay calm under pressure.”
Moles is realistic about the team’s
chances, targeting a win over Bangladesh and saying qualifying for the
quarter-finals would be like winning
the whole tournament.
For players like Hamid Hassan, the
chance to compete in his country’s
royal blue shirt at famous stadiums is
an achievement in itself. “If we (look)
back 10 years we had nothing. We are
thinking this is like a dream and we feel
so proud,” said the 27-year-old bowler.
“We have waited 10 years for this
moment,” Hamid added. “I dreamed of
playing on the biggest stage and now
the time has come to do our best in the
tournament.”
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
7
SPORT
NFL
Seahawks seek to topple Pats
dynasty in Super Bowl 49
‘They’ve got a lot of eyes on the quarterback, so you’ve got to be conscious of those things’
AFP
Phoenix, Arizona
T
om Brady and the scandal-tainted New England Patriots will aim to
strike a blow for the old
order in Super Bowl 49 tomorrow as they face a formidable
Seattle Seahawks team bidding
to forge a dynasty.
After a build-up dominated by
the “deflategate” saga, the Patriots are determined to puncture
the dreams of a Seahawks outfit chasing back-to-back Super
Bowls for only the eighth time in
history.
The last team to accomplish
the feat were the Patriots, whose
2004-05 titles capped a glorious
run of three wins in four seasons.
Brady piloted the Patriots to all
of those victories, and now vies
to join his boyhood idol Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw as starting quarterbacks with four Super
Bowl rings.
But the game at University of
Phoenix Stadium in suburban
Glendale could just as easily see
a passing of the torch, from oldguard Brady to rising star Russell
Wilson.
The 26-year-old Seahawks
signal-caller is now 10-0 in his
career when he goes head-tohead against quarterbacks who
have won a Super Bowl.
That includes the Seahawks’
crushing victory over Peyton
Manning and the Denver Broncos
in last year’s title game.
Seattle have made some
changes since then but they still
boast an elite defense, led by
their ferocious corps of defensive
backs—the Legion of Boom.
Best defense ever?
The Seahawks are the first
team since the 1969-71 Minnesota Vikings to lead the NFL in
scoring defense for three straight
seasons—lending credence to
defensive end Michael Bennett’s
claim that Seattle now boasts the
best defense “ever to play football.”
A Super Bowl repeat would go
a long way to further backing up
the claim that the Seahawks “D”
has surpassed Pittsburgh’s famed
New England Patriots Tom Brady will aim to strike a blow for the old order in Super Bowl 49 tomorrow as they face a formidable Seattle Seahawks.
“Steel Curtain” or the imposing
squads of the 1980s Bears and
2000 Ravens.
“I am too young to be thinking about legacy right now,” said
Seattle safety Earl Thomas, “but
sometimes you don’t have to
say anything because your work
speaks for itself. We definitely
have that on the table.”
Brady is gearing up for the
challenge.
“There is nothing easy about
what they do,” Brady said of the
ENTERTAINMENT
Seahawks defense. “They’re very
disciplined. They’re very smart.
They’re very well-coached.
“You’ve got to run good routes,
you’ve got to make good throws,
you’ve got to throw it through
tight windows.
“They’ve got a lot of eyes on
the quarterback, so you’ve got to
be conscious of those things. But
you still have to be able to play
aggressively and play with confidence.”
Brady and the Patriots, who
suffered Super Bowl disappointment in 2008 and 2012, could
yet secure their status as the
league’s dominant team for more
than a decade—despite the whiff
of scandal carried by the 2007
“Spygate” illegal videotaping af-
fair and the “Deflategate” controversy over improperly inflated
footballs that followed them to
Phoenix.
The Patriots, from coach Bill
Belichick on down, have tried to
set the matter aside this week and
focus on the task in hand.
Brady’s options have expanded
this season with the return of a
healthy Rob Gronkowski at tight
end and the addition in November of productive running back
LeGarrette Blount.
New England’s defense this
season has been bolstered by the
return of safety Patrick Chung
and the addition former Pro Bowl
cornerbacks Darrelle Revis and
Brandon Browner.
In addition to contending with
the resourceful Wilson—adept
at throwing on the run and capable of significant gains on the
ground, the Pats defense will
have to find a way to slow down
Marshawn Lynch, set career
highs with 13 rushing and four
receiving touchdowns to lead the
league with 17 total TDs.
The contest promises to be a
classic, and that’s just what the
NFL would like to see as they try
to finish a season full of low notes
on a high.
The disastrous handling of the
Ravens’ Ray Rice and his domestic violence case shone a spotlight on the league’s failure to deal
effectively with the issue among
its players.
But come tomorrow, when
more than 100mn Americans are
expected to tune into the game,
it will be a celebratory spectacle
that they see.
“When you think of dynasty
at the beginning, you think of
the Patriots back in the day,” said
Seahawks linebacker O’Brien
Schofield. “They really set that
standard of a winning tradition.”
It’s a standard Schofield is confident the Seahawks can meet.
“With the players that we have,
there are so many guys that are
playing at a high level, and they’re
so young. I think that when you
find a great equation to win and
all you’re doing each year is just
trying to get better yourself, to
me, that’s the true definition of a
dynasty.”
SPOTLIGHT
Perry super excited Gronkowski, Chancellor
for Super Bowl gig set for epic battle
AFP
Phoenix, Arizona
Reuters
Phoenix, Arizona
K
here will be no shortage of fascinating
match-ups in Sunday’s Super Bowl but
the clash between New England tight end Rob Gronkowski
and Seattle strong safety Kam
Chancellor could be the most
crucial.
Gronkowski caught 82 passes
for 1,124 yards and 12 touchdowns during the regular season with his power and positional astuteness making him
quarterback Tom Brady’s go-to
option.
But tomorrow he will be
up against an opponent who
matches him for physicality and
athleticism.
Asked what the first collision between the pair will be
like, Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman said, “It’s going to be loud. Two big, strong
men — I think that’s what
football is about. I think a lot
of people are looking forward
to that.”
Chancellor is one of the
standout members of Seattle’s
league-best defense but he
knows he is in for a busy night
against Gronkowski.
“That’s their playmaker, that’s their go-to guy.
They’re definitely going to
try and target him a lot, try
to get him the ball,” said
aty Perry promised
good, clean fun and a
few surprises in her
Super Bowl halftime
show, warming up for the coveted gig with a briefing that was
as much performance as press
conference.
“I think I’m going to play to
my strengths, which are humor, incredible joy,” Perry said
as she looked ahead to the 12
½-minute show that has become a must-see event in the
middle of the NFL’s championship extravaganza.
Clad in a football-themed,
cheerleader-inspired pink and
blue outfit, her black hair pulled
back into a sleek tail, an ebullient
Perry said she hoped the event
would be a “wonderful, fun, not
so serious time.”
“I look back at past performers I admire, like Beyonce who
brings that incredible strength
and Madonna who really
brought some incredible graphic
design and choreography, I think
what I bring is just some lightheartedness.
“I will tell you, I’m probably
the only person in Super Bowl
halftime history who will bring
both a lion and sharks to the
show.”
Perry refused to elaborate after that tease, and also refused
to be drawn on a surprise guest,
T
Recording artist Katy Perry throws a football during the Super Bowl
XLIX halftime show press conference at the Phoenix Convention
Center on Thursday.
although she did say the mystery
entertainer who would join her
was a woman who would make
for “a real female fun night.”
Perry, 30, is known for her
flamboyant costumes and such
hits as Firework, California
Gurls, Dark Horse and Part of
Me.
Although the show is short,
she said her fans could expect to
see costume changes and hear at
least snippets of many of her hits.
“If I have 12 ½ minutes,” Perry
said, “I’m going to show off a few
looks ... the opening costume is
going to flaming hot.”
She fudged a bit when asked
if she would sing everything
live, rather than employing lipsynching to pre-recorded music.
“We have a very short amount
of time to get everything out, we
have a huge stage, I’m going to be
using a lot of graphic effects, so
we have to lay out a layer on the
field that is almost as big as the
field so that the graphic effects
will work ... but I think a lot of it
will be live.”
Perry, a pal of Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, says she
has soft spot for Seattle because
of the friendship but not necessarily a great deal of football
knowledge.
Still, she showed she was up to
date on the talking points of Super Bowl week.
“I think I can assure everyone
here that nothing in my performance will be deflated,” Perry
quipped, a reference to the ongoing controversy over improperly inflated footballs used by
the Patriots in a playoff win.”
Seattle strong safety Kam Chancellor upto the task of neutralising
New England tight end Rob Gronkowski.
Chancellor, who brings
strength and speed to the
secondary.
Gronkowski is one of the
biggest tight ends in the
league at 6 foot 6 and 225
pounds but Chancellor says
he is ready.
“He’s a tight end for a reason. He was blessed with that
size, that speed and that ability.
“He is an athletic guy,
fast guy and he’s crafty with
what he does. He uses his
body well to shed off defenders. He catches the ball well.
He has a great quarterback.
It’s a quarterback that looks
for him on a lot of plays, and
he gets a lot of target,” said
Chancellor, who said the of-
ficials will largely determine
just how physical their contest
becomes.
For Seahawks coach Pete
Caroll, Gronkowski, an intelligent route runner, poses several
problems, requiring a flexible
strategy.
“Kam Chancellor is about
as big as a strong safety as you
will find (but) we’ll have to play
him a number of different ways
to have a chance to slow him
(Gronkowski) down. They’ll get
the ball to him, it’s just how effective it will be.
“We have to do a terrific job
of it because if we don’t, then
he can control the football
game.”
Deep-sleeping Patriots unfazed by false fire alarms
PHOENIX: A pair of false fire
alarms that rang through the
New England Patriots’ Super
Bowl hotel was not enough to
rattle the team as several players said on Thursday they slept
through the blaring noise.
A false alarm during the night
on Monday was followed by
another in the early morning hours on Thursday due
to a smoke detector that was
isolated to one wing of the
resort where the team is staying ahead of tomorrow’s Super
Bowl between the Patriots and
defending champion Seattle
Seahawks in Glendale, Arizona.
When asked whether there was
an issue with the alarm, none of
the Patriots players claimed to
have been bothered.
“If there has, I haven’t heard it. I
must be sleeping through it, so
that’s good,” Patriots quarterback Tom Brady told reporters.
The latest false alarm caused
a two-minute disturbance and
there were no injuries or reason
to evacuate, a spokeswoman
for the Sheraton Wild Horse
Pass told Reuters.
The hotel is looking into the
cause of the false alarms.
“It didn’t wake me up. I guess it
wasn’t in my wing. I was fine,”
said Patriots running back
Shane Vereen.
8
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
SPORT
Durant and
Thompson
added to
NBA all-star
game
LOS ANGELES: Reigning MVP Kevin Durant
and first time all star Klay
Thompson were selected
to the NBA all-star game
as reserve players, the
league announced Thursday.
Durant, who was named
MVP of the 2012 all-star
game and will be appearing
in the marquee affair for
the sixth consecutive time,
has only played in 21 of
Oklahoma City’s 46 games
while dealing with foot and
toe injuries.
Golden State Warriors
sharpshooter Thompson will be making his
first appearance. There
are plenty of familiar
faces among the Western
Conference reserves, including Durant’s Thunder teammate Russell
Westbrook, NBA scoring
leader James Harden, of
the Houston Rockets,
and Los Angeles Clippers point guard Chris
Paul.
But there were also several
who were snubbed including Sacramento center
DeMarcus Cousins and
Portland point guard Damian Lillard.
The game will be held at
Madison Square Garden on
February 15.
Spurs big man and future Hall of Famer Tim
Duncan will be making
his 15th appearance in
the all-star game, tying
him with Kevin Garnett
and Shaquille O’Neal
for third-most all-time.
Portland power forward
LaMarcus Aldridge, who
has put off thumb surgery, rounds out the West
roster.
Harden is expected to
be bumped up to the
starting lineup in place
of injured Los Angeles
Lakers star Kobe Bryant,
who is sidelined for the
rest of the season after
undergoing surgery on
his shoulder.
There were few surprises
among the Eastern Conference reserves, with the
first place Atlanta Hawks
placing three players in the
game for the first time in
35 years.
Point guard Jeff Teague
made his first all-star
game, forward Paul Millsap his second and centre
Al Horford will represent
the East for the third
time.
NBA
Grizzlies rock Nuggets
for fifth straight win
‘We knew what they did to us, so we definitely wanted to come out get off to a good start’
Agencies
Los Angeles
T
he Memphis Grizzlies
put the helpless Denver
Nuggets in a bear hug
and squeezed the life
out of them.
Zach Randolph had 15 points
with 17 rebounds Thursday, and
the Grizzlies crushed the visiting Nuggets 99-69 for their
fifth straight win.
On January 3, the Grizzlies
minus injured Randolph suffered a 29-point beat-down by
the Nuggets. But with the power
forward back in the lineup and
dominating inside, they exacted
a measure of revenge, matching their biggest blowout of the
season.
“We knew what they did to
us, so we definitely wanted to
come out get off to a good start,”
Randolph said. “And that’s
what we did.”
Jeff Green netted 13 points,
Spaniard Marc Gasol had 10
and seven rebounds on his 30th
birthday for Memphis (34-12),
which won for ninth time in the
last 10 games.
The Grizzlies were further
motivated after learning guard
Mike Conley and Randolph were
snubbed by coaches as Western
Conference reserves for next
month’s All-Star Game.
“Obviously, I want them both
there,” said Gasol, voted a firsttime starter by the fans. “I feel
like they both deserve it and
we’re the second-best team in
the West.
“All-Stars should be about
winning. When you play well
and you’re on a winning team
you’re supposed to be there.”
The Grizzlies started fast and
never let up, racing to a 26-11
lead after the opening quarter
and 50-35 at halftime.
The gap grew to 27 in the
third period and Memphis carried a 74-49
cushion into the final frame
before coasting to their eighth
win in
the last nine home games
“Everybody’s playing good basketball right now. Our bench is going real good along with starters,”
Randolph added. “That’s what we
need going forward.”
Chicago Bulls Nikola Mirotic of Montenegro (left) and Jimmy Butler (right) defend as Los Angeles Lakers Jeremy Lin drives to the basket in the first half of their game in Los
Angeles, California on Thursday.
Wilson Chandler and Kenneth Faried netted 10 points
apiece for the Nuggets (19-28),
who lost for the eighth time in
nine contests after putting up a
season-low point total.
Playing their second game
in as many nights, the Nuggets were a no-show following
Wednesday’s 93-85 win at New
Orleans.
“We didn’t compete from
the start,” Nuggets coach Brian
Shaw said. “I’d have more respect if the guys told me they
didn’t feel like playing tonight.
One night giving a certain effort
and the next night you don’t
show up and you don’t compete. I’m sick and tired.”
Elsewhere, Jordan Hill scored
26 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, and the Los Angeles
Lakers halted a nine-game losing skid with a thrilling doubleovertime 123-118 victory over
the Chicago Bulls.
Wayne Ellington added 23
points as the Lakers (13-34)
avoided matching the 1993-94
club for the franchise’s worst
losing run.
Jimmy Butler led Chicago
(30-18) with 35 points, while
SPOTLIGHT
forward Pau Gasol, in his first
return to Los Angeles since he
spurned the Lakers to sign as a
free agent with Chicago, had 20
points, 10 rebounds and six assists.
Gasol received a standing
ovation and a video tribute prior
to the contest.
Indiana, who had lost
their last three home games,
scored a combined 67 points
during the second and third
quarters on their way to a
103-82 victory over the New
York Knicks.
The Pacers (17-31) caught fire
in the middle quarters to outscore New York by 35 during
that 24-minute window.
Rodney Stuckey led Indiana with 22 points while Roy
Hibbert added 18 points and 10
rebounds.
Carmelo Anthony had 18 and
Lou Amundson added 17 for the
Knicks (9-38), who are an NBAworst 3-21 on the road.
Jerryd Bayless scored 19
points in 20 minutes, leading
the well-balanced Milwaukee
Bucks to a 115-100 victory over
the Orlando Magic.
The Bucks (24-22) had seven
players score in double figures while snapping a 17-game
losing streak in Orlando. The
Magic (15-34) lost their seventh
consecutive game.
Milwaukee’s John Henson,
in his first start of the season,
finished with 12 points and 11
rebounds.
Results
Milwaukee ...........115
Indiana ..................103
Memphis ..............99
LA Lakers ............123
Orlando ............. 100
NY Knicks............82
Denver................... 69
Chicago ................ 118
NHL
Olympic hero Brodeur Paquette has 3 goals,
hangs up pads
Lightning beat Wings
AFP
Toronto
AFP
Florida
N
T
ational Hockey League goalie
Martin Brodeur, who backstopped Canada to Olympic
gold medals and the New Jersey Devils to Stanley Cups titles, announced his retirement on Thursday.
The 42-year-old from Montreal ended his brilliant 21-year National Hockey
League career after playing in just seven
games this season with the St. Louis
Blues.
He has accepted a front office job with
the Blues.
“The thing about hockey for me is I
am really competitive and I am leaving
the game with a big smile on my face,”
said Brodeur.
“This [front office job] is a great opportunity for me to start something new
and I am really excited,” he said.
Brodeur holds the all-time goaltending record for most regular season wins
at 691. He was 3-3-0 with a 2.87 goalsagainst average and one shutout during
his short stint with the Blues.
Brodeur represented Canada at four
Winter Olympics, winning gold medals in 2002 in Salt Lake City and 2010 in
Vancouver.
He backstopped New Jersey to three
Stanley Cup titles, won the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender four
times and set numerous NHL records.
He was initially named back-up in
Salt Lake City but won the starting job
and the gold for Canada.
he Tampa Bay
Lightning got an
unlikely hat-trick
from rookie center
Cedric Paquette, sending
a strong statement to another Eastern Conference
power and jumping into
first place with a 5-1 victory over the Detroit Red
Wings on Thursday.
The Lightning (31-15-4)
set a franchise record with
their ninth straight home
win, getting a big night
from Paquette, who came
into the night with only six
goals all season.
Tampa
Bay
moved
above the Red Wings (2812-9) and Islanders with
National Hockey League goalie Martin Brodeur.
Brodeur started four of six games at
the 2006 Turin Games but Canada lost
in the quarter-finals to Russia.
Four years later in Vancouver he was
benched after a loss to the Americans
early in the hockey tournament and
Canada went on to win gold with a solid
defense led by Scott Niedermayer and
his replacement Roberto Luongo in net.
“I am leaving the game really, really happy,” said Brodeur, who will have
the title of senior advisor to the general
manager for St. Louis.
A lock for the Hockey Hall of Fame,
Brodeur holds regular season NHL goaltending records for wins (691), shutouts
(125), games played (1,266) and minutes
played (74,438). He ranks first in starts
(204) and shutouts (24) in all-time playoff history.
“It would have been nice to get 700,”
Brodeur said about sticking around for
a milestone victory. “I wish I could have
played more games—all these lockouts I
got killed on it. “I know I can play and I
can still have fun with this game.”
Results
Boston .................5
Montreal.............1
Philadelphia...5
Arizona ...............3
Dallas ................... 6
Tampa Bay .....5
Florida .................3
St. Louis .............5
Minnesota ........1
Edmonton .......3
San Jose ........... 6
NY Islanders 2
NY Rangers . 0
Winnipeg ........ 2
Toronto ...............1
Ottawa ............... 3
Detroit ..................1
Columbus ...... 2
Nashville ..........4
Calgary ............ 0
Buffalo ................ 2
Anaheim .......... 3
Tampa Bay Lightning center Cedric Paquette reacts after scoring a hat-trick against the
Detroit Red Wings during the second period of an NHL hockey game on Thursday in
Tampa, Florida.
a conference-leading 66
points while Detroit had
their six-game win streak
snapped.
Elsewhere, the Boston
Bruins scored a pair of goals
in less than two minutes
spanning the second and
third periods as they opened
the post-All-Star portion of
the schedule by beating the
New York Islanders 5-2.
Kevan Miller snapped a
2-2 tie by scoring with 3.4
seconds left in the second and defenseman Torey Krug scored 1:45 into
the third for the Bruins
(26-16-7), who also got 43
saves from Tuukka Rask.
Center John Tavares
and right winger Michael
Grabner scored for the Islanders (32-15-1).
Max Pacioretty scored
with 4:17 remaining in the
third period as the Montreal Canadiens emerged
with a 1-0 victory against
the New York Rangers.
Carey Price made 24
saves for his third shutout
of the season for Montreal
(31-13-3).
Rangers (27-15-4) goaltender Henrik Lundqvist
was flawless for nearly 46
minutes and finished with
25 saves.
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
9
SPORT
GOLF
PHOENIX OPEN
Woods struggles
in first tournament
McIlroy seizes
Dubai lead with
late birdie blitz
AFP
Scottsdale
T
‘It’s a very bunched leaderboard. I know I’m going to have to go out there and
make a bunch of birdies over the weekend like I have the first two days’
iger Woods admitted it
had been “a grind” after he laboured to a 73
Thursday in the opening
round of the Phoenix Open, his
first full-field tournament of the
season.
Ryan Palmer fired a seven-under 64 to lead the PGA Tour event
at TPC Scottsdale, which is just
down the road from where the
Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots will meet in tomorrow’s NFL Super Bowl spectacle.
But there was nothing spectacular about the form of former
world number one Woods, who
suffered a bad start and was left
tied for 104th as play was suspended by darkness with nine
players still on the course.
“Physically I am fine,” said
Woods, after starting his round
with two bogeys, par, then double bogey.
“Mentally I am tired from the
grind of trying to piece together a
round. It takes lot of energy to be
able to fight back like that.”
Major champions Keegan Bradley and Bubba Watson share
second place at six-under. They
were joined by Daniel Berger,
who was through 16 holes of
round one.
Former Masters winner Zach
Johnson carded a five-under 66.
He was in fifth with Martin Laird,
Robert Streb and Ben Martin.
Woods spent months recuperating from an ongoing back
problem before taking part last
month at the Hero World Challenge, his charity invitational
event, in southern Florida. He
shared last in a field of 18.
Woods is playing for the first
time in an official event since last
year’s PGA Championship. He
had back surgery last March.
ATHLETICS
Jeptoo gets two-year
ban for doping
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland plays a shot during the second round of the 2015 Omega Dubai Desert Classic in Dubai yesterday. At bottom, Martin Kaymer in action.
AFP
Dubai
W
orld number one Rory McIlroy made three birdies in his
last three holes in the second
round of the Dubai Desert
Classic to take sole possession of the lead
yesterday.
The Northern Irishman calmly rolled
in a 20ft birdie putt on the par-5 18th
hole on the Majlis course to finish a sensational bogey-free round of eight-under
par 64 as he moved to 14-under par 130
for the tournament.
That gave him the breathing space of
one shot over Scotland’s in-form Marc
Warren, who made nine birdies and two
bogies in a round of seven-under par 65.
But McIlroy will have to keep his foot
on the gas as two players are tied for third
a further shot behind, which include his
compatriot Graeme McDowell (65) and
five players bunched on fifth place on 133,
including defending champion Stephen
Gallacher (67), the current leader of the
Race to Dubai, Danny Willett (66) and
England’s Lee Westwood (68).
McIlroy has already made 15 birdies in
the first two rounds, and he was under no
illusion that he needed more of the same
over the weekend if he wanted to stay
ahead of the chasing pack.
“It’s a very bunched leaderboard. I know
I’m going to have to go out there and make
a bunch of birdies over the weekend like I
have the first two days,” said McIlroy, who
is leading the tournament for the fifth time
in eight appearances.
“This course suits my game style: aggressive and go at the pins. The greens,
even though it got a little bit crusty out
there, it’s still quite receptive.
“You can fire at pins and get aggressive, and with the high ball flight that I
have, it sort of plays into my hands.”
The Ulsterman hit 17 out of 18 greens
in regulation and was delighted with his
overall play.
“I felt like I played very nicely today.
Couldn’t ask for much more, bogey-free,
made birdies and set myself up for a good
run over the next couple days,” added
McIlroy.
“I felt like I played okay yesterday. I
didn’t play my best but I definitely improved from tee to green out there and
was able to make some putts.”
The 33-year-old Warren, who moved
up to 56th in the world rankings after his
runners-up finish in last week’s Qatar
Masters, could secure his first Masters
invitation if he has another good finish
over the weekend.
The Scotsman started the day with a
birdie on the 10th hole, and caught fire
after his first bogey on the 12th. He then
made five birdies over his next six holes,
and on the much tougher front nine of
the course, he made three more birdies
and a bogey.
Warren appeared before the media with his two-year-old son Archie,
whom he credited for most of his recent
success.
“Since the wee man has come along
the last few years have been pretty strong
for me and takes a bit of pressure off you I
suppose in a way that no matter how your
day’s went, he’s generally quite happy to
see me,” said Warren, who has already
qualified for the WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral.
“He helps me totally forget about golf,
as opposed to kind of thinking about it at
nighttime or anything like that.”
Three-time Desert Classic champion
Ernie Els dodged a bullet and three late
birdies helped him make it to the weekend at two-under par 142, which was the
cut-line.
However, world number six Sergio Garcia will make an early exit after
rounds of 75 and 71 meant he missed the
cut.
AFP
Nairobi
T
op Kenyan female marathon runner Rita Jeptoo has been handed a
two-year ban after being
caught doping with the banned
blood-boosting hormone EPO,
officials said yesterday.
The suspension, announced by
the local governing body Athletics
Kenya, was the minimum mandatory punishment she was facing
under international anti-doping
regulations in place when she was
caught in an out-of competition
test last year.
Jeptoo, winner of the last two
consecutive Boston and Chicago
marathons, is the biggest name
in Kenyan athletics to have been
caught cheating and the scandal has cast a shadow over the
achievements of the east African
distance running powerhouse.
“Rita Jeptoo has been banned
for two years, effective from 30th
October 2014 to 29th October
2016, following the results of the A
and B samples which showed she
had used the prohibited substance
EPO,” Athletics Kenya’s chief executive Isaac Mwangi told AFP.
Athletes caught doping after
January 1st this year now face a
mandatory four-year ban.
“Athletics Kenya AK held two
workshops in 2013 in Eldoret to
educate the top athletes on the
issue of drugs. Rita’s ignorance
has been her downfall,” said Noah
Ngeny, AK’s athletes commission
chair.
FORMULA ONE
Vettel asks for patience as Ferrari unveil new car
DPA
Berlin
N
ew Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel has
admitted he is not expecting immediate success with their 2015 Formula
One car, which was unveiled in a video
presentation yesterday.
The SF15-T, to be driven by four-times world
champion Vettel and teammate Kimi Raikkonen,
features a distinctive long flat nose and revised
sidepods but the German believes the Italians
would be content with just one win this season
after a woeful 2014.
“I think we would be happy but of course we
would be happier if we win more. As I said you
have to be realistic,” Vettel, who quit Red Bull
at the end of last season to join Ferrari, told the
team’s website.
“There is a lot of change going on, new people
in new positions - including myself - so it always
takes a bit of time to settle in until you really
start to make proper progress.
“I am confident we are going in the right direction but it would be wrong to immediately
expect a lot. We need to remember we are coming from a 2014 season where there was one team
very dominant, so it will be very difficult to arrive there from the beginning.”
Drivers Kimi Raikkonen (L) of Finland and Sebastian Vettel of Germany pose with Ferrari’s new
car in Maranello, Italy.
The car is in the Italian team’s customary red
but features black markings on the sides and
rear.
Ferrari, under new team boss Maurizio Arrivabene, will test the car for the first time tomorrow
at pre-season testing in Jerez, southern Spain,
with the first race in Australia on March 15.
Finn Raikkonen, the last driver to win the
world championship for Ferrari in 2007, reflected on their 2014 struggles.
“Sometimes you have years that go like that,
everything seems to be a bit difficult,” he said.
“We understood a lot of things and hopefully
this year we can turn things around, as a team be
strong, and get more where we should be little by
little.”
Ferrari’s last race victory goes back to May
2013 through Fernando Alonso, who left the
team at the end of last season to join McLaren.
They finished last season fourth in the constructor standings as Mercedes and world
champion Lewis Hamilton ran away with the
championship.
QFormula One minnows Sauber outlined
their ambitions for the upcoming season yesterday - to win some points which is something
they failed to do in 2014.
An all new driver line-up - Swede Marcus
Ericsson and F1 rookie Brazilian Felipe Nasr take over from Adrian Sutil and Esteban Guttierez, the Mexican who has moved to Ferrari as a
test driver.
Team Principal Monisha Kaltenborn, in an interview on Sauber’s official website, commented: “2014 was a very disappointing year.
“However, this is in the past, and we now fo-
cus on what comes next. We have learnt our lessons and are confident for the new season.
“We have to improve, and be able to fight for
championship points.”
Sauber struggled to cope with the dramatically revised technical landscape last term, and
hope that 2015 will prove less of a headache for
their mechanics.
Their new C34 car will be put through its paces in the first series of pre-season testing starting at the Spanish circuit of Jerez from Sunday.
“Some components are still from the Sauber
C33 and will be successively replaced by new
parts,” said chief designer Eric Gandelin.
He added: “We will use the time up to Melbourne to ensure we’re as competitive as possible when we line up on the grid for the season
opener.”
Ericsson, who moved from Caterham, feels he
is in the “perfect environment” at Sauber to develop as a F1 driver.
On the team’s objectives he said: ‘Formula
One it is difficult to have precise targets, as it depends on the overall package. It is clear that we
want to be fighting for points.”
Nasr, who gets his shot in the big time after
evolving as a test driver for Williams, said: “In
my rookie season there is a lot to learn, and especially as I have not yet driven on some circuits
yet.”
10
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
FOOTBALL
AFRICAN NATIONS CUP
LA LIGA
Hosts target semis
as Congos collide
Moyes looking to
test Real mettle
sans star Ronaldo
‘We now have a side made up 100 per cent of players from Equatorial Guinea who
are willing to defend the colours of their country,’ said Argentine coach Becker
This file photo shows Real Sociedad’s new coach David Moyes posing
with a scarf of his new club during his official presentation.
AFP
Madrid
D
Equatorial Guinea’s head coach Esteban Becker of Argentina celebrates after his team scored a goal during their Group A match against Gabon at the African Cup of Nations.
AFP
Bata
H
osts Equatorial Guinea are hoping the decision to relocate
today’s Africa Cup of Nations
quarter-final against Tunisia to Bata gives them the edge over the
Carthage Eagles.
The Nzalang Nacional were initially
due to tackle Tunisia in Ebebiyin, more
than 200 kilometres by road inland from
Bata, before tournament organisers
moved it to the port city, citing concerns
over the pitch.
However, there is little doubt that
the tiny 5,000-seat stadium in Ebebiyin would have been overrun had the
game gone ahead there rather than in the
35,000-capacity Estadio de Bata.
The red-clad local fans will be eager
to see Equatorial Guinea make history by
reaching the last four for the first time after they were trounced 3-0 by the Ivory
Coast in Malabo at the same stage of the
competition three years ago.
And Tunisia coach Georges Leekens
knows that the noisy Equatorial Guinea
support will create an intimidating atmosphere for his side today.
“It will be difficult for us especially
with their fans behind them, but I am
positive in all circumstances,” said the
Belgian.
“They have a balanced team and are so
fast in attack. They have posted a fantastic performance beyond most expectations.”
Nzalang Nacional have yet to lose in
Bata and their current side have exceeded
expectations after a chaotic build-up
that included the appointment of a new
coach, Esteban Becker, 10 days before
their first match against Congo Brazzaville, as well as a clear-out of naturalised
South American players.
“We now have a side made up 100 per
cent of players from Equatorial Guinea
who are willing to defend the colours
of their country,” said Argentine coach
Becker.
Goalkeeper Felipe Ovono, from semiprofessional local side DVO Mongomo
has impressed in the home team’s splendid run, particularly against neighbours
Fixtures
QUARTER-FINALS
All times in GMT
Today
Congo v Congo DR
(1600)
Tunisia v Equatorial Guinea (1930)
Tomorrow
Ghana v Guinea
(1600)
Ivory Coast v Algeria
(1930)
Gabon in a decisive final group game
where he pulled off several crucial saves.
Defender Diosdado Mbele has served
out a one-match suspension and could
return to the starting line-up in place
of Estonia-based Daniel Evuy, while the
towering Raul Fabiani Bosio could start
again up front.
The Carthage Eagles of Tunisia were
champions on home soil in 2004, but
they have not gone past the quarter-finals since.
Skipper Yassine Chikaoui has shone
at this tournament playing alongside
the dangerous Esperance striker Ahmed
Akaichi, while Leekens has stuck with
a defence led by experienced Etoile du
Sahel goalkeeper Aymen Mathlouti and
Monaco ace Aymen Abdennour.
CHARMED LIFE
The first quarter-final between DR
Congo and Congo Brazzaville will be the
first meeting between the two neighbours in 41 years when Congo Brazzaville
beat DRC (then Zaire) 2-1 in Alexandria,
Egypt.
Claude Le Roy’s Congo are living a
charmed life, having been reinstated in
the competition only after Rwanda were
disqualified for fielding an ineligible
player.
The Red Devils then qualified for the
finals ahead of champions Nigeria and
finished top of Group A after a 15-year
absence from the tournament.
Le Roy has maintained his “incredible”
team will keep their feet on the ground
and take it a game at a time.
On Saturday, DRC will be without injured skipper Youssouf Mulumbu, who
also missed the final group game against
Tunisia with a hamstring injury.
BOTTOMLINE
Battling Dortmund fighting for
their survival in the Bundesliga
bed of nails,” Klopp told German
daily Die Welt.
Injuries to attacking midfielders Marco Reus and Henrikh
Mkhitaryan, especially after
Poland striker Robert Lewandowski had left to join Bayern,
meant the goals dried up.
AFP
Dortmund
B
orussia
Dortmund
coach Jurgen Klopp admits feeling the pressure
as his side resume their
fight to stay in Germany’s top
flight today at fellow Champions
League side Bayer Leverkusen.
“My mood is very tense, like it
would be just before a very difficult exam, but we are in better
shape than we were at the start
of the season,” insisted Klopp on
Thursday.
“Leverkusen is a very important game, one of 17 very important games now for us, but I have
been looking forward to this
since the final whistle of our last
league match at Bremen.”
Just over 18 months after losing the 2013 Champions League
final to arch-rivals Bayern Munich, Dortmund are second from
bottom and threatened with relegation from the Bundesliga.
Their domestic fall from grace
has been even more dramatic
on the back of a successful European campaign which has
Dortmund’s head coach Juergen Klopp.
seen them reach the Champions
League’s last 16.
Like most teams, Dortmund
had expected to drop a league
point here or there after five of
the squad returned weary from
helping Germany lift a fourth
World Cup title last July.
But Klopp’s dejected figure on
the sidelines, struggling to accept any one of Dortmund’s 10
league defeats, became an alltoo common sight.
Having won the 2011 and 2012
German league titles, then finished runners-up to Bayern in
2013 and 2014, Dortmund suddenly found themselves at the
wrong end of the table this term.
Defeats at Mainz, Schalke and
Cologne preceded humiliating
loses at Hertha Berlin and Werder Bremen in December.
“To finish the first half of the
season in 17th was like going on
holiday where you sleep on a
GROWING INJURY LIST
Klopp had to grapple with a
growing injury list and loss of
form from key players, but the
47-year-old admits there were
pre-season hints to Dortmund’s
demise.
“It was relatively clear that it
would be difficult,” he said.
“Even during pre-season
training we thought: it will be
tight to be ready in time.
“We picked up six points
from our first three games,
which was fine. We went to
Mainz in late September with
the chance of going top, but we
ended up losing.
“Then it was quickly down to
blow after blow and due to more
injuries, we could hardly react
or have enough time to train and
those players we had fit were
soon overloaded.
“But at the same time, you’re
Borussia Dortmund, you are the
runners-up, former champions,
former Champions League finalists.
“Wherever we went, people
said “you’ll turn it round”, but
on the pitch things turned into a
riot in a sporting sense.
“It was a downward spiral.”
Klopp is the first to admit he
made mistakes, for example using players who insisted they
were fit to help the cause, when
their performances in training
suggested otherwise.
CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke
says their rivals have used Dortmund’s plight to pick up points
this season while Bayern run
away with the title having built
up an 11-point lead.
“We’ve seen many teams, who
normally pick up points against
Bayern Munich, have simply
rolled over against them,” Watzke told Munich-based newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
“Instead, those teams (pick up
points) against us.
“We are now the platform for
the others to create something
special.”
avid Moyes will face
the biggest test of his
brief spell in charge of
Real Sociedad when the
Basques visit Real Madrid at the
Santiago Bernabeu today.
However, the trip for Moyes’s
men isn’t quite as daunting as it
could have been with three-time
World Player of the Year Cristiano
Ronaldo banned for kicking out at
Cordoba defender Edimar during
Madrid’s 2-1 win last weekend.
Gareth Bale sealed those crucial three points for Carlo Ancelotti’s men with a late penalty after Ronaldo had been dismissed
for the ninth time in his career.
And Madrid will need Bale to
be on top form whilst their top
scorer watches on from the sidelines for the next two games.
Bale netted in Ronaldo’s absence through injury when the
sides met earlier in the season,
but, despite roaring into an early
2-0 lead, Madrid were eventually
defeated 4-2.
Upsets have been a feature of
Sociedad’s season as they have
beaten La Liga champions Atletico
Madrid and Barcelona as well as
Real under three different coaches.
Moyes masterminded the latest of those triumphs against
Barca early this month, but his
side have failed to kick on since
with just one win in five games
since to remain in the bottom
half of the table.
Esteban Granero will be returning to face the club where
he started his career and all too
aware that Sociedad have to be
at their best if they are to shock
Madrid once more.
“January is a difficult month
for them because they play a lot
of games and it seems that they
aren’t in the same form that they
were before, but they have too
much potential for that to affect
us. Moreover, they are playing
at the Bernabeu where they have
fewer doubts.
“We expect to face the best Real
Madrid, but if we are also at our
best then we have a chance to win.”
On top of Ronaldo’s absence,
Pepe and Luka Modric remain
out injured, but Isco should return in midfield after missing out
against Cordoba.
Victory for Madrid will open
up a four-point gap on Barcelona, who face the in-form Villarreal at the Camp Nou tomorrow.
The Catalans have been on
fire themselves in recent weeks,
scoring 26 times in seven straight
wins since starting the year with
defeat at Sociedad.
Nemyar was the star with a
double as Luis Enrique’s men
booked their place in the semifinals of the Copa del Rey with a
3-2 win over Atletico Madrid in
midweek to already take his tally
for the season to 21.
Villarreal are unbeaten in
18 games in all competitions
stretching back to November,
but will have to stop Barca’s devastating attack without the services of Brazilian defender Gabriel
Paulista, who joined Arsenal on
Wednesday.
As part of that deal, Costa Rica
forward Joel Campbell has joined
the Yellow Submarine on loan for
the rest of the season and could
feature this weekend.
Atletico, meanwhile, will have
to lift themselves quickly from
the disappointment of being
dumped out of the Cup if they are
to stay in the title race when they
visit Eibar today.
Fixtures
All times in GMT
Today
Real Madrid v Real Sociedad
1500
Eibar v Atletico Madrid 1700
Granada CF v Elche
1900
Celta Vigo v Cordoba 2100
Tomorrow
Levante v Athletic Club 1100
Almeria v Getafe
1600
Sevilla v Espanyol
1800
Barcelona v Villarreal 2000
Monday
Malaga v Valencia
1945
TO ERR IS...
Ronaldo accepts
he made a mistake,
says Ancelotti
Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo.
AFP
Madrid
R
eal Madrid coach Carlo
Ancelotti said yesterday that Portuguese
star Cristiano Ronaldo
admitted he made a mistake and
would accept his two-match
ban.
“He made a mistake and
knows it,” Ancelotti said after
the World Player of the Year was
banned after being sent-off for
lashing out at Cordoba defender
Edimar during Real Madrid’s 2-1
win last weekend.
Ronaldo apologised after
the match but will miss home
games against Real Sociedad and
Sevilla, but will be free to feature against La Liga champions
Atletico Madrid on February 7.
Madrid currently lead Barcelona by a point at the top of
La Liga, but also have a game in
hand.
“He was the first to say sorry,
that clears everything. I think he
made a mistake and he knows it
only too well,” Ancelotti said.
“Now he’s going to serve his
penalty and I hope it won’t happen again. He’s going to use this
time to work well and be in top
form to return for the derby.”
Ancelotti dismissed reports
that Ronaldo was suffering left
knee problems.
“The problem he had with the
tendon last year has been totally
resolved, he has no problem,
none at all,” said the Italian.
“He always seems at top level to
me. It’s possible that some think
that he isn’t because of physical
problems, but he has none.”
Gulf Times
Saturday, January 31, 2015
11
FOOTBALL
SPOTLIGHT
FIFA ELECTIONS
Heavyweights to
collide in thrilling
Asian Cup final
Figo, Prince Ali put
in FIFA president
bids, others coy
‘It takes one second for someone to switch off and hopefully I can make it count’
Former Portuguese international and Inter Milan player Luis Figo.
DPA
Berlin
L
uis Figo and Prince Ali Bin
al-Hussein announced
yesterday that they have
submitted their candidatures to become FIFA president
but rivals Jerome Champagne
and David Ginola have yet to reveal if they have enough nominations.
Applicants need nominations
from five national associations to
be able to challenge Joseph Blatter as head of football’s world
governing body ahead of the vote
on May 29.
Blatter, whose organisation
has been mired in corruption allegations, is widely expected to
have the necessary backing to
run again and former world player of the year Figo said he also
had enough nominations ahead
of a January 29 deadline.
“I am very happy to confirm
that my six nominations were
delivered to FIFA this week ahead
of the deadline,” the Portuguese,
42, wrote on Twitter.
“I’d like to thank my colleagues and friends from the
nominating FAs and across the
football family who have already
given me their backing.”
Media reports said Denmark,
Luxembourg, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland and Portugal
have nominated the former Real
Madrid and Barcelona winger.
Jordan’s Prince Ali said in a
statement he had submitted his
candidature and therefore had
the necessary support.
“The campaign for the presidency of FIFA has entered a new
phase, and the number of candidates signals a strong desire for
change. It is vital that a genuine
debate is held and a consensus
is established on key issues,” the
FIFA executive committee member said.
Dutch FA president Michael
van Praag has already submitted
his papers and has enough nominations but Frenchmen Champagne and Ginola are being coy.
Former France winger Ginola,
being paid by an Irish bookmaker
to stand, said in a statement on
Thursday: “I am awaiting confirmations to complete the required
5 nominations. This is obviously
very difficult.”
Champagne, a former FIFA official, told dpa: “I am following
the official calendar of the election committee.”
Blatter, 78, is seeking a fifth
term and is liked in Asia, Africa and South America having helped award World Cups to
Japan/Korea, South Africa and
Brazil but is viewed with suspicion in Europe after the controversial bidding for the 2018 and
2022 events.
TOO LONG
This combo shows photos of Ki Sung-Yueng of South Korea (left) and Australia’s Tim Cahill (right) during their AFC Asian Cup football matches.
AFP
Sydney
F
ree-scoring Australia will seek
continental glory in the Asian
Cup final today but South Korea
could gatecrash the party in a
hugely anticipated decider between two
of the region’s toughest teams.
It could be a case of who blinks first
when the heavyweights clash in Sydney,
with the hosts seeking a first Asian title since quitting Oceania in 2006, and
the Koreans desperate to end a hoodoo
stretching back a staggering 55 years.
The Socceroos were runners-up to
Japan in 2011 and with a tournamentleading 12 goals, they will start as slight
favourites, despite losing 1-0 to South
Korea in the group phase.
In that game, coach Ange Postecoglou opted to rest talisman Tim Cahill
and was robbed of captain Mile Jedinak
due to an ankle strain.
Cahill netted three times in five
matches, including a contender for goal
of the tournament with his venomous
overhead kick in the quarter-final win
over China, and he is likely to be central
to the plot in one of the biggest games in
Australia’s history.
“First 45 minutes against China I
touched the ball three times,” said Cahill, his country’s record scorer, who fired
both goals in the 2-0 win.
“The defenders had me wrapped up.
But it just takes one second for someone
to switch off and hopefully I can be on
point to make it count.”
Both teams possess players capable of
delivering a knockout blow, South Korea
hoping golden boy Son Heung-Min can
weave his magic as they seek to win a first
Asian Cup since 1960 having already defied the odds by reaching the final.
Their title drought is a curious anomaly for a nation who stormed to the World
Cup semi-finals in 2002, but they have
reached the final—their first in 27 years—
despite an injury crisis and a flu bug
which swept through the squad, forcing
medical staff to work overtime.
MENTAL BATTLE
“It will come down to who’s mentally
tougher,” said Korean captain Ki Sungyueng, who has been a calming influence
on his side after losing the dynamic pairing
of Lee Chung-Yong and Koo Ja-Cheol in
the group stages. “It’s incredible we’ve got
this far without two of our best players.”
South Korea are the first team to reach
the Asian Cup final without conceding
a goal since Iran in 1976, but their resilience will be severely tested by Australia’s firepower in front of a sell-out crowd
of almost 80,000 in Sydney.
“We are on the brink of something very
special for Korean football,” added Ki.
“The boys don’t need me to spell it out to
them.”
The players were pelted with toffee—
a traditional insult in South Korea—on
their return from last year’s World Cup,
but German coach Uli Stielike has performed wonders since taking over as they
look to emulate the under-23 side’s Asian
Games gold medal in October.
As many as 30,000 Korean “Red Devils” fans are expected to add spice to the
atmosphere.
Victory for the hosts would be every
bit as satisfying after Australia managed just one win in 11 matches last year,
while Postecoglou overhauled a side once
blessed with outrageous talent by blooding a raft of new players.
Critics who were calling for his head
just weeks ago have been forced to eat
humble pie.
“Full credit to the boss,” said Aussie
goalkeeper Mathew Ryan. “We’ve just
got to put the last piece of the puzzle together with a fairytale ending on Saturday and then it will be a master-plan.”
South Korea’s Ki Sung Yueng at a press conference.
ASIAN CUP
UAE beat Iraq to claim third spot
DPA
Sydney
T
he United Arab Emirates
claimed third-place at
the Asian Cup yesterday
by edging a five-goal
thriller with Iraq 3-2 in Newcastle thanks to a penalty from the
tournament’s leading scorer Ali
Mabkhout.
Mabkhout
himself
was
brought down by Ahmed Ibrahim in the 56th minute and
slotted home the winning goal
from the spot. It was his fifth of
the competition and makes him
favourite to win the golden boot
with only today’s final between
Australia and South Korea still
to be played.
The penalty completed a second half comeback for the UAE
who had equalized just moments
earlier with Ahmed Khalil’s second of the game. Earlier Khalil
had opened the scoring only for
Waleed Salim and Amjed Kalef
to turn things round and give
Iraq the advantage at half time.
Korea captain Ki says
his team is ashamed
over title drought
UAE’s Ali Ahmed Mabkhout (centre) celebrates with his teammates
after scoring the winning goal during the AFC Asian Cup.
Finishing third represents the
UAE’s best finish at an Asian
Cup held outside their own
country while 2007 champions
Iraq had to settle for fourth.
“I was very angry at half-time
and it was a very hard talk at half
time,” UAE coach Mahdi Ali said.
“After we scored the first goal in
the first 15 minutes we took it a
bit easy and we lost a lot of balls
and I was very angry during
half-time and I told them you
have to go and change the first
30 minutes after half time.
“I told them that I had not
seen them playing like this and
I wanted to see my team in the
second half.”
After a slow start to a game
played in excellent spirit by both
sets of players, chances started
to flow when Khalil met Mabkhout’s cross on the volley and
sent his effort narrowly over.
In the 16th minute the UAE
did take the lead as Mabkhout
broke clear and Omar Abulrahman slid a perfect pass into the
path of Khalil who fired beyond
Mohammed Hamed without
breaking stride to complete a
glorious counter-attack.
Iraq fought back as captain Younus Mahmood sent a
ricochet onto the bar and then
watched disbelievingly as keeper
Khalid Elisa made an outrageous
save to claw out his attempt on
the rebound.
The equalizer was merely delayed to the half hour though as
Salim moved into the box from
the right flank and his deflected
shot left Elisa helpless.
If Elisa was blameless for that
goal, he was badly at fault in the
42nd minute as could only parry
Ahmed Yasin’s shot to the feet of
Kalef who simply couldn’t miss.
Mahmood spurned a chance
to double the lead within seconds of the restart as he shot offtarget after beating his marker
with a neat touch.
And that miss proved costly as
the UAE immediately seized control. A stunning a chipped pass
over the defence from Abdulrahman found Khalil ideally placed to
round Hamed and tap home.
Poor defending then allowed
Mabkhout to bear down on
Hamed and when Ibrahim clumsily brought him down from behind, the referee had no choice
but to show red and point to the
spot. Mabkhout dusted himself
down to sent Hamed the wrong
way from 12 yards.
Iraq tried to rally but, hindred
by their numerical disadvantage,
failed to create another clear
chance as they slipped to defeat.
“We have played all the
matches positively and passionately,” Iraq coach Radhi Shenaishil said.
AFP
Sydney
S
outh Korea skipper Ki
Sung-Yueng has spoken
of his “shame” at the
country’s failure to lift
the Asian Cup for 55 years as they
prepare for today’s final against
hosts Australia.
“It’s been too long for Korea to
be champions,” the Swansea City
midfielder told reporters yesterday. “I have had a big desire
to win this competition because
we always say Korea is one of the
best teams in Asia.
“We always go to the World
Cup, we reached the (World Cup)
semi-finals (in 2002). But on the
other hand, we haven’t won the
Asian Cup for so long. It’s a bit
weird.”
“There’s little bit of shame
for ourselves that we have never
proved that we are the biggest
team in Asia,” he added. “This
is a great opportunity for us to
show people that we can be the
champions.”
Ki, appointed captain after last
year’s early World Cup exit when
German Uli Stielike took over as
coach, called on South Korea to
follow their 1-0 group stage win
over Australia by lifting the trophy for the first time since 1960.
South Korea won the first two
editions of the regional championship but they are yet to add
a third win, despite reaching the
final in 1972, 1980 and 1988.
“We’ve had a lot of injuries
during the tournament and we
have a lot of young players lacking in experience,” said Ki, who
turned up the heat on the Socceroos by claiming all the pressure would be on the home side
in front of a sell-out crowd of
nearly 80,000 in Sydney.
“I don’t think people in Korea expected that we’d reach the
final. Of course there is some
pressure but we don’t have anything to lose in this game so maybe Australia have more pressure
than us.
“I told the players it’s a great
opportunity, maybe once in a
lifetime, to become Asian Cup
champions. Everyone is fully
motivated.”
Perhaps indulging in some late
mind games, Stielike claimed he
did not know which South Korea
would turn up for the final.
“I don’t know how we will go
out onto the pitch,” shrugged
the German. “We have a lot of
young players, and it’s the first
time they will be in a big final, a
big event like this with 80,000
people so I don’t know what the
reaction will be.”
Saturday, January 31, 2015
SPORT
GULF TIMES
SPOTLIGHT
PUNISHED
Chelsea’s Mourinho
in combat mode as
City come calling
‘We have a big game on Saturday, but I think the feeling of winning, being at
Wembley, compensates a little bit the fans after the gift we gave them last weekend’
Chelsea’s Costa gets
three-match ban
Chelsea’s Diego Costa appears to stamp on Liverpool’s Martin Skrtel.
AFP
London
C
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho reacts during the English Capital One Cup semi-final return leg between Chelsea FC and Liverpool FC at Stamford Bridge in London.
AFP
London
S
carred in different ways by their
recent cup exploits, Chelsea and
Manchester City face off at Stamford Bridge today for a pivotal
match in the Premier League title race.
Both teams were dumped out of the
FA Cup by lower-league opposition last
weekend, but while Chelsea responded
by beating Liverpool in the League Cup
semi-finals on Tuesday, victory came
at a price. Diego Costa will miss City’s
visit, while Cesc Fabregas and Filipe
Luis are both doubts for the game after
picking up injuries.
Jose Mourinho’s side can expect little sympathy from City, the defending
champions, who will fall eight points off
the pace if they lose.
But the Chelsea manager is already
looking to turn the situation to his advantage, battening down the hatches and
creating the kind of siege mentality that
is his favoured modus operandi.
As well as Costa’s charge, Mourinho
was himself fined by the Football Association for alleging that there was a medialed “campaign” against his side following
a spate of diving allegations.
The Portuguese hit out at the media
again after Chelsea’s 1-0 win over Liverpool and responded to news of the disciplinary action facing Costa by cancelling
his scheduled press conference on Friday.
The side-show has helped to bury
talk of last weekend’s humiliating home
defeat by third-tier Bradford City, who
came from 2-0 down to win 4-2 in the FA
Cup fourth round.
The extra-time win over Liverpool has
left its mark on Mourinho’s squad, but
he believes the league leaders will not be
encumbered by fatigue when they take to
the pitch against City.
“The players are tired, but when you
win, fatigue doesn’t mean the same as
when you lose,” he said.
“We have a big game on Saturday,
but I think the feeling of winning, being at Wembley, compensates a little bit
the fans after the gift we gave them last
weekend.”
OFF THE PACE
A run of eight wins in nine games left
City dead-level with Chelsea on New
Year’s Day, but a draw at Everton and a
2-0 home defeat by Arsenal have seen
Manuel Pellegrini’s team fall five points
off the pace.
Coupled with last weekend’s 2-0 de-
EPL Fixtures
TODAY (GMT)
Hull City v Newcastle United
Crystal Palace v Everton
Liverpool v West Ham United
Man United v Leicester City
Stoke City v QPR
Sunderland v Burnley
West Brom v Tottenham
Chelsea v Manchester City
(1245)
(1500)
(1500)
(1500)
(1500)
(1500)
(1500)
(1730)
TOMORROW
Arsenal v Aston Villa
Southampton v Swansea
(1330)
(1600)
feat by second-tier Middlesbrough, they
have now gone three games without a win
in all competitions.
“We must turn our minds to the Premier League,” said Pellegrini. “We have a
difficult game against Chelsea. I hope we
can recover during the week and get back
to normal.”
Ivory Coast’s qualification for the Africa Cup of Nations quarter-finals means
City remain without Yaya Toure and new
signing Wilfried Bony, but Sergio Aguero
has proven his fitness following a knee
injury by coming through 90 minutes
against Arsenal and Middlesbrough.
Former Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard, who scored an 85th-minute equaliser for City when the teams last met in
September, could be making his final appearance at Stamford Bridge.
The sight of Chelsea’s all-time record
goal-scorer in a City shirt will jar with
the London club’s supporters, particularly as he had previously pledged that he
would never play for a rival club.
But the 36-year-old was applauded
by the visiting fans after refusing to celebrate his goal in the reverse fixture and
Chelsea Supporters’ Trust chair Tim
Rolls has told Britain’s Press Association:
“I don’t think anybody is going to boo
him.”
The stage is set for an attritional battle, with Mourinho likely to select three
central midfielders in a bid to overwhelm
City pair Fernando and Fernandinho
much as Arsenal did at the Etihad Stadium.
With Fabregas nursing a tight hamstring, John Mikel Obi and Ramires could
both be brought into the team to play
alongside Nemanja Matic, which would
probably see Oscar drop out.
Cesar Azpilicueta will come in for Luis
if the Brazilian left-back cannot overcome a calf problem, while Didier Drogba
is in line to replace Costa up front.
helsea striker Diego
Costa has been banned
for three matches with
immediate effect after
being found guilty of a violent
conduct charge, the Football Association announced yesterday.
The
Spain
international
was suspended after a regulatory commission ruled he had
stamped on the ankle of Liverpool’s Emre Can in the 12th
minute of Tuesday’s League Cup
semi-final second leg at Stamford Bridge, which Chelsea won
1-0 to complete a 2-1 aggregate
victory.
There is no right of appeal
and Costa will now miss Premier
League leaders Chelsea’s match
at home to title rivals Manchester City on Saturday and subsequent games against Aston Villa
and Everton.
The incident was reviewed on
video by referee Michael Oliver
after the match official did not
see it in real time.
Costa denied the charge of
violent conduct levelled against
him on Wednesday ahead of
Thursday’s 1800 GMT deadline.
However, the charge was upheld yesterday and Costa banned
immediately.
“Diego Costa will serve a
three-match suspension with
immediate effect after a charge of
violent conduct against him was
found proven by an independent regulatory commission today
(Friday),” said a statement issued
by the Football Association, the
English game’s governing body.
“The Chelsea forward had
denied the charge in relation to
an on-field incident involving
Liverpool’s Emre Can which occurred in the 12th minute of the
League Cup semi-final second
leg at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday, January 27, 2015.
“The incident was not seen by
the match officials but caught on
video.”
‘ABSOLUTELY ACCIDENTAL’
Reaction to the incidents involving Costa and Can and Liverpool’s Martin Skrtel, over which
the FA took no action, dominated
the aftermath of a game where
Branislav Ivanovic scored an extra-time winner.
Liverpool manager Brendan
Rodgers said the Brazil-born
Costa’s challenge on Can was
“poor” and could have caused a
“nasty” injury.
But Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho said the two incidents had
been “absolutely accidental” and
blamed television pundits for
whipping up controversy over
what had happened.
Chelsea, seemingly unwilling to
make any further comment about
the issue before a decision was
reached, cancelled Friday’s prematch news conference—even
though they are obliged to hold
one under Premier League rules.
That move came just days after Mourinho was fined £25,000
($38,000, 34,500 euros) by the
FA after he claimed Chelsea
were the victims of a media-led
“campaign” over diving allegations that was putting referees
under pressure.
Cancelling the press conference could also lead to a fine as
Premier League rules state clubs
must ensure managers present
themselves on a Thursday or Friday before a weekend game “save
for exceptional circumstances”.
Costa has been in superb form
for Chelsea this season, having scored 17 goals in 19 Premier
League appearances thus far and
his absence against Manchester
City will be a blow to Chelsea.
The London club currently
lead second-placed City, the
reigning champions, by five
points and a Chelsea victory on
Saturday would put them eight
points in front with 15 games of
the league season remaining.
GET INSPIRED
Spur’s Kane urges
team to harness the
Cup momentum
BOTTOMLINE
Manchester United ready to fight
for top four spot, says Valencia
AFP
Manchester
M
anchester
United
winger Antonio Valencia has warned
his teammates that
the hard work starts now in their
bid to secure a top four finish in
the Premier League.
Louis van Gaal’s side hold the
final Champions League berth
as they prepare for today’s home
fixture against lowly Leicester,
but they are just a point ahead of
fifth-placed Arsenal.
The Gunners, on a four-match
winning run, face Aston Villa at
the Emirates Stadium tomorrow
and Valencia knows the race is
just starting to heat up.
“It’s very open and quite tight
in those top spots,” Ecuador international Valencia said. “We’re
seven points behind second place
Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal.
and then a couple of teams are
three or four points below us.
“We must fight hard in the remaining games to finish as high
as possible.
“It’s a long season and we’ve
picked ourselves up of late, so we
need to keep the results coming
for the fans.
“We’ve got tough games coming up against very good teams
and rivals for our position but, if
we keep the concentration high,
we can achieve our aim of a topfour finish.”
United missed out on European football for the first time
in 25 years when they finished
seventh at the end of a campaign
of struggle, largely overseen by
previous manager David Moyes.
Despite a sluggish start to the
season under van Gaal, Moyes’
successor, United have put
themselves in contention to end
their season-long absence from
continental competition with a
run of one defeat in 13 matches.
Valencia believes new signings Angel Di Maria, Radamel
Falcao and Marcos Rojo have
settled well in to the United set
up, despite each suffering injury
problems in the first half of the
campaign.
“Angel, Rojo and Falcao are
terrific. They’ve all settled
quickly into the group and I
think they’re all really enjoying
life here,” Valencia said.
“We’ve got a top bunch of
lads. We all get along really well,
the atmosphere is great but it’s
always been great here.”
United were held to a disappointing goalless draw by League
Two club Cambridge United in
the FA Cup fourth round last
Friday and van Gaal will hope his
players are more incisive against
Nigel Pearson’s side, who are
fighting for survival in the Premier League.
Wayne Rooney and Juan Mata
are expected to be recalled to the
United squad after being rested
for the FA Cup match, while defender Jonny Evans remains a
doubt after missing the match
through injury.
Leicester manager Nigel
Pearson admits he wants to
sign further players before
Monday’s transfer deadline
but is unsure whether they will
materialise.
“I don’t know if we will see
anymore,” said Pearson. “Maybe, maybe not. You’re not getting nothing more from me.
Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane (left) during Capital One Cup tie.
AFP
London
O
n a high after reaching
the League Cup final
in mid-week, Tottenham Hotspur begin an
important run of Premier League
fixtures today with a game at
West Bromwich Albion.
An 87th-minute goal from
Christian Eriksen at Sheffield
United on Wednesday night
saw Mauricio Pochettino’s side
through to the final of the League
Cup at the third-tier club’s expense.
That booked them a Wembley
date with Chelsea on March 1,
part of a sequence of matches
that also includes a home-andaway showdown in the Europa
League with Fiorentina.
Victory in this year’s Europa
League will yield a place in the
Champions League, but with the
trip to The Hawthorns offering
an opportunity to leapfrog fifthplace Arsenal, who play tomorrow, Spurs are alive and kicking
in the fight to secure qualification via the league.
“We’re going to enjoy this moment now, but we know we’re
back on it on Saturday,” said
striker Harry Kane, Spurs’ England Under-21 striker, who has 18
goals to his name this season.
“We’ve got an important game
so we want to take this momentum and push on up the league.”
Much of Tottenham’s recent
success has been built on goals
by Eriksen, whose habit of deciding games late on will not
have gone unnoticed by West
Brom manager Tony Pulis.
The Denmark international
claimed a brace at Sheffield
United and has now scored decisive goals in the last three minutes of a match four times in his
last 16 appearances.

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