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www.qatar-tribune.com
First with the news and what’s behind it
SATURDAY
JANUARY 21, 2012
DOW JONES 12,667
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VOL. 6 NO. 1965
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QR 2
Five jobless
Moroccans
set fire to
themselves
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IN FOR ANOTHER COLD SPELL
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AP
RABAT
Pressure mounts for UN
intervention in Syria
FIVE unemployed Moroccan men
set themselves on fire in the capital
Rabat as part of widespread
demonstrations in the country
over the lack of jobs, especially for
university graduates, a rights
activist said Thursday. Three were
burned badly enough to be hospitalised.
Once rare, self-immolation
became a tactic of protest in the
Middle East and North Africa ever
since a vegetable seller in Tunisia
set himself on fire in December
2010 to protest police harassment,
setting off an uprising that toppled
the government and sparked similar movements elsewhere in the
region.
PRESSURE mounted on the Arab
League on Friday to seek UN intervention in the face of growing exasperation that the bloc’s hard-won
observer mission in Syria has failed
to staunch killings. The League
mission hangs in the balance as its
head, General Mohammed Ahmed
Mustafa al Dabi, prepares to report
to foreign ministers, who are to
meet on Sunday to discuss the next
step. (PG 2)
France mulls troops pullout
from Afghanistan as 4 killed
FRANCE suspended its training
operations in Afghanistan and
threatened to withdraw its entire
force from the country early after
an Afghan soldier shot and killed
four French troops Friday and
wounded 15 others. The shooting
came during a particularly deadly
24 hours for the international military coalition. Six US Marines also
died in a helicopter crash late on
Thursday. (PG 5)
Medvedev, Abbas discuss
Middle East
RUSSIAN President Dmitry
Medvedev held talks on Friday
with Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas focused on
efforts to kick-start stalled peace
negotiations with Israel. Abbas
told Medvedev in opening remarks
at the Russian president’s suburban Moscow residence that the
Palestinians “will always draw
upon your advice and the
favourable approaches proposed
by the Russian Federation.” (PG 2)
Yemen scraps amnesty for
Saleh’s aides
THE Yemeni government has
tweaked a contested bill that
would have granted legal immunity to aides of President Ali
Abdullah Saleh implicated in criminal affairs, a government source
said on Friday. The new version
“grants complete immunity to
president Saleh”. (PG 2)
As the sky turned grey, many parts of Qatar witnessed slight drizzle. People had to use wipers to clear droplets from the windshield of their vehicles at
Katara, in Doha, on Friday. (SANTHOSH CHANDRAN)
Brace for cold wave,
warns weatherman
RAMY SALAMA
DOHA
PEOPLE in Qatar and the Gulf
region may experience the coldest weather in the past few years
with the night temperature dipping below 10 degree Celsius,
warns
the
Meteorological
Department.
The severe cold spell is expected to last through the next week,
the forecast says.
The steep fall in temperatures
is to be caused by the cold winds
coming all the way from the
frozen Siberia because of a
weather phenomenon called
‘Siberian High’ that affects Qatar,
the entire Gulf region as well as
North Africa.
Talking to Qatar Tribune on
Friday, head of the forecast and
analysis section of Qatar’s
Meteorological
Department
Abdulla Mohammed al Mannai
said that what’s happening starting on Friday is that a ridge of
high pressure would hit Qatar.
“This is an aspect of what
meteorologists call the ‘Siberian
The steep fall in temperatures is to be
caused by the cold
winds coming all the
way from the frozen
Siberia because of a
weather phenomenon
called ‘Siberian High’
that affects Qatar,
the entire Gulf region
as well as North
Africa.
High’ which is a massive collection of very cold and dry air that
accumulates on the Eurasian terrain for much of the year,” he
explained.
Al Mannai went on say that the
‘Siberian High’ was characterised
by a decrease in temperature
associated with circulation of cold
air. “At the same time, we’re
expecting strong north-westerly
winds which, combined with the
other factors, will dramatically
lower the temperature over the
next three days, and the residents will definitely feel the cold
bite,” al Mannai said.
“In fact, warning of a turbulent
sea and a strong offshore wind
has already been issued,” he
added. Fishermen have been
advised not to venture out in the
turbulent sea.
The temperature is expected
to start dipping from Friday
night. Saturday morning would
be colder with further fall in
temperature is expected on
Sunday morning.
“Under the influence of this
weather phenomenon, the daytime temperature is expected to
drop below 15 degree Celsius
and the temperature at night
could be as low as 4 degree. We
expect this to last until
Wednesday, when the weather
should warm up again. The forecast office will keep everyone
updated on the situation,” the
Met official said.
The Meteorology department
has advised residents to take
precautions against the cold
wave and strong winds. People
suffering from asthma and respiratory disorders are particularly vulnerable to cold wave conditions.
It is noteworthy that, given the
unseasonably warm weather
Qatar experienced earlier in the
month, the impact of this change
will be felt more tangibly.
Disillusionment
Of the three who were
hospitalised, two were
in serious condition,
while the other two just
had their clothing
singed.
The Moroccans were part of the
“unemployed graduates” movement, a loose collections of associations across the country filled
with millions of university graduates demanding jobs.
While the official unemployment
rate is only 9.1 percent nationally,
it rises to around 16 percent for
graduates.
On Thursday, the government
elected in November presented its
new plan to parliament with a
focus on job creation, education
and improving health care. The
Islamist-led government promised
to create 200,000 new jobs a year
through public and private investment.
Around 160 members of the
movement have been occupying an
administrative building of the
Ministry of Higher Education for
the past two weeks in Rabat as part
of their protest.
High Asian demand for Qatari LNG threatens supply to EU
REUTERS
LONDON
A Qatari LNG tanker.
NORTH-WEST Europe, especially
Britain, depended on Qatar for
nearly all of its liquefied natural gas
(LNG) last year.
But Qatari LNG exports to
Europe fell 22 percent in 2011 due
to higher demand in Asia after
Japan shut down its nuclear power
following the March tsunami, and
as demand declined from crisis-hit
economies in the south of the continent, analysts at Waterborne
Energy said in a report.
“In total, 87 percent of the LNG
imported into north-west Europe
in 2011 came from Qatar’s two liquefaction plants, leaving the region
vulnerable to the diversion of cargoes to higher-valued markets in
2012,” Waterborne said.
Britain is particularly threatened
by the prospect of lower Qatari supply to Europe - it bought all but one
of its import cargoes from the
world’s top LNG exporter in the last
five months of 2011, Waterborne
said.
Asian ports have also caught up
with Britain in providing loading
facilities big enough to cope with
Qatar’s huge Q-Max vessels.
“This was one of the reasons why
Qatar was forced to sell to the UK,”
he said. Qatar’s LNG also passes
through the Strait of Hormuz,
already in the forefront of the
West’s concerns over oil supply as
tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme intensify.
Japan’s nuclear shutdowns following the earthquake and tsunami
forced it to replace power production by burning, and therefore
importing, more gas.
It imported an extra 3.17 million
tonnes of LNG from Qatar between
March and November 2011 compared with the same period in
2010, Waterborne figures showed.
“Most of the LNG from these
sources would have almost certain-
ly been delivered to Europe if
Japan’s need had not been so
great,” Waterborne said.
Other Asian nations also
increased their appetite for LNG
last year, importing 69 percent
more super-cooled gas from producers in the Atlantic Basin, such
as Nigeria and Trinidad, than in
2010. But weak economic performance led to lower gas demand in
southern European nations, while
Spain’s LNG imports also declined
following the launch of a new
Algerian gas import pipeline and
state incentives to burn domestic
coal in power plants, Waterborne
Energy said.
02
Saturday, January 21, 2012
GULF / MIDDLE EAST
www.qatar-tribune.com
Medvedev
holds
Middle East
talks with
Abbas
AFP
MOSCOW
RUSSIAN
President
Dmitry Medvedev held
talks on Friday with
Palestinian
President
Mahmoud Abbas focused
on efforts to kick-start
stalled peace negotiations
with Israel.
Abbas told Medvedev in
opening remarks at the
Russian president’s suburban Moscow residence
that the Palestinians “will
always draw upon your
advice and the favourable
approaches proposed by
the Russian Federation.”
He added that the local
leadership of Jericho had
decided to name one of
the West Bank city’s main
streets after Medvedev in
honour of his visit there in
January 2011.
“I see this as a symbol of
Russian-Palestinian
friendship, which stretches back not decades but
centuries,”
Medvedev
said.
“This is proof of the fact
that our relations remain
on an excellent level.”
Abbas
arrived
in
Moscow on Thursday on
the final leg of a European
tour that also saw him visit
London and Berlin.
The trip is aimed at
securing European backing for the Palestinians’
position amid unsuccessful attempts to resume
peacemaking efforts with
Israel.
Russia is a member of
the so-called peacemaking
Middle East Quartet that
also includes the United
States along with the
European Union and the
United Nations.
Moscow’s influence in
the region has waned considerably since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But it still remains a port
of call for Arab world leaders who grew up under
Soviet patronage.
Direct Middle East
peace talks have not been
held since September
2010 and the third round
of exploratory meetings
conducted in Jordan on
January 14 produced no
tangible result.
German
Chancellor
Angela
Merkel
said
Thursday following her
meeting with Abbas that it
was “very, very important
that we see progress, that
each side sees that good
will is there.”
The Jordanian meetings
are running up against a
Thursday
deadline
imposed by the Quartet
amid few signs of compromise on key issues such as
Israel’s decision to continue the construction of settlements in the West
Bank.
SECURITY FORCES KILL 8
Arab League
likely to extend
Syria mission
AP
BEIRUT
BUOYED by the opposition’s
control of a town near the
Syrian capital, thousands of
people held anti-government
protests on Friday, chanting
for the downfall of the regime.
At least eight people were
killed by security forces across
the country, activists said.
In Egypt, two Arab League
officials said the organization
is likely to extend its observer
mission in Syria, despite complaints from the Syrian opposition that it has failed to curb
the bloodshed in the country.
One of the largest demonstrations on Friday was in the
mountain town of Zabadani,
where some 12,000 people
took to the streets to celebrate
their success in repelling government troops.
President Bashar al Assad’s
forces attacked Zabadani,
some 17 miles (27 kilometers)
west of the capital, for six
days, sparking fierce fighting
that involved heavy bombardments and clashes with army
defectors. On Wednesday,
government
tanks
and
armoured vehicles pulled
back, leaving the opposition in
control of the town.
“It’s a natural reaction to the
victory in Zabadani, it has lifted people’s morale,” an
activist in the town said of
Friday’s demonstration. He
spoke on condition of
anonymity for fear of
reprisals.
The Syrian opposition has
on several occasions throughout the uprising gained control
of a town or city, but ultimately forces loyal to Assad have
retaken them. It is unusual,
however, for the army to take
so long to recapture a town so
close to the capital.
Arab countries and the
West have so far failed to
reach any consensus on how
to counter the regime crackdown which, along with other
violence, has left an estimated
5,400 people dead over the
past 10 months.
Foreign ministers for the
Arab League were set to meet
Sunday in Cairo to discuss the
future of a one-month observer mission aimed at halting
violence in Syria, which
expired on Thursday.
Two senior officials in the
22-member pan-Arab body
said the discussions are leaning toward keeping the 150member mission in place
because the time is not right
for “escalation” and the international community is not yet
ready for intervention in Syria.
They said several League
members opposed to the extension of the mission had
changed their position in recent
days. The officials agreed to talk
about the discussions ahead of
the Sunday meeting on condition of anonymity.
A Syrian woman flashes the victory sign during an anti-regime protest in front of the Syrian embassy,
in Amman, on Friday. (AP)
Activists have said that the
Arab observers have failed to
curb the bloodshed. Many in
the Syrian opposition have
called for the dispatch of foreign troops to Syria to create
safe zones for dissidents, or
even a more wide-ranging mil-
itary mission similar to the air
campaign which helped Libyan
rebels bring down dictator
Moamer Qadhafi last year.
Yemen scraps amnesty
for Saleh’s aides
AFP
SANAA
Yemeni protesters take part in a protest against granting immunity from prosecution to outgoing
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Sanaa, on Friday. (EPA)
THE Yemeni government has
tweaked a contested bill that
would have granted legal
immunity to aides of President
Ali Abdullah Saleh implicated
in criminal affairs, a government source said on Friday.
The new version “grants
complete immunity to president Saleh” but his assistants
will only benefit from “political
immunity” and could eventually be held accountable for
criminal or terrorist acts, the
same source told AFP.
The amended bill, adopted
by the government on
Thursday during an extraordinary meeting, also provides for
the ratification of “laws on
national reconciliation and
transitional justice.”
The government is to submit the bill to parliament on
Saturday.
The original version, submitted on January 8, would
have granted amnesty against
prosecution to Saleh and the
aides “who worked with him in
all government, civil and military departments during the
years of his rule.”
In November, Saleh signed a
Gulf-brokered deal to end the
political crisis in the impoverished country, under which he
handed authority to Vice
President Abdrabuh Mansur
Hadi and the opposition
formed a national unity government.
Saleh serves now as an honorary president until polls are
The amended bill,
adopted by the
government on
Thursday during an
extraordinary
meeting, also provides for the ratification of “laws on
national reconciliation and transitional justice.”
held in February to elect
Mansur, the sole candidate, as
his interim successor for two
years.
A bloody crackdown on antiSaleh demonstrations since
January 2011 has claimed
hundreds of lives.
UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights Navi Pillay said
earlier this month that anyone
who had committed abuses
during the mass protests in
Yemen must not be allowed to
evade justice.
The UN commissioner
urged decision-makers in
Yemen to respect the prohibition in international law
against amnesties for gross
human rights violations.
A senior official in Saleh’s
General People’s Congress
(GPC) party, Sultan alBarakani, said on Wednesday
that February’s vote would be
held on time, amid rumours of
a possible delay.
Meanwhile, parliament was
scheduled to vote on the
ammended bill, and on
Mansur’s presidential candidacy, on Monday, he added.
Separately, Saleh could travel abroad for medical treatment in the near future for
injuries suffered in a bomb
attack in Sanaa last June,
another party source told AFP
on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The GPC’s political bureau
has accepted, at Saleh’s
request, that he should travel
abroad for treatment,” the
source said, without specifying
the destination or date of his
departure
Late last month, the veteran
leader announced his intention to visit the United States
“in order to create favourable
conditions ... for the presidential election.”
But a senior official declared
shortly afterwards that the trip
was cancelled following
requests from his ruling party
that he remain in Yemen until
after the elections.
Tunisian town rebels over being left out in the cold Egyptians rally ahead of
AFP
MAKTHAR
MAKHTAR, a mountain
town in central Tunisia battered by the cold and grinding unemployment, decided
to rebel to protest the lack of
progress since the ouster of
the country’s despot.
A six-day general strike began
spontaneously on January 13,
the day before Tunisia marked
the one-year anniversary since
strongman Zine el Abidine Ben
Ali fled into exile under pressure
from a popular uprising.
Using chopped down trees
and tyres, local men put up
barricades in the streets of
Makthar, 180 kilometres (115
miles) southeast of the capital
Tunis on a wind-blown
plateau at an altitude of 1,200
metres (4,000 feet).
“We’re dying here, there is
nothing, we’re worn out by the
cold and unemployment,” said
Mounir Louhichi, a local vendor of animal feed.
Bundled up in his burnous,
a traditional woolen coat, the
merchant enumerates the
social problems facing some
12,000 residents.
No running water. No city
gas despite being near the
pipeline running from Algeria
to Italy. No dairy cooperative
in the midst of an agricultural
region. No factory despite a
marble quarry.
A six-day general
strike began spontaneously on January 13, the day
before Tunisia
marked the oneyear anniversary .
And, of course, no jobs.
Residents complain about corrupt officials and investors, and
the inevitable exodus of jobseekers from the countryside to
the cities or the Tunisian coast,
the playground of the powerful.
“We are rebelling because it
is, quite simply, intolerable,”
says Ouided Slama, a young
English teacher.
And Makthar has inspired
other towns to stage protests.
Traces of burned tires can be
found on roads throughout
the mountainous Siliana
province, another sign of the
growing social tensions in
post-revolution Tunisia.
While mainly a farming
region, Siliana is also home to
archaeological
treasures.
Makthar in particular is mentioned in the guidebooks for
ruins dating from the Punic
and Roman eras.
The sites include a Roman
amphitheatre, the biggest
thermal springs in north
Africa, and a mausoleum from
the third century BC — “a true
historic treasure,” says Kamel
Hmidi, 50, an electrician who
doubles as a tour guide for visiting foreigners.
Ex-strongman Ben Ali’s relatives recognised its value,
ransacking the site and taking
ancient treasures to the presidential palace in Carthage,
Kamel says.
Local people keen to protect
their heritage are incensed
over a plan to build a museum
in Siliana, 35 kilometres away,
instead of in Makthar. They
also complain of a lack of
infrastructure,
especially
hotels to attract tourists.
anniversary of uprising
AP
CAIRO
HUNDREDS of Egyptians
are marching toward Tahrir
Square ahead of the one-year
anniversary of the uprising
that toppled longtime leader
Hosni Mubarak.
The protesters set out from
different neighborhoods in
Cairo on Friday, which they
have dubbed “the dream of
the martyrs.”
They say the families of
hundreds of people killed
during the uprising and the
around 100 others that have
been killed in clashes with the
military rulers that took over
from Mubarak have yet to get
their “retribution.”
The protesters set
out from different
neighborhoods in
Cairo on Friday.
Activists organized the rallies
as part of a week of “mourning
and anger” around the Jan 25
anniversary to muster support
for their call to end military
rule. They say the ruling generals have continued the policies
of the toppled regime.
GULF / MIDDLE EAST
Saturday, January 21, 2012
www.qatar-tribune.com
Iraqi forces arrest Sunni leader
AFP
BAQUBA
SECURITY forces detained a
Sunni Arab politician in central Iraq on Friday while a
second escaped in the latest
round of detentions to hit the
minority group amid a political row.
The arrest took place in the
central province of Diyala,
north of Baghdad, after a
majority of its provincial
council members signed a
document last month calling
for greater autonomy from
the central government.
Friday’s arrest in Diyala,
which is mostly Sunni Arab
and Kurdish, took place amid
a political row that has pitted
the Shiite-led government
against the main Sunnibacked Iraqiya bloc, stoking
sectarian tensions.
“Early this morning, a unit
controlled by the office of the
prime minister arrested at his
home in (Diyala provincial
capital) Baquba, the deputy
governor in charge of investment Ghadban al Khazraji,”
said Bassim al Samarraie,
another deputy governor.
Samarraie said the forces
also looked to detain Talal al
Juburi, deputy governor for
administrative affairs, but he
fled to the autonomous
Kurdish region in northern
Iraq.
Khazraji, Juburi and
An Iraqi soldier stands guard as protesters demonstrate at Tahrir Square, in Baghdad, recently.
Samarraie are all Iraqiya
members.
According to Diyala officials, arrest warrants have
also been issued against two
Hamas urges
Abbas to end
talks with
Israel
AFP
GAZA CITY
GAZA’S Hamas prime minister on Friday called on
Palestinian
president
Mahmud Abbas to end all
dialogue with Israel after
troops arrested parliamentary speaker Aziz Dweik.
In a speech during weekly
Friday prayers, Ismail
Haniya also urged Abbas to
reconvene the long-dormant
Palestinian
Legislative Council (PLC),
or parliament, whose activities have been frozen for
“The response
to the arrest of
Dr Aziz Dweik
should be to
end these failed
and absurd
negotiations.”
nearly five years.
The parliamentary speaker, who is a member of the
Islamist Hamas movement,
was arrested by Israeli
troops late on Thursday,
sparking a furious response
from Gaza’s Hamas rulers
as well as from Abbas’s
Fatah movement.
“The response to the
arrest of Dr Aziz Dweik
should be to end these
failed and absurd negotiations,” said Haniya, referring to a round of informal
Israeli-Palestinian talks in
Jordan aimed at finding
ways to jump-start the
stalled peace process.
“No Palestinian should
shake the hand of his enemy
or that of the occupier who
arrests symbols of legitimacy and parliamentarians,”
he said.
Dweik has held the position of speaker within the
Palestinian
Legislative
Council (PLC), or parliament, since elections in
2006.
But the Hamas-dominated parliament has been
paralysed since June 2007
when the Islamist movement took over Gaza, ousting Fatah forces loyal to
Abbas.
The Palestinians must
respond to Dweik’s arrest
by reconvening the PLC,
Haniya said.
“The response must be to
reopen the gates of the
Legislative Council and
hold a new parliamentary
session,” he said.
In order to resuscitate the
long-dormant parliament,
Abbas would have to formally call a PLC session and
its members would have to
either re-elect Dweik or
chose a new house speaker.
The Israeli military confirmed Dweik’s arrest and
said he was “suspected of
being involved in the activities of a terrorist group.”
Dweik is a professor of
geography at Al Najah
University in the northern
city of Nablus, although he
lives in the southern West
Bank.
On Friday morning,
Israeli troops arrested
Hamas MP Khaled Tafesh
at his home in a village east
of Bethlehem, in the southern West Bank, Dweik’s
chief of staff Bahaa Yussef
said.
The Israeli army confirmed the arrest, saying
Tafesh was also “suspected
of involvement in terrorist
activity.”
Over 20 of Hamas’s 74
MPs in the 132-member
PLC are currently being
held by Israel, with most of
them arrested in the last 15
months.
Two Fatah MPs and one
from the leftwing Popular
Front for the Liberation of
Palestine are also currently
being held by Israel, parliamentary sources say.
(AFP)
Morocco’s FM
to embark on
peace trip to
Algeria
AFP
RABAT
MOROCCO’S new foreign
minister
Saad
Eddine
Othmani will visit Algiers
next week, his ministry said
on Friday, as Rabat seeks to
normalise ties strained for
decades over the disputed
Western Sahara region.
The two-day visit starting
on Monday will include talks
with
his
counterpart
Mourad Medelci and a meeting with Algeria’s veteran
President
Abdelaziz
Bouteflika, it said.
The border between the
two countries was closed in
1994 following a Islamist
militant attack in Marrakesh
that Morocco blamed on the
Algerian secret services.
Tensions in the border
region occasionally flare and
a July clash between
Moroccan border guards and
armed men coming from
Algeria left one soldier dead.
But relations between
Morocco and Algeria have
been strained for decades by
the long-running dispute
over the Western Sahara.
Morocco’s 1975 annexation of the territory, a former
Spanish colony, sparked a
war between its forces and
Algerian-backed Polisario
guerrillas.
Iraqiya provincial councillors,
one a Sunni Arab and the
other a Kurd. The documents
have charged them with “terrorist activities”, the officials
said.
Several provincial councillors have fled to the majorityKurdish town of Khanaqin, in
northeastern Diyala, to seek
Lebanon judge
charges house
owner with
negligence
South Sudan orders oil production
shutdown amid row with Khartoum
AFP
DPA
JUBA
BEIRUT
A LEBANESE judge on
Friday charged with negligence the owners of a building that collapsed in Beirut
at the weekend, killing 27
people.
If found guilty they could
face between 15 and 25 years
in prison.
The old, six-storey building in Ashrafiyeh, an eastern
neighbourhood of Beirut,
crumbled to the ground
within minutes, burying residents, many of them foreign
labourers.
Twelve people were also
wounded in the incident.
The collapse sparked public anger and accusations
that successive governments
had failed to enforce the law
on building maintenance
and safety and address the
problem of illegal construction after the 1975-1990
Lebanese civil war.
SOUTH Sudan has ordered
the shutdown of oil production that provides some 98
percent of its revenue, amid
a deepening row with
Khartoum over pipeline fees,
the government said on
Friday.
“The government has
instructed the Minister of
Petroleum and Mining to
proceed with arrangements
for a complete shutdown of
oil production,” Minister of
Information Barnaba Marial
Benjamin said on Friday.
Khartoum admits to taking
some South Sudanese oil
destined for export as compensation until an agreement, but the South have
said this is theft.
“The Council of Ministers
decided today that in light of
the present quantities of oil
being taken by Khartoum” it
would halt production,
Benjamin added.
refuge from the warrants.
The province is one of several Sunni-majority provinces
in Iraq that have pushed for
greater autonomy from
Baghdad,
after
feeling
aggrieved by the Shiite-led
government.
The moves have been
rebuffed by Prime Minister
Nuri al Maliki and other
Shiite leaders.
Friday’s arrest came a day
after
Iraqi
authorities
announced the detention of
another Iraqiya politician,
this time from Baghdad
provincial council, on terror
charges.
The arrests come amid a
political row that erupted last
month as US troops were
withdrawing from Iraq, when
authorities charged Sunni
Vice President Tareq alHashemi with running a
death squad.
Maliki has also called for
his Sunni deputy Saleh alMutlak to be fired after the
latter described the premier
as “worse than Saddam
Hussein.”
Iraqiya has mostly boycotted parliament and the
cabinet, and has called for
Maliki to respect a year-old
power-sharing deal or quit.
And Hashemi, who denies
the charges, is holed up in the
autonomous Kurdish region,
which has so far declined to
hand him over.
Iraqiya won the most seats
in March 2010 parliamentary
elections but was outmanouevred by Maliki in
forming a government.
03
The South split from
Sudan in July, taking with it
75 percent of the country’s
oil production of 470,000
barrels per day, but despite
its oil wealth, the new state
of South Sudan lacks the
The Council of Ministers decided
today that in light
of the present
quantities of oil
being taken by
Khartoum” it would
halt production.
BARNABA MARIAL BENJAMIN
infrastructure to refine and
export oil.
Crucial facilities including
the pipeline and Red Sea
export terminal remain in
Sudan, leaving the two states
arguing over how much the
south should pay to use the
infrastructure.
The former civil war ene-
mies — now regional neighbours — have exchanged
repeated tit-for-tat accusations in a bitter spat during
dragging oil negotiations,
raising tensions between the
two sides.
Sudanese
authorities
recently stopped two ships
loaded with 650,000 barrels
of South Sudanese oil from
leaving the export terminal
because they did not pay the
port fees, according to
Khartoum’s foreign ministry.
However, Benjamin said
shutting down production
would not be immediate, and
that
South
Sudanese
President Salva Kiir would
meet
with
Sudanese
President Omar al Bashir
before it was stopped.
“It (production) is not just
closed like a door key.... it
cannot be less than seven
days,” he said. “The council
has also agreed that
President Kiir will meet
Omar al Bashir at the African
Union in Addis Ababa on
January 27.”
Oil companies in South
Sudan
include
Nile
Petroleum
Corporation,
wholly-owned by the government of South Sudan, and
Petrodar
Operating
Company, which is owned
mainly by China National
Petroleum
Corporation
Petronas
of
(CNPC),
Malaysia, Sudapet of Sudan
and SINOPEC of China.
China, which relies on
South Sudan for nearly five
percent of its oil and is also a
key ally of the Khartoum
government, is supporting
negotiations between the
two sides in the Ethiopian
capital.
In November Sudanese
officials announced the
country will take 23 percent
of the South’s vital oil
exports as payment in kind.
Juba has also claimed
Khartoum is also trying to
siphon off southern crude
and divert petroleum from
the pipeline.
Libyan ex-rebels sign up for government jobs
AFP
TRIPOLI
DRESSED in green military
fatigues and clutching CVs
under their arms, young
Libyans who fought Moamer
Qadhafi are now signing up to
register for government jobs.
Some of these men spent
months fighting Qadhafi’s
forces on the front lines of the
conflict that erupted last
February and have provided
security on Libya’s streets
since fighting ended in
October, after Qadhafi was
killed.
Now these former rebels are
trickling into the interior ministry, looking for jobs with the
new security forces, part of a
recruitment campaign the
government hopes will lead to
the disbanding of militias
across Libya.
“Name, birthday, brigade?”
asked a registrar at the Ain
Zara recruitment centre area
on the outskirts of Tripoli,
wearing a cap that says “Free
Libyan former rebels wait outside the ministry of interior in Tripoli
to register for jobs, on Thursday. (AFP)
Libya.”
Khaled Milad, 24, said he
left law school to join one of
several militias that sprang up
to fight Qadhafi and now
wants to join the security services to “help protect the country” in the post-Qadhafi era.
“Militias have no future; we
do not want to become like
Somalia,” said Milad, who
served with a brigade in
Khoms, about 100 miles (160
kilometres) east of Tripoli.
Tens of thousands of
Libyans like Milad, including
teenagers who left school,
joined the rebellion that led to
Qadhafi’s death on October 20.
But with the conflict over,
the men who helped topple
his regime remain organised
in armed brigades across the
country and often clash
among themselves.
Libya’s new military and
police are far from fully operational and these militiamen
have stepped in to provide
security on the streets.
Libya’s new rulers want to
disband the militias and to
stamp out fears that their
weapons — including heavy
arms, anti-aircraft guns and
artillery tanks — could spread
across the country or over its
borders.
The government estimates
that there are about 200,000
former rebels that need to be
disarmed, and hopes that
some 50,000 will be integrated into the army or police.
Others could be eligible for
government financial aid,
either to start a small business
or complete their education.
“We want security,” said
Salem Attig, a former member
of Qadhafi’s military who
became a commander in the
Khoms brigade and was
standing outside the centre
with some 20 young fighters
in Ain Zara.
He said his brigade had
already surrendered its
weapons to the authorities.
The registration process
requires each recruit to
declare if he possesses a gun
and give a commitment to
hand it over.
Hussein Nkibi, an engineering student, notes that he had
not seen anyone admitting to
having weapons as they
signed up before him on
Thursday.
Nkibi said the ex-rebels “do
not want to let them go.”
“Kadhafi is dead. What do
they want to do with them
now?,” says the young man,
adding that he was not a rebel
and was signing up because he
was “looking for a job.”
General Abdelmonem alTunsi, the interior ministry
spokesman, said when it
comes to final recruitment,
priority will be given to former
rebels who fought on the front
lines or protected homes and
vital installations.
04
Saturday, January 21, 2012
www.qatar-tribune.com
PHILIPPINES / EAST ASIA
Thailand to set up master
plan for water management
DPA
BANGKOK
THAILAND is to set up a central command for water management after floods late last
year caused an estimated
1.42 trillion baht (45 billion
dollars) in damage, the prime
minister said on Friday.
Premier
Yingluck
Shinawatra outlined the
country’s master plan for
coping with future floods but
did not set a date for when
the central command would
be established or provide
details of its structure.
The disruption
raised questions
among foreign
investors about
the country’s viability as a manufacturing base.
“In the short term, the
goal is to decrease the level
of damage from possible
floods in 2012,” Yingluck
said. “In the long term, the
goal is to improve the flood
management system in an
integrated and sustainable
manner.”
A lack of coordination
between the dozen state
agencies responsible for
water resources was blamed,
in part, for last year’s floods.
US Senators John McCain of Arizona (centre) and Joseph ‘Joe’ Lieberman from Connecticut (left) with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck
Shinawatra, in Bangkok, on Friday. (EPA)
Plans to avoid a repeat of
the disaster include spending
3 billion baht on improved
Malaysia prosecutors
appeal against
Anwar’s acquittal
AFP
KUALA LUMPUR
MALAYSIAN prosecutors
on Friday filed a notice of
appeal against the acquittal
of opposition leader Anwar
Ibrahim
on
sodomy
charges, sending the longrunning divisive case back
to court.
Anwar was cleared earlier this month of charges he
had sex with a young male
former aide, ending a twoyear trial that shook the
conservative
Muslimmajority country.
The attorney general’s chambers
said prosecutors
had decided to
file the notice of
appeal based on
an evaluation of
the available evidence.
He had slammed the
allegations as politically
motivated, concocted by
Prime Minister Najib
Razak’s government to stifle his resurgent opposition.
Anwar’s lawyer Sankara
Nair said he had not yet
received the notice of
appeal but called it “regrettable and atrocious”.
“The trial judge has stated succinctly in his verdict
that the crucial evidence
was ‘tampered’,” he said in
a statement.
“It appears to be a case of
political persecution of
Anwar and not prosecution,” he added, calling the
appeal a “desperate act”.
Sankara said an appeals
court was now expected to
hear the case although no
date has yet been set.
The attorney general’s
chambers said prosecutors
had decided to file the
notice of appeal based on
an evaluation of the available evidence.
“The attorney general’s
chambers
wishes
to
emphasise that in making
any decision, the department acts solely on the evidence and in accordance
with the law, not influenced by any emotion or
parties,” it said.
Anwar, 64, was charged
in 2008, months after his
opposition scored unprecedented gains in general
elections against the
Barisan Nasional coalition,
which has ruled the country for over five decades.
Kuala Lumpur High
Court Judge Mohamad
Zabidin Diah cleared
Anwar on January 9, saying DNA evidence submitted by the prosecution in
the case was unreliable.
Sodomy is punishable by
up to 20 years in jail.
Anwar’s
accuser,
Mohamad Saiful Bukhari
Azlan, 26, said he was
“grateful” for the appeal.
“I will continue to pray...
and be patient,” he said in
his blog.
Anwar, a former deputy
prime minister, was convicted and jailed on
sodomy and corruption
charges more than a
decade ago after he had a
fallout with his then boss,
former prime minister
Mahathir Mohamad.
He was freed in 2004
when the sodomy conviction was overturned after
spending six years in jail,
and went on to lead a
three-party opposition to
the 2008 electoral gains.
He has denied all charges.
Also on Friday, a
Malaysian appeals court
overturned the acquittal
on a charge of sedition of
prominent
opposition
lawmaker and lawyer
Karpal Singh, who represented Anwar in the
sodomy trial.
The high court cleared
Karpal in 2010 of the sedition charge for criticising a
royal state sultan, a crime
punishable by up to three
years in jail.
warning systems, 60 billion
baht on reforestation, 60 billion baht on developing water
retention areas and 177 billion baht on building flood
ways to divert water to the
sea.
Floods inundated the central plains and parts of
Bangkok in October and
November, claiming 636
dead.
The floods were caused by
unusually heavy rainfall during the monsoon season that
raised reservoir levels to their
limit, forcing authorities to
unleash water into the Chao
Phraya River, which runs
through the central plains
and Bangkok en route to the
sea.
The floodwaters inundated
seven industrial estates in
Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani
provinces, shutting down
hundreds of factories in the
automotive and electronics
sectors for which central
Thailand is a production hub.
The disruption raised questions
among
foreign
investors about the country’s
viability as a manufacturing
base.
“Geographical diversification was the lesson learned
from
all
this,”
said
Christopher Burton, director
of Dataconsult Ltd, which
advises foreign investors in
Thailand.
“Companies are now more
thoughtful of where they
source their parts from so if
Thailand gets inundated
again you can buy from
Brazil, and I don’t think a
water management plan is
going to change that.”
Thailand recognises Palestinian state
AFP
UNITED NATIONS
THAILAND said on Thursday
that it has recognised a
Palestinian state, in a move
hailed by Palestinian leaders
eager to boost their international standing amid a stalemate with Israel.
Thailand has “officially
recognised the state of
Palestine and officially
informed all permanent and
observer missions to the
United Nations in New York
of this development,” a press
officer for Thailand’s mission
said. In Ramallah, a
Palestinian foreign ministry
official told AFP that Thailand
was recognising the state
along the lines that existed
before the 1967 Six-Day War.
“Thailand’s recognition of a
Palestinian state is the first of
the New Year 2012 and is a
new
achievement
for
Palestinian
diplomacy,”
Palestinian foreign minister
Riyad al Maliki told the official news agency WAFA.
Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas in a statement thanked Thailand for the move
and said that procedures would
begin to establish
diplomatic relations.
Maliki said the announcement brought to 131 the number of countries that recognise a Palestinian state along
1967 lines.
Thailand recognised Israel
in 1954 and has historically
maintained friendly relations
with the Jewish state. The
kingdom is a major Israeli
vacation destination and the
countries have cooperated in
agriculture and other areas.
Palestinian
President
Mahmoud Abbas in a statement thanked Thailand for
the move and said that procedures would begin to establish diplomatic relations.
“President
Mahmoud
Abbas thanks Thailand’s king
and government for its official recognition of the
Palestinian state,” the Abbas
statement said.
Thai foreign ministry
spokesman
Thani
Thongphakdi said the recognition “has been under consideration for some time”.
“We felt that now was an
appropriate time to proceed
with the recognition of the
state of Palestine, which was
done earlier this week,” he
told AFP.
He said the move was unrelated to the recent charging of
a Lebanese man suspected of
planning an attack in
Bangkok, who had alleged
links to the Iranian- and
Syrian-backed Muslim Shiite
group Hezbollah.
The suspect was detained
based on intelligence provided by Israel, according to Thai
officials, and the United
States and Israel both warned
their citizens of a terrorist
threat in the Thai capital.
The Palestinians have
sought to boost their international recognition as negotiations with Israel remain
stalled over the issue of settlement construction.
In 2011, they won recognition from a slew of countries,
as well as membership at the
UN cultural agency, UNESCO.
They also presented a bid to
join the United Nations as a
full member, but Washington
threatened a veto and urged
negotiations, saying that only
a political settlement with
Israel would result in a state.
Captain left
Italian ship
amid panic:
Filipino crew
AFP
MANILA
THE captain of a doomed
Italian cruise ship left the
vessel while panicked passengers were still crowding the decks, Filipino
crew members said in
comments published on
Friday.
The disaster has
claimed at least
11 lives, with 21
other people
still missing.
Speaking after returning to the Philippines,
some of the 300 Filipinos
working on the Costa
Concordia
that
ran
aground off the Tuscan
coast last week said they
had been left to try and
save passengers after the
captain fled.
“Our captain may have
done his best but clearly
he also made a big mistake,” Benigno Ignacio, a
chef on the ship, told the
Philippine Daily Inquirer
newspaper.
“His fault was he abandoned the ship while the
ship’s crew including us
Filipinos were busy saving the lives of the passengers.”
Ship steward Eugen
Pusyo credited the captain, Francesco Schettino,
with saving lives by steering the ship towards a
nearby island after it ran
into trouble.
“The mistake of the captain was that he left the
ship immediately, even
before all the passengers
had been rescued,” Pusyo
was quoted as saying in
the Manila Bulletin newspaper.
“The passengers were
starting to panic and most
of them were not wearing
life vests,” he added,
describing scenes of chaos
aboard the ship.
“It felt like the Titanic as
we were rescuing the passengers. We just threw
some of children into
lifeboats just so they
would be saved.”
Schettino is under house
arrest in Italy and could
face charges of multiple
manslaughter. He has
denied abandoning the
vessel, saying he fell off the
ship and into a lifeboat.
The
disaster
has
claimed at least 11 lives,
with 21 other people still
missing.
Second bird flu death in Indonesia
AFP
JAKARTA
INDONESIA on Friday
reported its second human
death from bird flu this year,
with the death of a five-yearold girl who recently lost her
relative to the deadly virus.
Concerns about avian
influenza have risen in the
region after China in late
December reported its first
fatality from the H5N1 virus
in 18 months.
Vietnam on Thursday
reported its first human death
from the virus in nearly two
years, as the virus also
claimed the life of a toddler in
Cambodia.
The latest Indonesian victim lived in the same house
with a 24-year-old relative
who died of the virus on
January 7 but authorities say
there is no evidence of
human-to-human transmission between the two infected
people.
“The child passed away
after being treated for a few
A man tends to his pigoens, in Jakarta, on Friday.
days at a hospital,” Tjandra
Yoga Aditama, the head of
communicable diseases at
Indonesia’s health ministry,
told AFP.
(AFP)
“We have conducted several tests and the results
showed that she contracted
the same H5N1 avian influenza virus that was detected
before, so the virus has not
developed,” he said.
The girl had contact with
poultry around their neighbourhood, he said, but could
not confirm whether she had
contracted the virus from
chickens or pigeons — both
found in her neighbourhood
of Tanjung Priok in north
Jakarta.
Indonesia has been the
hardest-hit by bird flu, with
150 deaths reported between
2003 and 2011, according to
the
World
Health
Organization.
“With this case, the cumulative number of bird flu cases
in Indonesia since 2005 has
reached 184 cases, 152 of
those ended in death,” the
health ministry said on its
website.
Nine Indonesians died
from the virus last year,
including two children on the
resort island of Bali in
October.
The virus typically spreads
from birds to humans
through direct contact, but
experts fear it could mutate
into a form easily transmissible between humans, with the
potential to kill millions in a
pandemic.
UNITED KINGDOM / EUROPE
Sarkozy asks China, Russia
to back Iran sanctions
REUTERS
PARIS
FRENCH President Nicolas
Sarkozy said on Friday that
time was running out to
avoid a military intervention
in Iran and he appealed to
China and Russia to support
new sanctions to force
Tehran to negotiate over its
uranium enrichment programme.
France has led international efforts for tougher
measures to increase pressure on Iran to halt its
nuclear programme since
talks between Tehran and six
world powers — the United
States,
Russia,
China,
Britain, France and Germany
— stalled.
Western nations have
voiced mounting concern that
Israel could launch a preemptive attack against Tehran,
deepening instability in an
already volatile region. “Time
is running out.
France will do everything to
avoid a military intervention,”
Sarkozy told French ambassadors gathered in Paris.
“A military intervention
will not solve the problem,
but it will unleash war and
chaos in the Middle East.”
Israel and the United
France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, on Friday. (AFP)
States have refused to rule
out military action while Iran
continues enrichment operations which they say are
aimed at seeking nuclear
weapons. Israeli Defence
Minister Ehud Barak said on
Wednesday, however, that
any decision about an Israeli
assault on Iran was “very far
off”. Tehran insists its
nuclear research has only
peaceful civilian ends and
has refused to discuss it with
Western powers.
EU foreign ministers are
expected to agree an oil
embargo against Iran, the
world’s fifth largest exporter,
and a freeze on the assets of
its central bank at a meeting
on Monday in Brussels.
Iran has threatened to
close the Strait of Hormuz,
used for a third of the world’s
seaborne oil trade, if Western
moves to ban Iranian crude
exports cripple its lifeblood
energy sector. Sarkozy urged
Russia and China to back the
tougher sanctions.
The two emerging powers,
which have also blocked
efforts at the EU Security
Council on Syria, have shown
their unwillingness to back
further oil sanctions on Iran,
creating a rift in the international community.
“We need stronger, more
decisive sanctions that stop
the purchase of Iranian oil
and freeze the assets of the
central bank, and those who
don’t want that will be responsible for the risks of a military
conflict,” Sarkozy said.
“Help us guarantee peace
in the world. We really need
you,” Sarkozy said, in a
direct appeal to Moscow and
Beijing. Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao said during a
visit to the region on
Thursday
that
Beijing
opposes any Iranian effort
to acquire nuclear weapons
but he defended his
country’s extensive oil trade
with Tehran.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
www.qatar-tribune.com
05
Inside Europe
Polish politician
threatens to light up a
joint in parliament
WARSAW The leader of a
new left-wing party in
Poland is threatening to
light up a joint in parliament.
It’s part of a campaign
by Janusz Palikot to get
soft drugs legalised, and
otherwise liberalise the
conservative country.
But his attempt has put
him on a collision course
with the parliament speaker, who has taken swift
action to stop him.
Ewa Kopacz vowed
Friday not to let Palikot
break the law in parliament, and said that she
has reported him to prosecutors. Palikot, head of
Palikot’s Movement, plans
to introduce a draft law to
parliament on Friday
decriminalising the possession of marijuana. (AFP)
US urges Rumanians
to avoid violence
BUCHAREST Crowds
began to gather in
Romania’s capital for the
eighth day on Friday as a
US official urged
Rumanians to avoid the
violence that has tarred
anti-government protests
that have left more than
60 people injured.
The comments from
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland
were broadcast by local
media as people again
came together in
Bucharest’s University
Square — a focal point of
the recent protests. (AP)
IRA dissident convicted of murdering 2 soldiers
DUBLIN A Northern Ireland judge has convicted an IRA
dissident of the 2009 murders of two British soldiers —
the first such killings in more than a decade — but acquitted a second suspect
The judge ruled Friday that 46-year-old Brian Shivers
shot off-duty, unarmed soldiers collecting pizzas outside an
army base. He said DNA evidence linking 44-year-old
Colin Duffy to the attackers’ getaway car was inadequate.
The victims, 21-year-old Patrick Azimkar and 23-yearold Mark Quinsey, were shot repeatedly at close range.
They were about to be deployed to Afghanistan. (AP)
France mulls Afghan I don’t have cancer: Erdogan
pullout, 4 troops killed Turkey asks French senators to reject a bill on denial of Armenian genocide
AFP
ISTANBUL
AP
PARIS
FRANCE is suspending its
training
operations
in
Afghanistan and threatening
to withdraw its entire force
from the country early, after
an Afghan soldier shot and
killed four French troops on
Friday and wounded several
others.
France’s foreign minister
described the attack as an
“assassination,” and said it
happened during a training
exercise at a base jointly operated by French and Afghan
forces.
It marked the second time
in a month that French troops
were killed by Afghan soldiers. Friday was among the
most deadly days for French
forces in the 10 years they
have been serving in the
international
force
in
Afghanistan.
It was the latest in a series
of attacks by members of the
Afghan security forces against
coalition partners that have
raised fears of increased
Taliban infiltration of the
Afghan police and army.
French President Nicolas
Sarkozy confirmed the four
were French. Their death
brings to 82 the number of
French troops killed in the
Afghan campaign.
“From now on, all the operations of training and combat
help by the French army are
suspended,” Sarkozy said in
Paris.
Friday was among
the most deadly
days for French
forces in the 10
years they have
been serving in the
international force
in Afghanistan.
Sarkozy did not specify how
many French forces this
would affect, or which programs he was referring to.
A big part of the French role
in Afghanistan recently has
been training Afghan troops
and police ahead of an expected pullout of the around
3,600 French troops currently there in 2014.
“If the conditions of security are not clearly restored,
then the question of an early
withdrawal of the French
army would arise,” Sarkozy
said, without elaborating.
“The French army is in
Afghanistan at the service of
the Afghans against terrorism
and against the Taliban. The
French army is not in
Afghanistan so that Afghan
soldiers can shoot at them,”
Sarkozy said.
Unpopular
at
home,
Sarkozy is facing a potentially
tough re-election campaign
for elections in April and May
and appeared determined
Friday to act swiftly and
sternly to the latest troop
deaths.
The candidate who tops
opinion polls ahead of
France’s elections, Socialist
Francois Hollande, said in a
statement on Friday that he
would aim to pull out French
forces by the end of this year
if he becomes president.
Friday’s attack was all the
more painful for the French
because it came just weeks
after an Afghan army soldier
shot and killed two members
of the French Foreign Legion
serving in the NATO force on
December 29.
TURKISH Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
denied he has cancer but does
remain under doctors’ orders
not to overdo things after
underdoing
surgery
in
November, a report said on
Friday.
Following widespread speculation that the premier may
have had cancer, journalist
Mehmet Ali Birand revealed
Erdogan had broken his
silence about his health in an
interview with him for an
upcoming TV documentary.
“No I don’t have cancer,”
Birand quoted Erdogan as
saying in his column for
Hurriyet Daily News.
“(Erdogan) was very clear.
There were some polyps
detected in his intestines a
while ago. If they were not
removed, they could have
developed into cancer,”
Birand wrote.
The 57-year-old had laparoscopic gastrointestinal surgery on November 26. His
surgeon Mehmet Fuzun had
said the polyps which were
removed were benign.
Erdogan resumed his offi-
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Ankara, recently. (AP)
cial duties on December 13.
He was supposed to fly to
Qatar’s capital Doha early
December to attend a meeting
of the Alliance of Civilisations,
but the trip was cancelled,
fuelling speculation on Twitter
and Facebook that he had cancer.
Birand said the prime minister had made no effort to
keep his surgery a secret.
“I went out at around 7 or 8
pm in a very normal way and
went to the hospital. If anybody had turned their head,
they could have seen us,”
Birand quoted Erdogan as
saying.
“I was very uncomfortable
with aphonia and had back
pains for a while (after the
surgery). My voice was gone
because of the tube inserted
down my throat during the
operation and my back pains
were due to the position in
which I was held during the
operation,” Erdogan said
about the surgery.
Turkey has asked French
senators to reject a bill criminalising the denial of the
Armenian genocide, which
comes before the French
Senate next Monday.
“We expect (President
Nicolas) Sarkozy, his party,
and the French Senate to
respect European values
before anything else. Those
who exploit history will themselves suffer from this
exploitation,” Turkish Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu
said in televised remarks.
“We invite each French senator to stop for a while and
think beyond all political
interests,” Davutoglu told the
press.
“If the bill passes, it will
remain as a black stain in
France’s intellectual history.
And we will always remind
them this black stain,” he said.
A French Senate committee
on Wednesday rejected the
bill to outlaw denial of the
Armenian genocide, but the
move was unlikely to stop the
diplomatically fraught legislation from passing the final
vote. Davutoglu said the commission’s decision confirms
Turkey’s “rightful attitude.”
The French lower house
approved the bill last month,
threatening with jail anyone
who denies that the 1915 massacre of Armenians by
Ottoman Turk forces amounted to genocide, drawing a
threat of sanctions from
Turkey.
Choppy sea halts Italian ship rescue operations
AFP
GIGLIO ISLAND
RESCUE operations on the
stricken Costa Concordia luxury liner were suspended due
to choppy sea on Friday, one
week after a Mediterranean
tragedy in which up to 32 people are feared to have died.
Experts said the side of the
ship was slipping off a rocky
sea shelf at a rate of some 1.5
centimetres (about half an
inch) every hour towards the
open sea, which would sink
the half-submerged 114,500tonne vessel entirely.
A remote-controlled robot
was set to be used on Friday to
determine whether the submerged side of the ship can be
attached to its resting place.
Emergency crews are also
considering the possibility of
attaching the massive 17-deck
ship to the rocky coastline
with giant cables to hold it
back.
A meeting later on Friday
“will probably make the decision on whether or not to call
off the search,” an emergency
official said. As the weather
deteriorated,
emergency
crews attached rope ladders to
the exposed side of the ship to
ease access to the vessel,
warning that approaching the
ship on rubber dinghies was
becoming increasingly dangerous.
Environmentalists and local
residents of this pristine
nature reserve and marine
sanctuary are afraid there
could be a spill from the ship’s
tanks filled with 2,380 tonnes
of heavy fuel oil and 200
tonnes of diesel.
Dutch company Smit
Salvage is ready to pump out
the fuel in what is known as a
“hot-tapping” operation, but
officials say the search on the
ship would have to be suspended for them to do so as it
could affect the vessel’s stability.
“We’re ready to begin the
operation. We were ready yesterday but we’re still waiting
for the green light from the
authorities. Now we’re just
fine-tuning the instruments,”
Smit representative on the
island Rene Robben said.
Eleven people have been
confirmed dead in the tragedy
including four French nationals, one Italian and one
Spaniard among the passen-
gers and two crew members —
a Peruvian waiter and a
Hungarian man who was a
violinist on board.
Three of the bodies recovered have not yet been identified. Relatives of the 21 people
still missing have travelled to
Giglio and towns on the
Italian
mainland
like
Orbetello and Porto Santo
Stefano, clinging to the hope
that their loved ones may
somehow have survived the
disaster.
The Italian cabinet was
expected on Friday to adopt
measures for stricter regulation of shipping routes, after
reports that the Costa
Concordia veered wildly off
route in a show-off manoeuvre to file past the Tuscan
island.
People sit on boxes at the rocky coastline close to the wrecked cruise ship near, Italy, on Friday. (EPA)
06
Saturday, January 21, 2012
OPINION
www.qatar-tribune.com
ESTABLISHED SEPTEMBER
Shifting Ideology
3, 2006
HAMAD BIN SUHAIM AL THANI
ADEL ALI BIN ALI
DR HASSAN MOHAMMED AL ANSARI
EDITOR -IN-CHIEF
AJIT KUMAR JHA
CHAIRMAN
MANAGING DIRECTOR
EDITOR
Many GOP leaders don’t trust Romney to stay conservative if he becomes president
PRINTED AT ALI BIN ALI PRINTING PRESS
MAUREEN DOUD | NYT NEWS SERVICE
Westside
Curb online piracy
Congress must check rougue websites by cutting their finances
F
OR months, it seemed as if Congress would
pass an online antipiracy bill, even though its
main weapons, cutting off the financing of
pirate Web sites and making them harder to
find, risk censoring legitimate speech and
undermining the security of the Internet. But
the unmovable corporations behind those bills
have run into an unstoppable force: an outcry
by Internet companies led by Google and
Wikipedia that culminated in an extraordinary
online protest .Lawmakers have begun peeling
away from the bills, notably Senators Marco
Rubio, the Florida Republican who cosponsored the Senate version, and John Cornyn, the
powerful Texas conservative. They dropped out
after Wikipedia’s English language site went
dark and Google put a black bar on its homepage on Wednesday.
The Protect IP Act would have easily passed
the Senate last summer if not for a hold placed
by Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon.
The Stop Online Piracy Act, introduced in the
House in October, has also lost some of its initial backers. And on Saturday, the White House
released a statement warning that it would ‘not
support legislation that reduces freedom of
expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or
undermines the dynamic, innovative global
Internet.’
Though we are encouraged by legislators’
newfound caution about the potential conse-
quences of the bills, Congress must keep working on ways to curtail the growing business of
foreign rogue Web sites trafficking in counterfeit goods and stolen intellectual property.
The Internet industry was pitted against
some of the best-honed lobbying groups,
including Hollywood and the recording studios, the United States Chamber of Commerce
and the AFL-CIO. The industry has made a
good case that some of the definitions of wrongdoing like ‘facilitating’ intellectual property
infringement were overly broad. They said
allowing property rights owners to direct payment companies like Visa and ad networks like
Google’s to stop doing business with sites they
deemed infringing with no penalties if they
were proved wrong could stymie legitimate
online expression.They made the case that the
proposal to make infringing Web sites ‘disappear’ from the Internet by forbidding search
engines from finding them or redirecting their
Web addresses to other Internet domains was
easy to get around and could potentially undermine efforts to stop hackers from doing exactly
the same thing.
We are happy that the drive to pass antipiracy legislation has slowed enough that Congress
might actually consider all its implications carefully. Lawmakers can now act wisely to create
tools that can help combat the scourge of online
piracy without excessive collateral damage.
Westside
Mitigate climate change
Move to include financing climate change in economic survey is praiseworthy
T
HE finance ministry’s move to expand
the next annual Economic Survey to
include an entire chapter on financing
measures to mitigate climate change is
timely. Striking a balance between economic development and environmental
protection is essential. But the challenge is
formidable given the new uncertainties
thrown up by climate change. This is especially so since the climate risks associated
with global warming are expected to be disproportionately large on developing
economies. India with its long coastline,
extensive rain-fed agriculture and important glacier-fed rivers is vulnerable.
Though the evidence is far from conclusive, available assessments indicate diverse
adaptation strategies are needed to tackle
all contingencies. A rise in mean temperature can affect cropping patterns and agriculture productivity. It raises sea levels,
which push up coastal water salinity and
increase frequency of storms and waterborne diseases. Frequent flooding has
implications on infrastructure like dams,
bridges, roads and rails. Overall water
availability is expected to change substantially across regions and even reduce forest
cover. Working out a viable financial
framework to cut emissions and fund climate mitigation change strategies requires
a healthy dialogue between stakeholders.
An important first step would be to remove
the misconception about an inevitable
trade-off between climate change mitigation and development and forge more
effective strategies. Innovative policies for
generating renewable energy and water
conservation can make climate change mitigation efforts more affordable, minimise
the burden on the state exchequer and
boost employment and overall growth.
W
atching Mitt Romney in the
Myrtle Beach debate gave
me acid flashbacks to Poppy
Bush.Maybe it was when
Mittens decorously noted,
in front of the raucous, bloodthirsty
South Carolina crowd: “When I get
invited, I’m delighted to be able to go
hunting.”
Maybe it was Romney sounding all
19th century recounting his sharp right
turn on abortion as governor of
Massachusetts: “I penned an op-ed in
The Boston Globe and said I am prolife.”
Maybe it was when Rick Santorum
pushed the front-runner to justify an
attack ad financed by his ‘super PAC’
and Romney gazed at Santorum the
way a CEO regards an impudent mailroom clerk. “We have plenty of time,”
Mitt instructed him with a tight smile,
looking as though he wanted to give him
a copy of ‘Tiffany’s Table Manners for
Teenagers.’ ‘I’ll get there. I’ll do it in the
order I want to.’ Mitt would probably be
asking for ‘a splash’ more coffee at a
truck stop if he drank coffee.
Poppy is an Episcopalian East Coast
patrician, and Mitt is a Mormon
Midwest patrician; their fathers were
both archetypal moderate Republicans.
Poppy drinks martinis; Mitt drinks
chocolate milk and Coke Zero. But 41
and the man he endorsed to be 45 share
the gee-whiz language, hokey humor,
awkward stage presence, sense of entitlement and noblesse oblige, need to
break away from powerful patriarchs
and prove themselves in business, gentlemanly demeanor that masks surprisingly sharp elbows, and the willingness
to make whiplash switches from blueblooded positions to red-state ones,
leaving everyone to wonder: ‘Who is
this guy at his core?’
It’s easy to picture Poppy and Mitt sitting in a wood-paneled room in a country club, chatting about tennis,
Marquess of Queensberry rules and
how they’re above being gutter fighters
like the Clintons (except when they
aren’t). Poppy was compared by some
to Chatsworth Osborne Junior, the rich
kid on ‘Dobie Gillis,’ and Mitt was compared by some to Thurston Howell III,
the millionaire on ‘Gilligan’s Island.’
Twenty-four years ago, David
Letterman did a ‘Top Ten Ways to Make
George Bush More Exciting.’ (‘Shorter
speeches, tighter pants.’) Last year,
Romney went on Letterman’s show to
read ‘Things You Don’t Know About
Mitt Romney,’ including: ‘I’m the guy in
the photo that comes with your picture
frame.’
Their political philosophies were not
shaped by a passion for ideas as much a
desire to serve and an ambition to climb
higher than their revered fathers.
Pragmatism trumps ideology; survival
trumps conviction. Both men, to the
manner born in Greenwich and
Bloomfield Hills, adapted uncomfortably to the fundamentalist tent meeting
mood of the modern GOP, knowing
their futures depended on Faustian
deals with the right.
Poppy went from denouncing
‘voodoo economics’ to embracing it as
Reagan’s vice president. “He understands,” a friend explained, “that you
have to do politically prudent things to
get in a position to do what’s right.”
Worried that a platform of mere civic
duty would not suffice to stir the emotions of voters, Poppy and Mitt waved
the flag and demonized opponents with
ethnic names as less American. Bush
senior toured a flag factory and said the
Pledge of Allegiance at every campaign
stop; Romney parses patriotic songs
and his advisers refer to Mormonism as
‘the most American of religions.’ Just as
the Ivy League Poppy mocked Michael
Dukakis for being a member of the
‘Harvard boutique,’ so Harvard graduate Romney makes fun of President
Barack Obama as an elitist from ‘the
Harvard faculty lounge.’ It’s like watching little boys in Topsiders act all gangsta.
Bush 41 went from supporting
Planned Parenthood to declaring at his
first debate with Dukakis that abortion
was a crime that might need penalties.
Romney went from being a passionate
supporter of abortion rights who
appeared at a fundraiser for Planned
Parenthood and endorsed the legalization of RU-486 to being ‘firmly pro-life.’
What the late Republican Senetor Mark
Hatfield said of the resentment-stoking,
red-meat-throwing HW in 1988 could
apply to Romney now: “If his father
were alive, I’m sure his father would see
it as a shocking transformation.”
Mitt and Poppy sacrificed authenticity but never inspired Reaganesque passion. When Romney went in and out of
his hotel here this week, the Charleston
Place, he passed a blue El Dorado
Cadillac in the parking lot with a new
bumper sticker reading: ‘Reagan for
President.’
On Fox News , Senetor Lindsey
Graham, R-SC, said that if Romney
wants a big victory here Saturday, he
will have to ‘let his hair down a little bit’
and show his heart. (Does anybody really want to see that?) Many conservatives here don’t trust Romney to stay
conservative if he becomes president.
What if he began to think it’s his civic
duty to cut the deficit by raising taxes,
like Poppy? What if he flips back from
his flops?
Who are these guys at their core?
(NYT / TOI)
The Search For India In Its Literature
Western readers still want to read stories of a quaint India and the publishers are feeding their taste
L
IKE Lord Voldemort’s soul, Delhi’s
pre-eminent annual literary event
is not held within. It takes place
about 200 kilometers away, in
Jaipur, a city of ancient ramparts
and ruins. The Jaipur Literature Festival,
which began on Friday and continues for
five days, is when Delhi’s writers, readers,
publishers, critics, television anchors and
politicians who can read and write shift to
Jaipur.
There will be great, joyful crowds that
will baffle writers from countries where
there are not so many people. There will be
parties in ancient palaces against the backdrop of illuminated forts. Passionate fans
will meet some of the finest literary figures
in the world, writers will meet other writers,
and some lips will meet some posteriors.
In the last two years there has been a
boom in literature festivals in India, but
nothing has diminished the lure and glamour of the Jaipur carnival, which began in
2006 as a modest event but has now grown
in size and fame. Among the speakers this
year are Oprah Winfrey, Annie Proulx and
Michael Ondaatje. An invitation to Salman
Rushdie has met with protests from
Muslim groups that have not forgiven him
for ‘The Satanic Verses.’
The festival is a serious literary affair at its
very heart and a comic circus on the fringes.
Last year, the South African-born writer
J.M. Coetzee held a crowd of more than
500 in stunned attention as he read from a
short story. Later, the Nobel laureate had to
walk swiftly as he was chased by a large
man who was eating something and saying, “Sir, sir, give me some tips on how to
write, sir.”
Hordes of unpublished authors descend
from different parts of India in the hope of
asking famous writers, agents and publishers to help them get published. Once in
Jaipur, a popular Indian writer was surprised in the toilet by a man who wanted
him to read his unpublished manuscript.
The pomp of the Jaipur festival is disproportionate to the size and the quality of
Indian writing in English. Even though the
English-language literary novel is mainstream literature in India, a sale of 10,000
copies is considered an outlandish achievement. A director of the Man Asian Literary
Prize, which received a large number of
entries from India, said he found most of
the Indian submissions mediocre.
Embittered, unpublished writers accuse
MANU JOSEPH |NYT SYNDICATE
publishers, who are largely headquartered
in Delhi, of publishing only the works of
those who drink with them. Publishers, in
turn, say that an overwhelming majority of
the manuscripts they receive are horrible.
There is an unspoken hierarchy among
Indian writers that has nothing to do with
quality: The writers who have been published in Britain and the United States get
more attention in India than those who
have not been published abroad.
The overt and covert aspiration of Indian
writers in English is to be published in
Britain and America. That is why some
ambitious young writers flock to events like
the Jaipur festival to make useful friends,
to impress, to corner foreign publishers
and literary agents.
One of the most sought-after people in
the concentric circles of the Indian literary
establishment is David Godwin, the British
literary agent who represented Arundhati
Roy’s ‘The God of Small Things,’ which
won the Booker Prize in 1997. (The Booker
is the final frontier of Indian English literary achievement.)
Godwin’s e-mail address is closely guard-
ed by those who have it, but he still receives
numerous queries and unsolicited manuscripts from Indian writers. When he visits
events like the Jaipur festival, there is a
comet tail of people behind him.
The interest of British and American
publishers in India, and the success of a
handful of Indian writers abroad, has had
the most corrupting influence on Indian
writing in English. There is a surge of
Indian writers who are trying to sell the
great Indian exotica to white people, and
they guess that what the foreigners love is
tradition, poverty, wedding scenes, burning
widows, rebirths and talking monkeys,
among other things. And when an Indian
novel is picked by a foreign publisher, there
are immediate suspicions that the book is
probably dishonest.
British and American publishers, very
simply, pick Indian novels that will work in
their markets. As a result, sometimes, their
choice is not necessarily the best of Indian
English-language literature. What foreigners look for in India is somewhat similar to
the human search for extraterrestrials. For
instance, NASA is looking for planets that
have oxygen and water, planets that can
support organic life. Man is actually search-
ing for man. Foreign readers of Indian novels are searching for themselves in stories
set in a world that is quaint, but not incomprehensible.
When Aravind Adiga’s ‘The White Tiger’
was released in India, it mostly received
very poor reviews. Its characterization and
portrayal of Indian realities were considered naive and inaccurate. The sales were
modest.
But there was something about it that
foreigners loved, something that Indians
could not see. The book went on to win the
Man Booker Prize. The award reintroduced
the novel to Indians, and it became one of
the most successful Indian books ever.
It is not surprising that a majority of
Indian writers who have been published in
Britain and America are either citizens or
residents of those countries. They can interpret an Indian story the way foreigners can
appreciate it because they are foreigners
themselves. That is the fundamental quality of what is called ‘global literature’ in
English, the good and the mediocre novels
that the West has understood.
(Manu Joseph is editor of the Indian weekly
Open and author of the ‘Serious Men.’)
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ON THE OPINION AND ANALYSIS PAGES ARE THE AUTHORS’ OWN. QATAR TRIBUNE BEARS NO RESPONSIBILITY.
Saturday, Januray 21, 2012
ANALYSIS
Health is
Wealth
GINA KOLATA | NEW YORK TIMES
Workouts Have
Their Limits,
Recognized or Not
A
T the gym last week I saw a guy lifting
weights, working out his shoulders while two
friends urged him on. He alternated two similar
exercises with heavy weights, repeating one
exercise 10 times and then the other one 10
times, never resting between sets.
“We want to burn out his shoulders,” one of
the man’s friends.Exercise researchers would
be appalled.While public health officials
bemoan the tendency of most people to do little
exercise, if any, physiologists are fretting over
the opposite trend: an increasing focus on
extreme exercise among some recreational athletes. Weight lifting with no rest between sets
and with no days off. Competitions that
encourage excess.To enter a recent race, my
friend Joel Wilbur had to sign a waiver
acknowledging he could die. Still, Joel was disappointed to find the race wasn’t all that dangerous. After signing a death waiver, he said, he
expects some serious risks.
“People think a good workout is, I am in a pile
of sweat and puking,” said William Kraemer, a
professor at the University of Connecticut. But
if that happens, he said, “it means you went
much too quickly, and your body just can’t meet
its demands.”
It’s not so easy to strike the right balance
between exertion and rest, researchers say. Do
too little, and the results may be disappointing.That may be what happened to my colleague Jason Stallman. He wanted to avoid the
usual consequences of marathon training:
injuries from overuse. So he invented his own
training program.
He exercised on weekdays but did not run.
He ran just once a week, on the weekend, when
he would do a long run.Jason felt great, and the
long runs went well. But when it came time to
race, he said, his legs just didn’t have it. His
time was slower than for most of his previous
marathons.
Experienced athletes know that the only way
to improve is to push yourself. Lift weights that
are heavier than those you’ve tried before. Run
or cycle at a fast pace on some days, but focus
on increasing your distance on others. Work
out enough that you may not fully recover
between sessions.”You should feel tired, said
John Raglin, a sports psychologist at Indiana
University. But if you do too much with too little rest, your performance gets worse, not better.
“Serious athletes recognize these issues
whether they respond to them or not is another
matter ,”Dr Raglin said. “A lot of recreational
athletes really have no idea.”
In the early stages of overtraining, athletes
constantly feel tired; by the end stage, they
may be nagged by depression.
Recreational athletes must be attuned to
their fatigue, Dr Raglin said. If it persists for
several days, they should take a day off or
simply do a lot less during workouts. A diary
or notes on how they feel can help.”
Have
your say
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Wide Angle Lens
NICHOLAS D KRISTOF | NYT NEWS SERVICE
www.qatar-tribune.com
When young people go into
finance, I hope that they’ll show
judgment, balance and principles
instead of their elders’ penchant
for greed and rigging the system.
Just as Communists managed to
destroy Communism, capitalists
are discrediting capitalism.
IS BANKING BAD?
Public outcry can rescue capitalism from crony capitalists
W
HEN I spoke at
Swarthmore College
recently, I was startled
by one question: Is it
immoral for students to
seek banking jobs?
The corollary question, with Mitt
Romney’s business career under
attack even by staunch Republicans,
is this: Is it unethical to make millions in private equity?
My answer to both questions: no.
I’ve been sympathetic to the
Occupy Wall Street movement, but,
look, finance is not evil. Banking has
contributed immensely to modern
civilization. By allocating capital to
more efficient uses, banking laid the
groundwork for the industrial revolution and the information revolution.
Likewise, the attacks on private
equity seem over the top. Private
equity firms like Bain Capital, where
Romney worked, aren’t about
destroying companies and picking
over the carcasses. Rather, the aim
is to acquire poorly managed companies, make them more efficient
(sometimes by firing people but
often by rejiggering the business
model) and then resell them at a
profit. That’s the merciless, rugged
nature of capitalism.
Liberals should also be wary of
self-selecting out of certain occupations. After Vietnam and revelations
of CIA abuses in the 1970s, many
university students avoided the military and the intelligence agencies.
So slots were filled disproportionately by ideological conservatives in
a way that undermined everyone’s
interests. We would have been better off if more Swarthmore idealists
had become generals and CIA officers and we may be better off if
some idealists become bankers as
well.
Now for my caveats.
When young people go into
finance, I hope that they’ll show
judgment, balance and principles
instead of their elders’ penchant for
greed and rigging the system. Just
as Communists managed to destroy
Communism, capitalists are discrediting capitalism.
A Pew Research Center poll in
December found that only 50 percent of Americans reacted positively
to the term ‘capitalism,’ while 40
percent reacted negatively. Among
Americans ages 18 to 29, more had
a negative view of capitalism than a
positive view, the survey found.
Those young Americans actually
viewed socialism more positively
than capitalism. In other words,
America’s grasping capitalists are
turning young Americans into
socialists.
The Financial Times recently
published a series about ‘capitalism
in crisis.’ It noted that the Edelman
Trust Barometer, a survey, found
that only 46 percent of Americans
Americans ages 18
to 29, hold a negative view of capitalism than a positive
view.Those young
Americans actually
viewed socialism
more positively than
capitalism.
In other words,
America’s grasping
capitalists are
turning young
Americans into
socialists.
had confidence in business to do the
right thing (and only 25 percent
trusted banks).
Public skepticism is warranted, in
my view. Corporations have vastly
overpaid CEOs, handsomely
rewarding not only success but also
failure. Banks that helped cause
today’s financial mess lobbied successfully for bailouts for themselves;
they privatized profits and socialized losses.
Meanwhile, more than four million families have lost their homes
to foreclosure, according to
Zillow.com, a real estate company. Bankers and shareholders
found a safety net, but not working-class families. One reason is
that the campaign finance system
allows financiers to buy access
and special favors. If you’re a
A ‘Blunt’ V-Day
Anti-people stance
APROPOS the report, “ How’s
James Blunt live for A V-Day rendezvous.”
It’s great news for music lovers
all over the country that ‘you are
beautiful’ star is going to perform
here on a day which is special for
people who are in love.
James Blunt’s presence will
surely multiply the joy Feburary 14
brings. Moreover, te report says
that he is going to sing songs from
all his three albums. What a treat!
Blunt has also started to play the
electronic guitar on stage. It will be
a new thing to watch out when he
comes out on the stage with one.
The musician also says that
Beirut is the most interesting city
he has visited.
I hope when he comes here he
changes his loyality.
THIS is with reference to the report, “
Egypt’s military chief warns of grave
dangers.” Now, what else can we
expect from an army which nowadays
controls a country.
Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi,
military ruler of Egypt has indirectly
warned all the activists not to overdo
things on the annivarsary of the
Tahrir Square protests.
The activists have already called for
the military to step down and allow
civilian rule as soon as possible. They
have also accused them of torturing
and killing protesters since October
this year.
Tantawi was the Defense Minster of
Mubarak for 20 years and he was considered a loyalist. If he dosen’t step
down it will mark the beginining of a
new dictatorship.
tycoon, your best investment often
is a lobbying firm in Washington to
create a tax loophole for you. The
last few years have been a showcase
not of capitalism itself, but of crony
capitalism.
Romney’s average tax rate, which
he says is probably about 15 percent,
exemplifies the problem. The
Romneys benefit because capital
gains tax rates have been slashed to
just 15 percent, much lower than
rates paid on labor income.
Then there’s the most egregious
tax loophole of all, for ‘carried interest.’ A triumph of lobbying, it allows
private equity and hedge fund managers to pretend that their labor
income is a capital gain. So they
sometimes pay a tax rate of just 15
percent, compared with up to 35
percent for almost everyone else.
Granted, young people haven’t
been pouring into finance in recent
years out of eagerness to reform this
rigged system but to milk it. In
2007, on the eve of the financial crisis, 47 percent of Harvard’s graduating class headed for consulting
firms and the financial sector, a
huge misallocation of human capital. However well-meaning these
new graduates are initially, they
often end up caught up in the
scramble at the trough.
In the postwar years, labor unions
became greedy and rewarded themselves with feather-bedding and
rigid work rules turning much of
the public against them. Likewise,
Wall Street feather-bedding is tarnishing the public image of banks
and business and undermining confidence in capitalism itself.
When financiers rig the system,
they should remember the warning
of John Maynard Keynes: “The
businessman is only tolerable so
long as his gains can be held to bear
some relation to what, roughly and
in some sense, his activities have
contributed to society.”
So university students would be
wrong to mock their classmates who
choose Citigroup over CARE.
Banking and private equity aren’t
evil, and I would never urge college
students to stay away. Maybe
today’s young socialist sympathisers, along with healthy regulation
and a loud public outcry, can help
rescue capitalism from the crony
capitalists.
“The Qatari leader’s visit to
Sri Lanka will further boost
the bilateral ties.”
D ANIEL S OLOMON
D OHA
“This is the real me, but you
won’t be hearing from me
often I’m afraid, as pen and
paper are my priority at the
moment.”
J K ROWLING
RAHULPARASHAR
DOHA
AMIR JALAL
DOHA
07
Bloggers’
Borough
ANTONY BUGG, BRUCE KOGUT, NALIN KULATILAKA | HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
A New Approach
To Funding Social
Enterprises
S
OCIAL ENTERPRISE’S NEW BALANCE
SHEET:
To see how the process works, imagine that
a social enterprise operating in Africa
requires an investment of $100,000 to build
new health clinics and expects the clinics to
earn $5,000 a year, a return of 5 percent on
the investment.
Unfortunately, 5 percent is too low to
attract private sources of capital.
Traditionally the enterprise would obtain the
$100,000 from a charitable foundation
instead. But suppose the enterprise asked the
donor for only $50,000. It could then offer a
financial investor a 10 percent return on the
remaining $50,000. The donor would
receive no repayment but it would have
$50,000 to give to another socially worthy
enterprise.
You can think of a charitable donation as
an investment, just as debt and equity are
investments. The difference is that the return
on the donation is not financial. The donor
does not expect to get its money back; it
expects its money to generate a social benefit. It considers the investment a failure only
if that social benefit is not created. And with
a donor-investor willing to subsidize half the
cost, the social enterprise becomes valuable
and less risky to conventional investors. The
traditional model of social enterprise leaves
this value on the table. Donors lose out
because they fully subsidize a project that
could have attracted investment capital, and
investors do not participate at all.
What we’ve just described is, of course,
analogous to the way conventional companies are financed. By raising a portion of the
capital it needs from equity investors, a risky
business can then borrow money from debt
investors who seek predictable returns.
In the emerging model of social enterprise
capital markets, donors play the role of equity holders, providing capital that supports an
enterprise and that makes the debt taken on
by financial investors safer, with better
expected returns. Let’s look at the tools that
are taking social enterprises in this direction.
INNOVATION IN PRACTICE:
Some of the more forward-thinking foundations and social investors have realized
that the current methods of financing social
enterprises are inefficient, for the enterprises
and themselves, and have started working to
broaden the access to capital. Here are some
of the mechanisms they’re employing.
LOAN GUARANTEES: The Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation now issues loan guarantees, rather than direct funds, to some of the
enterprises it supports, recognizing that this
is an efficient way to leverage its donations
and provide organizations with more-certain
funding. Its first guarantee allowed a charter
school in Houston to raise $67 million in
commercial debt at a low rate, saving the
school (and its donors) almost $10 million in
interest payments.
QUASI-EQUITY DEBT: Some organizations have developed financial vehicles that
combine the properties of equity and debt. A
quasi-equity debt security is particularly useful for enterprises that are legally structured
as nonprofits and therefore cannot obtain
equity capital. Such a security is technically a
form of debt, but it has an important characteristic of an equity investment: Its returns
are indexed to the organization’s financial
performance. The security holder does not
have a direct claim on the governance and
ownership of the enterprise, but the terms
and conditions of the loan are carefully
designed to give management incentives to
operate the organization efficiently. Social
investors purchase these securities, which
perform the function of equity and make it
possible for social enterprises to offer banks
and other profit-seeking lenders a competitive investment opportunity.
Consider the Bridges Social Entrepreneurs
Fund, one of several social funds of the UK
investment company Bridges Ventures. The
fund has some 12 million pounds to invest in
social enterprises. Recently it committed 1
million pounds to a social loan to HCT, a
company that uses surpluses from its commercial London buses, school buses, and
Park & Ride services to provide community
transportation for people unable to use conventional public transportation. This social
loan has a quasi-equity feature: The fund
takes a percentage of revenues, thereby sharing some of the business risk and gains.
Because the loan is tied to the top revenue
line, it provides HCT with strong incentives
to manage the business efficiently.
Covenants on such loans are often added to
avoid mission drift from the social goals.
To be continued
08
Saturday, January 21, 2012
UNITED STATES
www.qatar-tribune.com
Obama to
press Congress
to revisit
$1.2 tn cut
AFP
WASHINGTON
A file photograph of Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich (left) with his ex-wife Marianne Gingrich. (AP)
Surging Gingrich blasts
US media over past affair
AFP
NORTH CHARLESTON
NEWT Gingrich surged in the
Republican White House race
ahead of Saturday’s key South
Carolina vote after lambasting the US media for digging
into his past marital infidelity.
The former House speaker
slammed the media on
Thursday after the airing of
an interview with an ex-wife
Marianne Gingrich and
sparred with top rival Mitt
Romney as the four remaining candidates battled for the
hearts of southern conservatives.
A Public Policy Polling
Seaweed
biofuel
holds huge
potential:
Experts
(PPP) survey released on
Thursday showed Gingrich
(35 percent) with a six-point
over
former
lead
Massachusetts
governor
Romney (29 percent), with
Texas Representative Ron
Paul
and
former
Pennsylvania senator Rick
Santorum tied at 15 percent
just 36 hours before the state
primary.
Gingrich has risen with a
series of feisty debate performances, and on Thursday
came out swinging with a
blistering reply to the first
debate question that drew a
standing ovation from the
crowd
of
southern
Republicans. Asked about his
second ex-wife’s claim in a television interview that he asked
her to have an “open marriage,” Gingrich denied the
claim as “false” and called the
question “as close to despicable as anything I can imagine.”
“I am tired of the elite media
protecting (President) Barack
Obama
by
attacking
Republicans,”
thundered
Gingrich, who as speaker in the
1990s hounded Democratic
President Bill Clinton over an
extra-marital affair.
Gingrich had his own sixyear affair with an aide who is
now his third wife. He has
since
converted
to
Catholicism and expressed
regret over past failings.
The former House speaker
aimed for a surprise victory
here over Romney after saying that the former governor
and
multi-millionaire
investor would lock up the
party’s presidential nomination with a win in South
Carolina.
Romney strove to deflect
attacks from Gingrich that he
built his vast fortune while
firing workers, saying he
expected such jibes from
Obama,
not
fellow
Republicans — traditionally
the party of business.
“I know we’re going to get
hit hard from President
Obama, but we’re going to
stuff it down his throat and
point out (that) it is capitalism and freedom that makes
America strong,” Romney
said.
Gingrich charged that the
approach of Romney’s Bain
Capital firm was to “take over
a company and dramatically
leverage it, leave it with a
great deal of debt, (make) it
less likely to survive.”
Santorum, a Christian conservative, joined in, saying
Republicans must help
“working men and women of
this country who are out there
paddling alone.”
Protesters to ‘occupy’ US
courts over polls
AFP
AP
WASHINGTON
NEW YORK
ENERGY experts believe
that seaweed holds enormous potential as a biofuel alternative to coal
and oil, and US-based
scientists say they have
unlocked the secret of
turning its sugar into
energy.
A newly engineered
microbe can do the work
by metabolizing all of the
major sugars in brown
seaweed,
potentially
making it a cost-competitive alternative to petroleum fuel, said the report
in the US journal
Science. The team at the
Berkeley,
Californiabased Bio Architecture
Lab engineered a form of
E. coli bacteria that can
digest the seaweed’s sugars into ethanol, it said.
Unlike other microbes
before,
researchers
found it can attack the
primary sugar constituent in seaweed,
known as alginate.
“Our scientists have
engineered an enzyme to
degrade and a pathway
to metabolize the alginate, allowing us to utilize all the major sugars
in seaweed, said Daniel
Trunfio, chief executive
at Bio Architecture Lab.
PROTESTERS plan to “occupy” courthouses in more than
100 cities across the US on
Friday to protest a landmark
US Supreme Court decision
that removed most limits on
corporate and labour spending
in federal elections.
The grassroots coalition,
called Move to Amend, said the
protest will kick off petition
drives to gain support for a
constitutional amendment that
would overturn Citizens
United vs FEC, a 2010 court
ruling that allowed private
groups to spend huge amounts
on political campaigns with
few restrictions. Occupy Wall
Street activists are joining the
protest.
“The courts created the idea
that the corporation is a person
with constitutional rights,” said
David Cobb, an Occupy the
Courts organiser. “It’s the justification for the whole corporate
takeover of our government.”
The ruling and others stripped
away some limits on campaign
contributions and led the the
emergence of super political
action committees. They can’t
coordinate directly with campaigns, but many active in this
election are staffed by longtime
supporters. The groups can
spend unlimited amounts of
cash to influence elections and
so far have paid for at least $10
million in ads in the Republican
race to choose a candidate to
challenge President Barack
Obama in November.
Many of the groups’ donors
will remain secret until
January 31, when some of the
super PACs are required to
report their finances to the
commission. Activists in New
York scrambled to move their
protest after a judge ruled on
Thursday that demonstrators
do not have a right to protest in
front of a court. Protesters had
filed a lawsuit asking the judge
to overturn the government’s
rejection of their permit application on grounds that the
courthouse poses unique
security concerns.
IN ITS budget submission
next month, the Obama
administration will urge lawmakers to revisit the failed
attempt by a congressional
supercommittee to cut the
deficit by at least $1.2 trillion,
the White House says.
The proposal runs counter
to the common wisdom in
Washington that any major
deficit reduction effort is
unlikely in a presidential election year. Instead, lawmakers
are focusing on a one-year
extension of a payroll tax cut
and supplemental jobless benefits sought by the president as
part of last fall’s jobs agenda.
But also looming are sweeping across-the-board spending
cuts required next year
because of the supercommittee deadlock. Top lawmakers
like House Armed Services
Committee Chairman Howard
“Buck” McKeon, are focusing
on a less ambitious one-year
plan to give the Pentagon a
reprieve from cuts that both
the administration and
Republicans say would cripple
the military.
The White House plan, likely to reprise new taxes and fee
proposals that are nonstarters
with Capitol Hill Republicans,
would turn off the entire nineyear, $1.2 trillion across-theboard spending cuts, referred
to as a “sequester.”
“We have a sequester coming less than a year from now
unless Congress acts,” said a
senior administration official.
“We’re going to ask Congress
to do now what we think
Congress should have done in
December, which is enact
more than $1.2 trillion in
deficit reduction, turn off the
sequester and maintain the
(spending caps).”
The
official
required
anonymity as a condition to
speak to a reporter on the plan.
That plan of budget cuts
would be imposed under last
summer’s budget and debt
pact between Obama and
Congress that imposed $900
billion in savings from
accounts appropriated by
Congress each year and promised at least $1.2 trillion more
from the work on the deficit
supercommittee, or, failing
that, across-the-board cuts to
a sweeping set of defense and
domestic programmes.
The threat of the acrossthe-board cuts was supposed
to prod the panel, but it never
got on track and collapsed
just before Thanksgiving over
intractable differences on tax
increases and cuts to popular
programs like Medicare.
The failure of the panel
capped a long, difficult budget year in which the warring
sides were only able to agree
when facing either a shutdown of the government or an
unthinkable default on US
obligations.
Policymakers face the
prospect of more gridlock
The administration’s proposal
could be doomed
to dead-on-arrival
status despite
widespread desire
to turn off the
automatic cut
this year as election-year politics promise to even further
cripple the already limited
ability of Obama and Capitol
Hill Republicans to work
together.
In that light, the administration’s proposal could be
doomed to dead-on-arrival status despite widespread desire
to turn off the automatic cuts
At the same time, a new
wrinkle has emerged due to
the collapse of the supercommittee: a new set of
spending caps for the 2013
budget year that begins on
October 1 that require cuts
of about $8 billion from the
$554 billion budget for
defence programmes, the
first outright cuts since the
so-called peace dividend of
the early 1990s.
US President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign event, in
New York, on Thursday. (AFP)
Army chief asks Israel to remain calm on Iran
AFP
JERUSALEM
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) with US General
Martin E Dempsey, in Jerusalem, on Friday. (AP)
US MILITARY chief General
Martin Dempsey on Friday
urged Israel to keep the channels of communication open
amid concerns the Jewish state
could launch a military strike
on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Speaking after talks with
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud
Barak on what was his first visit
to Israel since taking office last
October, Dempsey said both
sides would benefit from
greater engagement over
regional issues, in an apparent
reference to the Iranian
nuclear standoff.
“We have many interests in
common in the region in this
very dynamic time and the
more we can continue to
engage each other, the better
off we’ll all be,” he said, in
remarks communicated by
Barak’s office.
Israel fears a nuclear-armed
Iran would pose an existential
threat to the Jewish state and
has refused to rule out a resort
to military action to pre-empt
it, although earlier this week
Barak said any such decision
remained “very far away.”
Reports suggest Washington
is against such a strike, and the
US administration is understood to be putting pressure on
Israel to hold off.
In the morning, Dempsey
said Israel and Washington
shared a “common challenge”
and stressed US backing for
the Jewish state in remarks
addressed to Israeli Chief of
Staff Lieutenant General
Benny Gantz.
“Your characterisation of the
common challenge we face and
the sacred trust we have to protect those values of freedom —
I couldn’t agree with you
more,” said Dempsey, whose
comments were carried on
Israel’s public radio.
“And I assure you that
America is your partner in that
regard.”
Dempsey arrived late on
Thursday for a flying visit, his
first to Israel since taking up
the post of chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff in
October, which was expected
to focus on Iran. He had an
early morning meeting with
Gantz before meeting Barak,
after which he travelled to
Jerusalem with the chief of
staff to meet President
Shimon Peres and pay a brief
visit to the Yad Vashem
Holocaust museum.
He was to meet Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
later in the day before leaving
in the early evening, officials
said.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
09
10
Saturday, January 21, 2012
www.qatar-tribune.com
No chance of past
dictators coming
back: Gilani
PAKISTAN / SOUTH ASIA
Hasina accuses BNP of plotting
against Bangladesh govt
IANS
PTI
ISLAMABAD
DHAKA
IN an oblique reference to
the country’s past military
rulers, Pakistan Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
on Friday said “dictators”
who boasted of curbing corruption while they were in
power could do nothing and
have no chance of returning.
Addressing the convocation ceremony of the Lahore
College
for
Women
University, Gilani said: “The
only stable position rests
with the Almighty”, Geo TV
reported. “The opposition is
doing its own work and the
government would run as
per the mandate accorded to
them by the people,” he said.
Every institution must
work within the ambit of the
constitution, the prime minister said. “We have
strengthened the state
organs by restoring the constitution and my appearance
before the court reflects that
we respect judiciary.” Gilani
also said that a number of
targets in the economic sector have been achieved during the first six months of the
current fiscal due to the prudent policies of the present
government.
Talking about the economic situation, Gilani said
that despite facing challenges of floods, rains and
deteriorating law and order
situation and world economic recession, economic indicators of Pakistan improved
and inflation was reduced to
BANGLADESH Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has
accused the “desperate”
opposition of “plotting”
against her government after
the army foiled a coup plot by
some “fanatic” serving and
retired military officers.
Criticising Khaleda Zia-led
Bangladesh Nationalist Party
(BNP), the ruling Awami
League president said the
opposition was plotting
against her government.
“They are desperate to spoil
the democratic process on the
pretext of movement. They
are threatening the government to protect the war criminals,” bdnews24 quoted
Hasina as saying.
Zia is pressing Hasina to
reinstate the caretaker government system to oversee
elections, scrapped last year
by the government through a
constitution amendment in
line with a Supreme Court
verdict. But Hasina warned,
“making threats will not help
much. The government will
not bow before their threats.”
Hasina said hundreds of people had to die in the politics of
coups and murder.
“I don’t want to hear mothers crying (over losing their
children). I want democracy
and peace,” she said during a
meeting with her party’s
Khagrachhari district unit
leaders at at her official residence in the city.
Her remarks came soon
after the Bangladesh Army on
Thursday said, “A band of
Yousuf Raza Gilani
single digit. Gilani said political stability was a must to
ensure economic stability.
He said the government controlled borrowing during the
first six months of this fiscal
year that helped to reduce
the inflation to single digit
(9.7) first time in history of
the country.
The prime minister said
that fiscal deficit had come
down from 9.4 percent to
7.6 percent and inflation that
had reached 25 percent had
been reduced to 9.7 percent
during December 2011.
Gilani said the government
provided a number of incentives to farmers that
improved the food supply
situation in the country. He
said the GDP growth rate
will be 4 percent basically
due to the enhanced agricultural production.
He said the tax net has
been widened. Highlighting
the achievements in tax collection, Gilani said tax collection during July-December
2011 was Rs 841 billion, 27
percent more.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addresses a news conference, in Berlin, Germany, recently. (AP)
fanatic officers had been trying to oust the politically
established
government.
Their attempt has been
foiled.” The report comes as
the government begins trial
against alleged mastermind
of war crimes suspect and former Jamaat-e-Islami chief
Ghulam Azam and other top
leaders of the party, which is a
crucial ally of the main opposition BNP.
Hasina’s
government,
which came to power in early
2009, has faced repeated
threats from hardline groups.
Bangladesh has a long history of coups and counter
coups.The country was under
direct or pseudo military
rules for over a decade, since
August 15, 1975, when the
Zia is pressing
Hasina to reinstate
the caretaker
government
system to oversee
polls, scrapped
last year by govt
country’s founding leader
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was
assassinated along with most
of his family members.
Hasina said after the assassination of the father of the
nation in 1975, elements in
the army had staged around
18 to 19 coups, in which thousands of people had to die,
Daily Star reported.
“Who are the beneficiary of
the politics of killings and
coups?” questioned Hasina.
It is mainly the armed
forces officers and soldiers
who were killed in those
coups, said Hasina.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh
special forces on Friday
arrested five members of a
banned
Islamic
group
accused of supporting a coup
attempt last month, a
spokesman said.
Bangladesh’s army said on
Thursday it had foiled a coup
attempt to topple the Hasina
government by retired and
serving officers in a campaign
to introduce sharia law in the
majority Muslim country.
The army said one of the
coup masterminds, Major
Ziaul Haque remained a fugitive. The five arrested in the
capital Dhaka are allegedly
members of Islamic groupt
Hizbut
Tahrir,
said
Mohammad Sohel, director
for legal and media of the
Rapid Action Battalion.
Impoverished Bangladesh has
a history of coups, with army
generals running the South
Asian nation for 15 years until
the end of 1990.
Sheikh Hasina took power
in early 2009 and has since
faced threats from Islamist
and other radical groups.
A revolt in the country’s
paramilitary border guards in
February 2009 started at the
guard headquarters in Dhaka
and spread to a dozen other
cities, killing more than 70
people, including 51 army officers. The revolt was quelled
after two days but the country
has since been shadowed by
fears of further uprisings.
Reforms irreversible: Myanmar president 6 US troops killed in
AP
YANGON
MYANMAR’S president has
told a US newspaper that his
country’s democratic reforms
are irreversible, as he urged the
West to lift sanctions. He even
dangled the possibility of giving opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi a Cabinet post.
“We are on the right track to
democracy,” President Thein
Sein said in the interview with
The Washington Post published on Friday, his first with
Western media. “Because we
are on the right track, we can
only move forward, and we
don’t have any intention to
draw back.”
Suu Kyi’s National League
for Democracy responded to
the newspaper report by saying
it would be too early for the US
to lift economic sanctions
because the reforms aren’t
complete yet. It also welcomed
the notion of a Cabinet post for
Suu Kyi, while saying it was too
early to discuss the matter.
Thein Sein’s government took
office in March, ending a half
century of military rule. Since
then, it has rolled out reforms
at a pace that has surprised
Myanmar’s President Thein Sein (left) with US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell at the
presidential palace, in Naypyitaw, recently. (AP)
even Myanmar’s staunchest
critics. Thein Sein said he felt
his government had met the
West’s conditions for lifting
sanctions by releasing many
political prisoners, scheduling
parliamentary elections for
April 1 and allowing Suu Kyi
among others to participate.
“What is needed from the
Western countries is for them
to do their part,” he said.
Thein Sein repeatedly called
for the lifting of severe eco-
nomic sanctions that the US,
European Union and others
imposed while Myanmar was
under military rule. He said the
sanctions hurt the people of
Myanmar much more than the
former junta leaders and were
holding back the country’s economic progress.
The US and EU have praised
the recent reforms but said
they will monitor how the April
vote is conducted, among other
considerations, before revising
sanctions.
Suu Kyi has said she will personally contest the elections, a
historic event that could usher
the Nobel laureate and former
political prisoner into her first
parliamentary seat.
“If the people vote for her,
she will be elected and become
a member of Parliament. I am
sure that the Parliament will
warmly welcome her. This is
our plan,” Thein Sein said.
Asked if he would like to see
Suu Kyi in his government,
Thein Sein replied: “If one has
been appointed or agreed on
by the Parliament, we will have
to accept that she becomes a
Cabinet minister.”
After a recent visit to
Myanmar, US Senator Mitch
McConnell said he would take
his cue on lifting sanctions
from Suu Kyi. He said a key
test would be free and fair conduct of April 1 elections. He
also sought more moves to end
ethnic violence, and for
Myanmar to discontinue its
relationship with North Korea,
which is suspected to have sold
it missiles in defiance of U.N.
Security Council resolutions.
Some in the US Congress
maintain that there is ongoing
nuclear cooperation between
the two countries.
Thein Sein said the two
countries have diplomatic relations but denied any military
ties with North Korea.
“These are only allegations,”
he said. “We don’t have any
nuclear or weapons cooperation with (North Korea).”
Thein Sein said that the government was committed to
ending the country’s long-running ethnic conflicts.
Afghan copter crash
REUTERS
KABUL
SIX US Marines were killed in
a helicopter crash in southern
Afghanistan on Thursday, a US
official said, but NATO said
Taliban fighters were not active
in the area at the time.
“The cause of the crash is
under investigation, however
initial reporting indicates there
was no enemy activity in the
area at the time of the crash”, a
spokesman for the NATO-led
ISAF said on Friday, raising
questions about a possible
malfunction or pilot error.
The NATO spokesman
declined to confirm the nationality of the victims but a US
official, speaking on condition
of anonymity, said all of the
dead were US Marines.
It is the worst crash since
August last year when 30
American forces, including 22
elite Navy SEAL commandos,
died when their helicopter
came down in eastern
Afghanistan. An investigation
into the incident confirmed
that the Taliban fired a rocket-
propelled grenade that hit one
of the rotary blades and
exploded, sending the helicopter plunging to the ground and
bursting into flames within
seconds. All eight Afghans on
board were also killed.
Meanwhile, in a related
development,
Afghan
President Hamid Karzai on
Friday sent his condolences to
the French people over the
deaths of four French troops
shot dead by an Afghan army
soldier. “The president is saddened at the incident and
expresses his deep sympathy
and condolences to the president and people of France and
the victims’ families,” his office
said in a statement.
Defence Minister General
Rahim Wardak also expressed
his condolences and said he
had ordered an immediate
investigation into the incident.
In an angry reaction to the
shooting, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy suspended
French military training operations in Afghanistan and said
he was mulling an early withdrawal of French troops.
Maldives’ vice-president criticises govt, joins calls to free judge
AP
COLOMBO
THE Maldives’ vice-president
joined calls on Friday for the
release of a detained senior
judge, in a sign of divisions
within the government of
President Mohamed Nasheed.
Vice-President Mohammed
Waheed Hassan criticised the
“extrajudicial arrest” this week
of Criminal Court Chief Justice
Abdulla Mohamed after he
ordered the release of a
detained government critic.
Hassan told The Associated
Press the detention sets a bad
precedent for the country’s
new democracy.
Nasheed’s government has
been accused of using the military and police to crack down
on critics and of defying court
rulings. A group of journalists
accused the government on
Thursday of harassing media
that are covering the present
political crisis and the judge’s
arrest. They said the government has penalised television
stations for broadcasting opinions expressed by opposition
politicians, and an independent regulator, the Maldives
Broadcasting Commission,
said the country’s communications minister has threatened
to withdraw the frequencies of
TV and radio stations if the
commission does not properly
monitor them.
The judge is being detained by
the military despite orders by the
country’s Supreme Court and
prosecutor general that he be
released. “When it comes to the
judiciary, its head is the chief justice and the rulings of the chief
justice should be obeyed by all
parties,” Hassan said.
“I think the government is in
a very difficult situation
because of this.” Maldives had
30 years of autocratic rule
before Nasheed led a successful pro-democracy campaign
that brought him to power in
2008. His government established free elections, an inde-
Anti-government protesters react against the arrest of the chief justice, in Male, Maldives, on Tuesday. (AP)
pendent judiciary, and human
rights and media commissions.
Hassan acknowledged there
was a clear disagreement
between him and Nasheed
over the judiciary but insisted
they could still work together.
Judge Mohamed’s arrest
sparked street protests in the
capital, Male, which were broken up by police using tear gas.
On Friday, police arrested a
prominent Muslim cleric and
leader of a hard-line religious
political party for allegedly
inciting hatred during a
protest. Several politicians
including a lawmaker were
also arrested.
Sheik Imran, leader of the
Justice party, has been calling
for strict Islamic law to be
implemented and accused
Nasheed of working against
Islam, with the support of
Christians and Jews.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
INDIA
Inside India
Krishna urges UAE
investment in
Karnataka
Khurshid appears
before Election
Commission
BANGALORE External
Affairs Minister S M
Krishna on Friday sought
to impress upon the UAE
to invest in infrastructure
projects in Karnataka, particularly in ‘IT capital’
Bangalore.
Making efforts to
enhance brand Bangalore,
Krishna invited Sheikh
Mohammed Bin Zayed Al
Nahayan, Director, Abu
Dhabi Investment Board
to the city for discussions
to explore investment
opportunities.
“The UAE team is
extremely impressed with
what it has been able to
see in Bangalore,” Krishna
told reporters after the
interaction. Krishna said
Nahyan conveyed to him
that the UAE would “certainly invest” and explore
various avenues where
investment can flow into
Karnataka and Bangalore.
The trade volume
between India and the
UAE is about USD 67 billion and investment was a
lowly USD 6 billion, he
said. (PTI)
NEW DELHI Strongly
defending his remarks
promising job quotas for
minorities, Law Minister
Salman Khurshid on Friday
told the Election
Commission that he had
only made a declaration of
intent and not a policy
announcement.
Appearing on behalf of
the Law Minister, leading
counsel Abhishek Manu
Singhvi also told the
Election Commission that
Khurshid had not referred
to any particular minority
community and had only
reiterated a pre-declared
government policy.
“We have given sufficiently strong reasons in
this regard,” Singhvi told
reporters after a nearly
hour-long Commission
hearing. The EC had issued
a showcause notice to
Khurshid for having
declared that his party
would provide nine per
cent reservation to minorities from the existing 27
per cent reservation meant
for OBCs should it return to
power in UP. (PTI)
www.qatar-tribune.com
Team Anna targets Cong
in its poll pamphlet
PTI
NEW DELHI
TEAM Anna on Friday
released a campaign pamphlet
for the upcoming assembly
polls in which it attacked the
Congress accusing it of betraying the country on Lokpal issue
even as the activists claimed
that they will not seek votes for
or against any single party.
The four page pamphlet
titled ‘Your Vote can Change
the History of India — Betrayal
by Central Government on the
Country’ also targeted Rahul
Gandhi, Mulayam Singh Yadav
and Mayawati to question
them on Lokpal and land
acquisition. The BJP was also
posed questions.
However, Team Anna members Arvind Kejriwal and
Prashant Bhushan told a press
conference that their campaign
is not against or in favour of a
party but on “important” issues
like corruption, Lokpal and
land acquisition.
When pointed out that the
title of the pamphlet betrays
the claims of not targeting a
party, Kejriwal shot back,
“Hasn’t the government cheated the whole country?”
Bhushan said they will raise
the issues on Lokpal and what
all parties did to the Lokpal
Bill. The pamphlet has listed
“six betrayals” on the issue of
Team Anna members Arvind Kejriwal (left) and Prashant Bhushan, in New Delhi, on Friday. (PTI)
Lokpal by central government
while another page titled
“Congress’ strong Lokpal Bill”
cites the “deficiencies” in the
anti-corruption law.
Six questions were raised to
all political parties which
include whether they agree
that the Lokpal Bill is weak,
CBI should be independent of
government control and
whether they will oppose the
bill in Parliament. The parties
were also asked about their
stand on land acquisition bill.
Making the campaign personal, Team Anna also sought
answers from Rahul Gandhi on
whether Congress will dare to
bring a strong Lokpal bill on
the lines of Lokayukta Act in
BJP-ruled Uttarakhand.
Noting that Hazare went on
hunger strike thrice last year
for a strong Lokpal, Team
Anna said, “but the Congress-
Vodafone wins $2.5 bn
tax fight in India
AFP
NEW DELHI
Modi takes Sadhbhavna mission to Godhra
GODHRA Attempting an image makeover to get over the
riots taint, Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi on
Friday took his fast for communal harmony straight to
Godhra, the epicentre of 2002 riots, just over a month
before the tenth anniversary of the Sabarmati train attack.
Modi utilised the platform provided by his day-long fast
to assert that it was high time people decided whether
they wanted vote bank politics or an all inclusive developmental politics. He said the six decades since the country’s
independence has seen political parties resorting to vote
bank politics just to gain power. “They are just worried
about those who are their potential vote bank,” he said
after ending his fast. However, in Gujarat in the last 15
years the government has gone for an all inclusive growth,
the BJP stalwart said at the fast venue at the SRP ground
in this town which has a sizable Muslim population.
“Now the people of the country have to choose between
these two political cultures. One is divide and rule through
vote bank politics and other is inclusive growth for development of all,” said Modi, the longest serving Chief Minister
of Gujarat.
Modi also attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
for late realisation of the problem of malnutrition in the
country. “PM last week expressed agony and pain over the
issue of malnutrition in the country and said that it was a
national shame. It is shameful that the prime minister who
is holding such an high post and an eminent economist did
not realise till 2012,” he said. “If an academician or a professor had made such a statement, I would have understand but he is the PM of the country.” (PTI)
11
INDIA’S top court on Friday
rejected a $2.5 billion tax bill
slapped on British phone giant
Vodafone over its purchase of a
local mobile operator in a ruling seen as a boost to foreign
investment.
Indian authorities imposed
the $2.5 billion tax bill and
sought an equal sum in penalties over Vodafone’s $11.1 billion purchase in 2007 of a
majority stake in the Indian
mobile unit of Hong Kong’s
Hutchison Whampoa.
But the Supreme Court ruled
that “Indian tax authorities
had no jurisdiction to tax
Vodafone” as it was an overseas transaction.
Vodafone’s clear-cut win in
the bitter legal battle was seen
as delivering a shot-in-the-arm
to India’s battered reputation
among foreign investors who
have been rattled by the country’s uncertain regulatory climate. Vodafone chief executive
Vittorio Colao welcomed the
judgment, saying it “underpins
our confidence in India” and
“faith in the Indian judicial system”.
Vodafone chief
executive Vittorio
Colao welcomed
the judgment,
saying it “underpins our confidence in India”
Vodafone shares jumped
1.69 percent to 177.45 pence on
the London Stock Exchange,
bucking a falling market, following the ruling.
Indian tax officials contended Vodafone should have withheld the amount the vendor
was due to pay in capital gains
tax when it bought the stake.
However, Vodafone, the
world’s largest mobile operator
by subscribers, argued it was
exempt because the deal took
place in the Cayman Islands
and both buyer and seller were
foreign. Vodafone also noted it
was the purchaser and made
no gain on the deal.
In the ruling, Supreme Court
Justice Radhakrishnan Nair
compared the Indian tax
demand to “capital punishment on capital investment”.
A lawyer for Vodafone,
Abhishek Manu Singhvi,
expressed delight over the victory which saw the Supreme
led government at the Centre
has betrayed Anna on every
step. This betrayal is not
against Anna but against the
countrymen.” They also asked
Rahul whether the Congress
will take steps to loosen the
iron grip of government over
the CBI and whether he supports the efforts to save corrupt
leaders in his party with the
help of the investigating
agency. “Is it that the ruling
party misusing CBI against
Mulayam Singh and Mayawati
to garner numbers and remain
in power? Does he support
this?” they asked.
In their questions, they
asked BJP whether it will bring
a strong Lokayukta Bill in
party-ruled states. “However,
BJP does not fully support the
law in Uttarakhand and what
are your objections?” they said.
They also asked the main
opposition party whether they
will oppose the “weak” Lokpal
Bill brought by the Centre and
will they favour people’s participation in law-making along
with Parliamentarians.
They sought to pose some
uncomfortable questions to
Mulayam Singh and Mayawati
asking them why they preferred to walk out of Lok Sabha
during Lokpal Bill voting, thus
helping the Congress. “After
elections, will you support
Congress? Will you enter into a
deal that CBI cases against you
will be withdrawn if you give
support?” Team Anna asked.
Asked about Hazare joining
the campaign, Kejriwal said
he may do so if his health permits. He may also come to
Delhi to for the ‘Save Republic
Campaign’ on January 26.
Team Anna’s campaign will
start on Saturday from
Uttarakhand and will be move
to Punjab, UP and Goa.
COLOURS OF JOY
A craftsman makes traditional toys for sale at Joon Beel
festival of Assam, at Jagiroad, in Morigaon district. Tiwa
tribal people take part in a traditional festival where goods
are being exchanged in the form of barter system rather
than money. (EPA)
Court order the tax department to return Vodafone’s
half-billion-dollar tax deposit
“with interest”.
“Here is a very clear, thumping, unequivocal unambiguous
verdict in favour of certainty,
clarity — and in favour of foreign investment,” Singhvi said.
The legal battle had been
closely tracked by international
investors with experts saying
the outcome could have implications for big-ticket purchases
of Indian firms by other foreign
companies. “This landmark
decision... will reinject confidence in cross-border mergers
and acquisitions,” said Rajiv
Kumar, FICCI’s secretary- general. Foreign direct investment
in India slumped by 20 percent
last year amid concern over
rampant corruption, bureaucratic delays, lack of progress
on economic reforms and an
uncertain regulatory climate.
“This was a litmus test won
by foreign investors against
an attempt by the Indian taxman to extend its jurisdictional reach,” said Bundeep
Singh Rangar, chairman of
IndusView, an India-focused
advisory firm based in
London.
Collage, memories & many voices inspire novelist Michael Ondaatje
IANS
JAIPUR
THE art of collage, memories
and the multiplicity of voices
inspire
Sri
Lanka-born
Canadian novelist Michael
Ondaatje, the Man Booker
prize winning author of The
English Patient into storytelling. “I am still somewhat
influenced by collage, art, east
and the west. An important
piece of information about a
character can make a connection. History is collage,” the 69year-old novelist said about his
craft at the DSC Jaipur
Literature Festival on Friday.
The English Patient, which
was made into an Academy
award winning movie in 1996
starring Ralph Fiennes, Kirstin
Scott
Thomas,
Juliette
Binoche, William Dafoe and
Colin Firth, came about by a
fragment of a story that
Ondataaje heard perchance.
“The parents of one of my
friends who worked in Egypt
told me about a man called
Amashe. It was a small fragment of an image,” Ondaatje
recalled. He wove his 1992
war-time drama about a
Hungarian count with burn
injuries, a Canadian nurse, a
Canadian-Italian thief and his
Indian sapper closeted in an
Italian villa at the end of World
(From left) Authors Oscar Pujol, Gurcharan Das and Alex Watson, in Jaipur, on Friday.
War II around this image. “I do
a lot research when I am writing, but quite lackadaisical
research when I want to know
something. It always helps - to
create this odd mix of non-fiction, real place, real time, nonfictional landscape and important voice at the centre of it,”
the novelist said.
(AFP)
Ondaatje said when he is
alone in his office, he is surrounded by fictional characters
all day. There is a “thin line
between fiction and non-fic-
tion” which the writer made
out decades ago, he said.
“Politically, I don’t believe that
one can have one voice to the
story but many voices,”
Ondaatje said.
For Ondaatje, western and the
eastern novels are distinct in
their structures. “The western
novel is organised and logical
in chronological progression.
There is safety in that,” he said.
But as one who grew up in Sri
Lanka, his novels have been
about “profound truths and
collages.” The novelist was discussing his latest book, The
Cat’s Table — a fictional journey of three boys, unescorted,
on a ship from Colombo in Sri
Lanka to England. They sit on a
table far away from that of the
captain’s and watch life pass
by. The author, as a boy of 11
had been on a similar journey
aboard the liner ‘Oronsay’ from
Sri Lanka to England alone for
21 days, he said. “It is a story of
my generation, about a whole
tribe of people. I was obsessed
with how they would eventually land, where they would go to
in England. I began my book
with a very small fragment of
an image,” he said. “I didn’t
remember the journey very
much. It was like being given
an episode in life that could fan
into a novel. I had to invent
every character,” he said.
12
Saturday, January 21, 2012
THE LAST WORD
www.qatar-tribune.com
Europian Union
readies toughest
curbs on Iranian
oil and banks
AFP
BRUSSELS
THE European Union is
readying its toughest action to
date against Iran, moving to
dry up funding of its contested nuclear drive by targeting
both its oil and financial sector, diplomats said on Friday.
Foreign ministers from the
27-nation bloc meeting in
Brussels on Monday are
expected to agree to sanction
Tehran’s central bank — and
possibly other banks — and
announce an embargo on
purchasing Iranian oil, EU
officials and diplomats said.
In the build-up, French
President Nicolas Sarkozy
urged “much tougher, more
decisive sanctions” as a
means of avoiding military
action while German Foreign
Minister Guido Westerwelle
warned Iran was endangering
world peace.
The new EU sanctions are part of a
concerted effort
with the United
States to pressure
Iran into halting its
controversial
nuclear activities.
“Those who do not want to
reinforce sanctions against a
regime which is leading its
country into disaster by seeking a nuclear weapon will
bear responsibility for the risk
of a military breakdown,”
Sarkozy said.
Westerwelle said Monday’s
new “very substantive sanctions” aimed to make the point
that Iran’s nuclear behaviour
“is unacceptable and a danger
to world peace.”
Also expected Monday are
bans on the sale of gold, diamonds and other precious
metals to Iran and any delivery
of newly minted coins and
notes. Existing bans on petrochemical imports and investment are to be enlarged.
Reports however of an
imminent resumption of international talks with Iran on its
disputed nuclear programme
were dashed by EU foreign
policy Catherine Ashton, who
represents global powers in
the negotiations.
Her office said the powers
still “are waiting for the Iranian
reaction” to a letter sent by
Ashton to Tehran months ago
offering to re-start the talks but
only “without pre-conditions.”
Greece’s dependency on
Iranian oil meanwhile was holding up a deal on the timing and
conditions of the oil embargo.
The political will was there,
but the bloc was still looking
for new suppliers able to
match the easy conditions
offered by Tehran to the cashstrapped nation.
Greece, which relies on
Iranian oil for more than a third
of its oil imports, had concluded “good financial arrangements” with Iran that include
60-day payment and no financial guarantees, sources said.
“Greece has agreed on a
political level to stop its imports
from Iran, the question is who
can compensate,” a diplomat
said. “Of course it will be more
difficult to find alternative suppliers because of the present
financial situation of Greece.”
Diplomats said a political
decision on the embargo was
expected from the ministers
on Monday although “the
financial solution will require
more time.”
The new EU sanctions are
part of a concerted effort with
the United States to pressure
Iran into halting its controversial nuclear activities, which the
West suspects are aimed at
developing nuclear weapons.
HELPING OUT GREECE!
Minister of Economy and Finance HE Yousef Hussain Kamal delivers a speech during the Qatar-Greece Economic Forum at
Lagonisi, in Athens, on Friday. (EPA)
Blast at police
headquarters
in Nigeria,
Islamists’ hand
suspected
AP
KANO
Cargo ship collides with
vessels off Istanbul coast
AP
ANKARA
A CARGO ship brushed
against two anchored vessels
during severe weather off the
coast of Istanbul on Friday
and tilted to one side, taking
on water for hours before
authorities were forced to pull
it ashore using a tug boat.
A senior maritime official
said the disabled ship was not
in danger of sinking, but most
of its crew members were
evacuated before it was
towed.
The cargo ship’s struggle
came during a time of heightened attention on ship safety
following last week’s grounding of the Costa Concordia
cruise ship off Italy’s coast, an
accident that killed 11 people
and left 21 missing. Also on
Friday, a freighter ran
aground off a Dutch beach.
In the Istanbul area, the
Sierra Leone-flagged Kayan1, an 86-meter (282-feet)
freighter carrying empty containers, tilted on its right side
after its collision. Salih
Orakci, head of the General
Directorate of Coastal Safety,
said the ship “cannot sink”
but noted the weather was
aggravating the situation.
Hours later, authorities
decided to go with the only
apparent option and pulled
the ship aground.
The captain and two other
crew had remained aboard to
steer the vessel, which earlier
had tried to pump out the
water, authorities said. Ten
other crew members were
evacuated. Five maritime officials boarded the Kayan-1 to
assess the situation, then left
the vessel.
STRONG BOND
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and a Cabinet Member HE Dr Khalid bin Mohammad al Attiyah with his Japanese counterpart Koichiro Gemba (left), in Tokyo, on Friday.
The ship was trying to moor
due to the rough weather
when it got dragged and
brushed against two other
cargo ships: the Netherlandsflagged Slochterdiep and
Tanzania-flagged Adria Blu.
The Kayan-1 came to a halt
The 21 crew members stayed on the
ship. Tug boats will
attempt to pull the
vessel free at high
tide around 1 pm.
near the shore at a depth of 9meter (30-feet), Coastal
Safety said on its website.
The ship had 20 tons of
diesel fuel but there was no
leak, environmental authorities said
Authorities canceled several scheduled ferry trips in the
Sea of Marmara and in the
Bosporus, the narrow waterway that bisects Istanbul, due
to strong winds and high seas.
Separately
Friday,
a
Philippine-registered
freighter ran aground off a
Dutch beach after its anchor
slipped in an overnight storm.
The 500-foot (155-meter)
Aztec Maiden was carrying no
cargo when it drifted onto
sand off the North Sea coastal
town of Wijk aan Zee, 12
miles (20 kilometers) west of
Amsterdam, the Dutch Coast
Guard said.
The 21 crew members
stayed on the ship. Tug boats
will attempt to pull the vessel
free at high tide around 1 pm
(1200 GMT).
Spokesman Peter Verburg
told national broadcaster
NOS that the Coast Guard
was closely monitoring the
ship for any fuel leaks.
A BOMB ripped through a
regional police headquarters
on Friday in the largest city in
Nigeria’s Muslim north, tearing away its roof and blowing
out windows in a blast felt
miles away.
Meanwhile, other explosions
could be heard across the city
of Kano, Nigeria’s secondlargest city. Police could not be
immediately reached for comment, but the bomb blast bore
similarities to other attacks
carried out by a radical Islamist
sect responsible for hundreds
of deaths in recent months.
The blast at the police
building occurred just after 5
pm Police kept AP reporters
away from the building.
A spokesman for the
Nigeria Immigration Service
in the capital Abuja said officials in Kano told him the
blast shook their nearby office
and came from a bomb.
An AP reporter could see a
plume of smoke also rising
from another neighbourhood
in the city as people began fleeing the area. Another AP
reporter said the explosion
was powerful enough to shake
his car several miles away.
The explosion occurred as
Nigeria faces increasing
attacks from a radical Islamist
sect known as Boko Haram.
The sect has carried out
increasingly sophisticated and
bloody attacks in its campaign
to implement strict Shariah
law across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160
million people. Boko Haram,
whose name means “Western
education is sacrilege” in the
local Hausa language, is
responsible for at least 510
killings last year alone,
according to an AP count.
So far this year, the group,
that has warned it will kill
Christians living in Nigeria’s
predominantly
Muslim
north, has been blamed for at
least 76 killings, according to
an AP count.
Why Americans think the tax
rate is high when it is not
NYT
WASHINGTON
Singer Etta James dies in California
AP
LOS ANGELES
ETTA James’ performance of
the enduring classic “At Last”
was the embodiment of
refined soul: Angelic-sounding strings harkened the
arrival of her passionate yet
measured vocals as she sang
tenderly about a love finally
realised after a long and
patient wait.
In real life, little about James
was as genteel as that song. The
platinum blonde’s first hit was
a saucy R&B number about
sex, and she was known as a
hell-raiser who had tempestuous relationships with her family, her men and the music
industry. Then she spent years
battling a drug addiction that
she admitted sapped away at
her great talents.
The 73-year-old died on
Friday
at
Riverside
Community Hospital from
complications of leukemia,
with her husband and sons at
her side, her manager, Lupe
De Leon said.
“It’s a tremendous loss for
her fans around the world,”
he said. “She’ll be missed. A
great American singer. Her
music defied category.”
James’ spirit could not be
contained — perhaps that’s
what made her so magnetic in
music; it is surely what made
her so dynamic as one of
R&B, blues and rock ‘n’ roll’s
underrated legends.
“The bad girls ... had the
look that I liked,” she wrote in
her 1995 autobiography,
“Rage to Survive.” ‘’I wanted to
be rare, I wanted to be noticed,
I wanted to be exotic as a
Cotton Club chorus girl, and I
wanted to be obvious as the
most flamboyant hooker on
the street. I just wanted to be.”
“Etta James was a pioneer.
Her ever-changing sound has
influenced rock and roll,
rhythm and blues, pop, soul
and jazz artists, marking her
place as one of the most
important female artists of
our time,” said Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame President and
CEO Terry Stewart.
WHEN people heard that
Mitt
Romney’s
federal
income tax rate was about 15
per cent, the immediate reaction of many was to assume
that their own tax rate was
higher. The top marginal rate
is 35 per cent, after all, and
the marginal rate on a couple
with $70,000 in taxable
income is 25 per cent.
But the truth is that most
households probably pay a
lower rate than Romney. It is
impossible to know for sure,
given that he has yet to
release his tax return. What is
clear, though, is that a large
majority of US households about two out of three - pays
less than 15 per cent of
income to the federal government, through either income
taxes or payroll taxes.
This disconnect between
what we pay and what we
think we pay is nothing less
than one of the country’s
biggest economic problems.
Many Americans see themselves as struggling under the
weight of a heavy tax burden
(partly for the understandable reason that wage growth
has been so weak). Yet taxes
in the United States are quite
low today, compared with
past years or those in other
countries. Most important,
US taxes are not sufficient to
pay for the programs that
many people want, like
Medicare, Social Security,
road construction and educa-
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney at a campaign rally,
in Gilbert, South Carolina, on Friday. (AFP)
tion subsidies.
What does this combination create? An enormous
long-term budget deficit.
Together, all federal taxes
equaled 14.4 per cent of the
nation’s economic output last
year, the lowest level since
1950. Add state and local
taxes, and the share nearly
doubles, to about 27 per cent,
according to the Tax Policy
Center in Washington - still
lower than at almost any other
point in the past 40 years.
As the economy recovers
and incomes rise, tax payments will increase somewhat. But they will not keep
pace with projected spending,
in the form of Medicare,
Medicaid and Social Security.
And total taxes at current
rates would still make up a
smaller share of the economy
than in virtually any other
rich country - not just
European nations but also
Australia, Canada, Israel and
New Zealand.
Obviously, tax increases are
not the only way to solve the
deficit. Spending cuts can,
too. But so far, at least, many
voters seem to prefer small,
symbolic cuts, like those to
foreign aid. Substantial cuts be they the changes to
Medicare that President
Barack Obama included in his
health care bill or the
Medicare overhaul that
Republicans prefer - tend to
be politically unpopular.
Since the late 1970s, just
before the modern tax-cutting
push began, total federal tax
rates have fallen for every
income group. The payroll tax
has risen, but declines in the
income tax have more than
made up for those increases.
Nearly half the population now
pays no federal income tax.