New number plate for all vehicles by year-end

New number plate for all vehicles by year-end

NEW PSD
CAMPUS TO
HOST 7,000
KIDS
MAZAYA
QATAR
AWARDS
$130MN
DEAL TO
SINOHYDRO
KATE
BECKINSALE IS
BACK
IN
ACTION
PAGE 13 | NATION
PAGE 21 | BUSINESS
PAGE 29 | CHILL OUT
www.qatar-tribune.com
First with the news and what’s behind it
SUNDAY
JANUARY 15, 2012
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Emir to visit Sri Lanka today
THE Emir His Highness Sheikh
Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani will
head for Sri Lanka on Sunday on
a two-day state visit, as part of a
tour that also includes Brunei.
HH the Emir will hold talks with
leaders and high ranking officials
to enhance bilateral relations. HH
the Emir will be accompanied by
a high-level delegation. (QNA)
Qatar 2011 inflation at 1.9
percent, below forecasts
PRICES in Qatar, the world’s No.
1 liquefied natural gas exporter,
picked up again in 2011 after 2.4
percent deflation in the previous
year, a release from the Qatar
Statistics Authority showed. The
2011 average of 1.9 percent is
below a forecast of 2.3 percent in
a Reuters survey. (PG 21)
61 Shiite pilgrims killed in
Basra bombing
AT least 61 Shiite pilgrims were
killed on Saturday in a suicide
bombing in the southern Iraqi city
of Basra, according to medical and
security sources. (PG 3)
QFCA issues new security
regulations
THE Qatar Financial Centre
Authority on Saturday announced
the issuance of new Qatar Financial
Centre regulations. (PG 28)
Qatar Tribune
wishes its
readers &
advertisers
Happy
Makar Sankranti
VOL. 6 NO. 1959
JOSEPH VARGHESE
DOHA
The Emir His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani with Arab leaders, in Tunis, on Saturday.
Emir joins Tunisians in
anniversary celebrations
Offers help to kin of martyrs & those injured during revolution
QNA
TUNIS
THE Emir His Highness Sheikh
Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani on
Saturday joined the people and
leaders of Tunisia in celebrating the
first anniversary of the Tunisian
Revolution at a special function
held at the Conference Palace in
Tunis.
Speaking during the celebrations, HH the Emir reiterated
Qatar’s readiness to contribute to a
fund for those injured during the
uprising as well as the dependants
of the Tunisians martyred in the
revolution and lauded everyone
who helped in the peaceful transition following the revolution.
HH the Emir said that destiny
responded to the will of the people
who turned poets’ dreams into
reality, subjected politics to the
aspirations of people and set an
example in peaceful change that
opened the doors wide to change
and transformation, dispelled
despair and created a human
model that has impressed the
world.
HH the Emir pointed to the role
of the Tunisian army and its chief
General Rachid Ammar who served
QATAR OPEN GOLF TOURNEY
‘Sending Arab forces
to Syria not an issue’
TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK
DOHA
THE Emir His Highness Sheikh
Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani said
that sending Arab forces to stop
the killing in Syria was not an
issue. HH the Emir gave this
statement in response to questions during an extended interview with the US network CBS to
be broadcast on Sunday.
He said that if the need arose
for taking such steps to help out
the Syrian people and to stop the
bloodshed there, then Qatar
would support such a measure.
as a model for a patriotic army that
defends its people and protects its
institutions, which helped in the
gradual and peaceful power transfer.
HH the Emir added: “Insistence
of the Tunisian people, intellectuals
and political forces on a peaceful
change and acceptance of all ideological currents is indeed indicative
of a consciousness that enlightens
the way for populace yearning for
freedom and dignity.” HH the Emir
stressed that walking the path of
development for the greater good
of the whole society was the best
tool with which to confront problems and find solutions to them.
“This is a huge responsibility but
we are confident there are brothers
and friends who are interested in
your success,” HH the Emir said.
“I am pleased and honoured to be
here among you on this day to commemorate the first anniversary of
the Tunisian revolution. I cannot
but express my deep appreciation
of the gesture of the Government
and people of the Republic of
Tunisia in inviting to share in the
joy and pride the great people of
Tunisian feel in the march of their
revolution which heralds an era of
freedom, development and stability,” HH the Emir said.
He praised the Tunisian people
as a pioneer of the change that
achieves dignity and justice for the
oppressed people in the Arab
nation, which looks forward to
progress and justice, and whose
populace aspires to be masters of
their own destiny.
SEE ALSO PAGE 3 IF you thought the numerals
on the number plate of your
vehicle in Arabic are the original Arabic ones, you are in
for a surprise.
The traffic department of
Qatar is issuing new number
plates for all vehicles registered in Qatar with the original Arabic numerals displayed prominently on them.
The traffic department
expects to complete the exercise of issuing the new number plates to all vehicle owners by the end of 2012.
Speaking to Qatar Tribune,
Ademola Gideon Ilori, advisor at the Traffic Department,
said that the new number
plate was a GCC requirement.
He said, “All the GCC countries have already introduced
the new number plate whereas we started issuing the same
from December last year.
With Qatar and all the other
countries in the GCC aligning
their vehicle numbering system, there will be common
numbering for vehicles all
over the Gulf countries.”
Ilori said the new number
plates were being issued to all
the new vehicles being registered now. He explained, “All
the new vehicles have the new
number plates fixed on them.
The other vehicles registered
earlier will get their new
number plates at the time of
the annual renewal of the
road permit. So we hope all
vehicles in Qatar will have the
new number plates by the end
of 2012.”
The new number plate
being issued to the vehicle
owners has the number displayed very prominently in
original Arabic numerals.
The new number
plate will have the
country’s name,
‘QATAR’, written on
the left corner—
vertically in
English and
horizontally in
Arabic with the
maroon spikes of
Qatari flag in the
background.
The new number plate will
have the country’s name,
‘QATAR’, written on the left
corner—vertically in English
and horizontally in Arabic
with the maroon spikes of
Qatari flag in the background.
There is also a hologram on
the right side of the number
plate. Ilori pointed out that
this would also help in avoiding any confusion about the
numbers.
He explained, “Previously,
if the number plate fell under
shadow and was less visible
or got faded over a time, it
would be difficult to read the
numbers as they were small
CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 A car with the new Qatari numberplate, in Doha.
Yoseph beats Hamed in shoot-out, wins Qatar title
MIR BASIT HUSSAIN
DOHA
US’s Yoseph Dance with Qatar Open Amateur Golf
Championship trophy, in Doha, on Saturday. (HANSON K JOSEPH)
QR 2
New number
plate for all
vehicles by
year-end
EMIR WITH ARAB LEADERS
8,699
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SAFAR 21, 1433
THE 26th edition of the Qatar
Open
Amateur
Golf
Championship had a very
exciting end at the Doha Golf
Club on Saturday.
Of Friday’s front runners
for the title, a tie between
Bahrain’s Hamed Mubarak
and US’s Yoseph Dance generated a lot of heat on a colder and windy evening.
Eventually, it was the 16year-old American who won
this year’s title in a shoot-off.
Both of them scored 225
before the shoot-out took
place, and Dance emerged the
winner. The third place was
bagged by Abdulla Sultan of
Bahrain who lagged behind
by just two points with a gross
score of 227. Saleh Ali
Musbah of Qatar managed to
claim the fourth place with a
gross score of 229.
Speaking to Qatar Tribune,
a visibly excited Dance said
that the tournament matched
the standards of any other
international tournament.
“It was a great experience
for me as an amateur. For us,
the opportunity to play on a
turf like this which can match
any other international golf
course doesn’t come every
day,” said Yoseph Dance.
He added that he was really
happy with his performance
in the tournament. “There
were better players than me
in the tournament and the
fact that I emerged at the top
makes me believe that I can
do better in the near future.”
However, the teenager had
to work hard for what he has
achieved. “I used to practise
daily for two to four hours.
That helped me a lot. I got
familiar with the turf before
hand,” said Dance.
He also said that he had
been in good form for the last
one week. “I did prepare hard
for the tournament. So I
guess that also played a part
in my win,” added Dance.
The teenager is now hoping
that he would be able to play
in the prestigious Qatar
Masters Open to be held in
February this year.
“Well, I am really looking
forward to that with excite-
ment, and hope I am able to
maintain my good form
throughout the season,”
Dance exulted.
Meanwhile, the first runner-up, Bahrain’s Hamed
Mubarak Afnan didn’t allow
Dance an easy win. They had
to return back to the tee twice
as no one was ready to give
up. However, at the end
Dance’s golfing came one up
over Afnan’s.
Players were also felicitated
for their individual
CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 02
Sunday, January 15, 2012
GULF / MIDDLE EAST
www.qatar-tribune.com
ElBaradei not
to run for Egypt
presidency
AFP
CAIRO
THE ex-head of the UN
nuclear watchdog and
Nobel laureate Mohamed
ElBaradei said on Saturday
he would not run for the
Egyptian
presidency
because there is still no real
democracy in the country.
“My conscience does not
allow me to run for the
presidency or any other
official position unless there
is
real
democracy,”
ElBaradei said in a statement received by AFP.
ElBaradei said there was
no room for him in Egyptian
politics because old symbols
of the regime were still running the country and
charged that preparations to
draw a new constitution
were “botched.”
“I have examined the best
ways of serving the goals of
the revolution and I found
that there is no official post
for me, not even the presidency,” ElBaradei said.
“Preparations are being
made to elect a president
before the establishment of
a constitution that would
organise relations between
the (judicial, executive, legislative) powers and protect
liberties,” he said.
He praised the revolutionary youths who led massive
popular uprisings that ousted president Hosni Mubarak
last year but said “the former
regime did not fall.”
“No decision was taken to
purify state institutions, par-
ticularly state media and the
judiciary, of symbols of the
old regime,” said ElBaradei.
ElBaradei compared the
revolution to a boat and
charged that “the captains of
the vessel ... are still treading
old waters, as if the revolution did not take place.”
He charged that corruption was still rife in postMubarak Egypt, which is
being ruled by a military
council since the veteran
president was ousted from
power in February following
an 18-day popular uprising.
“We all feel that the former regime did not fall,” he
said in the statement.
ElBaradei denounced the
“repressive” policies of
Egypt’s new rulers, who he
said were putting “revolutionaries on trial in military
court instead of protecting
them and punishing those
who killed their friends.”
His comments reflect
growing disenchantment
with the ruling Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces
(SCAF).
The SCAF has repeatedly
pledged to cede full powers
to civilian rule when a president is elected by the end of
June but there is widespread
belief that the military wants
to maintain a political role in
the country’s future.
The military has also
come under fire over its
human rights record in
recent months and faced
accusations that it has
resorted to Mubarak-era
tactics to stifle dissent.
Syrian army defector to
form military council
AFP
DAMASCUS
A TOP Syrian army defector
was set to take charge of the
rebel army’s operations on
Saturday, as the United States
accused Iran of supplying
munitions to aid Damascus’
bloody crackdown on protests.
Washington has reason to
believe Iran is supplying security-related
equipment
“including munitions” to
Syrian forces, a US official said
late on Friday, after the head
of the elite Revolutionary
Guards’ Quds force, Qasem
Soleimani, visited Damascus
earlier this month.
The accusations came after
Britain sharply criticised
Russia for refusing to support
UN Security Council moves
against President Bashar alAssad.
British Prime Minister
David Cameron said during a
visit to Saudi Arabia that vetoing a Security Council resolution
against
Damascus
amounted to standing by and
watching the “appaling bloodshed.”
In October, Russia and
China vetoed a Western draft
resolution that would have
condemned the Assad regime.
Russia later circulated an alternative that would have pointed
the finger at both sides.
Cameron told Al-Arabiya
television on Friday that
Britain stands ready to take a
fresh resolution on Syria to the
Security Council.
He said it would dare “others that if they want to veto
that resolution to try to explain
Demonstrators take part in a protest against Syria’s President Bashar al Assad, in Baba Amro near Homs, on Saturday.
why they are willing to stand
by and watch such appaling
bloodshed by someone who
has turned into such an appaling dictator.”
Referring to the alleged
Iranian aid to the crackdown
by its Syrian ally, an official in
Washington said the United
States has reason to believe
that Iran is supplying securityrelated equipment “including
munitions” to Syrian forces.
Meanwhile, a train carrying
fuel was derailed by a bomb
blast and caught fire on
Saturday in restive Idlib
province of northwest Syria,
injuring three crew members,
official media reported.
The United States has long
suspected that Iran has been
aiding Syria’s purge as Assad
clings to power and tries to
avoid the fate of other Arab
dictators felled by the Arab
Spring uprisings.
Another
official
said
Soleimani’s visit marks the
strongest indication yet of
direct cooperation between
the allies.
Efforts to isolate the Syrian
government were boosted by
rebel plans to form a high military council headed by a top
Syrian army defector that will
oversee military operations
against President Bashar al
Assad’s embattled regime.
General Mustafa Ahmad alSheikh, the most senior commander to defect from the
Syrian army, will announce
the council’s formation later
on Saturday in Turkey, where
he sought refuge 12 days ago,
his media advisor said.
Sheikh, 54, was in charge of
security in northern Syria
before defecting. In a statement, he said he had deserted
because he was sickened by
the ruthlessness of Assad’s
regime and all the killings taking place.
“This council, headed by
Hezbollah chief gloats over
UN worries about arms
(REUTERS)
Sheikh, will oversee military
operations in conjunction with
the Free Syrian Army,” Fahad
Almasri told AFP, and will
include high-ranking officers
who will plan operations to be
executed by the FSA.
“It will also help organise
defections within the army
and will be in contact with officers in the regular army to
encourage large-scale rather
than individual defections.”
Formed from deserters from
the regular army who
mutinied over the regime’s
deadly crackdown, the FSA
says it has some 40,000 fighters under its command.
Residents return
to restive south
Yemen city
AFP
AFP
BEIRUT
HEZBOLLAH chief Hassan Nasrallah
on Saturday gloated over UN chief Ban
Ki-moon’s concerns about the military
prowess of his party, which he vowed
would not be disarmed.
“I felt happy when I heard that he
(Ban) said he was concerned about our
military power,” Nasrallah said in a televised address.
“This concern reassures and pleases
us,” the Shiite leader added. “We do
not care if the United States and Israel
are concerned.”
Nasrallah’s comments came a day
after the visiting UN chief said he was
“deeply concerned” over the military
capacity of the Iranian- and Syrianbacked militant group, which dominates the Lebanese government and is
blacklisted as a terrorist organisation
by Washington.
The Hezbollah leader reiterated that
his group, the only party that did not
disarm after the 1975-1990 Lebanese
civil war, would never give up its
weapons.
Nasrallah’s comments
came a day after the visiting UN chief said he
was “deeply concerned”
over the military capacity
of the Iranian- and Syrian-backed militant
group, which dominates
the Lebanese government .
“We confirm that our choice is the
path of resistance and the arms of the
resistance,” Nasrallah told a crowd of
cheering supporters via video link.
“The resistance is here to stay. Its
power, its readiness, will continue to
grow.”
ADEN
RESIDENTS of Yemen’s
restive south who fled nearly eight months of fighting
between the army and
Islamists began returning
home on Saturday, escorted
by Al Qaeda-linked militants.
“We were finally allowed
into the city after three previously failed attempts,”
said Nayef Jabari, a resident of Zinjibar, capital of
the
southern
Abyan
province.
Gunmen from the Al
Qaeda-linked Partisans of
Sharia (Islamic law) group,
which controls large parts
of Zinjibar, “accompanied
us as we entered the city,”
said Jabari.
Palestinian artist ‘creates’ Gaza metro
AFP
GAZA CITY
UNDERGROUND train travel to
bypass a chaotic traffic system?
Welcome to Gaza, one of the
world’s most crowded places, where
a conceptual art installation
expresses this tantalising idea.
Palestinian artist Mohamed
Abusal erected luminous red metro
signs in 50 different, and often
unlikely places, across the Gaza
strip, the dusty coastal territory
measuring 40 square kilometres
and home to some 1.6 million people.
A map with seven lines connnecting different parts of the enclave
was designed and printed to accompany the project, which was so carefully conceived that some Gazans
were tricked into thinking that a
real railway system was under construction.
Abusala had his “vision” while
observing Gaza’s anarchic traffic
system, a tangle of donkey carts,
Palestinian activists hold banners during a protest against peace talks, in the
West Bank city of Ramallah, on Saturday. (AP)
motorcycles, rickshaws, and dilapidated old cars, not to mention the
trucks plying the 40 kilometre route
from the north to the Egyptian border in the south.
Line 1 of the imaginary metro is
green on the map that leads from
the Israeli crossing point of Erez to
the Rafah border town in the south
where a network of real tunnels carries smuggled goods and people to
and from Egypt.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
GULF / MIDDLE EAST
53 killed, 137 injured in
Iraq bomb attack
www.qatar-tribune.com
UN meet on Arab
democracy in
Beirut from today
AFP
BEIRUT
AP
ZUBAIR
A BOMB killed at least 53
Shiite pilgrims near the
southern port city of Basra on
Saturday, an Iraqi official
said. It was the latest in a
series of attacks during Shiite
religious commemorations
that have killed scores of people and threaten to further
increase sectarian tensions
just weeks after the US withdrawal.
The attack happened on the
last of the 40 days of Arbaeen,
when hundreds of thousands
of Shiite pilgrims from Iraq
and abroad visit the Iraqi city
of Karbala, as well as other
holy sites.
Saturday’s blast occurred
near the town of Zubair as pilgrims marched toward the
Shiite Imam Ali shrine on the
outskirts of the town, said
Ayad
al
Emarah,
a
spokesman for the governor
of Basra province. The shrine
is an enclave within an
enclave — a Shiite site on the
edge of a mostly Sunni town
in an otherwise mostly Shiite
province. There were conflicting reports on the source of
the blast.
Al Emarah said the explosion was caused either by a
suicide attacker or a roadside
bomb. But an Iraqi military
intelligence officer who is
investigating the attack said it
was a roadside bomb, noting
that the road from Basra to
Zubair being used by pilgrims
had been closed to traffic. He
spoke on condition of
Iraqi security officers stand at the site of a suicide bomb attack, in Basra, on Saturday.
anonymity as he was not
authorised to brief the media.
Basra hospital received 53
killed and 137 wounded after
the blast, said. Riyadh AbdulAmir, the head of Basra
Health Directorate. He said
some of the wounded were in
serious condition, and warned
the death toll may rise further.
The explosion came as
Shiites commemorate the climax of Arbaeen, which marks
the end of 40 days of mourning following the anniversary
of the death of Imam Hussein,
a revered Shiite figure.
Pilgrims who cannot make it
to the holy city of Karbala,
south of Baghdad, often jour-
Tunisia marks 1st anniversary of
Arab Spring; social worries loom
AP
TUNIS
TUNISIA is marking the one-year
anniversary of the revolution that
ended the dictatorship of Zine El
Abidine Ben Ali — and sparked
uprisings around the Arab world —
with prudent optimism.
Now a human rights activist is
president, and a moderate Islamist
jailed for years by the old regime is
prime minister at the head of a
diverse coalition, after the freest
elections in Tunisia’s history. But
worries over continued high unemployment cast a shadow over
Tunisians’ pride at transforming
their country.
Tunisia’s uprising began on
December 17, 2010, when a desperate fruit vendor set himself on fire,
unleashing pent-up anger and frustration among his compatriots, who
staged protests that spread nationwide. Within less than a month,
longtime president Ben Ali was
forced out of power, and he fled to
Saudi Arabia on January 14, 2011.
Leading Arab dignitaries are joining Tunisia’s leaders to commemorate Saturday’s anniversary of Ben
Ali’s ouster, including Algerian
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and
the head of Libya’s interim government, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil.
As the country that started the
Arab Spring, Tunisia appears to be
the farthest along in its transformation. Political analysts warn, however, that further gains will not be
easy or painless.
Heykel Mahfoudh, a law professor and advisor to the Geneva
Centre for the Democratic Control
of Armed Forces, said in an interview with The Associated Press that
Tunisia is entering its second postBen Ali year “in a paradoxically necessary phase of turbulence.”
Mahfoudh says he is “cautiously
optimistic” for Tunisia’s development, but remains worried about
the country’s economic and social
situation. It’s unclear, too, what the
Islamists who won the elections will
do with their power.
Unemployment has risen to
almost 20 percent today from 13
percent a year ago, and economic
growth has stagnated as investment
dries up and tourism, once a pillar
of Tunisia’s economy, evaporates.
Tunisia under Ben Ali was
Women celebrate one year of the revolution, at Habib Bourguiba avenue, in
Tunis, on Saturday. (AP)
(EPA)
ney to other sacred sites such
as the shrine near Zubair.
Majid Hussein, a government employee, was one of
the pilgrims heading to the
shrine. He said people began
running away in panic when
they heard a loud explosion.
“I saw several dead bodies
and wounded people, includ-
renowned
among
European
tourists for its sandy beaches and
cosmopolitan ways. But for many of
its people, Ben Ali’s presidency was
23 years of suffocating one-party
rule.
The revolution started when 26year-old fruit-seller Mohammed
Bouazizi set himself on fire in front
of a town hall after he was publicly
slapped and humiliated by a policewoman reprimanding him for selling his vegetables without a license.
He suffered full-body burns, and
died soon afterward. His act struck
a chord in the impoverished interior of the country.
At first it was just local unrest,
until clandestinely shot videos
started popping up on Facebook
and other social networking sites,
inspiring youths across the country.
The focus of the protests soon
moved to the capital Tunis as tens
of thousands braved tear gas and
battled police along the elegant,
tree-lined boulevards. An estimated
265 Tunisians died in that month of
protests that slowly drew the
world’s attention.
And then on January 14 it was
over. After Ben Ali’s army refused to
shoot protesters and his security
forces wavered, he fled to Saudi
Arabia with his family.
Ben Ali’s departure immediately
reverberated across the Arab world.
Within hours, protesters took to the
streets in Cairo, and within weeks,
longtime Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak had also been forced out
of power.
Protests rose up, and were
pushed down, in Bahrain.
Opposition fighters took on Libya’s
Moamer Qadhafi and vanquished
him after months of bloody civil war
and with the help of NATO
airstrikes.
Yemen’s authoritarian president
is supposed to step down as part of a
US-backed effort to end the country’s political quagmire. And Syria is
in the throes of an uprising that has
seen more than 5,000 killed as protesters demand that President
Bashar Assad step down.
ing children on the ground
asking for help. There were
also some baby strollers left at
the blast site,” he said.
The attack, which bore the
hallmarks of Sunni insurgents, is the latest in a series
of deadly strikes in this year’s
Arbaeen. More than 145 people have been killed.
03
A UN conference on democracy in the Arab world opens
in Beirut on Sunday with UN
chief Ban Ki-moon set to
deliver the keynote address to
a slew of dignitaries, many
from countries that suffered
under dictatorship.
“Current and former officials from a number of countries around the world will
speak of their wonderful and
rich experiences in their transition to democracy,” said
Maha Yahya, regional advisor
for the United Nations
Economic
and
Social
Commission for Western Asia
(ESCWA), which is organising the meet.
Yahya said the two-day
conference was aimed at
helping decisions-makers in
emerging democracies in the
Arab world to benefit from
these experiences.
Among international leaders participating is former
Chilean president Michele
Bachelet, who will speak
about her country’s transition
to democracy after 17 years of
oppression under Augusto
Pinochet.
Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu, Egyptian
presidential hopeful and former Arab League chief Amr
Mussa and a string of other
international dignitaries are
also attending.
Davutoglu, whose country
has emerged as a key regional
player in the Middle East, will
give a speech on the challenges of transition.
“Where popular uprisings
have succeeded in deposing
autocratic rulers, people are
discovering that this is only
the first step, and that the
road to democracy is long and
fraught with difficulties,”
according to an overview of
the conference.
Former Sierra Leone president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah
will speak about his country’s
successful bid to integrate former combatants of the 19912002 civil war into the regular army and society.
Also scheduled to speak is
Mauritanian ex-president Ali
Ould Mohammed Vall, who
led a military coup in 2008
that ousted Sidi Ould Cheikh
Abdallahi.
Vall promised to step down
within a year following democratic elections and lived up
to that promise.
“This is an example of
something that rarely happens, especially when military
men reach power,” Yahya
noted.
Libyan lawyer and human
rights activist Fathi Terbil,
who was appointed interim
youth and sports minister
after the toppling of Moamer
Qadhafi, will speak about
human rights.
Terbil was a leading figure
of the revolution in Libya and
also gained notoriety for representing the relatives of the
1996 victims of the Abu Salim
massacre, one of the darkest
chapters of Kadhafi’s rule.
The deposed Libyan leader
killed 1,200 to 1,400 inmates
of Abu Salim, Tripoli’s main
political prison, after a riot
sparked by appalling conditions.
04
Sunday, January 15, 2012
www.qatar-tribune.com
World Bank finds
misuse of loan by
Philippine SC
AGENCIES
MANILA
THE World Bank has uncovered questionable procurements and disbursements by
the Supreme Court under the
watch of Chief Justice Renato
Corona in connection with
the bank-funded Judicial
Reform Support Project
(JRSP).
The project, partly funded
by a World Bank loan of
$21.9 million, was designed
to restore efficiency in the
dispensation of justice in the
country.
In an aide memoire dated
December 28, 2011, the bank
said since Corona assumed
the post of chief magistrate in
mid-2010, progress in
reforming the judiciary “has
been rated unsatisfactory,”
with the programme having
to grapple with “implementation delays and the additional work required for smooth
project closing.”
The
aide
memoire,
addressed Justice Teresita
Leonardo de Castro, chair of
the management committee
of the JRSP, contained the
results of a fiduciary review
conducted by a World Bank
task team from October 24 to
November 11, 2011 that
included meetings with
Supreme Court justices and
field visits to courts in Luzon,
Visayas and Mindanao.
The review uncovered,
among
others,
“inaccurate/incomplete
information” on the project’s
financial
management
report; “diminished existing
internal check-and-balance
mechanism”; purchase of
Information Technology (IT)
equipment outside of the
agreed procurement plan;
and the practice of borrowing
funds from the loan proceeds
for foreign travels of justices
paid to a travel agency owned
by lawyer Estelito Mendoza.
The World Bank is now
demanding a refund by
January 31, 2012 of $199,900
covering “70 payments”
deemed “ineligible” (unauthorised) under the terms of
JRSP.
“The review discloses that
the fiduciary environment
pertaining to JRSP implementation has so deteriorated that the task team now
rates the JRSP as a ‘high risk’
and ‘unsatisfactory’ on project management, project procurement and financial management dimensions, and
observes that project financial statements can no longer
be relied upon,” said the aide
memoire.
“The project result indicators depict achievements in
several areas, but significant
missed opportunities due to
capacity and coordination
constraints and delays in
decision-making, procurement and contracting,” it
added.
The diminished internal
auditing mechanism in the
court was exemplified by the
uncanny appointment by
Corona of Jose Midas
Marquez as court administrator, head of the Public
Information Office and chair
of the Bids and Awards
Committee of the APJR or
the court’s Action Prog bank
noted that the e-Library was
a “significant early win.”
PHILIPPINES / EAST ASIA
Thai govt beefs up security
amid terror threats
REUTERS
BANGKOK
THAI authorities have
beefed up security in parts of
the capital and other areas
popular with tourists after
the United States and Israel
warned of a possible terrorist attack.
The army was helping the
police in providing security,
army chief Prayuth Chanocha told reporters on
Saturday. “People must be
on alert and report anything
suspicious,” he said.
National Security Council
secretary-general General
Vichien Potphosri said special measures had been put
in place in risk areas including Khao San Road, an area
popular with backpackers,
and parts of the main
Sukhumvit road.
“There’s still nothing too
worrying ... But we need to
be on our guard,” he was
quoted as saying on
Thairath newspaper’s website.
The authorities arrested a
Lebanese suspect this week
after being warned by Israel
of a possible attack in
Bangkok, Deputy Prime
Minister
Chalerm
Yoobamrung said on Friday,
adding he was confident the
situation was under control.
Television channel TNN
reported that security had
also been tightened in the
northern town of Chiang
Mai and the island of
Phuket, both resort areas.
Israel’s Counterterrorism
Unit issued a “severe travel
warning” to nationals on
Friday, advising them
A Thai police car drives along Khao San road to monitor security in areas deemed vulnerable to terrorist attacks, in Bangkok, on
Saturday. (EPA)
against travel to the Thai
capital in the near future.
The US embassy in Bangkok
told its citizens to be careful
in areas of the capital frequented by tourists because
of the threat of a possible
attack by “foreign terrorists”. It declined to elaborate
on the threat.
A Thai defence ministry
source said Israeli intelli-
The US embassy in
Bangkok told its
citizens to be careful in areas of the
capital frequented
by tourists.
gence had contacted Thai
officials on December 22
with information that two or
three suspects could be
planning an attack in
Thailand. However, the individuals travelled to the south
and left the country.
The Israelis alerted Thai
officials again on January 8
to the danger of an attack
around January 13 to 15 in
areas where there are often
large concentrations of
Western tourists.
The arrest was made after
the second Israeli warning,
the source said, adding that
security officials were working closely with the United
States and Israel.
Thai officials have said the
suspect has links with
Hezbollah, a Shi’ite Islamist
group in Lebanon backed by
Syria and Iran that is on the
official US blacklist of foreign terrorist organisations.
UN closes refugee Cambodian cops find
office in East Timor 5 bodies inside a car
DPA
AFP
SYDNEY
PHNOM PENH
THE United Nations refugee agency has left East
Timor after more than 12 years of tending to
those displaced by the new nation’s domestic
upheavals.
The closing of the office is a “sign that the country had overcome most of the humanitarian
problems it has faced in its recent history,” the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
said in a statement made available on Saturday.
President Jose Ramos Horta pledged that the
former Portuguese colony would not turn away
refugees. “We are always ready to live up to our
responsibilities,” he said. “That’s the best way to
thank UNHCR and all the countries that all these
years have assisted our refugees.”
Ramos Horta himself became a refugee in
1975. He was in New York when Indonesian
troops invaded and did not return until after a
1999 UN-sponsored referendum gave the halfisland its independence.
The violence that followed the vote sent an estimated 250,000 people fleeing across the border
into Indonesia’s half of the island of Timor.
CAMBODIAN police on
Saturday found five bodies,
two of them stuffed in a suitcase, in a car belonging to a
Frenchman who had been
missing for months with his
four children, officials said.
The gruesome discovery was
made after the vehicle owned
by widower Laurent Vallier,
42, was retrieved from a pond
on his property in the southern
province of Kampong Speu,
said Chhay Sinarith, director
of the interior ministry’s internal security department.
“After removing the car
from the pond, we found the
remains of five people. We
conclude that they are those of
the missing French family,” he
told.
“The bones of two kids were
put in a suitcase that was also
in the car,” he said, adding that
police were still investigating
the cause of death for all five
victims.
Vallier and his two sons and
two daughters, aged two to
nine, had been missing since
September.
Vallier’s
Cambodian wife died in childbirth in 2009.
A source at the French
embassy in Phnom Penh told
he could only confirm that “the
remains of five people”, in a
badly decomposed state, had
been found in Vallier’s car,
which is thought to have lain
submerged for weeks.
The
embassy
official
stressed that none of the victims had been officially identified and that an investigation
was still ongoing.
First Philippine eagle bred
in captivity turns 20
AGENCIES
DAVAO CITY (PHILIPPINES)
PAG-ASA, the first Philippine Eagle
bred and hatched in captivity, turns
20 on Sunday, but with neither a
mate nor an offspring.
Pag-asa’s successful hatching in
1992 was considered a breakthrough, giving conservationists
hope of beefing up the dwindling
eagle population and leading to
other successful hatching efforts in
that year and the next.
At 20, Pag-asa is at the prime of
his life, according to biologist Anna
Mae Sumaya, the curator of the
Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF)
breeding programme in Malagos.
The oldest eagle at the eagle farm is
43 years old.
Eagles are supposed to reach sexual maturity at five years of age. But
Pag-asa’s semen production has
been sporadic, preventing successful artificial insemination despite
the best efforts of PEF conservationists. “People keep asking about Pagasa’s offspring. They think he
Pag-asa’s successful
hatching in 1992 was
considered a breakthrough, giving conservationists hope of
beefing up the dwindling eagle population.
already has one,” Sumaya said.
Suspecting that the eagle might be
stressed by his proximity to
humans, conservationists have isolated him from visitors since 2005.
“He does not like the company of
people except for his surrogate parent/mate,” Sumaya said, referring
to eagle caretaker Eddie Juntilla.
Pag-asa has been “imprinted”
with humans, Sumaya said. She said
that since the eagle was hatched, he
has identified closely with Juntilla as
his parent and, during the mating
season, as his mate.
Imprinting is defined as a rapid
learning process that takes place
early in the life of an animal and
establishes a behaviour pattern
involving recognition of and attraction to identifiable attributes of its
own kind or a substitute.
“Pag-asa depends for most of his
needs, including food, on humans.
It’s possible that he has also identified himself with humans,” Sumaya
said. During the breeding months
from July to February, Juntilla
brings Pag-asa sprigs from hardwood trees, playing the part of the
female eagle during courtship.
UNITED KINGDOM / EUROPE
Europe must win back
investors’ trust: Merkel
AP
BERLIN
Chancellor
GERMAN
Angela
Merkel
said
Standard and Poor’s downgrades of nine countries
underline the fact that the
eurozone faces a “long road”
to win back investors’ confidence, pushing on Saturday
for it to move quickly on a
new budget discipline pact
and a permanent rescue
fund.
Germany kept its AAA rating but S&P stripped France,
with which it has co-piloted
the eurozone rescue drive, of
its top-notch rating fuelling
concerns that that in turn
could complicate Europe’s
efforts to keep its weaker
economies afloat.
Merkel said that she had
“taken note” of the decision
by S&P, which she stressed
repeatedly is only one of
three major rating agencies.
“The decision confirms my
conviction that we in Europe
still have a long road ahead
of us before the confidence
of investors is restored,” she
said at a televised news conference in the north German
city of Kiel, where her conservative party’s leadership
was meeting.
“But I think it can be seen
that we have set off with
determination along this
road (to) a stable currency,
solid finances and sustainable growth,” she added.
Merkel
stressed
the
importance of a new treaty
enshrining tougher fiscal
Movement for
Scotland’s
independence
gains vigour
German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a press conference, in Kiel, northern Germany, on Saturday. (AP)
rules, for which Germany
has pushed hard.
Most European Union
leaders agreed in early
December to draw up the
pact, and Merkel has said
the pact could be signed as
early as the end of this
month, and at the beginning
of March at the latest.
“We are now called upon
... to implement quickly the
fiscal pact and implement it
decisively‚ without trying to
water it down everywhere,”
Merkel said.
The chancellor sought to
allay concerns that the
downgrade of France, the
17-nation eurozone’s No. 2
economy after Germany,
would complicate the work
of the bloc’s temporary rescue fund, the €440 billion
($560 billion) European
Financial Stability Facility.
However, she did underline the urgency of putting
its permanent successor, the
European
Stability
Mechanism, in place quickly. European leaders already
have decided to get it up up
and running in July, a year
ahead of the original schedule; Merkel and French
President Nicolas Sarkozy
said on Monday that they
would consider speeding up
Six dead, four missing
in Italian ship mishap
AP
AFP
STIRLING
ROME
FOR centuries Scotland
was an independent kingdom, warding off English
invaders in a series of
bloody battles, but in 1707
the two united in a single
country — Great Britain
— that shares a monarch,
a currency, and a
London-based government.
Now a more peaceful,
modern
movement
thinks its goal of regaining Scotland’s independence is finally in sight.
This week Scottish
authorities announced
they will hold a referendum on independence in
2014, firing the starting
pistol on a contest that
could end with the
breakup of Britain.
Many people around
here can’t wait.
“This is a wonderful
time, an exciting time,”
said Gillian LeathleyGibb, who runs a gift shop
selling scarves, shawls
and all things tartan in
Stirling, a sturdy little city
dominated by a castle that
was repeatedly fought
over by Scottish and
English armies. “We went
into a marriage with them
over the border. Now it’s
time for a divorce.”
Scotland’s history has
been entwined with that
of its more populous
southern neighbour for
millennia, with Scots
often bridling at London’s
central role in their
affairs. Scots like to see
themselves as independent, strong-willed underdogs who fought for centuries against English
oppression.
SIX people died and four were missing
on Saturday after a cruise ship with
more than 4,000 people on board ran
aground and keeled over off an Italian
island, sparking chaos as passengers
scrambled to get off.
The Costa Concordia was on a trip
around the Mediterranean when it
apparently hit a reef near the Isola del
Giglio on Friday as passengers were
sitting down for dinner. Some passengers jumped into the icy waters.
“There were scenes of panic like on
the Titanic. We ran aground rocks near
the Isola del Giglio. I don’t know how
this could happen. The captain is
crazy,” Mara Parmegiani, a passenger,
was quoted by Italian media as saying.
“We were very scared and freezing
because it happened while we were at
dinner so everyone was in evening
wear. We definitely didn’t have time to
get anything else. They gave us blankets but there weren’t enough,” she
said.
Local prefect Giuseppe Linardi said
the toll was at least six dead and 13
injured and added that rescuers were
using divers to check the part of the
ship that is under water to see if there
were any more passengers inside.
Helicopters with search lights assisted the nighttime rescue operation.
Shocked passengers crammed into
the island’s few hotel rooms and a local
church overnight. Hundreds were
being transferred by ferry to the
Tuscan resort town of Porto Santo
Stefano, which is linked to the Italian
mainland.
Luciano Castro, another passenger,
was quoted as saying: “We heard a
loud noise while we were at dinner as if
the keel of the ship hit something.”
“The ship started taking in water
through the hole and began tilting.”
Francesco Paolillo, a local coast
guard official, said there was a 30metre hole in the ship but that it was
too early to say what exactly had happened.
“We think this happened as a result
of sailing too close to an obstacle like a
reef,” he said.
One of the victims was a man in his
70s who died of a heart attack caused
by the shock to his system when he
jumped into the sea, reports said.
Passengers were initially told the
ship had shuddered to a halt for electrical reasons, before being told to put
on their life-jackets and head for
lifeboats, a passenger from the boat
told ANSA news agency by telephone.
The local mayor said they were trying to find room to accommodate the
rescued passengers, including pregnant women and children.
“We are trying to accommodate
them anywhere we can, in schools,
nurseries, hotels, anywhere that has a
roof,” said mayor Sergio Ortelli, who
added that some passengers were even
bedding down for the night in the
church.
The top section of the Costa Concordia cruise ship off the island of Giglio, Tuscany, on
Saturday. (EPA)
payments into the ESM.
The downgrades “won’t
torpedo the work of the
EFSF now‚ I see no need to
change anything about the
EFSF now,” she said. “I am
firmly convinced that the
EFSF can fulfill the needs it
still has to fulfill in the coming months with the existing
methods.”
She added that “we will
work to implement as quickly as possible the ESM ‚ that
is also important for
investors’ confidence.”
The ESM will be able to
lend ‚ €500 billion. In contrast to the EFSF, it will have
paid-in capital from euro
countries, similar to a bank,
which makes it less vulnerable to downgrades of its contributing states..
Merkel said Europe needs
the new fund, “which is
underlaid by capital and will
be independent from such
(ratings) evaluations.”
As for the current temporary fund, she suggested that
its top rating isn’t so important ‚ “from the beginning, I
wasn’t of the opinion that
the EFSF absolutely has to
be triple-A.”
“Of course it isn’t easier to
borrow money on the capital
market if you have a somewhat worse rating, but as the
French finance minister said
yesterday, AA+ really isn’t a
bad rating,” Merkel added.
She said she didn’t expect
Friday’s S&P decision to
lead to “Germany having to
do more in comparison with
others.”
Sunday, January 15, 2012
www.qatar-tribune.com
05
Inside Europe
Not murder, says
Oxford don’s widow
LONDON Indian-origin
Oxford mathematician
Devinder Sivia, who was
arrested after an eminent
professor was found dead
at his home, has been
released on bail.
The professor’s widow
said her husband was not
murdered while Sivia’s
father described the academics’ relationship as
that of “brothers”.
The body of Steven
Rawlings, a 50-year-old
astrophysicist, was found
at Sivia’s home in
Oxfordshire on
Wednesday.
Rawlings’ widow Linda
said the death was not a
murder. “Steve and
Devinder were best friends
since college and I believe
this is a tragic accident.”
“I do not believe that
Steve’s death is murder
and I do not believe
Devinder should be tarnished in this way,” Linda
was quoted as saying.
British police are now looking at “underlying health
issues” after a post-mortem
examination of Rawlings
failed to pinpoint the cause
of his death. (IANS)
Bulgarians protest
against Chevron’s
‘fracking’ plans
SOFIA Several thousand
Bulgarians demonstrated
across the country on
Saturday against plans for
shale gas exploration by
US company Chevron that
they say could harm the
environment.
About 1,000 youngsters
marched along the streets
of the capital Sofia, beating drums and blowing
whistles as “a wake-up
call to all Bulgarians. They
urged people to push the
government to impose a
ban on hydraulic fracturing
or “fracking”, the most
commonly used method
for shale gas exploration.
The protestors marched on
the government buildings
carrying banners saying
“No to shale gas, Yes to
nature”, and “Chevron go
home” to protest the US
company’s plans to extract
shale gas in the EU’s
poorest member. (AFP)
Thousands of Danes cheer popular monarch
COPENHAGEN Tens of thousands of flag-waving Danes
braved near-freezing temperatures on Saturday to cheer
Denmark’s popular figurehead monarch as she celebrated
40 years on the throne.
Escorted by mounted Hussars, Queen Margrethe travelled in an 1840 horse-drawn carriage through
Copenhagen to attend a reception at the City Hall, attended by King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden,
Norway’s King Harald and Queen Sonja, the family of the
deposed monarch of Greece and Icelandic President Olafur
Ragnar Grimsson. (AP)
06
Sunday, January 15, 2012
OPINION
www.qatar-tribune.com
ESTABLISHED SEPTEMBER
3, 2006
HAMAD BIN SUHAIM AL THANI
ADEL ALI BIN ALI
CHAIRMAN
Where are the Liberals?
MANAGING DIRECTOR
DR HASSAN MOHAMMED AL ANSARI
EDITOR -IN-CHIEF
AJIT KUMAR JHA
EDITOR
The ridicule of the government by Democrats creates a trust deficit among the people
PRINTED AT ALI BIN ALI PRINTING PRESS
DAVID BROOKS | NYT SYNDICATE
Eastside
ANC at 100
The party has lost some sheen but S Africa has progressed
T
HE African National Congress celebrated 100 years on January 8. Its story,
from its beginnings as a peaceful liberation movement against the British and
Boer (Dutch) colonisers of South Africa, to
a militant group that fought apartheid, the
abhorrent system of legalised racial segregation, to a party that oversaw a successful transition to a post-apartheid South
Africa in a spirit of reconciliation with its
white oppressors, is a truly inspiring epic
of modern humankind. Even at the height
of its armed struggle, the ANC — the oldest political party in Africa, which worked
hand in hand with a small but vibrant and
upstanding Communist Party — was clear
it was fighting for a South Africa where
black and white could live as equals.
Perhaps the only parallel to the iconic
leadership of Nelson Mandela, marked by
a total commitment to the struggle, his act
of political generosity towards the hated
white rulers as South Africa stood at the
cusp of liberation, and the absence of
vengeance and vendetta in his ideology, is
Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent struggle
for India’s independence. But to consider
the century-long existence of the ANC is
also to face the reality of man’s inhumanity against man, not in some distant
bygone time, but as recently as two
decades ago. That the post-War world
order allowed a full 13 years to pass after
South Africa enacted the first apartheid
laws in 1949 before adopting a resolution
in the United Nations against apartheid
speaks volumes about the double standards rife then, as they are today. India
can take pride in its solidarity with the
ANC through those years: it was the first
country to cut off trade ties with South
Africa. It campaigned to keep South Africa
out of the Commonwealth, and constantly
highlighted the issue of apartheid on the
world stage.
It is true that the ANC’s 17 years in government have led to some loss of sheen.
Recent years have seen it dogged by allegations of corruption and cronyism. The
economy has slowed down; unemployment and poverty remain big challenges.
South Africa was also badly damaged by
the HIV-AIDS denialism of Thabo Mbeki,
who succeeded Nelson Mandela as
President (1999-2008). But on the whole
the lot of the majority black population
has improved dramatically. South Africa
boasts the world’s most progressive
Constitution. Successive governments
have spent significant resources in delivering basics — schooling, water, housing,
and electricity.
Westside
Apply First Amendment
US Supreme Court must end the anomalous treatment of radio & TV
T
HE Constitution generally prohibits
the government from suppressing words
and images unless they are obscene. But the
Supreme Court upheld a narrow exception
to this free speech tenet in 1978, letting the
Federal Communications Commission
ban “indecent but not obscene” material
from radio and television because it said
broadcast media were pervasive and accessible to children.
In F.C.C. v. Fox Television Stations,
which the court heard on Tuesday, the
justices should overturn the 1978 ruling
and apply the same First Amendment
principles to all media. If the court refuses
to go that far, it should at least uphold the
decision by the United States Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit that the
F.C.C.’s indecency policy is “unconstitutional because it is impermissibly vague”
and must be revised to give reliable notice
about what can be broadcast.
A revolution in communications has
taken away the grounds for treating radio
and television differently. As Justice
Samuel Alito Jr.said in court on Tuesday,
“Broadcast TV is living on borrowed
time,” with cable and wireless communications being so widespread. Technology,
like the V-chip in TVs and digital converter boxes, allows parents to block programs inappropriate for children.
The F.C.C.’s policy prohibits indecent
material and profane speech between 6
a.m. and 10 p.m. Violations may result in
substantial monetary fines, loss of a
broadcast license and other sanctions.
The agency has applied this policy so
inconsistently that, as a brief for ABC
Inc. and others argued, “broadcasters
have no way to know what material the
commission will deem indecent.”
W
HY aren’t there more liberals in America? It’s not
because liberalism lacks cultural power. Many polls suggest that a majority of college professors and national journalists
vote Democratic. The movie, TV, music
and publishing industries are dominated by liberals.
It’s not because recent events have
disproved the liberal worldview. On
the contrary, we’re still recovering
from a financial crisis caused, in large
measure, by Wall Street excess.
Corporate profits are zooming while
worker salaries are flat. It’s not
because liberalism’s opponents are
going from strength to strength. The
Republican Party is unpopular and
sometimes embarrassing.
Given the circumstances, this
should be a golden age of liberalism.
Yet the percentage of Americans who
call themselves liberals is either flat
or in decline. There are now two conservatives in this country for every
liberal. Over the past 40 years, liberalism has been astonishingly incapable at expanding its market share.
The most important explanation is
what you might call the Instrument
Problem. Americans may agree with
liberal diagnoses, but they don’t trust
the instrument the Democrats use to
solve problems. They don’t trust the
federal government.
A few decades ago they did, but now
they don’t. Roughly 10 percent of
Americans trust government to do the
right thing most of the time, according to an October New York Times,
CBS News poll.
Why don’t Americans trust their
government? It’s not because they
dislike individual programs like
Medicare. It’s more likely because
they think the whole system is rigged.
Or to put it in the economists’ language, they believe the government
has been captured by rent-seekers.
This is the disease that corrodes
government at all times and in all
places. As George F. Will wrote in a
column in Sunday’s Washington
Post, as government grows, interest
groups accumulate, seeking to capture its power and money.
Some of these rent-seeking groups
are corporate types. Will notes that
the federal government delivers sugar
subsidies that benefit a few rich
providers while imposing costs on
millions of consumers. Other rentseeking groups are dispersed across
the political spectrum. The tax code
has been tweaked 4,428 times in the
past 10 years, to the benefit of interests of left, right and center.
Others exercise their power transparently and democratically.
As Will notes, in 2009, the net
worth of households headed by senior
citizens was 47 times the net worth of
households led by people under 35.
Yet seniors use their voting power to
protect programs that redistribute
even more money from the young to
the old and affluent.
You would think that liberals would
have a special incentive to root out
rent-seeking. Yet this has not been a
major priority. There is no Steve Jobs
figure in American liberalism insisting that the designers keep government simple, elegant and user-friendly. Sailors scrub their ships. Farmers
clear weeds. Democrats have not
spent a lot of time scraping barnacles
off the state.
Worse, in an attempt to match
Republican rhetoric, Democratic
politicians are perpetually soiling the
name of government for the sake of
short-term gain. How many times
have you heard Democrats from
Carter to Obama running against
Washington, accusing it of being
insular, shortsighted, corrupt and
petty? If the surgeon himself thinks
his tools are rancid, why shouldn’t
you? In the past few weeks, the
Obama administration has begun his
presidential campaign by picking a
series of small fights with the
Republican-led House over things
like recess appointments. These
vicious squabbles may help Obama in
the short term by making him look
better than Republicans in Congress.
But they will only further discredit
Washington over the long run.
Life is unfair. Republican venality
unintentionally reinforces the conservative argument that government is
corrupt. Democratic venality undermines the Democratic argument that
Washington can be trusted to do
good. Liberalism has not expanded
because it has not had a Martin
Luther, a leader committed to stripping away the corruptions, complexities and indulgences that have grown
up over the years.
If you’ll forgive some outside
advice, President Barack Obama
might consider running for re-election as Luther. It’s not enough to pick
a series of small squabbles and then
win as the least ugly man in the room.
He might run as someone who
believes in government but sees how
much it needs to be cleansed and
purified.
Make the tax code simple. Make job
training simple. Make Medicare simple. Every week choose a rent-seeker
to hold up for ridicule and renunciation. Change the congressional rules.
Simplify the legal thickets that undermine responsibility.
If Democrats can’t restore
American’s trust in government, it
really doesn’t matter what problems
they identify and what plans they
propose. No one will believe in the
instrument they rely on for solutions.
(The Hindu / NYT)
Empowering Citizen Cartographers
Combining modern mapping technology with crowdsourcing can open new path for developing world
F
ROM cave drawings to navigational charts to GPS, people
have created and used maps
to help them define, order and
navigate their worlds. Four
hundred years ago, in the Age of
Exploration, it was cartographers,
often working alone, who used the
stars, mathematics and early
attempts to represent longitude to
map the New World. Today, in the
Age of Participation, it’s crowds, not
scholars, who are charting their own
New World.
A combination of the old art of
mapping with the relatively new art of
crowdsourcing – the open calls for
action via the Web – offers the potential to open up a new path for the
developing world: helping citizens
map their own country’s facilities and
thereby have a greater say in charting
the future.
Citizen cartographers can be a powerful force. In the aftermath of the
Haiti earthquake, rescue workers
used real-time data uploads on Open
Street Map, via text and cellphone
messages, to help create up-to-date
maps of Haiti and find the injured.
Engineers from around the globe
gathered “virtually” to assess the
damage.
Last October, the World Bank and
its partners staged the first ever global “water hackathon,” with volunteer
tech experts in London devising a system to allow Tanzanians to report
water problems through SMS messages, and tech experts in Lagos
devising new applications for reporting broken pipes.
Or take Dar es Salaam, where the
local authorities engaged students
to map roads, drains and streetlights in anticipation of an urban
upgrading project, not only generating transparent planning data but
also providing a platform for community consultation and a space for
dialogue on development between
citizens and leaders.
It’s a simple but harsh reality that
most developing countries don’t have
basic local data about where schools
or hospitals are located. A recent
mapping study of 100 health facilities
and schools in Kenya found that only
CAROLINE ANSTEY/ NYT SYNDICATE
25 percent of the clinics and 20 percent of the schools matched official
data. Nearly 75 percent of locations
needed to be updated.
Lack of knowledge of social infrastructure like schools and hospitals
makes it more costly when natural
disasters strike, setting back recovery
efforts, sometimes by months. And
lack of data, in general, makes it harder – both in government and in the
community – to argue for improved
services or increased funding.
The answer? A good start would be
scaling up the use of modern mapping
technology with crowd sourcing. It’s
just this potential that’s been the driving force behind a new partnership
between the World Bank and Google.
Under the agreement, the bank and
its development partners – developing country governments and U.N.
agencies – will be able to access
Google Map Maker’s global mapping
platform, allowing the collection,
viewing, search and free access to
data of geo-information in over 150
countries and 60 languages.
Simply put, it means that up-todate maps of social infrastructure
used by nearly a billion people around
the globe can be created using crowdsourcing tools, partnering with volunteer mappers using GPS enabled
phones and other devices.
Success will hinge on using local
expertise to break new ground – finding an active community of passionate citizen cartographers from civil
society organizations, local governments, public service providers and
universities who can plug in the data
that makes its way to publicly available online maps.
Where once charts were vital to
guide mariners to safe harbors,
today’s interactive maps can guide
development to the places it is needed most. Crowdsourced mapping
platforms can serve as a foundation
allowing citizens not just to map but
to give feedback on the reach and
quality of the services in their community. And that information can be
used to improve service delivery,
fight corruption and track resources.
Citizen cartographers, yes, but also
citizen monitors, citizen evaluators,
citizen-driven development.
Development agencies can also
benefit. At the World Bank, we’ve
mapped 2,500 projects in more than
30,000 locations in our partner countries. Building on this success, the
World Bank, Britain, Sweden, Spain,
the Netherlands, Estonia and Finland
have endorsed an Open Aid
Partnership that will map development projects of all partners for better
local development coordination.
Adding citizen feedback can be a valuable addition to the bank’s quest to
ensure development dollars are well
spent.
In the 17th century, imperial cartographers had an advantage over local
communities. They could see the big
picture. In the 21st century, the tables
have turned: Local communities can
make the biggest on the ground difference. Crowdsourced citizen cartographers can help make it happen.
(Caroline Anstey is a managing director of the World Bank.)
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ON THE OPINION AND ANALYSIS PAGES ARE THE AUTHORS’ OWN. QATAR TRIBUNE BEARS NO RESPONSIBILITY.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
ANALYSIS
Health is
Wealth
PAULA SPAN | NYT NEWS SERVICE
Interactive Tools
to Assess the
Likelihood
of Death
T
O help prevent overtesting and overtreatment of older patients or undertreatment
for those who remain robust at advanced ages
medical guidelines increasingly call for doctors to consider life expectancy as a factor in
their decision-making. But clinicians,
research has shown, are notoriously poor at
predicting how many years their patients
have left.
Now, researchers at the University of
California, San Francisco, have identified 16
assessment scales with ‘moderate’ to ‘very
good’ abilities to determine the likelihood of
death within six months to five years in various older populations. Moreover, the authors
have fashioned interactive tools of the most
accurate and useful assessments.
On Tuesday, the researchers published a
review of these assessments in The Journal of
the American Medical Association and posted
the interactive versions at a new Web site
called ePrognosis.org, the first time such
tools have been assembled for physicians in a
single online location. “We think a more
frank discussion of prognosis in the elderly is
sorely needed,” said Dr Sei Lee, a geriatrician
at UCSF and a co-author of the review.
“Without it, decisions are made that are more
likely to hurt patients than help them.”
Dr Lee and his colleagues cautioned that
while the best assessments are reasonably
accurate, there is insufficient data on whether
using them improves patient care in clinical
settings. The researchers stopped short of
urging widespread use.
At present, physicians are often shooting in
the dark when they recommend tests, treatments and medications for older patients.
Older bodies respond differently than
younger ones to drugs and operations, many
of which are never evaluated in elderly populations.Even when interventions do work, the
benefits can be years away. Doctors have no
easy way to know whether their elderly
patients will live long enough to experience
them. The potential for complications and
side effects, however, is immediate.
Plugging individual variables age, health
conditions, cognitive status, functional ability
into one of the new online tools produces a
percentage indicating the likelihood of death
within a particular time frame. Some assessments are used for hospital patients or nursing home residents, others for elderly people
still living at home. “That kind of synthesis is
very helpful for providers, researchers, some
patients, a one-stop shop,” said Dr Susan L
Mitchell, a Harvard geriatrician and senior
scientist at Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston, who
was not involved in the project.
The results could help doctors and families
evaluate, for example, whether an older person with a terminal disease should consider
hospice care, Dr. Lee said.
Have
your say
Is there an issue you feel
strongly about, or an article
you want to comment on? QT
will carry your voice to the
public and to places where it
matters. Write to us at
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Gender Bender
MAUREEN DOWD| NYT NEWS SERVICE
Romney had planned to
campaign against Obama
in the fall by defending
free enterprise. But now
he finds himself having to
do it in the Republican
nominating contests.
A PERFECT DOLL
At Bain Capital, Romney was all about cold analysis and hot profits
H
E took a rare personal
interest in one of his
investments: the Lifelike
Company, which produced My Twinn dolls,
fashioned to look like the little girls
who owned them.
As Mark Maremont reported in
The Wall Street Journal on
Monday, Romney invested $2.1
million in 1996 for a stake in the
company; the idea was brought to
him by a Lifelike partner who was a
friend from Brigham Young
University and Harvard Business
School.
Romney, who accuses President
Obama of ‘crony capitalism’ on the
Solyndra deal, introduced his
brother-in-law to Lifelike officials,
who dutifully hired the relative and
promoted him to vice president
with an annual salary of $100,000.
Romney’s Bain colleagues,
according to The Journal, were
dubious from the start and, indeed,
the brother-in-law was fired and
the company failed, despite a personal loan from Romney.
But I’m beginning to suspect that
before the factory shut down, Mitt
requested his own customized doll.
He has clearly brought a My
Twinn on the trail a plastic replica
of a candidate who’s often
described as a plastic replica: white
teeth, gelled hair, windowpane
shirt, Tommy Bahama jeans.
(“I wonít vote for a Ken doll,” a
Bradford, N.H., resident, Jason
Reid, adamantly told me at the
Bradford Market the other night.)
Romney may have been a pampered prince of Detroit and a leveraged buyout king of Boston, the
elite of the elite in the Mormon
Church, in the financial world and
in the political world.
But Mitt’s My Twinn has a hardscrabble background, struggling
from the bottom up, fearing pink
slips, sweating losing jobs and
somehow, late in life, letting himself get talked into a presidential
run.
Romney may have been a Wall
Street predator, looter and vulture
gnawing at the carcasses of companies and plotting a White House
bid in diapers to finish what his dad
started, as his Republican rivals
have portrayed him. “Make a profit,” a younger Romney laughingly
says in the attack film financed by
supporters of Newt Gingrich.
“That’s what it’s all about, right?”
But Mitt’s My Twinn is Just Like
You.
Romney may be a shape-shifting
opportunist full of ‘pious baloney,’
as Gingrich, a crazed Chuckie doll,
asserts.
But Mitt’s My Twinn is humble,
sincere and salt of the earth.
With many worried that America
is in decline, a prospective race
between Barack Obama and Mitt
Romney is being caricatured here
as ‘Saul Alinsky versus Gordon
To the giddy
delight of
Democrats,
Romney’s rivals
here have softened him up for
Obama by making the case that
Bain is the symbol of the central
problem with the
American economy: corporate
profits are skyhigh while companies aren’t
hiring much.
Gekko,’ as Don Baer, a former senior Clinton White House adviser,
put it.
And the ones painting Romney as
a ruthless Gekko, complete with a
1980s-era slicked-back mane, are
Republicans.
Romney had planned to campaign against Obama in the fall by
defending free enterprise. But now
he finds himself having to do it in
the Republican nominating contests.
His GOP rivals are not only trashing President Obama as a socialist,
Doha a sports capital
Hero by inheritance
The report ‘Doha to bid for 2019
world athletics meet’ gives us
another reason to cheer after the
Qatar ExxonMobil Open tennis
tournament.
The concerned authorities
should make every effort to bring
the gala event to the Middle East
for the first time. Also, they will
have much time to prepare world
class areanas for the event till
2019.
All these events also become a
launch pad for raw talent from the
region itself. Atheletes from the
region can compete with the best
known faces in athetics if the
event is held in Doha.
Bidding for sports’ mega events
and hosting big sports meets regularly at world class facilities that
Doha boasts is turning the Qatari
capital into the sports capital of
the Middle East.
It was very surprising to note the
manner in which Kim Jong il’s
death was announced by a weeping
anchorwoman on North Korean
state television from the capital,
Pyongyang. The TV viewers of the
rest of the world had a unique
glimpse of a dramatic presentation
of the news by the state-controlled
television of North Korea. The
diminutive leader, known for his
love of women, cigars, cognac and
gourmet foods, reportedly suffered
a stroke.
It is said that when a father dies in
this country, the kin of the father
run shrieking through the streets,
pulling their hair, crying, weeping.
Sometimes they do this for days.
This has been exaggerated to a
much higher level with apparently
the whole nation doing this when
the leader dies. So, it was quite an
extravaganza for the people of other
parts of the world, but entirely predictable for the North Koreans.
EMAIL
[email protected]
www.qatar-tribune.com
they’ve become socialists themselves in a last desperate and vain
attempt to bring down the frontrunner, whose less-than-scintillating persona inspired one Democrat
to note about Republican voters:
‘The dog wonít eat the dog food.’
Romney’s competitors have been
running around New Hampshire
and South Carolina trashing
Romney
for
doing
what
Republicans do: throwing people
out of work and making money.
To the giddy delight of
Democrats, Romney’s rivals here
have softened him up for Obama by
making the case that Bain is the
symbol of the central problem with
the American economy: corporate
profits are sky-high while companies aren’t hiring much.
Michael Kranish and Scott
Helman, the authors of a new biography, ‘The Real Romney,’ tell this
story: During the 1968 Republican
primary, after George Romney made
his notorious remark about getting
‘the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get’ on Vietnam, The
Detroit News, ordinarily a supporter,
blasted his ‘blurt and retreat habits’
and urged him to get out of the race.
Although Mitt has studied his
dad’s mistakes in that race carefully, he seems to be inexorably
repeating some of them.
He won Tuesday night, denouncing his rivals’ ‘bitter politics of
envy,’ but he had a ‘blurt and
retreat’ week in New Hampshire
that didn’t augur well for the fall.
Though he was referring to getting rid of insurance companies
that were not providing adequate
care, his ‘I like to be able to fire people who provide services to me’
crack was a chuckleheaded move
that played into the hands of foes.
And his inept attempts to paint
himself as an Average Joe who
somehow backed into the presidential arena earned him relentless
mocking.
But, as the authors of ‘The Real
Romney’ report, Mitt once told a
church friend that Romneys were
built to swim upstream. He was
never a great natural tennis player,
the authors wrote, but he compensated with strategic thinking and
gamesmanship. As a friend of
Mitt’s put it: ‘His strategy is simply
to hit the ball back one more time
than you do.’
“Now it’s time to bring all
the athletes of the world
to Doha.”
FATIMA KHAN
D OHA
“Major milestone: India to
mark 1 year since last polio
case.”
BILL GATES
07
Bloggers’
Borough
NITIN NOHRIA |HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
What business
schools can learn
from the medical
profession
A
few years ago, a family member visiting from India became ill. Soon he was
sitting on a hospital gurney, surrounded
by people in lab coats , people who were,
for the most part, incredibly inexperienced.
This is common in Boston. Many of our
wonderful hospitals are affiliated with
medical schools, so they’re full of students training to be doctors. It can be disconcerting or even frightening to put your
health in the hands of individuals who are
still learning their profession. But whenever I’m in this situation, I remember
that we have an obligation as patients to
help train the next generation of doctors.
I also keep in mind how well the medical
profession supervises its trainees, giving
them enough autonomy to learn while
minimizing the chance that they might
harm patients. The clinical experience
gained by fledgling doctors is an ideal
example of how professional schools
address the ‘knowing-doing gap.’
Generally speaking, medical schools are
much better at this than business schools,
but they have an advantage: Every hospital has a constant influx of patients to
whom it can expose students. Inserting
business students into real-world managerial situations is much more challenging. Still, business schools need to work
harder to close the knowing-doing gap.
Harvard Business School has long used
case studies, a method it adapted from
Harvard Law School and introduced to
business education to project students
into the role of managers solving business
problems. Analyzing 400 cases in two
years gives our MBA students a lot of
practice at this. Case studies are a very
effective tool, but they’re also limited:
Business students can only imagine how
they’d tackle a managerial problem,
whereas medical residents are facing
real-life health concerns.
To give MBA students a dose of realworld experience, HBS is introducing its
biggest curriculum change in nearly 90
years. Students in our Field Immersion
Experiences for Leadership Development
program will engage in practice-oriented
activities throughout the year. This work
has begun on campus, where students
have been taking product development
workshops and crafting investment pitches. But the program’s most ambitious
aspect starts in 2012, when HBS will send
the entire first-year class more than 900
students abroad to developing markets,
where they will work in teams of six with
a multinational or a local company to
develop a new product or service offering.
In Istanbul, Cape Town, Sao Paulo,
Mumbai, Shanghai, and elsewhere, the
students might be interviewing customers, meeting people in the supply
chain, or visiting competitors. At the end
of each day, much like hospital residents
after rounds, they will gather with faculty
members to discuss what they are learning. (It is this daily faculty interaction
that greatly distinguishes the experience
from a summer internship.) They’ll gain
contextual humility, realizing that the
plans they conceived back on campus will
meet unanticipated obstacles in the field.
Our goal is not only to enhance the
experience of our students but to improve
management pedagogy. That is what HBS
did with the case study method, which is
now used universally. It’s time to do the
same with managerial field training. Our
commitment is to learn how the experience should be structured, what role the
faculty should play, and what company
support is required, in order to develop a
method that other institutions can
embrace.
We don’t have all the answers, and we’ll
be improvising as we go. Nor will the
businesses that host our students acquire
the expertise they’d get from actual consultants. Like hospital patients being
treated by a new resident, everyone
involved will experience some nervousness and discomfort. But in a global economy that will put heavy demands on the
next generation of managers and leaders,
that’s a small price to pay for knowledge
and experience?
PAVAN KUMAR
DOHA
RAKESH VERMA
DOHA
(Nitin Nohria is the dean of
Harvard Business School.)
08
Sunday, January 15, 2012
UNITED STATES
www.qatar-tribune.com
Court rejects
move to add
candidates
to Virginia
ballot
REUTERS
WASHINGTON
A FEDERAL judge in
Virginia
on
Friday
refused to order that candidates Rick Perry, Newt
Gingrich
and
Jon
Huntsman be added to
the ballot in the state’s
March 6 Republican
presidential primary election after they failed to
qualify.
Former Massachusetts
Governor Mitt Romney
and congressman Ron
Paul were the only two
candidates to qualify for
the primary in Virginia by
submitting the 10,000
verifiable signatures by
the deadline. Romney is
the frontrunner in the
race for the Republican
nomination to face
Democratic President
Barack
Obama
on
November 6.
Perry and the other
candidates sued Virginia
election officials to be
added to the ballot,
arguing that the state’s
qualification process
limited voter access to
the candidates of their
choosing.
The state
argued those
ballots must be
mailed to
absentee voters by January
21 to comply
with election
laws.
But Judge John Gibney
ruled the candidates filed
their legal challenge too
late, finding the harm
they suffered began when
they started collecting the
necessary
signatures
because
they
were
required to use Virginia
residents to do so.
Such a requirement
was likely unconstitutional and had the candidates sued earlier, the
judge said he could have
granted permission to
use people from outside
Virginia to collect signatures.
“It is too late for the
court to allow them to
gather more signatures the absentee ballots must
go out now,” Gibney
wrote in a 22-page opinion issued after a hearing
in Richmond.
The state argued those
ballots must be mailed to
absentee voters by
January 21 to comply
with election laws.
Gibney did rule the
requirement of 10,000
verifiable signatures legal,
saying it was “a minimal
number” and that six candidates made the primary
ballot four years ago
under the same rules.
The candidates could
appeal his ruling.
Obama seeks to
revamp govt,
focus on exports
REUTERS
WASHINGTON
PRESIDENT Barack Obama
asked Congress on Friday for
broad powers to overhaul the
US government and untangle
what he called an “outdated
bureaucratic maze” that
makes it hard for US businesses to sell their goods
abroad.
Obama said he wanted to
consolidate six trade and business agencies into a single
export body to help the United
States better compete in a 21st
century economy and modernise a government he said
had grown too complex.
The move could help inoculate him against charges from
Republicans hoping to unseat
him in November that he is a
feckless liberal who has
presided over one of the
largest expansions of the US
government in history.
Ronald Reagan, an idol of
conservative Republicans,
was the last US president who
had the authority to reorganise the government in a similar fashion. But Obama must
contend
with
some
Democrats who worry that
merging the agencies will
backfire
and
some
Republicans who are unwilling to give the president wider
powers. Analysts were skeptical that Congress would
approve Obama’s request in
an election year.
The consolidation of power
Obama is seeking would
allow him to design structural changes to the government
that lawmakers would have
to approve or reject, without
revisions.
Obama said he wanted to
move the Office of the US
Trade Representative (USTR)
and five other export bodies
spread across Washington into
a new trade department, giving
businesses a single point of
contact and trying to ensure
that Washington’s export promotion packs a punch.
The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) - now part of the
Commerce Department would be absorbed by the
Department of the Interior
under the plan, and the
Census Bureau as well as
other statistical agencies
would find a home in the new,
yet-to-be-named department.
The Commerce Department
would then be closed.
A spokeswoman for Mitt
Romney, the front-runner in
the Republican presidential
nomination race who has said
he would make it a top priority to reduce the scale of government, cast Obama’s proposals as campaign spin.
“It’s ironic that President
Obama, who has grown government beyond belief for the
past three years, is calling for
consolidation of government.
It is unfortunate that he is
only doing so now to curry
political favour in an election
year,” spokeswoman Andrea
Saul said.
In a speech delivered at the
White House, Obama said the
overhaul would make it easier
for US businesses to work with
the government and boost
their overseas sales, essential
to his economic goal of doubling US exports by 2015.
He also announced he
would elevate the Small
President Barack Obama delivers remarks on government reform, at the East Room of the White
House, in Washington, on Friday. (AP)
Business Administration to a
Cabinet-level post - his inner
circle of senior officials - with
immediate effect to underscore his focus on smaller
companies as an engine of job
growth and recovery.
Nick Consonery, a China
analyst at the Eurasia Group
in Washington, said there was
a genuine need for the United
States to strengthen its trade
policy as it seeks to increase
exports and also ensure other
IANS
THOUGH her father may be
the US president, Malia
Obama finds her father
Barack very embarrassing,
her mother Michelle has said.
For 13-year-old Malia and
eight-year-old Sasha, parentteacher conferences are the
worst because of their father’s
highly conspicuous motorcade, the US first lady said in
an interview with CBS.
Michelle said that like any
children, theirs find their parents “not cool”, the Daily
Mail reported.
When asked by the host
its work may get bogged down.
“Taking USTR, one of the
most efficient agencies that is
a model of how government
can and should work, and
making it just another corner
of a new bureaucratic behemoth would hurt American
exports and hinder American
job creation,” Democrat Max
Baucus and Republican Dave
Camp, who chair committees
overseeing trade policy, said
in a joint statement.
Attacks over business past
make Romney stronger
REUTERS
WASHINGTON
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney campaigns at the University of South Carolina, in Aiken,
on Friday. (AP)
HE is being maligned as a ‘vulture’ capitalist who enjoyed firing workers - while amassing
his own huge fortune - but
rivals’ attacks on Mitt
Romney’s business record may
be one of the best things that
ever happened to his presidential campaign.
Charges that Romney’s private equity firm Bain Capital
got rich by buying and selling
companies are winning the former Massachusetts governor
new support from party leaders worried that the onslaught
might weaken the front-runner
in the race for the Republican
presidential nomination.
There has been little evidence to date that the attacks
have hurt Romney, least
among Republican primary
voters. He leads in polls in
South Carolina, which holds
its primary on January 21, and
won nominating contests in
Iowa and New Hampshire.
Despite his $270 million fortune, Romney has become
more of a sympathetic figure to
some in his party. Senior
Republican figures have rallied
around Romney against rivals
Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry,
who led some of the attacks.
“You’re seeing people who
haven’t really traditionally been
Obama’s daughters find him embarrassing
LONDON
economies play by the rules.
“We are definitely entering
an environment where they
will take trade disputes more
aggressively and this would
help provide a streamlined
structure for that,” he said.
On Capitol Hill, several key
lawmakers expressed concern
about the plan to anchor the
specialized USTR - which
negotiates free trade deals and
monitors for rule-breaking - in
a broader bureaucracy where
whether the children ever get
embarrassed by their parents,
the 47-year-old Michelle said
that apart from finding her
singing and dancing “cringeinducing”, Malia and Sasha
especially do not like their
parents visiting their school.
“They don’t really want us
to come to school, especially
the president, because when
he comes for a parent-teacher
conference, it’s a motorcade,”
she said.
“The other day,
Malia was like, ‘Oh no, is dad
coming? Is he bringing all
those cars? Really it’s like the
other day I think they almost
hit my teacher’,” she said.
The girls also do not like to
use the White House movie
theatre and go to public cinemas.
“I’m like, ‘We have that
movie here’ and they’re like ‘I
don’t care’,” said Michelle.
“My kids are like any children
— anything we do is not cool.
They will go in the other
direction,” she said.
The first lady said she was
looking forward to her daughters dating and getting excited about meeting boys they
like.
Malia has her own cell
phone that she uses to “reach
out to friends”, but her contacts list is restricted and the
calls are monitored.
Romney supporters ... who are
standing up and saying, ‘Well,
wait a second,’ and that definitely helps Romney,” said
Republican strategist Doug
Heye, former communications
director of the Republican
National Committee.
The conservatives’
embrace of Romney comes after
months of coolness. Some on the
party’s right-wing
are wary of Romney over moderate
positions he
staked out as governor of a liberal
state.
Romney scored points over
Gingrich on Friday when the
former
House
of
Representatives
speaker
backed down and called on a
group that funded a controversial anti-Romney video
documentary to either correct
it or cancel it.
Comments that Romney is a
“vulture” capitalist also cost
Texas Governor Perry a big
South Carolina backer when
investment fund executive
Barry Wynn switched to
Romney.
“I think the time has come
when we really need to consolidate and pick a winner and
Fourth homeless man
killed in California
AP
ANAHEIM
First lady Michelle Obama speaks to kids after a special screening
of “Meet The First Lady,” at Hayfield Secondary School, in
Arlington, Virginia, on Friday. (REUTERS)
also make sure that we’re the
party that’s going to fight and
support free-market capitalism,” Wynn told The
Washington Post.
Two other top state
Republicans, businessman
Peter Brown and attorney
Kevin Hall, who had publicly
voiced disappointment with
the Republican field, also
backed Romney this week.
The
onslaught
over
Romney’s record at Bain also
exposes his team early to questions about his business
record. If he wins the nomination, Romney will have experience crafting a strong response
to an attack line that
Democrats are sure to count on
in the general election against
President Barack Obama.
“In the end, it will make him
a strong, better candidate and
will prepare him for the fall
much better,” Jim Duffy, a
Democratic strategist, said.
The conservatives’ embrace
of Romney comes after months
of coolness. Some on the
party’s right-wing are wary of
Romney over moderate positions he staked out as governor
of a liberal state.
Crucially, the attacks won
Romney support from Jim
DeMint, a South Carolina senator popular with the anti-government Tea Party and a South
Carolina kingmaker.
POLICE detained a man in
connection with the latest
stabbing death of a homeless
man in southern California as
a task force investigated if
there were any links to the
slayings of three other homeless men, believed to be the
work of a serial killer.
The dead man was found
between 8 pm and 9 pm on
Friday near a fast-food restaurant in Anaheim, police said.
Witnesses followed a man
who ran from the restaurant
parking lot and led police to
him, Anaheim police Deputy
Chief Craig Hunter told the
Orange County Register. Police
set up a massive containment
area at the crime scene in a
search for the killer and scoured
nearby neighbourhoods, the
Los Angeles Times reported.
A task force of law enforcement officers from Anaheim,
Placentia, Brea, Orange County
Sheriff’s Department and the
FBI was formed to investigate
the killings of three other homeless men found stabbed to
death in north Orange County
since mid-December.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
WORLD
www.qatar-tribune.com
09
Gunmen kill 4 in attacks on pubs in northeast Nigeria
AFP
KANO
GUNMEN have attacked a
pub in northeastern Nigeria,
killing four people amid a
wave of such violence
blamed on Islamist group
Boko Haram, residents and
police said on Saturday.
Two gunmen who arrived
on a motorbike and opened
fire on the open-air pub in
the Dandu area in the
Adamawa state capital Yola
late on Friday, also wounding a policeman while fleeing. “We took two dead bodies of the victims to the hospital last night,” local community leader Tijjani Tukur
said. “The gunmen arrived in
the area and opened fire on
people drinking at the open
Adamawa has
been hit by a
series of such
attacks in recent
days, with much of
the violence
blamed on Islamist
group Boko Haram.
air tavern.”
Adamawa state police
spokeswoman Altine Daniel
confirmed the attack but said
only a policeman was
injured. “There was an attack
on an outdoor beer joint by
some gunmen last night in
which a policeman was shot
in the leg and is being treated
in hospital,” Daniel said.
Adamawa has been hit by a
series of such attacks in
recent days, with much of the
violence blamed on Islamist
group Boko Haram.
However, the state holds
governorship elections on
January 2l, with campaign
periods often provoking violence in Nigeria.
Yola was also targeted last
week when gunmen opened
fire on worshippers at a
church, killing at least eight
people. On Wednesday, gunmen attacked a police station
in the city, leaving one officer
dead. Also last week, gunmen opened fire on Christian
Igbos at a house in the town
of Mubi in Adamawa as they
mourned the death of a
friend killed in a shooting the
night before, leaving 17 dead.
Adamawa was also hit by
an attack late Thursday on a
Muslim village by a suspected Christian mob from a
nearby community which left
two dead and several homes
and mosques burnt.
A curfew has been declared
in Yola and other trouble
spots. Spiralling violence in
Nigeria, most of it blamed on
Boko Haram, has sparked
fears of a wider conflict in a
country roughly divided
between a mainly Muslim
north and predominately
Christian south.
talks to
Russian opposition leader Last-ditch
avert Nigerian
held after anti-Putin rally oil shutdown
AFP
AFP
ABUJA
MOSCOW
A LEADER of the liberal
opposition party was arrested
after some 300 people
protested against fraud-tainted parliamentary polls as
Vladimir Putin seeks a third
term as president.
Sergei Mitrokhin, a leader
of the liberal opposition
Yabloko party which organised the rally, was arrested at
the end of the protest and was
now facing a fine or a 15-day
jail sentence, a party
spokesman told AFP.
At the protest by the party
whose veteran leader Grigory
Yavlinsky hopes to challenge
Putin in March polls, participants set up two boards featuring pictures and names of
election officials they claimed
were involved in falsifications
during the December 4 legislative vote.
“The country should know
its anti-heroes,” one of the
activists said as others brandished party flags and chanted “Churov resign,” referring
to the head of the Central
Election Commission, an AFP
correspondent reported.
Another placard depicted
the bearded Putin ally
Vladimir Churov in a light
blue cloack and a wizard’s
peaked hat, alluding to the
popular nickname he earned
after President Dmitry
Medvedev called him a
N Korea denies
punishment
of ‘insincere
mourners'
AFP
SEOUL
NORTH Korea on Saturday
angrily hit back at allegations
citizens who failed to appear
sincere in the mourning of
leader Kim Jong-Il were being
rounded up and sentenced to
hard labour. Some media outlets in the South have claimed
North Koreans who did not
participate in organised public
mourning, failed to cry, or did
not appear genuine, have been
sentenced to at least six
months in labour camps.
But Pyongyang’s official
Korean Central News Agency
aid such “misinformation”
touched off “towering resentment” among North Koreans,
denouncing those who spread
the allegations as “pitiable
human scum”.
“The group of traitors hellbent on the anti-DPRK (North
Korea) campaign could hardly
understand the weight and
sincerity of the tears shed by
the service personnel and people of the DPRK,” KCNA said.
The reports originated on
Daily NK, an Internet website
run by opponents of North
Korea, which said it had
learned the information from
a source in the isolated communist state’s northeastern
province of North Hamkyong.
Sergei Mitrokhin, chairman of the Yabloko political party, is restrained by a Russian police officer during a protest against results of the
recent parliamentary election, in Moscow, on Saturday. (REUTERS)
“magician” at a post-election
meeting last month.
Putin, Russia’s current
prime minister who wants to
return to the Kremlin for a
third term, is wrestling with
the worst legitimacy crisis of
his 12-year rule, with tens of
thousands taking to the streets
last month. A third major
protest set for February 4 is
expected to provide clues
about the direction and
strength of the nascent oppo-
sition movement. “It is
extremely important to turn up
for protests but mere protests
are not enough,” Mitrokhin
said at the “name them, shame
them” rally before his arrest,
urging Russians to act as ama-
teur observers at the presidential election. He was arrested
following the end of the protest
for what police said was resistance to authorities and taken to
a police station, spokesman
Igor Yakovlev said.
Taiwan president wins second term
AFP
TAIPEI
TAIWAN’S Beijing-friendly
leader Ma Ying-jeou secured
a second four-year term as
president on Saturday, promising better ties with China
after an election watched
intently by the United States.
The vote was seen as a signal of cautious support for 61year-old Ma’s policies, which
in his first term led to the
most dramatic thaw in the
island’s ties with China since
the two sides split more than
six decades ago.
“We’ve won,” a jubilant Ma
told crowds of supporters
gathered at his campaign
headquarters in central
Taipei. “In the next four years,
ties with China will be more
harmonious and there will be
more mutual trust and the
chance of conflict is slimmer.”
The official final tally from
the
Central
Election
Commission showed Ma won
51.6 percent of the vote, with
his main challenger Tsai Ingwen on 45.6 percent.
Tsai, a 55-year-old Chinasceptic, conceded defeat after
her disappointing showing
and announced she would
step down as chairwoman of
the Democratic Progressive
Party (DPP).
“We accept the Taiwan people’s decision and congratulate President Ma,” she told
her party faithful. “We want to
give our deepest apology to
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou (right) hugs his wife Chow Mei-ching, in Taipei, on Saturday.
our supporters for our defeat.”
George Tsai, a political scientist at the Chinese Culture
University in Taipei, said the
result was a vote of confidence
in Ma, who raised exchanges
with China to unprecedented
levels and introduced a
sweeping trade pact.
“The outcome shows that
voters generally approve of
Ma’s policies promoting ties
and reducing tensions with
China,” he said. “He has a new
mandate although it’s an open
question how fast and how far
he can go in his second term.”
By contrast, a win for Tsai
could have ushered in a period of uncertainty in ties with
China, as her DPP has traditionally favoured distancing
the island from the mainland.
“The Chinese mainland is so
concerned about the Taiwan
election... because we are worried that the idea of ‘Taiwan
independence’ will be further
spread by the process, as it
was in the past,” the state-controlled Chinese paper Global
Times said on Friday.
Although
China
and
Taiwan have been governed
separately since 1949, Beijing
still claims sovereignty over
the island, and has vowed to
get it back, even if that
involves going to war.
The United States also kept
NIGERIA’S government and
unions prepared for last-ditch
talks on Saturday to end a
week-old nationwide strike
over fuel prices and avert an oil
production halt in Africa’s
largest crude exporter. The
talks set for Saturday evening
come after the country’s
unions called for a weekend
suspension of the strike and
protests that had shut down
the country since Monday,
prompting Nigerians to rush to
stock up on food and fuel.
The government enters the
talks under intense pressure
after the country’s main oil
workers’ union threatened to
begin stopping crude production at midnight by withdrawing its members from platforms if a deal is not reached.
The two main labour confederations were to hold meetings
of their executive councils on
Saturday to reach a common
position before they head to
negotiations at the presidency,
tentatively set for 6:00 pm .
An official with one of the
confederations said he could
not yet say whether a deal was
possible or if labour leaders
were prepared to compromise
on their previous demand to
return petrol prices to their
pre-January 1 level.
Meetings of the unions
would decide the way forward,
he said. “I cannot answer any
of those questions until people
are able to take their positions,”
said John Kolawole, secretary
general of the Trade Union
Congress.
A move by Nigeria’s government to end fuel subsidies
abruptly and without warning
on January 1 sparked the strike
and brought tens of thousands
of people out into the streets in
protest over the past week.
The move caused petrol
prices to more than double
overnight, from 65 naira per
litre ($0.40, 0.30 euros) to 140
naira or more. Nigerians
rushed to markets on Saturday
to take advantage of the break
in the strike to stock up on food,
but they found prices had often
tripled — a mix of sellers taking
advantage of high demand and
the result of increased transport costs.“All the same, we still
have to buy because we have to
eat,” said Olabisi Adekoya, a
36-year-old mother of four at a
Lagos market.
Long queues also formed at
petrol stations, with some even
running dry, as drivers sought
to fill up in case the strike pushes ahead.
Fuel has been available on
the black market this week, but
often at more than double the
post-January 1 level.
Government officials and
economists say removing subsidies was essential and will
allow much of the $8 billion
per year in savings to be
ploughed into projects to
improve the country’s woefully
inadequate infrastructure.
But Nigerians are united in
anger against the removal of
subsidies, which they view as
their only benefit from the
nation’s oil wealth. There is
also deep mistrust of government after years of blatant corruption. The main protests in
major cities ihave been largely
peaceful, though at least 15
people are believed to have
been killed in various incidents. Police have been
accused of shooting dead at
least two people, including one
in the economic capital Lagos,
while at least two others were
shot dead as authorities and
protesters clashed in the northern city of Kano on Monday.
A riot broke out in the central city of Minna on
Wednesday, leaving an officer
killed and several political
offices burnt, but the cause of
the violence was not clear.
In Benin city in the south, a
mob burnt part of a mosque
complex on Tuesday while at
least five people were killed
and some 10,000 displaced as
Muslims neighbourhoods were
targeted. The strike and
protests have put the government under mounting pressure as it also seeks to stop spiralling attacks blamed on
Islamist group Boko Haram,
which have raised tensions and
led to warnings of civil war.
More than 80 Christians
have been killed in bomb and
gun attacks in recent weeks,
most of them attributed to
Boko Haram, in a country
roughly divided between a
mainly Muslim north and predominately Christian south.
Late on Friday, gunmen
attacked a pub in the northeastern city of Yola, killing two
people and wounding a police
officer. Scores of such attacks
have been attributed to Boko
Haram, but Adamawa state,
where Yola is located, also
holds governorship elections
on January 21, and election
periods in Nigeria often provoke violence.
(AP)
a close eye on the election,
hoping the outcome would
not upset the stability that the
strategically vital Taiwan
Straits area has experienced
since Ma assumed power in
2008. “We hope the impressive efforts that both sides
have undertaken in recent
years to build cross-Strait ties
continue,” the White House
said in a statement congratulating Ma on his election win.
A third candidate, 69-yearold James Soong, a former
heavyweight
of
Ma’s
Kuomintang (KMT) party,
got 2.8 percent of the vote
and never stood any real
chance of winning.
Protesters on day five of the nationwide strike following the
removal of a fuel subsidy, in Lagos, on Saturday. (AFP)
10
Sunday, January 15, 2012
www.qatar-tribune.com
Sacked Pakistani
official pleads
ignorance of rules
PAKISTAN / SOUTH ASIA
Pakistan quells militant attack
on police station, eight killed
IANS
AFP
ISLAMABAD
PESHAWAR
PAKISTAN’S former defence
secretary Naeem Khalid
Lodhi, whose sacking over a
submission in the Supreme
Court led to a stand-off
between the political leadership and the military, has
said on Saturday that he was
new to job and therefore
ignorant of the rules.
Prime Minister Yousuf
Raza Gilani on Wednesday
asserted his authority by dismissing Lodhi, a retired lieutenant general widely seen to
be close to army chief
General Ashfaq Parvez
Kayani.
Gilani also accused Kayani
and ISI chief Lt Gen Shuja
Pasha of violating the constitution by submitting their
replies to the Supreme Court
without the government
approval in the case over a
memo sent to Washington
that said President Asif Ali
Zardari feared a military
take-over following last
year’s killing of Al Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden
near Islamabad.
Gen Lodhi sent the letters
of Kayani and Shuja Pasha
to the Supreme Court without seeking approval of the
defence minister, which
was mandatory, and also
without getting the comments vetted from the law
ministry as required under
rules, Associated Press of
Pakistan
quoted
a
spokesman as saying.
The spokesman said that
PAKISTANI security forces
on Saturday quelled a militant attack on a police station
in which eight people were
killed including four suicide
bombers, one police and
three civilians, police said.
The attackers targeted the
main police station in Dera
Ismail Khan city near the lawless tribal region, provincial
information minister Mian
Iftikhar Hussain said.
Three suicide bombers detonated themselves and one
was shot dead by the army,
police chief of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Akbar Hoti said.
“Army and police units
have entered the police station and a search operation is
over,” he said after an operation lasting over two hours.
“We have recovered bodies
of four militants, they were all
wearing suicide vests,” he
said.
One police official and three
civilians were also killed in
the operation, he said adding
that eight others including a
policeman were wounded.
“We are checking the identity of the civilian casualties to
ascertain if they included any
militants,” he said.
Interior minister Rehman
Malik blamed Taliban militants for the attack.
“Terrorists attacked security
forces,” he told reporters.
Police
spokesman
Mohammad Hanif said earlier police shot dead two militants and at least one other
Naeem Khalid Lodhi
Gen Lodhi sent the
letters of Kayani
and Shuja Pasha
to the Supreme
Court without
seeking approval
of the defence
minister, which
was mandatory
Defence Minister Ahmad
Mukhtar sought an explanation from Lodhi for not
observing the legal provisions.
The retired general stated
in his reply that he was new
to the job and was, therefore,
ignorant of the rules.
The spokesman said the
law ministry gave the opinion that the action of Gen.
Lodhi was in utter and gross
violation of the mandatory
rules.
The action had created
misunderstandings among
the
institutions,
the
spokesman added.
On the recommendation
of the law and defence ministry, Prime Minister Yousuf
Raza Gilani terminated his
contract in national interest.
Security officials near the body of a militant hanging from a ladder outside a police station, in Dera Ismail Khan, on Saturday. (AFP)
blew himself up.
He said he believed about
half a dozen militants
stormed the station located in
a sensitive area housing government offices, district
courts and lawyers chambers.
They hurled hand grenades
and opened fire on the office
of the district police chief, he
said. The police chief was
unhurt, he added.
Authorities
summoned
troops and commandos
ringed the area, police said.
A heavy exchange of gunfire
erupted between militants
and law enforcement agencies.
The gunfire has died down
and security forces have
launched a search operation
inside the building, he said.
Police intercepted the militants before they could enter
the main offices, Hoti said.
They exploded grenades
and lobbed rockets soon after
the attack, the provincial
police chief said.
There was no immediate
claim of responsibility for the
attack. A police official Imtiaz
Shah said some of the attackers were disguised as police
officials.
Pakistan’s remote and lawless northwestern region is a
stronghold of Taliban and AlQaeda operatives and other
Islamist militants opposed to
the government.
Insurgents largely based in
the tribal border lands have
carried out bomb and gun
attacks killing nearly 4,800
people across Pakistan since
July 2007.
Pakistan has battled a
homegrown insurgency for
years, with more than 3,000
soldiers killed in the battle
against militancy.
There were about 120
bomb attacks in Pakistan in
2011, up on the 96 bomb
blasts in 2010, according to
an AFP tally.
The latest attack underscores the potent rebel threat
and a new wave of terrorism
in the country.
It follows a remote-controlled bomb blast last
Tuesday that killed 35 people
and wounded more than 60
others in the deadliest attack
in months in Jamrud town in
the Taliban-hit tribal region
Juppe in Myanmar China offers $750 mn aid to Nepal
on historic visit
AP
KATHMANDU
AFP
YANGON
THE French foreign minister
arrived in Myanmar on
Saturday for a historic trip,
the highest level diplomat
from his country to ever visit,
in a bid to encourage the new
leaders’ reform process.
Alain Juppe “wants to
encourage President Thein
Sein and Myanmar’s authorities to continue and amplify
this movement” with steps
towards human rights,
democracy and national reconciliation, his ministry said
this week.
He will also insist that parliamentary by-elections on
April 1 are held “in a manner
consistent with democratic
practices” after a general election in November 2010 that
was denounced by the West
as a sham.
A diplomatic source told
AFP that Juppe arrived in
commercial hub Yangon late
on Saturday, the day after
Myanmar released just over
300 political prisoners,
including several prominent
dissidents.
Such an amnesty had been
long demanded by the West
and was hailed by the international community. France
welcomed such an “important
step” and the United States
said it wanted to restore toplevel diplomatic ties.
Juppe is due Sunday to
meet opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi, whom he will
make a Commander in the
National Order of the Legion
d’Honneur, and on Monday
he will hold talks with Thein
Sein.
He is the first French foreign minister in history to
visit the Southeast Asian
country, which gained independence from Britain in
1948, and the first French
minister to visit since a popular uprising was brutally
crushed in 1988.
His trip follows the landmark visits in early December
of US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and British
Foreign Secretary William
Hague in early January.
CHINA on Saturday agreed to
provide Nepal $750 million in
aid during a surprise visit to
the tiny Himalayan nation by
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
A state-run Nepalese news
agency, Rashtriya Samachar
Samiti, said the countries
signed agreements under
which Beijing will provide
economic and technical assistance and strengthen Nepal’s
police. Nepal is home to thousands of Tibetan exiles, and
the government has worked
to suppress anti-China sentiment there.
Wen had planned to visit
Nepal last month, but that
trip was cancelled for undisclosed reasons. This visit
came ahead of a Middle East
trip by the premier, and was
kept secret until a few hours
before he arrived.
China has built highways
and financed other development projects in Nepal, which
is looking for increased financial assistance and investment as it recovers from years
of insurgency and political
uncertainty.
IANS
THE prosperity of Pakistan lies
in following the Constitution,
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza
Gilani
emphasised
on
Saturday, days after he accused
army chief General Ashfaq
Parvez Kayani and the country’s spy chief Lt Gen Shuja
Pasha of violating it.
“What I have learnt from my
experience as a politician,
mayor, speaker of the National
Assembly, acting president and
as the prime minister of
Pakistan is that prosperity of
Pakistan lies in following the
Constitution,” said Gilani in
Lahore. Gilani on Wednesday
asserted his authority by dismissing defence secretary
Naeem Khalid Lodhi, sparking
a stand-off with the powerful
military. Gilani had also
accused the army chief and
Gen Shuja Pasha of violating
the constitution by submitting
their replies to the Supreme
Court without government
approval.
Meanwhile, Pakistan lawmakers recommended that
Islamabad seek “guarantees”
that Washington will respect
the country’s sovereignty
when top military and civilian
leaders meet on Saturday to
discuss new rules on coordinating with the US and NATO
amid anger over airstrikes
AP
Nepalese Premier Babu Ram Bhattarai (right) with his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao at the
Tribhuvan International Airport, in Kathamndu, on Saturday. (AFP)
Nepal is looking for China’s
help in developing a small
airport at Pokhara, a tourist
resort, into an international
airport, and in building
mountain highways and a
hydropower plant.
China’s major concern in
Nepal has been its thousands
of Tibetan refugees, who
want independence from
China and the return of their
spiritual leader, the Dalai
Lama, who fled Tibet amid
an abortive uprising against
Chinese rule in 1959.
Thousands more Tibetans
pass through Nepal every
year on their way to India,
where the Dalai Lama lives in
exile.
Nepal’s government has
previously blocked Tibetan
exiles from demonstrating
against China, and police
have detained some protest-
Pakistan PM Yousuf Raza Gilani (left) with Army Chief Gen A Pervez Kayani (right), in Islamabad, recently.
that killed Pakistani soldiers.
The closed-door meeting
could also provide an opportunity for reconciliation
Roadside
bomb kills 2
in southern
Afghanistan
KABUL
ers. With security tight in the
Nepalese capital on Saturday,
there were no reports of
protests.
Wen held talks on Saturday
with the Nepalese prime
minister and met with
Nepalese President Ram
Baran Yadav, Sushil Koirala
of the Nepali Congress and
Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the
Communist Party of Nepal
(Maoist).
Pakistan’s prosperity lies in following Constitution: Gilani
ISLAMABAD
of northwest Pakistan.
The explosion took place in
a market in Jamrud, one of
the towns of the troubled
Khyber tribal region, which
also used to serve as the main
supply route for NATO forces
operating in Afghanistan.
The border crossing for
NATO supplies to foreign
troops fighting in neighbouring Afghanistan remains
closed, after NATO air strikes
on November 26 killed 24
Pakistani soldiers.
Pakistan rejected the
results of the military coalition’s investigation into the
incident and said the strikes
had been a deliberate act of
aggression, leaving relations
floundering between the US
and Pakistan.
between the military and the
civilian government after a
week of escalating tensions.
Both army chief Gen Ashfaq
Pervez Kayani and Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
were expected to attend, bringing the two men into the same
room together at a time when
the civilian and military sides
of the government have
appeared increasingly divided.
The army has staged at least
three coups in Pakistan’s sixdecade history and still considers itself the true custodian of
the country’s interests. On
Wednesday, it warned of
“grievous consequences” for
the country in an unusual
statement, raising fear it might
try again to oust the government. Saturday’s meeting of
the government’s defense committee was called to discuss
recommendations from parliament about new terms of
engagement with the United
States and NATO.
A ROADSIDE bomb killed
two women in southern
Afghanistan, authorities said
on Saturday, the latest civilians killed by one of the
Taliban’s most effective but
also indiscriminate weapons.
The women were walking
along a road in the southern
province of Helmand when
they stepped on the buried
explosives on Friday, the
Afghan Interior Ministry said
in a statement.
Roadside bombs are a common Taliban weapon targeting government and international forces, but they also kill
dozens of civilians each
month. The homemade
explosives accounted for half
of the about 1,500 civilian
deaths in the first six months
of last year, the UN estimates.
Roadside bombs
are a common
Taliban weapon
targeting
government and
international
forces of the
defence minister
NATO also said on Saturday
that a coalition service member
died in western Afghanistan of
a “non-battle-related” injury. A
coalition statement gave no
other details. The US has been
working to start negotiations
with the Taliban to end the
decade-long war, and the
insurgents last week said they
would open a political office
in the Gulf state of Qatar to
prepare for eventual talks.
However, the militants said
later that their willingness to
talk doesn’t mean they will not
stop fighting. The Taliban ruled
with a harsh interpretation of
Islamic law for five years before
being driven from power by
US-led forces in 2001.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
INDIA
www.qatar-tribune.com
Fiscal deficit management
need of the hour: Pranab
India, China to
hold boundary
talks on Monday
IANS
IANS
KOLKATA
NEW DELHI/BEIJING
FACED with a widening fiscal
deficit due to a dip in revenue
and growth in expenditure,
Finance Minister Pranab
Mukherjee on Saturday called
for containing the shortfall,
saying it should be within a
‘manageable limit’.
“We cannot allow our fiscal
deficit to go beyond a certain
limit. We need to manage our
receipts and payments so that
our fiscal deficits, sovereign
borrowings and debts are
within manageable limits,”
Mukherjee said while inaugurating the new administrative
building of the income tax
department.
There are growing apprehensions that the Centre’s fiscal deficit — the gap between
overall revenue and expenditure — is likely to exceed the
budget estimate of 4.6 per
cent of gross domestic product (GDP) this fiscal.
The government’s financial
problem has aggravated
because of a rising subsidy bill
and slow progress on the disinvestment front.
While the subsidy bill during the current fiscal is expected to shoot up by an additional Rs one lakh crore, the government is unlikely to meet
the disinvestment target of
Rs40,000 crore.
The
government
has
LOOKING to keep their sensitive ties on course despite
differences over a host of
issues, India and China will
hold two-day boundary talks
in New Delhi beginning on
Monday, during which they
are also expected to sign a
landmark border mechanism.
India’s external affairs
ministry in New Delhi and
the Chinese foreign office in
Beijing
on
Saturday
announced the boundary
talks, which were postponed
in November due to Chinese
objections to Tibetan leader
the Dalai Lama’s participation in a global Buddhist
conclave in New Delhi.
“In addition to discussions
on the India-China boundary question, the two sides
will hold discussions on a
wide range of bilateral,
regional and global issues of
mutual interest,” the external affairs ministry said in
New Delhi.
National Security Adviser
Shivshankar Menon, India’s
special representative, will
hold talks with China’s State
Councillor Dai Bingguo that
will focus on evolving a
framework for delineating
the border on the map.
The two sides are now in
the second stage of bound-
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee (right) is being welcomed by MC Joshi (left), Chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, at
the inauguration of ‘Aayakar Bhawan Poorva’, a building of Income Tax department, in Kolkata, on Saturday. (PTI)
already announced borrowing
an additional Rs90,000 crore
to bridge the revenue-expenditure gap.
The finance minister said
India needed to learn lessons
from the sovereign debt crisis
in Europe. “We need to learn
some lessons from the Euro
zone crisis where sovereign
fiscal deficits of some have
surpassed 100 percent of their
gross domestic product
(GDP). We cannot insulate
ourselves from what is happening in the global economy,
but a prudent fiscal deficit
management is the need of
the hour,”said Mukherjee.
Pointing out that the initial
target of Rs5.85 lakh crore of
direct tax collection this fiscal
has been revised and lowered,
Mukherjee said emphasis had
to be placed on providing
improved tax administration
to ensure better collection.
“Efforts are there to mop up
additional revenue and to
improve the collection of
taxes. We need to provide better taxpayer services. More
the services, better will be the
compliance.” He also said the
number of direct tax payers
has increased from 22 lakh in
2000 to 23.56 lakh in recent
years.
MC Joshi, chairman, central board of direct taxes
(CBDT), said direct tax collection would go up in the
last two months of the financial year.
11
Kalam urges PM Bhopal tragedy survivors burn
to resolve
Chidambaram’s effigy
Kudankulam row
IANS
ary negotiations, which
entails evolving a framework
for demarcating the disputed border. The second stage
is proving to be the “most
difficult part of negotiations”
as it will form the basis on
which the new boundary will
be fixed, said informed
sources.
The two sides are also
expected to sign a landmark
border mechanism on
Tuesday that seeks to establish direct contact between
The second stage
is proving to be the
“most difficult part
of negotiations” as
it will form the
basis on which the
new boundary will
be fixed, said
informed sources.
New Delhi and Beijing in
case of intrusions or incidents resulting from misperceptions arising from the
Line of Actual Control.
The two officials will also
seek to iron out differences
over recent irritants like the
Chinese denial of a visa to an
Indian Air Force (IAF) officer that have shadowed ties
between the two countries.
They are also expected to
discuss the likely visit to
India of Xi Jinping, tipped to
succeed Chinese President
Hu Jintao.
12 pilgrims
die in MP
stampede
AFP
NEW DELHI
BHOPAL
IANS
CHENNAI
FORMER Indian president
APJ Abdul Kalam has urged
Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh
to
resolve
the
Kudankulam Nuclear Power
Project (KNPP) row through
political and strategic means
by taking up the issue with
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J
Jayalalithaa.
He also urged Manmohan
Singh to consider announcing
a special economic package for
Tamil Nadu for its integrated
development
from
the
unutilised fund allocated for
the 11th Plan Period.
In his letter dated December
22, 2011, Kalam has called
upon the prime minister to
“consider allotment of the full
1,000 MW generated from
KNPP-1, which can be later
adjusted towards the Tamil
Nadu share in KNPP-2 to the
rest of the country.”
Speaking to, V Ponraj, advisor to Kalam, said: “The prime
minister, in his reply, has said
the government will look into
the suggestions made by the
former president.”
Ponraj said the total 11th
Plan allocation to Tamil Nadu
is Rs107,000 crore out of
which the state has utilised
Rs91,000 crore. The balance
of Rs16,000 crore is what
Manmohan Singh has been
requested to disburse to Tamil
Nadu.
Stressing the importance of
taking the state government
into confidence, Kalam said:
“It is essential to ... revive the
operations of KNPP with the
full support of the state government at the earliest.”
“Hence it has to be dealt
with strategically as well as
politically, so that the country
is able to realise the goals of
Energy Independence by
2030.”
India’s atomic power plant
operator Nuclear Power Corp
of India Ltd (NPCIL) is building two 1,000 MW atomic
power
reactors
at
Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu’s
Tirunelveli district, around
650 km from here. Villagers of
Kudankulam, Idinthakarai
and others fear a nuclear accident.
Their protests have halted
the project work for more
than three months, delaying
the commissioning of the first
unit and increasing the project
cost from the budgeted
Rs13,171 crore.
“I feel the more we
delay in resolving
the Kudankulam
crisis, the more
anti-nuclear energy sentiments in
India will gain
momentum.”
APJ ABDUL KALAM
In spite of the sound safety
principles on which KNPP has
been established, there is continuing agitation. The Tamil
Nadu government wants
more to be done to allay the
fears of the people of that
region.
“I feel the more we delay in
resolving the Kudankulam
crisis, the more anti-nuclear
energy sentiments in India
will gain momentum,” Kalam
said in his letter.
According to Kalam, there is
a need “to evolve a public policy for the development of the
region where the nuclear reactor site is being located or
selected.”
“Also, it is essential to overhaul the government mechanism of fast disbursement of
compensation to the affected
people due to project based
relocation and rehabilitation
provisions.”
Kalam also suggested that
the central government and
NPCIL should jointly implement
the
10-point
Kudankulam
PURA
(Providing Urban Amenities
in Rural Areas) programme
by 2015.
THE survivors of the Bhopal
gas tragedy on Saturday
burnt an effigy of Home
Minister P Chidambaram to
protest the decision of a ministerial panel not to revise in
the curative petition pending
before the Supreme Court
the figures of dead and
injured in the disaster.
The leaders of survivors’
organisations alleged that
Chidambaram has a history
of being devoted to Union
Carbide’s
owner
Dow
Chemical and called for his
removal from the post of
chairman of the Group of
Ministers (GoM) for Bhopal.
“The GoM’s decision not to
present correct numbers of
the people Union Carbide
has killed and injured in
Bhopal is a decision unilaterally
imposed
by
Chidambaram on the entire
group. This decision is
against data from scientific
studies by the government’s
own Indian Council of
Medical Research (ICMR)”
said Rashida Bee, president
of the Bhopal Gas Peedit
Survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy hold an effigy of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram to burn in
protest against the recent decision of the group of ministers, in Bhopal, on Saturday. (PTI)
Mahila
Stationery
Karmachari Sangh.
The survivors were expecting that the government will
add to the figure in the ongoing curative petition in the
Supreme Court, but the
GoM’s refusal has angered
them.
Presenting a copy of a letter written by Chidambaram
to the prime minister’s office
(PMO) in 2006, Nawab
Khan of the Bhopal Gas
Peedit
Mahila
Purush
Sangharsh Morcha alleged:
“Chidambaram had written
to the prime minister to let
Dow Chemical walk away
from its liabilities in Bhopal.
His latest attempt to
downplay
the
damage
caused by the American
company shows how devoted
he continues to be to the
Dow Chemical company.”
“Chidambaram was the
lawyer for Enron, the most
corrupt American corporation and a board member of
Vedanta, the British company responsible for ecological
and human devastation.
AT least 12 people, including
six women were crushed to
death in the middle of the
night when a stampede broke
out at a religious shrine in
Madhya Pradesh, media
reports said on Saturday.
The victims had gathered
outside the Muslim shrine of
Hussain Tekri to take part in a
religious ceremony after midnight on Friday. Police pushed
the crowds back, causing people to fall down and get trampled to death in the dark.
“Six women and four men
were killed in the incident,”
police official Rajesh Vyas told.
The shrine attracts tens of
thousands of people each year
who believe that a visit can
cure any illness.
The last major stampede was
in January 2011 in the southern state of Kerala when more
than 100 people died as panic
spread among worshippers
crossing mountainous terrain
in the dark to visit a shrine.
Stampedes are a regular risk
in India where policing and
crowd control are often inadequate at temples and on pilgrimage routes.
President concerned over declining sex ratio
IANS
PANIPAT (HARYANA)
PRESIDENT Pratibha Patil
on Saturday expressed concern over the declining sex
ratio in the country, pointing
out that sex ratio between the
age group of 0 to six years was
the lowest after India’s independence in August 1947.
Addressing an international symposium on ‘Women
and Child Empowerment’ to
mark the 175th birth anniversary of noted poet and social
reformer, Maulana Khawaja
Altaf Hussain Hali at Hali
Park here, Patil said the statistics of Census 2011 were
shocking as far as sex ratio
was concerned.
“In the age group of 0 to
six years, there were 914 girls
per 1,000 boys and this being
the lowest after freedom of
the country is an issue of concern,” she said. The president
said efforts of the Haryana
government for women’s
empowerment had helped in
improvement of sex ratio in
the state.
Haryana, which had the
worst sex ratio at 861 females
per 1,000 males earlier (2001
Census), had improved the
figures in the 2011 Census
with 877 females per 1,000
males.
Describing female foeticide
as a heinous crime, Patil said
every person should come
forward to eradicate this
social evil and ensure equal
status for women in all
spheres of life.
She said that she herself
has taken an initiative as per
which brave girls who have
set an individual example
against social evils were invited to Rashtrapati Bhavan.
“I urge people to encourage
such girls,” she said. She
added that the social development of any nation could be
assessed by the condition in
which the women were living.
Haryana Chief Minister
Bhupinder Singh Hooda
praised the efforts made by
Hali in empowering women.
President Pratibha Patil (left) being received by Tamil Nadu
Tourism Minister Gokula Indira, in Chennai, recently. (PTI)
12
Sunday, January 15, 2012
THE LAST WORD
www.qatar-tribune.com
Shiite youth’s
death sparks
row in Bahrain
French ratings
may be cut
further: S&P
DAY TWO OF STATELESS ARABS’ DEMONSTRATION
AFP
DUBAI
A YOUNG Bahraini Shiite
missing for 48 hours has been
found dead, sparking conflicting reports on Saturday over
his death as the government
said he had drowned while
the opposition insisted he
died in custody.
“On Friday, police received a
call reporting a dead body
found at Amwaj islands. Police
responded to the scene and it
was determined that the body
was that of Yousif Ahmed
Abbas,” the interior ministry
said in a statement.
“An autopsy performed by
the medical examiner determined that Abbas (missing
since Wednesday) had been
dead for more than 24 hours
and that the cause of death
was drowning,” said the
English-language statement
received by AFP.
But Bahrain’s main opposition formation, Al Wefaq,
said the 24-year-old’s family
had been told by a police
office that was under detention at the time of his death.
“Security services have
informed his family that the
victim was being interrogated,” Al-Wefaq member and
former MP Matar Matar said.
“We demand that a neutral
non-Bahraini
commission
investigates this case and other
cases concerning the killing
and targeting of citizens due to
the total lack of confidence in
the integrity of Bahraini security services and judiciary,” the
party said on its website.
But the interior ministry said
a search was launched immediately after the family reported him missing. It had “ruled
out that Abbas had been
detained for questioning or
was wanted by police in any
criminal manner ...
“The father of the missing
man stated that his son suffered from psychological problems, sometimes going to the
beaches in the area and requiring assistance in returning
home,” it added. Tensions have
remained high in the tiny kingdom after Shiite-led mass
demonstrations which rocked
Bahrain last February.
REUTERS & DPA
PARIS
Kuwaiti riot police use teargas to disperse a protest of stateless Arabs, in Jahra, 50 kms northwest of Kuwait City, on Saturday. (AFP)
Kuwaiti cops fire tear gas
to break up fresh demos
AFP
KUWAIT CITY
KUWAITI riot police on
Saturday used tear gas and
batons to disperse hundreds
of stateless demonstrators for
the second day in a row and
arrested dozens, witnesses
and a rights group said.
A day after riot police beat
stateless protesters demanding citizenship in Jahra,
northwest of Kuwait City,
demonstrations expanded on
Saturday to include Sulaibiya,
west of the capital.
The independent Kuwait
Association of Human Rights
said three of its members
monitoring the protests were
arrested but one of them was
later released.
Riot police chased demon-
strators and arrested dozens
of them in the two towns
where most of the 105,000
stateless, locally known as
bidoons, live, witnesses said.
The demonstrators gathered in the afternoon to
protest the excessive and
unnecessary use of force used
by police against the demonstrators on Friday, bidoon
activists said on social networking website Twitter.
Several protesters were
wounded and as many as 50
arrested in Friday’s police
crackdown. The interior ministry said 21 security men
were wounded in the clashes,
five of whom were hospitalised.
Some local media claimed
their journalists and cameramen were beaten by police on
Iran confirms IAEA visit,
rejects any concessions
Saturday.
The leftist Progressive
Movement condemned in a
statement what it called the
“unjustified use of force”
against bidoon protesters and
called for a peaceful solution
to their decades-old problem.
Kuwait’s interior ministry
issued three statements earlier this week warning bidoons
not to protest or face punishment.
The New York-based
Human Rights Watch urged
Kuwait on Friday to scrap the
decision banning stateless
people from demonstrating.
“This is a shameful effort to
curb the rights to peaceful
expression and assembly of
Kuwait’s bidoons,” Sarah
Leah Whitson, Human Rights
Watch’s Middle East director,
New number
plate for all
vehicles by
year-end
said in a statement.
Kuwait has long alleged
that bidoons, and in some
cases
their
ancestors,
destroyed their original passports to claim the right to citizenship in order to gain
access to the services and
generous benefits provided by
the state.
In a bid to force the bidoons
to produce their original
nationality papers, Kuwait
has refused to issue essential
documents to most of them,
including birth, marriage and
death certificates, according
to a June HRW report.
Fifty-two bidoons are on
trial for protesting and another 32 are under investigation.
The government says only
34,000 of bidoons qualify for
citizenship.
FRANCE risks another downgrade of its sovereign credit
rating if its public debt and
budget deficit deteriorate further, Standard & Poor’s said on
Saturday, a day after it cut the
country’s top-notch AAA rating
by one notch to AA+.
“The deficits could increase
from the relatively high levels
where they are already and
reach certain thresholds in
the general government debt
and deficit ratios, which
might lead to another lowering of the rating,” S&P credit
analyst Moritz Kraemer told a
conference call.
Kraemer said the ratings
agency was not considering a
breakup of the single currency area and that such a scenario was not being factored
into its ratings decisions.
Defending its decision to
downgrade nine European
countries, the ratings agency
reiterated that Europe’s leaders are not doing enough to
solve their debt crisis.
Several European officials
assailed the agency Saturday
for its announcement of the
downgrades the night before,
both in countries that were targeted and in Germany, which
was not. Kraemer said that
government measures are not
sufficient to restore confidence
and that austerity packages
may prompt a backlash.
Agency spokesman Martin
Winn dismissed suggestions
that the agency’s decisions
were political and could further hurt indebted countries.
He says “the track record of
our sovereign ratings as indicators of default risk worldwide is very strong.”
He said there was a 40 per
cent risk of a recession in the
eurozone, whose economy
could contract by up to 1.5 per
cent this year.“We are now
forecasting a recession with a
40-per-cent probability for
this year,” said Kraemer.
“That could lead to a eurozone contraction of around
1.5 per cent.”
The agency warned eurozone countries that their
efforts to fight the debt crisis
was too focused on reducing
debt and that a fiscal unity
pact - agreed at a European
Union summit last month to
tighten budgetary rules - did
not fully address the bloc’s
financial problems.
Defending its
decision to
downgrade nine
European
countries, the
ratings agency
reiterated that
Europe’s leaders
are not doing
enough to solve
their debt crisis.
“We believe that the agreement is predicated on only a
partial recognition of the
source of the crisis: that the
current financial turmoil
stems primarily from fiscal
profligacy at the periphery of
the eurozone,” S&P said in a
statement.
S&P said the fiscal union
pact alone was not enough to
solve the debt crisis which
forced Greece, Ireland and
Portugal to seek bailouts and
is now threatening to engulf
Italy, the 17-member eurozone’s third largest economy.
“The political agreement
does not supply sufficient additional resources or operational
flexibility to bolster European
rescue operations, or extend
enough support for those eurozone sovereigns subjected to
heightened market pressures,”
said the ratings agency.
Kraemer said Italy was particularly at risk, pointing out
that it needed some 130 billion euros in debt refinancing
in the first quarter and some
300 billion euros for the
whole of 2012. It would be
hard for Rome to generate
enough income if a recession
strikes, he warned.
FESTIVITY IN THE AIR
Morelle Laetitia from France flies a kite in the shape of Hindu God Hanuman, during Makar
Sankranti festival, in Hyderabad, India, on Saturday. Kites are flown in many parts of India
during Makar Sakranti that marks the transition of winter to spring. (AP)
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
DPA
TEHRAN
IRAN confirmed on Saturday
a visit by inspectors of the
International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), official news
agency IRNA reported.
At the same time however,
Tehran reiterated that the
visit did not mean Iran would
make any concessions over its
nuclear rights.
“The IAEA inspectors will
come to Iran and the visit will
take about one month,” said
Foreign Ministry Spokesman
Ramin Mehmanparast. “But
Iran is absolutely serious in
maintaining its nuclear rights
and will not make any concessions in this regard,” the
spokesman added.
The high-ranking IAEA delegation, headed by deputy
head Herman Nackaerts, will
come to Iran on January 28.
Also in the team will be assistant director general Rafael
Grossi and IAEA legal department head Peri Lynne
Johnson. The team is scheduled to inspect the new uranium enrichment site of Fordo,
south of the capital Tehran,
which Iran says is to becomeoperational in February and
enrich uranium to 3.5, 4 and
20 per cent.
This is the first IAEA team to
visit Iran after the UN nuclear
agency accused Tehran in a
November report of being
involved in a secret nuclear
weapons programme.
Tehran categorically denied
in size. As we know, getting
the right number in hit-andrun cases becomes all the
more important. Now with
the big size of numbers displayed prominently, it will be
quite easy for everyone to
read the numbers even from
some distance.”
Ilori also cleared a misunderstanding regarding the
hologram on the new number
plates. There has been
rumours galore about the hologram being a hidden remote
sensor. Scotching the rumours,
Ilori said that it has the logo of
the traffic department.
Ramin Mehmanparast: ‘Iran welcomes IAEA inspectors but will not
make any concessions over its nuclear right.’
the charges. The IAEA report
is expected to serve as a basis
for further harsh sanctions by
the West against Tehran
which, this time, will also
include the central bank and
Iran’s oil exports - which form
more than 70 per cent of the
country’s income.
“Our invitation to the IAEA
to come to Iran proves that
our nuclear activities are
transparent, that we have
nothing to hide and that our
approach with the IAEA is
based
upon
goodwill,”
Mehmanparast said.
The results of the IAEA visit
could also clarify whether the
world powers will engage in
further nuclear talks with
Iran. Iran has already voiced
its readiness for resuming
nuclear talks and welcomed
Istanbul to again be the venue
for negotiations, as it was in
January 2011.
Iran is accused by the West
of using its technology for a
secretweapons programme
but Tehran has constantly
denied these charges.
During a trip to Latin
America earlier this week,
President
Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad
repeatedly
rejected claims that Iran
sought to produce nuclear
weapons - terming weapons
of mass destruction as
“immoral” according to
Islamic teachings.
Ilori also cleared a
misunderstanding
regarding the hologram on the new
number plates.
“This will prevent any misuse or replacement of the
number plate by any individual without the knowledge and
approval of the traffic department. A number plate without
the hologram can be easily
identified and action taken
against the offender. Hereafter
there will be no scope of
manipulation or tampering
with the number plates.”
According to Ilori, traffic
department is also campaigning to create awareness about
safe driving. He said that
soon there would be a drive
for awareness on the type of
tyres and the air level to be
maintained.
Yoseph beats Hamed in shoot-out, wins Qatar title
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
performances. The best
gross scorers of all the
three days, William
Shucksmith (England)
for day one, Ghanim al
Kuwari (Bahrain) for day
two and Saleh Ali
Musbah (Qatar) for the
third day were honoured
for their performances.
Moreover, the top ten
scorers of the tournament, which also included Indian golfer Karan
Taunk, were rewarded
for their good performance in the event.
RESULTS
The
tournament
Director, Dr Thani
Abdul Rahman al
Kuwari thanked the participants and the sponsors at the felicitation
ceremony. He said, “The
Championship is now
entering its third decade
after its inauguration in
1983. At first, it was only
known to the Gulf countries. But now the tournament has achieved
international fame as it
attracts amateur golfers
from all over the world.”
Standings Names
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
10th
Yoseph Dance (USA)
Hamed Mubarak Afnan (Bahrain)
Abdulla Sultan Sultan (Bahrain)
Saleh Ali Musbah (Qatar)
Mathias Gladbjerg (Denmark)
William Shucksmith (England)
Jean Michael Hall (Britain)
Ghanim Al Kuwari (Qatar)
Rashid Akl (Lebanon)
Karan Taunk (India)
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
William Shucksmith
Ghanim Al Kuwari
Saleh Ali Musbah
Scores
225
225
227
229
229
229
229
231
232
233
BEST GROSS SCORES
72
72
74