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Monday 22 December 2014 • 30 Safar 1436 • Volume 19 Number 6287
Saudi role in
Qatar-Egypt
thaw hailed
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Essebsi claims
victory in Tunisia
presidential polls
Prime Minister meets Tanzania PM
TUNIS: Tunisians voted in the
runoff of the country’s first free
presidential election yesterday,
after authorities urged a big
turnout to consolidate democracy following a chaotic fouryear transition.
Anti-Islamist Nidaa Tounes
party chief Beji Caid Essebsi,
88, quickly claimed victory over
incumbent Moncef Marzouki,
whose camp dismissed the claim
as unfounded.
After polls closed at 1700
GMT, Essebsi’s campaign manager Mohsen Marzouk said early
indicators signalled an Essebsi
victory, without elaborating.
Official results are due as early
as today evening.
Essebsi appeared on national
television while his supporters
shouted “Long live Tunisia!”
GCC, Arab League praise move
DOHA: The Saudi initiative to
mend fences between Qatar and
Egypt has won widespread support from other GCC countries
as well as the Arab League.
Qatar said on Saturday that
it welcomes the initiative of
the Custodian of the Two Holy
Mosques King Abdullah bin
Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi
Arabia to consolidate the relations between Qatar and Egypt.
The Arab league secretary
general Dr Nabil Al Araby welcomed the Saudi initiative to close
the chapter of dispute between
the two countries, the Qatar
News Agency (QNA) reported
yesterday.
He noted that the initiative
is consistent with the Charter
of the Arab League, which calls
in its second article to reinforce
ties between the Arab countries and to achieve cooperation
between them.
Arab League chief expressed
hope for the initiative’s completion and restoration of normal
relations between the two friendly
countries in all fields.
The Emir H H Sheikh Tamim
bin Hamad Al Thani called on
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah
Al Sisi and took the initiative
to send an envoy, H E Sheikh
Mohamed bin Abdulrahman bin
Jassim Al Thani, to meet with
Al Sisi, according to statement
issued by the Emiri Diwan on
Saturday. GCC Secretary General
Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid Al
Jordan ends death
penalty ban,
hangs 11 men
Zayani praised the Saudi initiative saying consolidating the relations between Qatar and Egypt is
for the benefit of the two countries and their people as well as
the Arab and Islamic nations.
“This noble initiative came in
the context of the Custodian of
the Two Holy Mosques’ keenness
to deepen Arab solidarity in order
to confront the great challenges
experienced by the Arab world,”
Al Zayani was quoted as saying.
The UAE Foreign Minister
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed
Al Nahyan hailed the initiative
saying it will have a significant
impact in promoting solidarity
among all Arab countries, and
marks the beginning of a new
phase of joint Arab action, QNA
reported, quoting the Emirates
News Agency WAM.
Bahrain also welcomed “the
positive steps taken to strengthen
ties of cooperation between Qatar
and Egypt” and valued highly “the
keen desire of both leaderships to
further reinforce and consolidate
bilateral relations for the common interests of all countries in
region.” In a statement carried
by Bahrain News Agency yesterday, Bahrain affirmed the great
importance accorded by the GCC
states to enhance their ties with
Egypt and their keenness to continue providing support to Egypt
and its people, in recognition of
its (Egypt’s) support towards the
security and stability of the GCC
THE PENINSULA
countries.
AFP
Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani with Tanzanian Prime
Minister Mizengo Kayanza Peter Pinda at the Emiri Diwan yesterday.
Sharp dip in mercury likely as winter arrives
DOHA: The temperature in
Qatar is expected to fall significantly from today marking
the beginning of winter. Qatar
Meteorology Department in a
weather report issued yesterday
said the country is expected to
witness a fall in temperature of
two to four degrees Celsius from
today.
Along with colder days and
nights, motorists will have to be
because of chances of strong dusty
winds that will lead to poor visibility on roads.
“The temperature is expected
to fall by two to four Degree
Celsius compared to that seen last
week. The fall in the temperature
is along expected lines and this
trend is seen every year,” Abdulla
Al Mannai, Head of Forecasting
and Analysis Section, Qatar
Meteorology Department, told
The Peninsula. “It is the beginning
of winter in Qatar. The non-urban
regions of Qatar will be colder
than urban areas. It would feel
cold due to fresh winds,” he said.
The winter season in Qatar
usually kicks-off in December
and lasts till January. The minimum temperature is expected
to remain in the range of 12 to
15 degrees Celsius in the coming
days. The mercury may even fall
to less than 10 degrees Celsius in
the southern parts of the country. The maximum temperature
is expected to be in the range of
22 25 degrees Celsius around
Doha.
Strongest expat
See also page 9
JOUE-LES-TOURS: France
yesterday probed a suspected
‘radical Islamist’ attack on
police that left two officers seriously injured and the assailant
dead, prompting security to be
stepped up at police and fire
stations nationwide.
Bertrand Nzohabonayo was
shot dead on Saturday after
entering a police station in the
central town of Joue-les-Tours
armed with a knife, seriously
wounding two officers.
See also page 13
“With fresh northwesterly
wind there would be a chance of
blowing dust which might occur
especially over the open areas
and highways,” said the weather
report. The mercury has started
falling since the beginning of this
month but the fall in temperature was seen for only few days.
There were few short spells of
colder days in early December
during which people witnessed
strong winds and colder nights.
The sharp fluctuation in temperature in the first half of December
took its toll on the health of people, who complained of cough, cold
and fever. From now, the temperature is expected to be consistently low till the end of January.
THE PENINSULA
New York tense after
two cops shot dead
AMMAN:
Human
rights
groups took Jordan to task yesterday as the country ended an
eight-year moratorium on the
death penalty by hanging 11
men convicted of murder.
The men were executed at
dawn in a prison some 70km
from the capital, interior ministry spokesman Ziyad Zoobi was
quoted as saying by the official
Petra news agency.
Authorities said the men were
all Jordanians convicted of murder, with no links to politics or
extremism, in 2005 and 2006. A
source in the prison system said
the men were mostly in their 40s.
Two officers hurt
in France attack
The fall in mercury and strong
winds is a result of high pressure
over the Gulf region.
“The state is expected to be
affected by high pressure that
extends from northwest of Saudi
Arabia from Monday till end of
the week, associated with northwesterly moderate to fresh speed
inshore and fresh to strong offshore,” said Qatar Meteorology
Department in its weather report.
Motorists need to be cautious in
the coming days because of strong
winds. The winds, accompanying dust and sand, are adversely
expected to impact the visibility.
The open areas and highways
will have poor visibility because
of these winds, according to the
department.
Kenyan Christopher Oketch pulling a vehicle to clinch the title in the open race for Qatar residents (expatriates
category) for the ‘Strongest Man’. The contest saw 16 participants in two categories battling it out over five
gruelling tasks which pushed the men’s physical and mental strength to the limit.
See also page 5
NEW YORK: A gunman shot
dead two New York City police
officers in what officials called
an “assassination”, hours after
warning on social media that he
planned an attack in retribution
for recent US police killings of
unarmed black men.
Mayor Bill de Blasio yesterday
ordered flags flown at half staff
around the city. New York City’s
main police union harshly criticised the city’s first Democratic
mayor in two decades for being
insufficiently supportive of the
department during recent waves
of anti-police violence.
The gunman, 28-year-old
Ismaaiyl Abdula Brinsley, travelled from Baltimore, where police
said he had shot and wounded his
girlfriend, to New York and during the day posted on the social
media service Instagram that he
would be “putting wings on pigs
today,” using an anti-police slur.
The two New York City Police
Department officers, Rafael
Ramos, 40, and Wenjian Liu,
32, had no time to react when
Brinsley appeared next to their
vehicle, and shot both officers with
a silver semi-automatic handgun,
said NYPD Police Commissioner
William Bratton. Baltimore police
said they learned of the suspect’s
posts on Saturday afternoon and
called NYPD officials to alert
them.
REUTERS
See also page 13
Doha was founded 200 years ago, say archaeologists
BY FAZEENA SALEEM
DOHA: In a pioneering effort
to find origins of modern Doha,
archaeologists have found evidence that the city was founded
200 years ago in the early 19th
century.
Evidence of few houses each
with a kitchen and two rooms and
an alley has been found near the
Qubib Mosque and near Musherib
in the heart of Doha. Also pottery,
coins, glass, animal and botanical
remains were found in the area.
The first extensive excavations
in Qatar has found huge amount
of archaeology which reveals a
sequence going back to the foundation of Doha, Dr Robert Carter,
Senior Lecturer, University
College of London-Qatar told
The Peninsula. The excavation
site next to the Qubib Mosque
lies between the Fardan Centre
and the FANAR Centre, on the
other side of Bank Street (Grand
Hamad Avenue) from Souq Waqif.
In 2013, the other excavation was
conducted in Musherib.
“The archaeological evidence
from the dig supports the idea
that Doha was founded in the
early 19th century (early 1800s),”
said Dr Carter. “It is not important that Doha is only 200 years
old — the period of Doha’s occupation that we excavated (19th and
early 20th century) is incredibly
important to this region — it is
when nearly all the Gulf towns
were founded,” he added.
The University College of
London-Qatar’s ‘The origins of
Doha’ project is a research about
early settlements of Doha, through
the Qatar National Research
Fund. The excavations were carried out with Qatar Museums.
The historic town located in (and
under) central Doha appears to
have been founded sometime in
the first two decades of the 1800s.
THE PENINSULA
Continued on page 8
04
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
Qatar Chamber to
host ‘Made in China
Exhibition’ next year
DOHA: Qatar Chamber (QC) will
host ‘Made in China Exhibition
2015’, supported by the Chinese
Ministry of Commerce.
The three-day event is scheduled
for December 14-16.
Saleh Hamad Al Sharqi, Deputy
General Director, QC, said the expo
will be an opportunity for building
partnerships and concluding deals
between Arab, GCC and Middle East
North Africa (Mena) companies and
business owners with major Chinese
firms working in the construction,
technology and infrastructure fields.
He highlighted QC’s keenness to
sponsor the event as it believes that
such exhibitions add real value to the
Arab economy.
“Development projects in the countries in the region require strategic
partnerships with Chinese companies
that serve their development objectives,” he added.
Al Sharqi appreciated efforts being
exerted by the Qatari embassy in
China, which is coordinating with
the Chinese ministry for organising
the event.
Saleh Hamad Al Sharqi, Deputy General
Director, Qatar Chamber.
The exhibition is expected to
be held on an area of about 15,000
square metres, with participation of
more than 300 Chinese companies
known for excellence in the construction, infrastructure and technology
sectors.
HOME
HMC to start new weight
management programme
QC ties up with authorities to help reduce incidence of obesity
DOHA:
Hamad
Medical
Corporation (HMC) has tied
up with Qatar University
(QU) to launch a new weight
management programme to
help reduce the incidence of
obesity in the country.
The six-month programme,
Smart Weight, is for people
wanting to and needing to lose
weight but would also benefit
from professional support and
advice to achieve it.
The programme, funded by
Academic Health System partnership, is designed and led by
a team of healthcare professionals from HMC’s Dietetics and
Nutrition Department, along
with faculty from the human
nutrition program and student
volunteers at QU.
The Department of Health
Sciences at College of Arts and
Sciences at QU is heading the
university initiative.
It is targeting people with a
body mass index (BMI) of more
than 30. As part of community
service, student volunteers will
assist dietitians at HMC in participant registration and body
measurements.
Faculty from the human
nutrition programme will
organise a workshop for the
dietitians.
Free registration is open to
all people aged between 18 and
65.
Dr Yousuf Al Maslamani,
Medical Director, Hamad
General Hospital (HGH), who
is leading Smart Weight team,
said the programme also aims to
highlight lifestyle changes that
can reduce health risks associated with obesity.
“If you are carrying too much
weight, you could be at risk of
serious health issues, such as
diabetes or heart problems.
The programme highlights the
importance of a healthy diet and
a regular exercise regimen as
part of an overall eating plan to
help participants lose weight,”
said Al Maslamani.
“This can seem daunting at
first but we will provide support to participants every step
of the way. With right support
and advice, committed participants will be able to lose at least
10 percent of weight over six
months,” he added.
Reem Al Saadi, Director,
Corporate Dietetics and
Nutrition, said, “We are looking for participants of all
nationalities, with a BMI of 30
or more and aged between 18
and 65. Places are limited to
500 participants so that we can
provide the right level of support to each, but we hope to do
another six-month programme
in the future where we can take
in more participants.
“We will be monitoring
progress and measuring the
overall success of the programme,” she added.
Al Saadi said the programme
is not suitable for pregnant or
breastfeeding women, or anyone
who has had weight loss surgery.
Dr Hatem El Shoubaki, HMC
Project Manager, Smart Weight,
said those interested can visit
the registration desk in the
main lobby at HGH next to the
visitor’s lifts. Health information
and details about the programme
can be found on the website
http://smartweight.hamad.qa.
“The programme is free and
registration is open to anyone
who meets the criteria. We hope
the population of Qatar will take
advantage of the opportunity to
lose weight with intensive support from an expert team.”
THE PENINSULA
THE PENINSULA
Officials with some of the winners at the awards ceremony.
Commercial Bank names promotion winners
DOHA: Commercial Bank has
announced the winners of its
Debit card spend campaign,
which rewarded customers for
using their cards for overseas
transactions.
Customers qualified for a
prize by using their cards for at
least one international transaction either at an ATM or a retail
outlet during the promotion
throughout last October.
The winners were announced
during an awards ceremony at
the bank’s Grand Hamad Office,
with 10 receiving a free travel
voucher.
According to a statement,
the cards are safe, secure and
convenient to use whether shopping or at an ATM in Doha or
overseas. They also offer safety
and convenience at home and
abroad by reducing the need to
carry cash for daily transactions. They are chip- and PINenabled, protecting customers
from fraud and providing peace
of mind.
The bank has introduced 3D
Secure, an online feature, which
enables its debit cardholders to
use their cards to shop online
more securely. It helps protect them from any unauthorised online transactions in line
with global standards of online
security
Dean Proctor, Commercial
Bank EGM, Head of Retail and
Enterprise, said: “The bank
likes to take every opportunity
to thank loyal customers. The
promotion was a way of thanking those who carry and use
our products while they travel
overseas, and we are appreciative of their trust. We believe
our products offer unrivalled
privileges and are easy to use,
widely accepted, safely reduce
the need to carry cash and offer
global standards of security.
“We have now enabled our
debit cards to be used online for
purchases in a secure manner,
and look forward to our customers enjoying these special services and benefits.”
THE PENINSULA
Ooredoo unveils
promotion for
Hala top-ups
DOHA: Ooredoo yesterday launched a new promotion to give customers
chance to use their free
bonus local Ooredoo minutes gained from toppingup for international calls
of up to two hours.
Currently, customers
can get 120 local Ooredoo
minutes when they top up
their Hala account with
QR30 and above.
With the new promotion, they can also use local
Ooredoo minutes for international calls.
The promotion enables
the diverse range of Hala
customers to call home, or
friends and family abroad
for less.
The minutes, added
based on the amount customers top up for, are valid
for 10 days.
To enable affordable
entry levels for bonus
credit top-ups, Ooredoo
has also launched a new
top-up card for QR20,
offering QR20 credit and
five local Ooredoo minutes which can be used
for international calling
during the promotion.
Each denomination enables different amounts of
bonus minutes, with customers earning up to two
hours of local Ooredoo calling, which can be used for
international calls during
the promotion, when they
top up with QR200.
Hala customers can
purchase top-up cards in
denominations of QR10,
QR20, QR30, QR50, QR100
and QR200, use Ooredoo’s
nationwide network of
SSMs, or top up online
with Ooredoo’s secure
e-Service.
The promotion is valid
until March 15 next year.
It is part of Ooredoo’s
ongoing efforts to enhance
customer
experience
and give back to Hala
customers.
As well as bonus minutes, Hala users can
redeem Nojoom points and
bonus mobile data to top
up. Customers can check
balance at any time by dialling *129# and bonus balance by dialling *129*2#.
THE PENINSULA
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
HOME
MoI tops two categories of
awareness film competition
DOHA: Qatar, represented by
the Ministry of Interior (MoI),
won first place in two categories
in an awareness film competition organised by the General
Secretariat of Arab Interior
Ministers Council.
Qatar bagged first place in the
area of “the misuse of the Internet
and its role in intellectual deviation and the spread of crime” and
in the area of “the role of family
and the community in protecting the youth from violence and
extremism”.
The awards were given during the 38th Conference of Arab
police and security chiefs in Tunis.
Brig Khalifa Abdullah Al
Noaimi,
Director-General,
General Directorate of Criminal
Investigations, and Head of the
Qatari delegation to the conference, received the awards from
the council’s Secretary-General,
Dr Muhammad bin Ali Kouman.
Director, Public Relations
Department, MoI, said the
achievement underscored the
success of the ministry in presenting distinct security awareness in all sectors of society.
The General Secretariat of the
council organises the competition
every year and ministry has won
distinctive places in most events.
In 2012, the ministry added a
05
Qatari crowned ‘Strongest
Man’ in Aspire Zone contest
Kenyan Christopher Oketch clinches title in open race for expats
The trophy in the category of ‘The
role of family and the community in
protecting the youth from violence
and extremism’ and (Below) the
certificate.
new accomplishment in the field
of awareness film competition by
winning first place for the eighth
time in a row for its film on the
fight against human trafficking.
It added another milestone this
year by winning first place in two
of the five categories of the comTHE PENINSULA
petition.
Officials with some of the winners.
DOHA: Talal Al Kuwari was
crowned Qatar’s Strongest Man
in the Qatari nationals’ category
of the second edition of Aspire
Zone’s Qatar’s Strongest Man
held last weekend.
Kenyan Christopher Oketch
clinched the title in the open race
for Qatar residents (expatriates
category). The contest saw 16 participants in two categories battling
it out over five gruelling tasks
which pushed the men’s physical
and mental strength to the limit.
“I am ecstatic with my win, but
it was a tough race as the standard
this year was exceptionally high.
“I would like to thank Aspire
Zone for putting on an amazing
event and the second edition was
one of the standout events during
the Qatar National Day weekend,”
said Al Kuwari.
Oketch, who was one of the
youngest participants this year,
dominated in all five tasks.
He said: “I am ecstatic with my
win and to be crowned Qatar’s
Strongest Man. It was a thrilling event and a very close race
between all contestants, and I
look forward to the opportunity
to defend my title next year.” The
contest was held over two days
with an open race for Qatar residents on Thursday and the Qatari
nationals’ category on Friday.
Second place was awarded to
Joseph Iroo Ekadeli from Kenya,
and third place went to Meshack
Otieno Ogo, also a Kenyan in the
open race category.
Fahad Al Haddad was awarded
second place and Rashid Al Marri
third place in the Qatari nationals’ category. In fourth place were
Ali Essa Albinali and Abdulla
Majid Allaq, fifth place went to
Abdulla Essa Albinali, sixth place
was taken by Salah Abdulrahman
Zaenalabdeen.
Rounding out the Qatari nationals’ category was Mohammed
Jarlla Almarri in seventh place.
Participants competed in five
challenges, including weight lifting, lifting a car, pulling a truck,
moving a giant tyre and moving
an Atlas stone and sand bags.
Congratulating the winners,
Abdullah Al Khater, Events
Manager, Aspire Zone, said a GCC
category would be added to the
competition. THE PENINSULA
06
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
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HOME
F-Ring Road fully opened for traffic
DOHA:
The
Public
Works
Authority (Ashghal) yesterday
announced the opening of F-Ring
Road completely for traffic.
It will mainly serve traffic between
Al Thumama and its surroundings
and Airport Street.
The road will also facilitate traffic to Hamad International Airport
and reduce congestion in the area,
including on E-Ring Road.
Complementary works on some
service roads, cycle pathways and
landscaping are in progress and will
not affect traffic on the main carriageway, according to a statement.
F-Ring Road is a 7.2km, eight-lane
carriageway, with four lanes in each
direction, in addition to a two-lane
service road on both sides of the main
road. The road includes pedestrian and cycle paths.
The project also includes
construction of two signal-controlled two-level interchanges
on Najma and Airport streets.
It included construction of
infrastructure, mainly treated
effluent sewerage system, protecting existing gas and oil
pipelines, developing a new
storm water drainage system,
as well as water, electricity,
communication and street
lighting networks.
The new road will provide
access from Al Thumama and
its vicinity to Airport Street
and direct access to the airport.
It will ease congestion and
enhance connectivity between
the new airport and Al Wakrah
and the Industrial Area.
Motorists will have a lot of
time and enjoy smooth traffic
created by the two-level interchanges. The pedestrian and
cycle paths will separate pedestrians and cyclists from traffic, which will keep them safe,
promote other travel options,
and help reduce reliance on
vehicles.
The project was executed
by Consolidated Contractors
Company (CCC) and Teyseer
Contracting
C o m p a ny
Joint Venture, with KEO
International Consultants
Company as the supervision
consultant.
The F-Ring Road project is
part of Ashghal’s Expressway
programme to form a sustainable road network to continue
to support social and economic
development taking place in
Qatar.
THE PENINSULA
Driving simulator praised
Qatar-Turkey
Cultural Year
2015 discussed
DOHA: The Minister of
Culture, Arts and Heritage
H E Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz
Al Kuwari yesterday met
Turkish Ambassador Ahmet
Demirok and a delegation
from the Turkish Ministry of
Culture and Tourism.
Talks dealt with preparations
for the Qatar-Turkey Cultural
Year 2015 and proposed activities in which Qatar Museums
and Turkish cultural organisations are coordinating.
Turkish Minister of Culture
and Tourism Omer Celik will
visit Qatar next month, accompanied by a Turkish troupe, to
launch cultural activities.
Qatar-Tanzania
ties reviewed
DOHA:
Tanzanian
Prime
Minister
Mizengo
Kayanza Peter Pinda met
the Undersecretary of the
Ministry of Labour and Social
Affairs, Hussein Yousef Al
Mulla, and discussed means of
enhancing relations.
Qatar to take part
in Quran contest
DOHA: Qatar will participate
in the 10th King Mohammed
VI International Award for
Recitation of the Holy Quran
due to start in Casablanca
tomorrow. Qatar will be represented by Youssuf Ahmed
Youssuf Asheer, alongside participants from some 30 countries. The two-day contest has
two categories: Full memorisation of the Holy Quran with
recitation and interpretation;
and Tajweed and good performance with the memorisation of two-and-a-half parts of
the Holy Quran.
Shura reviews
France relations
Brigadier Mohammed Saad Al Kharji, Head, Traffic Department, and World
Rally Champion Nasser Al Attiyah trying out the simulator.
DOHA: Brigadier Mohammed
Saad Al Kharji, Director,
Traffic Department, and world
champion driver and Olympic
bronze medallist, Nasser Al
Attiyah, appreciated Students
for Road Safety during a tour of
the programme’s state-of-theart driving simulator at Darb
Al Saai, as part of National Day
celebrations.
The programme is part of the
national One Second road safety
brand and seeks to transform
12- to 18-year-old students in
road safety ambassadors through
interactive presentations and
simulator training.
In 2014, about 2,200 trainees, including 1,500 students,
benefited from the programme
through school visits and community events held by the Traffic
Department at the Ministry of
Interior. The programme was
launched a year ago by its owners
Maersk Oil Qatar and the Traffic
Department.
The simulator is the one of its
kind in the Gulf and includes a
full real car cockpit, an advanced
display system with wrap-around
screen and an artificial intelligence engine that reflects common behaviours on Qatar’s roads
like tail-gating, failure to indicate,
flashing lights and cutting across
cars at roundabouts. The simulator utilises technologies from
aviation and Formula 1 industries.
Al Attiyah got behind the wheel
and praised the controls and the
life-like nature of the simulator’s
screen.
Sheikh Faisal bin Fahad
Al Thani, Deputy Managing
Director, Maersk Oil Qatar,
said: “National Day celebrations
are a time for us all to celebrate
Qatar’s achievements and fantastic work that bodies like the
Traffic Department and Students
for Road Safety are doing to overcome challenges. “We are proud to
make a meaningful difference to
our country through programmes
like Students for Road Safety.”
THE PENINSULA
DOHA:
Advisory
Council
Speaker
Mohammed
bin
Mubarak Al Khulaifi yesterday met Maurice Leroy, Head,
Qatar-France
Friendship
Society at the French parliament and MPs and discussed
means of enhancing relations.
Council Observer Mohammed
bin Abdullah Al Sulaiti and
members Mohammed bin Ajaj
Al Qubaisi and Saqr bin Fahd
Al Muraikhi were also present.
Qatar attends
meeting in Egypt
SHARM
EL
SHEIKH:
Qatar is participating in the
34th session of the Council
of Arab Ministers of Social
Affairs being held in Egyptian
city of Sharm El Sheikh. The
Minister of Labour and Social
Affairs H E Dr Abdullah Saleh
Mubarak Al Khulaifi is heading a delegation to the meeting
to discuss the council’s programmes, projects and activities and social issues of the
QNA
Arab world.
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
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HOME
07
10 organisations selected for CSR awards
CSR conference organised by Dar Al Sharq at Four Seasons Hotel to feature Awards ceremony
DOHA: Ten private, government and civil society organisations will be honoured for their
Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR) programmes at a CSR
conference organised by Dar Al
Sharq at Four Seasons Hotel
tomorrow.
Under the patronage of Sheikh
Abdulla bin Saoud Al Thani,
Governor, Qatar Central Bank,
and Chairman, Sport, Social and
Culture Fund, the forum to be
attended by about 250 representatives from the local business community will be opened by
the Minister of Youth and Sport
H E Salah bin Ghanem bin Nasser
Al Ali.
The award, an initiative of Dar
Al Sharq, is the first of its kind at
the national level.
Jaber Al Harami, Executive
Vice President, Media and
Publishing, and Editor-in-Chief
of Al Sharq, said the initiative and
the conference aim to introduce
CSR initiatives carried out by
some companies, encourage them
to exert more efforts and motivate other firms to follow suit.
Al Harami told a press conference yesterday that these efforts
come within the initiatives of Dar
Al Sharq to fill the gap between
society and the business sector,
provide services to society and
contribute to its advancement.
Dr Mohammad Jassim Al
Muslamani, CMC Member
and Chairman, CSR Awards
Committee, said the panel chose
the winners out of 30 firms which
submitted their CSR reports.
Praising Al Sharq for the initiative, he said the award is an
acknowledgement of Qatari companies’ effective role in supporting
society. Despite limited time, the
first round of the award has seen
big participation from the private
and public sectors and the second
round will witness more, he said.
Although there are similar
awards in the Middle East, this
is the first CSR award at the
national level, he added.
CSR should be part of programmes of companies and focus
should also be on public parks,
streets and hospitals, he said,
adding firms should be honoured
Jaber Al Harami (centre), Executive Vice-President, Media and Publishing, and Editor-in-Chief, Al Sharq, Dr Mohammed Jassim Al Muslamani (fourth
left), CMC member and Chairman, CSR Awards Committee, Fahd Al Jaber (fourth right), Director, Health, Safety and Environment Management, Qatar
Rail, Ahmed Salem Al Ali (third right), Director, Programme Management Support Fund, Babiker Osman (third left), Editor, White Book 2014, and other
officials at the press conference yesterday.
BAHER AMIN
for their CSR efforts. The forum
will feature discussion sessions
and the release of the second edition of White Book Qatar 2014 published by Dar Al Sharq annually.
“The book is an annual platform
for companies to publish their
CSR reports and raise awareness
on CSR trends internationally,”
Babiker Osman, Editor of the
book, told this daily.
The second edition features
CSR programmes and activities
of over 20 firms and scientific
materials on how local firms can
adopt good CSR practices, he said.
CSR, he said, has been a trend
all over the world, including
Qatar, because it is related to
development of which various
sectors should be a part.
CSR encompasses aspects such
as human rights, fight against
corruption, labour rights and
environment protection although
in the Arab world it is looked at as
a form of charity, he said.
THE PENINSULA
Indian Coast Guard to share maritime experiences with Qatari Navy
FROM LEFT: S C Gupta, Executive Officer, Ravi Kumar, Defence Attache, Indian Ambassador Sanjiv Arora, Rakesh
Pal, Deputy Inspector-General, Commanding Office, ICGS Vijit, and Suman Sharma, Second Secretary, Cons and
EC, the Indian Embassy, at the press conference on board the ship yesterday.
KAMMUTTY VP
DOHA: Indian Coast
Guard Ship ICGS Vijit
is on a visit to Qatar to
share maritime experiences with naval personnel here.
The ship on a voyage
to Gulf countries, choose
Doha as its port of call to
coincide with National Day
celebrations.
“The purpose of our visit
to Qatar and the region is
based on common maritime interests with maritime law enforcement
agencies,” Rakesh Pal,
Deputy Inspector-General,
Commanding Office of the
ship, told a press conference on board the ship at
Doha port.
“The visit also aims
to enhance cooperation
between India and Qatar,
already developed in previous visits of Indian Coast
Guard ships to the country,” he added.
Indian officers will meet
Qatari Navy and Coast
Guard officers to discuss
naval activities.
“Some naval personal
will visit the ship tomorrow (today) to know about
the training, patrolling and
recruitment processes of
the Coast Guard. We are
delighted to share how we
do training for the Coast
Guard and how we are coping up with the training
pattern,” he said.
The visit is significant in
various aspects of defence
cooperation between Qatar
and India, said Indian
Ambassador Sanjiv Arora.
In November 2008, both
countries signed a five-year
defence corporation agreement which was extended
in 2013 by another five.
The
a g r e e m e n t ’s
implementation mechanism is a joint committee
on corporation.
“Three meetings of the
committee have been held,
with the third in Doha in
September 2013 and back
to back two ships of Indian
Navy visited Qatar,” he
said.
“The fourth meeting is
scheduled for January 6-7,
2015 in New Delhi. So the
visit of ICGS Vijit is significant,” he added.
In the past two years
four Indian Coast Guard
ships have visited Doha,
including ICGS Vijit.
“There is potential for
further bolstering defence
corporation.
“We have witnessed it
with regard to participation in each other’s conferences, seminars. There are
possibilities of enhancing
the potentials of Qatari
defence forces in India’s
training establishments,
we have been seeing a positive trend,” said Arora.
S C Gupta, Executive
Officer, ICGS Vijit, Ravi
Kumar, Defence Attache,
and Suman Sharma,
Second Secretary, the
Indian embassy, were
also present at the press
conference.
ICGS Vijit left Gujarat,
India, on December 16 on
a 25-day voyage. The next
board of port is Bahrain,
followed by Dubai and
Muscat.
Vijit, meaning victorious, is a projection of
Indian Coast Guard’s will
and commitment ‘to serve
and protect’ the country’s
maritime interests.
It has 19 officers and 120
personnel. It is equipped
with the most advanced
navigation and communication equipment, sensors and
machineries, the sustenance and reach
and capability to
perform the role of
a command platform
and accomplish all
Coast Guard’s charter
of duties.
THE PENINSULA
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
08
Al Sharq contest draws 22,366 tweets
DOHA: A contest by the Al Sharq website on the occasion of National Day
drew 22,366 tweets, expressing love for Qatar. ‘Tweet for Qatar’ invited
people to write tweets in love for Qatar. Twelve won for writing the best
tweets and having the highest rate of re-tweets. Organisers are selecting
daily one winner for 12 days and each winner is receiving QR1,000 as the
contest continued for 12 days from December 8 to 20. It aimed to enhance
loyalty to Qatar, encourage positive usage of social media and attracted
THE PENINSULA
residents from different social segments.
Doha first appeared
on a map of 1823
Continued from Page 1
Doha first appears on a map of
1823, and was said to have been
founded after Bida’ (now parkland on
the other side of the Emiri Diwan),
which colonial British sources
thought was founded around 1801,
says Dr carter.
Specific aims include tracing of the
changing physical extent and urban
configuration of Bidda and Doha
through time, using historic maps,
aerial photographs and the excavation of archaeological deposits.
These excavations aim to uncover
early, undocumented structures in
Doha to help archaeologists understand the development of the city and
the lives of early people who lived in
these structures.
An analysis of the findings from
core of Doha, including different
phases of architecture, pottery, coins,
glass, animal and botanical remains
imported pottery, incense burners
and merchant’s weights would give
a detailed insight into people’s economic life and into everyday life in
old Doha.
“The key analysis will finish before
summer 2015... We are going to get
to know a very good idea of what
Doha was like when it was founded
and how it changed from the 19th
century,” said Dr Carter.
“We found a good sequence which
could be from 1820s showing different phases of architecture. It’s a
residential area. We know Doha was
destroyed several times in the 19th
century. When we get low remains
heavily damaged, probably from the
distraction episode. But we have also
found a better preserved alley way,
house with kitchens and rooms. That
information will be the first evidence
of to know what life had been in one
of the Gulf pearling towns,” he added.
However, the rapid development of
Doha adds urgency to this work, as
much of the buried heritage relating
to the original occupation of Doha is
highly threatened.
The three-year funding by QNRF
ends by 2015 and researchers of the
‘Origins of Doha Project’ expect to
apply for an extension and expansion
of work. Recently new historical evidence has come to light that suggests
that Bida’ (not Doha as such) was
not founded in 1801, but goes back at
least to 1680. Excavations have not
yet done at the Bidda area, which
was a still a town until 2006. Also
the researchers hope to investigate
at places out of Doha, to compare.
“We are like to investigate Bidda,
which has historical evidence of going
back to 17th century, up to 200 years
older,” said Dr Carter.
“We hope will continue to excavate
to look into old Doha or it will be preserved without having deep excavations to put up buildings,” he added.
Also the researchers have found
evidence of three clusters of well
or major wells in Doha, by studying
aerial images, from 1940s, which also
they seek to analyse and find archeological evidence. THE PENINSULA
Al Khalij to host Open Day
for Qataris tomorrow
DOHA: Al Khalij Commercial
Bank (al khaliji) is hosting an Open
Day recruitment programme at
the Ministry of Labour and Social
Affairs on December 23 for Qataris
looking for jobs in the banking
sector.
According to a statement, the
event from 8am to 4pm under the
patronage of the Minister of Labour
and Social Affairs H E Dr Abdullah
Saleh Mubarak Al Khulaifi and in the
presence of the bank’s Group CEO
Fahad Al Khalifa will offer positions
for Qataris and opportunities to join
the bank’s talented and high-calibre
staff.
Al Khalifa said: “The event is in
line with the bank’s Qatarisation
strategy. We are committed to
recruiting, training and developing
Qataris. The bank aims to create a
strongly qualified and professional
Qatari workforce to support the
growth of the banking sector. We
are thankful to the ministry for
support and continued cooperation
to help us achieve our vision aligned
with Qatar’s National Vision 2030 on
human development.”
Hamad Al Kubaisi, Group Head,
Human Resources at the bank, said:
“The bank’s growth relies on the
extent of our commitment to being
the employer of choice, especially for
Qataris. We aspire to find new talents
and offer them fantastic opportunities to tackle greater responsibilities in different roles, while gaining
experience to become Qatar’s future
banking professionals.
“A group of heads of departments
will interview potential candidates
and discuss with them employment
opportunities and available positions that suit their skills and career
goals,” he added.
THE PENINSULA
HOME
HMC launches first arthritis
awareness campaign
Activities at HGH, Al Wakra Hospital, Al Khor Hospital and in Aspire Park
DOHA:
Hamad
Medical
Corporation (HMC) is encouraging people to participate in
a 10-day campaign to learn
about general arthritis and
other rheumatic diseases.
The first-of-its-kind campaign in Qatar aims to create
avenues for people to engage in
discussions on rheumatic diseases which affect joints and
connective tissues and learn
from HMC experts about preventive steps and treatment
options.
“Arthritis is a widespread
condition. It refers to pain,
swelling and stiffness of joints.
When someone experiences any
of the symptoms they should
immediately consult their
physician.
“Arthritis has the potential to
cause permanent disability if not
diagnosed within early stages,”
said Dr Samar Al Emadi, Senior
Consultant, Rheumatology
Department, Hamad General
Hospital (HGH).
“This is the first time we are
organising an initiative like this
and we encourage everyone to
join it to fight arthritis.”
Activities are being held at
HGH until December 24 from
8am to 3pm.
Similar activities will be held
at Al Wakra Hospital, Al Khor
Hospital and in Aspire Park
next to Villaggio.
Events in Aspire Park will
be held between December 25
and 27 from 10am to 2pm and
4pm to 9pm; Al Khor Hospital
between December 28 and 29
from 8am to 3pm; and Al Wakra
Hospital between December 30
and 31 from 8am to 3pm.
A portable cabin will move
between the venues, with staff
providing brochures, flyers and
questionnaires for people to
spread knowledge about types of
arthritis, symptoms, diagnosis,
prevention and management.
Awareness materials will be
in English and Arabic.
The campaign will also comprise a doctor’s café for one-onone consultation between HMC
experts and individuals affected
by persistent joint pain.
Doctors will offer on-the-spot
assistance and provide individuals in need of further care with
early referral to a rheumatology
clinic.
Free ultrasounds will be performed for those wishing to
know more about their joints.
Free yoga and workout sessions will be hosted in Aspire
Park where participants will
learn exercises to help improve
joints condition.
THE PENINSULA
Oman to open tourism office in Qatar
BY MOHAMMAD SHOEB
DOHA: With a significant
rise in the number of tourists
from Qatar to Oman, the sultanate’s Ministry of Tourism
plans to open a representative office in Doha to promote
tourism between both countries, a senior official at the
ministry has said.
The ministry has opened 10
offices overseas, catering to
some 21 countries in different
continents.
“We have offices in Saudi
Arabia and the UAE which
are serving Qatari tourists.
However, if need we may open an
office in Doha to serve better,”
Haitham Al Ghassani, Assistant
Director-General, Tourism
Promotion and Domestic Events
at the ministry said.
Al Ghassani told a group of
Doha-based journalists at the
ministry in Muscat that Oman,
along with some other GCC
members, is looking forward to
facilitating cruise tourism in the
region.
He said Oman is seeking
Qatar to join ‘Cruise Arabia’ — a
union of Oman, Dubai and Abu
Dhabi — as the fourth regional
member of the alliance to promote cruise tourism in the GCC.
Endowed with the most
diverse landscape and natural
beauties among all GCC countries, Oman has witnessed a 17
percent jump year-on-year in
the number of tourists from the
GCC countries, including Qatar.
According to the ministry’s
statistics, the number of GCC
citizens, including Qataris, visiting Oman between January
and September 2014 increased
by over 100,000 to 701,311 from
599,696 during the same period
last year.
The number of Qataris
Oman, dubbed ‘gem of the GCC’ offers a wide range of tourist avenues.
visiting Oman has also
increased. In 2013, some 3,449
Qataris visited Salalah, Oman’s
second largest city, up 26 percent compared to 2,865 in 2012.
Al Ghassani did not provide
country-specific figures.
Oman, with very limited
hydrocarbons reserves, is trying to reduce its dependence on
energy revenues by diversifying
its economy to achieve sustainable development.
It is promoting non-hydrocarbon industries, including the
tourism and hospitality sector.
In 2012, Oman received over
two million tourists from across
the world, which increased to
over 2.1m in 2013, up 2.8 percent.
“In line with Oman’s Vision
2020, the contribution of the
sector is supposed to reach 3
percent of GDP, which we think
is achievable. Unfortunately in
2013, the sector’s share slipped
to 2 percent from 2.5 the previous year. We are taking steps
and are confident to hit the target by 2020,” he added.
Dubbed ‘gem of the GCC’
by media, Oman offers a wide
range of tourist avenues, including world heritage sites, forts,
castles, mountain-trekking,
desert-safari, caves, islands,
parks, lagoons and beaches with
clean waters and clear skies.
To attract tourists, over the
years, the country has developed
some 282 hotels offering over
22,500 bed spaces.
The number of rooms and bed
spaces in 2012-13 witnessed a
growth of about 12 percent.
After Muscat, Salalah
receives the second highest
number of tourists, especially
during khareef season. In 2013,
it received over 433,600 tourists,
registering 23 percent growth
compared to over 351,000 tourists in 2012.
Jabal Al Akhdar, two-hour
drive from Muscat, is the second highest peak (about 2,300
metres from the seal level) and
one of the most popular destinations due to its cold climatic
conditions.
Average temperature at the
peak during summer ranges
between 28 and 30 degrees
Celsius, which is a rare phenomenon in the Gulf.
During winter, temperature
drops below minus five degrees,
sometimes witnessing snow fall.
THE PENINSULA
Fully restored Sheraton
Doha reopens its doors
Officials and staff at the event.
DOHA:
Sheraton
Doha
Resort & Convention Hotel
reopened its doors to the public on National Day.
The 30-year-old landmark
has been completely restored,
featuring extraordinary 1980s
architecture and design unique
to the region, while the operational and technology systems
have been upgraded to address
the needs of business and leisure travellers.
“Sheraton Doha was envisioned as a place the Qatari
people could be proud of, a
prestigious hotel that could host
international gatherings and
occasions of celebration.
“It served as the early focal
point of West Bay, its distinctive
pyramid profile a monument
to the heritage and future of
Qatar. Restored to its original
grandeur, the hotel once again
serves as a symbol of the growth
and development that have
made Doha what it is today,”
said Sheikh Nawaf bin Jassim
bin Jabor Al Thani, Chairman,
Katara Hospitality, owners of
the hotel.
The hotel offers 371 completed renovated guest rooms
and suites, all featuring traditional Qatari design, comfortable work spaces and a balcony
with spectacular sea or city
view. The new and luxurious
Sheraton Club Lounge, now
twice its previous size, offers
exclusive access to guests staying in the club’s rooms and
above.
The oasis-like resort features leisure facilities and is
home to nine restaurants, bars
and lounges, including the
popular Latino Steakhouse, La
Veranda, Al Shaheen Lebanese
Restaurant, and Irish Harp pub.
Located on the crescent bay
of Doha’s Corniche, the hotel is
15-minute drive from Hamad
International Airport. It is a
three-minute walk from the
upcoming Doha Exhibition and
Convention Centre which is
connected via an underground
tunnel to the newly redesigned
Sheraton Park.
To mark the reopening of
the hotel, the local community and loyal guests were
invited to share their favourite photos and memories at
the hotel on Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram using hashtags #SheratonDoha and
#betterwhenshared.
A
photo
exhibition
‘Rediscover Sheraton Doha’ was
unveiled on National Day and
includes 32 images to celebrate
32 years since the hotel first
opened its doors. The images
are on display in the lobby until
January 17. THE PENINSULA
MIDDLE EAST
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
09
Egypt allows
in travellers
from Gaza
Rafah border crossing opened
GAZA: Egypt opened the Rafah
border crossing yesterday for
incoming passengers from the
Gaza Strip for the first time in
almost two months, Palestinian
and Egyptian officials said.
Rafah is the only major crossing between impoverished Gaza,
home to 1.8 million Palestinians,
and the outside world that does
not border Israel, which blockades the strip and allows passage
mainly on humanitarian grounds.
Egypt shut the crossing on
October 25 after Islamist militants in Egypt’s adjacent Sinai
region killed 33 members of its
security forces in some of the
worst anti-state violence since
Islamist president Mohamed
Mursi was toppled in July 2013.
Since then, Cairo has opened the
crossing only twice to allow thousands of Palestinians stranded in
Egypt and beyond to return to
Gaza, which is dominated by the
Islamist Hamas faction.
Hamas has long had ties to
the Muslim Brotherhood, which
was ousted from power in Egypt
when Mursi was overthrown,
but its relations with the current
Egyptian government are tense.
Maher Abu Sabha, the Hamasappointed director of crossings,
said Rafah would open for two
days to allow Gazans with serious
illnesses to travel to Egypt and
beyond for treatment and to allow
foreign nationals and students to
travel. An Egyptian official, citing “security reasons”, said there
was no decision yet to allow the
permanent and full opening of the
crossing as was the case before
October 25.
Hamas’s leaders have distanced
themselves from violence in Egypt
and in Sinai and say they have no
armed presence in areas outside
Palestinian boundaries.
Some children stood by the
fence, while others sat or slept
over luggage that piled up outside
the gate as their families awaited
to pass. “I have been waiting for
three months to leave, this is very
bad,” said Mnwar Shaath, 58, a
Palestinian woman clad in a long
black robe who lives in Saudi
Arabia and came to visit family in Gaza. “I am sick and I was
afraid I may die here, away from
my children, I want to go back
and die among them,” she said.
REUTERS
Palestinians await permission to enter Egypt as they gather inside the Rafah
border crossing yesterday.
Rival Libya govt
urges foreigners
to return to Tripoli
TRIPOLI: Libya’s Islamistbacked rival government called
yesterday for diplomats and foreign firms to return to Tripoli,
pledging to protect them despite
an attack on the empty home of
the Swiss ambassador.
“We call on diplomatic missions
and foreign firms to return to
Tripoli,” the government of selfdeclared prime minister Omar Al
Hassi said in a statement.
“Foreigners who reside in Libya
enjoy the same protection the
state offers to its citizens,” it said.
On Friday, gunmen broke into the
residence of the Swiss ambassador in Tripoli and looted the uninhabited house, before chased away
by security forces.
Libya is awash with weapons
and powerful militias, and run
by rival governments and parliaments. Fajr Libya (Libya Dawn),
a coalition of Islamist militias,
seized Tripoli in August after
weeks of deadly fighting with a
nationalist group. The violence
triggered an exodus of foreigners from the Libyan capital and
prompted the closure of several
embassies, with many relocating
to neighbouring countries.
Hassi’s government was
installed at the end of August by
the militias. It is jostling for power
with the internationally backed
government of Prime Minister
Abdullah Al Thinni, formed after
parliamentary elections in June.
After Tripoli fell to the Islamists,
the Thani government and the parliament moved to the remote east
of the country. In November, two
car bombs struck near the shuttered Egyptian and UAE in Tripoli,
where Italy is one of the few countries to keep an embassy open.
AFP
Beji Caid Essebsi, the Tunisian presidential candidate for the anti-Islamist Nidaa Tounes party, reacts after placing his vote in Tunis yesterday.
Tunisia’s Essebsi claims vote victory
TUNIS: Tunisian presidential candidate Beji Caid Essebsi
claimed victory in yesterday’s
run-off election, which is seen
as the final step to full democracy nearly four years after an
uprising ousted autocrat Zine
El-Abidine Ben Ali.
Preliminary results were still
to be released by election authorities, but soon after polls closed,
Essebsi said he had beaten rival
Moncef Marzouki, the incumbent
president. “I dedicate my victory
to the martyrs of Tunisia. I thank
Marzouki, and now we should
work together without excluding
anyone,” Essebsi, a former parliament speaker under Ben Ali, told
local television.
His campaign manager said
“initial indications” showed the
88-year-old Essebsi had won
without giving any details, as
hundreds of celebrating supporters chanted “Beji President”
and waved Tunisia’s red and white
national flag.
However, rival campaign manager for Marzouki, Adnen Monsar,
dismissed the claims saying it was
a very close call. “Nothing is confirmed so far,” he told reporters.
With a new progressive constitution and a full parliament
elected in October, Tunisia is
hailed as an example of democratic change for a region still
struggling with the aftermath of
the 2011 Arab Spring revolts.
Tunisia avoided the bitter postrevolt divisions troubling Libya and
Egypt, but tensions sporadically
flare. One gunman was killed overnight and three arrested after they
opened fire on a polling station in
the central Kairouan governorate.
Essebsi took 39 percent of
votes in the first round ballot in
November with Marzouki winning 33 percent.
As front runner, Essebsi dismissed critics who said victory
for him would mark a return
of the old regime stalwarts. He
argued that he was the technocrat
Tunisia needed following three
messy years of an Islamist-led
coalition government.
Marzouki, 69, is a former activist who once sought refuge in
France during the Ben Ali era.
He painted an Essebsi presidency
as a setback for the “Jasmine
Revolution” that forced the
former leader to flee into exile.
“We need a president who looks
after the people and is not interested only in power,” said Ibrahim
Ktiti, an electrician who voted in
the poor Ettadhamen neighbourhood of Tunis. “The old regime
won’t make it back. Essebsi never
excused himself for all the time he
was with Ben Ali.”
Yet many Tunisians tie
Marzouki’s own presidency to the
Islamist party’s government and
the mistakes opponents said it
made in controlling the influence
of Islamists in one of the Arab
world’s most secular countries.
Compromise has been important in Tunisian politics and
Essebsi’s Nidaa Tounes party
reached a deal with the Islamist
Ennahda party to overcome a crisis triggered by the murder of two
secular leaders last year.
Ennahda stepped down at the
start of this year to make way for
a technocrat transitional cabinet
until elections. But the Islamists
remain a powerful force after winning the second largest number of
seats in the new parliament.
Essebsi appeals to the more
secular, liberal sections of
Tunisian society, while analysts
predicted that Marzouki would
draw on support from more conservative rural areas, and from
some members of Ennahda, which
did not field a candidate.
The presidency post holds only
limited powers over national
defense and foreign policy. The
parliament, led by Nidaa Tounes
which won the most seats, will be
key to selecting a prime minister
to lead the government.
REUTERS
Jordan hangs 11 men after 8-year death penalty moratorium
AMMAN:
Human
rights
groups took Jordan to task yesterday as the country ended an
eight-year moratorium on the
death penalty by hanging 11
men convicted of murder.
The men were executed at
dawn in a prison some 70km
from the capital, interior ministry spokesman Ziyad Zoobi was
quoted as saying by the official
Petra news agency.
Authorities said the men were
all Jordanians convicted of murder, with no links to politics or
extremism, in 2005 and 2006. A
source in the prison system said
the men were mostly in their 40s.
“Some of the prisoners asked to
have their final words passed on
their families, others asked only
to smoke a cigarette,” the source
said. Jordan’s last previous executions were in June 2006, and 122
people have since been sentenced
to death.
Interior Minister Hussein
Majali had suggested recently
that the moratorium might end,
saying there was a “major debate”
in Jordan on the death penalty
and that “the public believes that
the rise in crime has been the
result of the non-application” of
capital punishment.
Experts said the government
was responding to a rise in crime.
“The authorities have been
confronted in recent years with
a wave of violence, criminality and murders and want to
meet the challenge by opting
for deterrence and the renewed
application of the death penalty,” said Oraib Rantawi, head
of Amman’s Al Quds Centre for
Political Studies.
But rights groups denounced
the ending of the moratorium,
saying it would make little difference to rising crime.
“We are surprised by this
decision, which is a step back
for Jordan,” said Taghreed Jaber,
Syria conflict
Syrian children look on as they wait for treatment, following a reported air stike by regime forces, at a makeshift clinic in the besieged rebel town of Douma, 13km northeast of Damascus, yesterday.
the regional director for Penal
Reform International.
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle
East director at Human Rights
Watch, said: “Reviving this inherently cruel form of punishment is
another way Jordan is backsliding
on human rights.” She said that
by resuming executions, “Jordan
loses its standing as a rare progressive voice on the death penalty in the region”.
The head of Jordan’s Adallah
(Justice) rights group, Assem
Rababa, said the authorities
would be better off tackling the
root causes of crime.
“Political and economic
problems are fostering crime,”
he said. “The authorities should
not make a headlong rush (into
executions) while ignoring these
problems.”
A number of countries in the
Middle East continue to impose
the death penalty for serious
crimes, including Jordan’s neighbour Saudi Arabia, which has executed 83 people so far this year.
China by far carried out the
most executions in 2013, numbering in the thousands, followed
by Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and
the US, rights group Amnesty
International said in a report in
March.
AFP
Security agents raid rights
group’s office in Sudan
KHARTOUM: Sudanese security agents raided the headquarters of a human rights monitor
yesterday and seized computers, a member of the group said,
nearly two weeks after one of its
founders was arrested.
National Intelligence and
Security Service (NISS) agents
arrived at the office of the Sudan
Human Rights Monitor and
searched the premises. “They
took all the computers, even
some personal computers from
the employees, and they also took
some documents and they left the
building,” the group’s executive
manager Buraq Al Nazir said.
He said the NISS did not close
down the group, which documents
human rights violations in Sudan.
A source who was there at the
time said the raid came during a
workshop, and that one of those
attending it was detained. The
source gave no further details.
Britain’s ambassador to Sudan,
Peter Tibber, tweeted he was
“concerned by raid on Sudan HR
Monitor”. On December 6, the NISS
detained Amin Makki Madani, a
civil rights activist and one of the
group’s founders, shortly after he
returned from Addis Ababa where
he had signed a document aimed
at uniting opposition to President
Omar Hassan Al Bashir.
While Madani signed the document on behalf of civil society
groups, other signatories included
rebels and opposition parties.
Bashir, 70, seized power in a 1989
Islamist-backed coup and won a
2010 election that was marred by
opposition boycotts, with monitors saying the process failed to
meet international standards.
REUTERS
10
VIEWS
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
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Editorial
Stopping oil slide
Cartoon Arts International / The New York Times Syndicate
HE oil ministers of Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates have defended Opec’s decision not
to cut production despite a glut in the market and
a slump in prices. Their stance is not surprising.
The current crisis has exposed irregularities and unfair
practices in the market which will only harm the producers.
Saudi oil minister Ali Al Naimi summed it up when he
said: “The kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other countries
sought to bring back balance to the market, but the lack
of cooperation from other producers outside Opec and the
spread of misleading information and speculation led to the
continuation of the drop in prices.”
Oil prices have nearly halved in the past six months,
with the international benchmark Brent crude falling below
$60 a barrel last week, the lowest in more than five years.
An Opec meeting last month failed to agree on production
cuts. The cartel kept its target output of 30m barrels a day
unchanged, a shift from its traditional policy of cutting
production to boost prices and bring stability to the energy
market.
The latest slide in prices has to brought to the fore
the new market realities, the most important of which is
that Opec is not in a position to control the market and
the prices due to the significant contribution of non-Open
producers. The interests of producers are so disparate
and their economies so diverse
it’s difficult to bring about a
consensus among them about
Cooperation
steps to be taken to prop
between Opec the
up the prices. As the UAE’s oil
and non-Opec minister, Suhail bin Mohammed
Al Mazroui put it, one of the
producers is
main reasons for the fall in prices
“the irresponsible production
needed to stop was
of some producers from outside
the continuing Opec”. He reiterated that “Opec
not a swing producer” and
slide in global is
“it’s not fair that we correct
the market for everyone else”.
oil prices.
This means that any unilateral
action by Opec will only harm the
interests of the bloc and is likely
to be exploited by producers outside the bloc. According to
reports, the world is expected to need less Opec oil in 2015
because of the increasing supply of US shale oil and other
sources, with no significant rise in world demand expected.
Though non-producing countries are exulting over the
deep fall in oil prices, the current levels are not good for the
global economy. No economy exists in isolation. Slump in
prices will hit producers and will have a cascading effect on
other economies. Energy companies have a huge presence
on global stock markets and a slump in their profits will hit
global indices.
What is needed is better cooperation between Opec
and non-Opec producers. There is a lack of trust and an
unwillingness to take the lead to correct the market
T
.
School massacre united Pakistan,
but cracks are already showing
BY ALI DAYAN HASAN
HE Peshawar school massacre has given Pakistanis an
unprecedented moment of
unity. A country so deeply
divided that even 40,000 deaths from
terror attacks since 2001 could not
create a shared sense of suffering has
finally been brought together in horror.
It is tempting to believe that this is a
moment of paradigm-shifting lucidity,
that the country has woken up to the
stark realisation that we cannot carry
on with business as usual. After all, if
the cold-blooded mass murder of your
children does not give you clarity about
the Taliban, nothing else can or should.
Yet, just a few days into our collective
mourning, our
shared revulsion
is already fraying at the seams.
Taliban-apologist
clerics still enjoy
airtime on television, pundits are
beginning to point
the finger away
from domestic
militants towards
India, and the
sickening mantra of “Muslims
could not possibly
do this”, recited
after so many
other attacks, is
resurfacing.
In the coming
days, as anger
gives way to the hard business of
fighting the Taliban, and they in turn
unleash further atrocities, the country’s
myriad social and political fissures are
likely to re-emerge through the anger
and grief.
Our dirty, open “secret” is that
the war against the Taliban is also
Pakistan’s war within – a strategic,
political, cultural and religious schism
that creates an atmosphere of denial
and myopia. We are unable and unwilling to look clearly at the nature and
T
Sadly, once the
dust settles,
it is likely the
military will
stick to the
policies that
ripped apart so
many families.
causes of the Islamist threat, or evaluate our own response rationally.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has
declared an end to decades of trying to
differentiate between “good and bad”
Taliban, until now a cornerstone of the
country’s controversial national security policy. His political nemesis, Imran
Khan, has grudgingly agreed to put his
campaign to oust Sharif on the backburner to make common cause on the
Taliban threat.
It remains to be seen whether this
truce can endure, and even if it does,
Pakistan’s cowardly political class is
usually happy to play “blame the military” rather than grapple with antiextremist efforts. But politicians are
the least of Pakistan’s problems.
Above all, this is a moment of truth
for Pakistan’s powerful military. Can
it wage an effective war against the
jihadi network it has created, while continuing to use elements of that system
against its perceived enemies in India
and Afghanistan? If not, would it really
give up those carefully nurtured allies?
On this, the Pakistani military has
disagreed with much of the world since
9/11, clinging to its policies even as its
proxies turned first on Pakistani civilians, then on army officers and installations, and now on the children of
military personnel.
Sadly, once the dust settles, it is likely
the military will stick to the policies
that ripped apart so many families in
Peshawar last week. It may ratchet up
its fight with the Pakistani Taliban but
is unlikely to take off the kid gloves
used for handling both their Afghan
counterparts and its principal jidahi ally
in India, Lashkar-e-Taiba. The world
finds this duplicity galling. It is. But it is
not just a function of a self-annihilating
quest for power.
Support for Islamist extremism and
the militancy that goes with it is a
fault-line that runs through the length
and breadth of the country, driven not
just by fear, but religious conviction and
social acceptance. Any all-out onslaught
on the web of jihadi organisations would
strain the state and risks turning the
The other side
T
cancelled the release of its comedy film,
The Interview, which makes fun of North
Korea’s third generation despot, Kim
Jong-un, after its systems were hacked
by the North Koreans who threatened
further action if the film went ahead.
US President Barack Obama criticised
Sony’s action, saying that the US should
not allow “some dictator someplace to
start imposing censorship”, but unfortunately, the US government’s defensive
cyber skills are in no position to guarantee protection for Sony.
The real danger that this apparently ludicrous episode highlights how
advanced China and North Korea have
become in their cyber skills, and how
weak the West may be in its ability to
counter such attacks. These actions
can be a genuine threat to the security of any country in the world. The
Iranians still talk of the Stuxnet worm
which attacked their nuclear installations in 2010 and disabled about
a fifth of their capacity. The US has
never claimed responsibility for this
attack, but it is hard to see where else
it might have come from. The same
North Korean skills that downloaded
10 terabytes without the host being
country’s heartland and its major cities
into warzones.
An underlying fear, that Peshawar
could become the bloody norm, drives
a national security narrative that
presents support for extremists as a
sophisticated protection of national
interests rather than what it really is,
Stockholm syndrome affection for an
organisation holding us all hostage.
There can be hope, if Pakistan’s allies
and neighbours are willing to create a
conducive environment for the country
to wean itself away from “Jihad Inc”.
Most urgently, Pakistan’s military
needs to rework its understanding of
the threat posed by India. But unless
India acknowledges the centrality of a
stable and strong Pakistani state to its
own security imperatives, and can find
the empathy to see Pakistan as a victim
of terror (albeit of its own making), it
is unlikely that Pakistan’s military will
ever fully abandon its jihadist allies.
Pakistan’s perceived friends have
emerged as its greatest enemies. The
country has little hope of changing
course for the better if its perceived
enemies cannot learn to be its friends.
Ali Dayan Hasan is a human rights
campaigner. He was previously Pakistan
director at Human Rights Watch.
THE GUARDIAN
Quote of
the day
West’s cyber skills inadequate for future
HE West’s defensive cyber
skills are probably inadequate
to face the growing threat from
China and North Korea, and
it is almost as frightening that no one
really knows how secure the US and
European military sites will be in the
face of a future cyber war. To date
most of the action has been against
relatively soft commercial targets in the
mass hacking and theft of tonnes of
corporate and patent information for
the benefit of Chinese industry, while
the military world has not been tested.
In the latest incident, Sony has
Pakistan’s perceived
friends have emerged
as its greatest enemies.
The country has little
hope of changing
course for the better if
its perceived enemies
cannot learn to be its
friends.
aware of it, could be used against military and government sites. A real problem is that American and European
programme developers are required
to obey laws against data theft and
hacking. This means that their organisations have not developed the same
effective offensive cyber skills as the
North Koreans or Chinese, which
they need to do in order to develop
counter measures. And this is despite
the recognition by both American and
European armed forces that the cyber
world is a real dimension for conflict.
Gulf News
During the past 48
hours, the peshmerga
opened two main
routes to Mount
Sinjar. We did not
expect to achieve all
these victories.
Massud Barzani
Iraqi Kurdish leader
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
VIEWS
11
Putin and Russia confront new reality
In reality, Western
diplomats say,
Nato membership
for Ukraine was
never on the
table, particularly
because a majority
of Ukrainians
opposed it. But
Russia’s March
annexation
of Crimea
wound up
reinvigorating
the alliance.
BY MICHAEL BIRNBAUM
year ago, most Ukrainians
didn’t want to join Nato. US
tanks weren’t doing training
exercises near the Russian
border. And a dollar bought 33 roubles.
But after the most tumultuous stretch
of President Vladimir Putin’s 15 years in
power, Russia is confronting a new reality. Ukraine — the part not held by rebels
— has turned firmly toward Europe. Nato
troops are on alert in the Baltics, hard
up against the Russian frontier. And
the rouble has lost nearly half its value
against the dollar, wiping away years of
gains for the Russian middle class.
Putin has also won major victories,
foremost among them the annexation of
Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, an achievement he said would be inscribed in the
annals of Russian history alongside the
exploits of Catherine the Great. A frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine gives him
leverage over the rest of that country.
And his approval ratings are at record
highs, a measure of how skillfully he has
convinced people that he is confronting a
West determined to declaw the powerful
Russian bear.
A
Georgian Stalinists attend the annual celebration on the birthday of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in his native town of Gori, about 80km
west of Tbilisi, Georgia, yesterday.
Many of the developments of the past
year run counter to Putin’s most important strategic goals, including furthering
the prosperity that was crucial to consolidating power in his first years in office.
Russia enters the new year on unsteady
footing, as falling oil prices and tough
Western sanctions threaten to cripple
its economy. The rouble lost 20 percent of
its value in just hours on Tuesday before
rebounding .
But in a swaggering, year-end news
conference last week, Putin showed little sign of distress. The West would have
found another way to attack Russia, even
without Crimea, he said. He promised
the economy would be better than ever
in two years. Divorced in 2013, he even
announced he had found love.
Despite the Russian leader’s assurances that prosperity is around the corner, Kremlin advisers, diplomats and
analysts say that no stability is in sight.
“This is not the price we have to pay
for Crimea,” Putin said last week. “This is
actually the price we have to pay for our
natural aspiration to preserve ourselves
as a nation, as a civilisation, as a state.”
It is a steep price. One of Putin’s primary goals has been to fend off Nato, the
Western defence alliance, which many
Russians see as a threat to their security. Nato’s 2004 expansion to the Baltic
states — and thus to Russia’s borders — is
a major thorn in Putin’s side. Kremlin
advisers say that he was convinced that
Ukraine was the next target. That would
have threatened the base used by Russia’s
Black Sea fleet in Crimea.
In reality, Western diplomats say, Nato
membership for Ukraine was never on
the table, particularly because a majority
of Ukrainians opposed it. But Russia’s
March annexation of Crimea wound up
reinvigorating the alliance.
“We need to think about our allies, the
positioning of our forces in the alliance
and the readiness of our forces in the
alliance, such that we can be there to
defend against it [Russia] if required,”
said US Air Force Gen Philip Breedlove,
the commander of Nato’s military forces,
days after Crimea was annexed.
Since the Crimea annexation, the
number of Nato fighter jets patrolling
the Baltic skies has tripled, and the jets
have frequently intercepted their Russian
counterparts. US tanks are now training in Latvia. In November, they paraded
through the streets of Riga as part of
Latvian independence day celebrations.
And in Ukraine, a slim majority of citizens now favours joining Nato, according
to opinion polls. Before the annexation,
support for Nato usually ranged between
20 and 25 percent.
Germany, too, has turned against
Russia, despite the sizeable trade between
the two nations. German public opinion
had been sympathetic to Russia, even
after the Crimean annexation. That
changed after a passenger jet was downed
over rebel-held eastern Ukraine in July.
Meanwhile, European Union sanctions
have grown increasingly tough.
“After the end of the Cold War,” Merkel
asked in an unusually harsh speech in
November, “who would have thought
something like this could happen?” She
braced for years of conflict with Russia.
In recent months, Russia’s souring
economy has become even more troubled. Oil has shed value, and the rouble
has plummeted. With Western sanctions
choking off the flow of dollars to Russia’s
economy, the worst pain could be yet
to come.
“We have probably gotten into a perfect storm,” Economy Minister Alexei
Ulyukayev told the Vedomosti newspaper
last week. “If there had been neither
sanctions nor a fall in oil prices, and if
we had done no foolish things, economic
growth would have been 2.5 to 3 percent,”
he said. The Western-oriented minister
did not elaborate on what he thought had
been foolish.
The central bank is now forecasting a
contraction next year of up to 4.8 percent, and independent economists expect
even worse. Never before has Putin ruled
in such grim economic conditions.
But Putin this week shrugged off the
difficulties, and for now, so have most of
his citizens. He has some reasons to gloat:
he seized Crimea without losing a soldier,
and the world has largely moved on from
expecting that Crimea will switch hands
again anytime soon.
The annexation of Crimea was wildly
popular in Russia, sending Putin’s
approval ratings to record highs. In
January, 65 percent of Russians held
positive views of him. By March, that
number stood at 80 percent, according to the independent Levada Center.
Putin’s ratings have stayed high — in part
because Russians have rallied around the
president in response to the imposition
of Western sanctions.
Under Putin, “for the first time in 100
years of Russian history, Russia was living
without an external threat,” said Sergey
Karaganov, a dean of international relations at the Higher School of Economics
in Moscow, who until last year advised
the Kremlin on foreign policy.
“In a way the sanctions have been
invited. To create an external threat, an
organizational principle, a nationalization
of the elites.”
And through the conflict in eastern
Ukraine, Putin maintains strong leverage
over that entire country. Ukraine may
not join Russia’s orbit, but its economy
is too war-ravaged to turn fully westward either. An EU leader, Jean-Claude
Juncker, said this week that Ukraine
needs $15 billion in additional aid — but
that the European Union would be able
to provide little of the money.
As pressure has intensified on Russia’s
economy, some of the most belligerent
language on Ukraine has dropped out
of Putin’s vocabulary. After October,
he stopped referring to “Novorossiya,”
a provocative term for the band of land
including eastern Ukraine that was once
part of the Russian Empire.
But by that point, he didn’t need to
remind anyone that parts of Ukraine
were bound to Russia. To that extent,
he had already won. “We’ve entered a
period of change. We’re at the very beginning of that, but I see big things facing
Russia,” said Dmitri Trenin, the head of
the Carnegie Moscow Center. “Stability
is not going to be a mark of the next few
WP-BLOOMBERG
years.”
Islamophobia and spread of Islam in Europe Stephen Colbert
BY DR MOHAMED KIRAT
arious international news
media outlets recently
reported
demonstrations in major European cities
denouncing the rapid spread of
Islam and demanding the departure of Muslims because they pose
a threat to the safety and security of European citizens. These
demonstrations, of course, were
preceded by political posturing by
the European nations themselves
whether it’s to build mosques or
prevent the niqab.
Hostility to Islam by political parties and politicians was
also seen on several occasions. In
Germany, for example, there have
been scores of anti-Islamic movements in recent years. They usually
begin by rejecting the building of a
mosque and then evolve into acts
of violence, clashes, and attacks
on individuals and the burning of
places of faith and prayer.
Islamophobia has, in recent
years, become a phenomenon that
threatens the status of Arab and
Muslim minorities in Western
countries. It also raises the problem of the relationship between
the majority and the minority in
democratic systems.
Islam is growing and spreading
day-after-day to be the religion of
the future in Britain, France and
several European countries. The
number of Muslims in the world
increased by 35pc during the last
twenty years reaching 1.6 billion in
2010. It is expected to exceed 2.2
billion in 2030. Projections indicate
that the number of Muslims in the
world in 2030 will be 26.4pc of the
world population.
Despite the attacks, threats
and intimidations against Islam
and Muslims, Islam has always
been expanding and proliferating,
V
Islam is growing and spreading
to be the religion of future in
Britain, France and several
European countries.
regardless of the accusations
against Muslims and despite linking Islam with terror, crimes and
barbarism.
The number of Muslims in
Europe is on the rise. Netherlands,
a country perceived to be most
against Islam in Europe, has seen
the conversion of 13,000 people to
Islam during the past 26 years.
Five hundred individuals embrace
the religion every year in Holland.
Islamophobia in Germany and the
threat of Nazi racists left positive results in favour of Islam as
the number of converts to Islam
in Germany since 1953, reached
43,000. The number of adherents
to Islam in Britain in the last ten
years has risen two-fold, indicating that it amounted to 100,000
people, and that the total Muslims
in Britain amounted to 2.7 million. Estimates suggest that the
number of Muslims in Britain
will double in 2030 to reach 5.6
million.
France, which is one of the
secular states that does not grant
Muslims freedoms, and with laws
that targeted the niqab and hijab,
saw the most pressure on Muslims
from Islamophobia.
Despite these pressures, France,
like other European countries has
failed to put an end to the spread
of Islam. There are 4,000 people
converting to Islam every year in
France, bringing the number of
Muslims in France to 5 million. In
1990, there were 109,000 Muslims
in Denmark; the number reached
226,000 in 2010. Spain, Ukraine
and Poland have also experienced
a rise in the number of Muslim
immigrants, and adherents to
Islam. Scandinavian countries
experienced as well an increase in
attacks against Muslims in recent
years.
Paradoxically, the spread of
Islam and the number of those
who converted to the faith has
also increased in these countries.
The European countries’ indifference to the Muslim presence
in the EU led to an increase in
the confrontation and the emergence of radical groups in both
communities.
This situation has extended
the problem to other less militant circles as a consequence of
the pressure exerted from different governments and the media.
They started to observe the new
climate of tension as a menace
to their particular interests. So,
the traditional European population have developed a general
rejection that has led Muslim
moderate sectors to defend their
own rights enhancing mutual
animosity.
Therefore, several factors
emerged and have contributed
to the creation of Islamophobia.
European governments have failed
to implement successful integration policies, and they didn’t start
applying them till the late nineties.
As a result, the Muslim population was marginalised and
lived in poor conditions for decades, because their presence was
rejected and not implemented in
the socio-economic and political programmes of European
governments. Thus, negligence
of the authorities allowed the
progressive dissemination of the
most traditionalist Islamic trends
that spread their anti-western
discourse among the Islamic
communities.
The emergence of this powerful
movement resulting in the appearance of several groups whose ideology were close to a distorted
interpretation of the sacred texts,
giving rise to radicalisation influenced by international jihadist
networks.
At the same time, the foreign
policy adopted by most European
countries towards Afghanistan,
Iraq war, and other Middle
Eastern countries, as well as
their position towards Palestine,
have contributed to fuelling the
confrontation. Consequently, the
fear has led the relevant sectors
of the European people to reject
everything related to Islam,
while the growing Muslim society continues to look for a place
in Europe. This complex problem has to be resolved. While
European secularism considers
Muslim lifestyles incompatible
with those of the Western world,
Muslims in Europe believe that
these differences are not a problem for their emancipation in the
so-called tolerant, free and democratic western nations.
The writer is a Professor of Public
Relations and Mass Communication
at the College of Arts and Sciences,
Qatar University.
THE PENINSULA
and millennials
BY ALEXANDRA PETRI
ay one thing about
Stephen Colbert: He certainly knew how to draw
a crowd.
That much was evident in
the Thursday finale of his show,
when the most bizarre and
wonderful assortment of people
turned out to sing “We’ll Meet
Again” — Randy Newman, Big
Bird, George Lucas (!), Alan
Alda, Arianna Huffington, Neil
deGrasse Tyson, Bill Clinton
(tweeting remotely), Jon
Stewart (of course).
I didn’t realise what a big generational end-of-an-era moment
this would feel like. But I should
have. “The Colbert Report” was
always a show for millennials.
That was clear the second we
stepped onto the Mall in 2010
for the Stewart-Colbert rally.
There were only two things
that my friends felt merited a
bus trek down to Washington:
President Obama’s 2009 inauguration and the Rally to Restore
Sanity and/or Fear.
You don’t realise what a fixture something is until it’s singing to you one last time. Colbert,
with “The Word” and “Better
Know a District” and his traditional presidential campaign,
had been there for the past nine
years — long enough for us to
grow up watching him. In 2010,
80 percent of his viewers were
in the coveted 18-to-49 demographic. With Obama’s election,
I remember hearing concerns
about whether Stewart and
Colbert, so long in the role of
S
class clowns, could successfully
move to a position more akin to
teacher’s pet. But in the years
since, “The Colbert Report” did
some of its most incisive work.
Colbert’s take on campaignfinance reform and super PAC
coordination was some of the
best stuff of the 2012 election.
A PRRI/Brookings survey
in 2014 found that “The Daily
Show” was more trusted than
MSNBC. But we weren’t actually getting our news from “The
Colbert Report” and “The Daily
Show.” Comedy Central, which
conducted a survey on millennials’ political habits, noted
that “When it comes to political comedy/satires, Millennials
don’t watch to get informed;
they watch because they are
informed.” We got our news
elsewhere, then tuned in to
laugh about it.
Now where do we turn?
There’s always Stewart, in his
role as Media Critic in Chief,
and John Oliver, continuing
in the If-We-Can-Make-ThisFunny-We-Can-Make-ThisInteresting footsteps. Yet it was
always interesting to see the
Colbert twist, and the model he
pioneered still feels vital.
Larry Wilmore’s upcoming
“Nightly Show” has promise, but
why not a woman next? We’ve
had a parody Bill O’Reilly —
what about a parody provocatrix
in the mould of Ann Coulter?
Whatever its form, we need
something. Colbert is gone, but
his “Report” is something I’m
not ready to do without.
WP-BLOOMBERG
12
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
MIDDLE EAST
Barzani hails
advances in
anti-IS battle
13 air strikes by US-led coalition
MOUNT
SINJAR:
Iraqi
Kurdish leader Massud Barzani
hailed advances by peshmerga
fighters against the Islamic
State group yesterday as they
battled the jihadists for a northern town with the backing of
US-led strikes.
Thousands of the autonomous
Kurdish region’s peshmerga
launched a major operation on
Wednesday which broke the second
IS siege this year of Mount Sinjar.
The Kurdish offensive threatens
the links between the city of Mosul,
the main IS stronghold in Iraq, and
territory the militants control in
neighbouring Syria.
“During the past 48 hours,
the peshmerga opened two main
routes to Mount Sinjar,” Barzani
said during a visit to Mount
Sinjar, adding: “We did not expect
to achieve all these victories.”
In addition to breaking through
to the mountain, “a large part of
the centre of the town of Sinjar
was also liberated,” he said of the
district’s main settlement to the
south. The Kurdish regional president said the peshmerga might join
an operation to retake Mosul itself.
“We will take part if the Iraqi
government asks us, and of course
we will have our conditions,” he
said, without specifying what
these might be. The Kurdistan
Regional Security Council said
yesterday that peshmerga forces
were advancing inside the town of
Sinjar, “engaging and suppressing
(IS) positions” with the support of
air strikes by international forces.
Explosives disposal teams also
cleared key roads north of Mount
Sinjar, it said. The US-led coalition said its forces launched 13 air
strikes against IS in northern and
western Iraq, including four near
Sinjar. IS spearheaded a sweeping
offensive that has overrun much
of Iraq’s Sunni Arab heartland
since June, presenting both an
opportunity for territorial expansion and an existential threat to
the country’s Kurdish region.
After pushing south towards
Baghdad, IS then turned its attention to the Kurds, forcing them
back towards their regional capital Arbil in a move that helped
spark US air strikes against the
jihadists.
Backed by the raids, which are
now being carried out by a coalition
of countries, Kurdish forces have
clawed back significant ground
from IS. The conflict seems set to
redraw the internal boundaries of
Iraq in favour of broader Kurdish
control in the north.
In his remarks on Mount Sinjar,
Barzani said: “We will not leave an
inch of the land of Kurdistan for
(IS), and we will strike (IS) in any
place it is located.”
IS began a major assault
on Saturday on the strategic
town of Baiji south of Mosul.
The province’s governor and an
army officer said the attack was
repulsed, while two other officers
said that pro-government forces
lost ground.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider
Al Abadi, meanwhile, travelled
to Kuwait for talks on the security situation among other issues,
his office said. The visit came just
days after the UN said Iraq could
delay payment of a final $4.6bn
in war reparations for its 1990
invasion of Kuwait due to the
“extraordinarily difficult security
circumstances”.
AFP
Members of Kurdish security forces ride in a vehicle at Mount Sinjar yesterday.
Iraq’s Shia fighters desert over food shortages
BAGHDAD: Abu Murtada Al
Moussawi answered the call last
summer from Iraq’s top Shia
cleric to help save the country
from the Islamic State group,
but after less than three months
on the front lines he and several
friends returned home because
they had run out of food.
“Sometimes, we didn’t have
enough money to buy mobile
scratch cards to call our families,” Al Moussawi, a Shia from
Basra, said. “Everybody felt like
we were being forgotten by the
government.”
Now Iraq’s Shia religious establishment is urging the faithful to
donate food, money and supplies.
The clerics hope to prevent a
repeat of last summer’s collapse
of Iraq’s demoralised army in the
face of the Islamic State group’s
lightning advance, which saw the
extremists capture the country’s
second largest city Mosul and
Iran festival
An Iranian man shops for watermelon in Tehran yesterday, in preparation for the annual festival of Yalda, an
ancient Zoroastrian rite held on the longest night of the year or the beginning of winter. Iranians traditionally
spend Yalda at home with their families, reciting poetry and feasting on fruits and nuts.
Turkey PM accuses EU of ‘dirty campaign’
ANKARA:
Turkish
Prime
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu yesterday accused the European
Union of starting a “dirty campaign” against Turkey by criticising the arrests of opponents of
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey’s already stalled membership bid to join the EU has suffered a further blow amid the row
with the 28-nation bloc over last
weekend’s raids on journalists,
scriptwriters and police.
Speaking at a congress of his
ruling party in Ankara, Davutoglu
lashed out at the EU for rushing
to issue a statement criticising
the raids last Sunday.
“The EU even made its statement on a holiday. With this
statement, they started a dirty
campaign concerning our government,” he told the congress.
“With this dirty campaign, they
are waging a defamation campaign against our government
and our country,” he added in
televised remarks.
EU foreign policy chief Federica
Mogherini and Enlargement
Commissioner Johannes Hahn had
issued an unusually harsh statement condemning the raids as
“incompatible with the freedom of
media”. The row has been bitter
as the pair were only in Turkey a
week before for talks seeking to
revive its membership bid.
Davutoglu reaffirmed his
insistence that the arrests were
not linked to freedom of the press
in any way. Erdogan has already
told the EU to “mind their own
business” over the controversy.
Speaking at a separate event
in the southern city of Antalya,
Turkish EU Minister Volkan
Bozkir said Ankara was not troubled by the prospect of the EU
rejecting Turkey. “If the EU allows
itself the luxury of not making
Turkey a member, if it makes this
wrong decision, then Turkey will
not care too much,” he said, quoted
by the Anatolia news agency.
He said Turkey categorically
rejected having a “studentteacher” relationship with the
European Union. Thirty people
were arrested in the raids last
Sunday against those deemed to
have links to Erdogan’s arch foe,
US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.
Most have now been released
but a court on Friday remanded in
custody on terrorism charges the
head of the pro-Gulen Samanyolu
TV and three former police chiefs.
It also issued an arrest warrant
for Gulen himself.
Davutoglu said the government
would “break the arm” of anyone
implicated in corruption. “We
are determined to break the arm
of anyone who approaches our
national treasures, our resources,
with the aim of corruption, even
if it is our brother,” he said. AFP
sweep south toward the capital.
Shortly after the June blitz
across northern Iraq, tens of
thousands of Shia men answered
a nationwide call-to-arms by the
top Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah
Ali Al Sistani. Many volunteers
came from the country’s most
impoverished areas and were
barely able to make ends meet
even before taking up arms.
The Shia fighters are credited
with helping to stall the militants’ advance outside Baghdad,
breaking the siege of the northern Shia-majority town of Amirli
in August, and later driving the
militants out of Jurf Al Sakher
south of the capital.
Al Moussawi was deployed
along with fellow militiamen in
Latifiyah, a town 30km south of
Baghdad, with orders to keep the
Islamic State group out of Sunni
areas along the so-called Baghdad
Belt. But over the past two
months, the number of men in
Al Moussawi’s unit has dwindled,
with as many as 1,000 deserting
over economic hardship, he said.
In the upscale Baghdad neighborhood of Harthiya, a representative from Al Sistani’s office
recently urged his followers to
donate food and money to the
militias — warning that many
fighters had already deserted.
He said that instead of spending
money on cooking the traditional
large meals to mark a recent holiday, Shias should instead donate
to front-line militiamen. Since
then, donations of money, clothing and food have begun pouring
into the local Shia mosque and
charity office.
In Sadr City, desperately-needed
ammunition is being purchased
through donations by wealthy
Shias. The drive to send weapons
to the fighters has pushed the price
of a single bullet from 40 cents to
Egyptian jailed
for 10 years for
spying for Israel
Turkish TV show fined
$177,000 over stunt
CAIRO: An Egyptian court
has jailed a Suez Canal shipping services manager for 10
years on charges of spying for
Israel about naval movements
through the strategic waterway,
state media reported.
The court in the canal city
of Port Said also handed down
life sentences in absentia to two
Israelis it found guilty of being the
Egyptian’s handlers, the official
MENA news agency reported.
The court found that Mohamed
Ali Abdel Baki had passed on
information damaging to national
security about the movements of
Egyptian and foreign warships,
particularly Iranian ones.
Abdel Baki had also divulged
detailed information to his handlers about Port Said and its management, the court heard.
He had first made contact with
the Israeli security services over
the Internet in 2011 and met the
two Israelis convicted of being
his handlers at the embassy in
Bangkok the following year.
Prosecutors charged that in
addition to spying for Israel, Abdel
Baki had also offered to provide
similar information about naval
movements and deployments to
its regional foes Iran, Syria and
Hezbollah.
AFP
ISTANBUL: Turkey’s television
regulator has handed a record
fine to a popular game show for
a segment where husbands were
filmed dancing with other women
as their wives looked on, reports
said yesterday.
The game show, “I Don’t Know,
My Spouse Knows” was fined
410,000 Turkish lira ($177,000) by
the Radio and Television Supreme
Council (RTUK) which has come
under fire in recent months for a
number of stern rulings.
The regulator said in its ruling
that the episode was “contrary to
public morality and the Turkish
family structure”, the Hurriyet
daily reported.
In the offending show, broadcast in November, the husbands
were shown dancing with other
women — said to be foreigners —
while the horrified reactions of
their wives was also shown in a
split screen.
The four wives appeared aghast
as they watched their husbands
— who danced with little inhibition — with one asking a fellow
contestant if the stunt was a joke.
When it became clear it was
not, their reactions were even
more grave. One of the wives,
Seval, said: “I am going to kill
him!” When the husbands rejoined
about $2, while an AK-47 is now
sold for $800 compared to just $350
a few months ago.
Hassan Saleh, owner of a cafe
in Sadr City, took part in battles against the IS group north
of Baghdad in September. But
he and his fellow militiamen
never received any financial support from the government and
depended completely on donations and their own money to
meet their daily needs, he said. In
early October, he returned home
to look after his family.
“The government’s negligence
toward us has created bitterness
among the volunteer fighters risking their lives in order to protect
the country,” he said.
“We did not receive any salary,
while the government is continuing to pay the salaries of the
soldiers and the policemen who
abandoned their positions without
fighting in June.”
AP
the main studio she wagged her
finger and told her spouse: “You
are finished!”
RTUK said the show, broadcast
by the popular private channel
Kanal D, had “encouraged men
to cheat on their wives and provided an environment to disturb
the family peace”. It added that
women in the programme had
been “reduced to sexual objects”.
Its ruling came amid growing complaints by the opposition of a moral clampdown in
Turkey’s officially secular society
under President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, a pious Muslim. “People
are allowed to dance with each
other,” Suleyman Demirkan, a
lawmaker for the main opposition
Republican People’s Party (CHP)
told Hurriyet.
“By considering this ‘against
family values’ our friends in the
RTUK are trying to impose their
ideas of lifestyle,” he added.
But the head of RTUK, Davut
Dursun, said there was much in
the show that had stepped over
the limit. “We made the decision
that the show was not in line with
the concept of the family,” he told
Hurriyet, adding it looked “ugly”
that couples had been made to feel
uncomfortable with each other.
AFP
Egypt replaces intelligence chief
CAIRO: Egypt’s intelligence
chief, who took office in mid-2013
after the overthrow of Islamist
president Mohamed Mursi, has
been retired from the job, the
presidency said yesterday.
No reason was given in a
statement for the departure of
Mohamed Farid Al Tohamy, who
had been a consistent advocate
of the fierce security crackdown
on Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
The state-run news portal Al
Ahram said Tohamy, who is in his
60s, was retired for health reasons.
Khaled Fawzy, a senior official in
the intelligence agency, will temporarily assume Tohamy’s duties, the
presidential statement said.
“President Abdel Fattah Al
Sisi has issued a decree to retire
Mohamed Farid (Al Tohamy),
head of general intelligence, and
issued a decree awarding him the
Order of the Republic of the first
degree in recognition of his efforts
throughout his career,” it said.
Sisi previously served with
Tohamy in military intelligence
and as army chief orchestrated
Mursi’s ouster after mass protests
against his rule.
REUTERS
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
INTERNATIONAL
13
Shock, anger in NY after cops slain
NYPD officers pay homage; Obama ‘unconditionally’ condemns killing
NEW YORK: New York was
reeling yesterday after the murder of two uniformed cops by a
man who said he was seeking
revenge for the recent killings of
unarmed black men by police.
The two officers, Wenjian Liu,
32, Rafael Ramos, 40, were shot in
the head through the window of
their patrol car in broad daylight
in Brooklyn late on Saturday in
an attack that shocked America’s
biggest city just days before
Christmas.
Police named the shooter as
28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley,
allegedly a member of the “Black
Guerrilla Family” gang. He fled to
a nearby subway station after the
attack, where he shot himself in
the head on the platform.
The two officers “never had the
opportunity to draw their weapons. They may never have actually
even seen their assailant, their
murderer” said New York police
chief Bill Bratton.
Just hours before the shooting,
Brinsley apparently boasted on
Instagram of wanting to kill cops.
“They Take 1 of Ours... Let’s
Take 2 of Theirs,” read a comment seemingly written by
Brinsley next to a photo of a silver
handgun, referencing the police
killings of unarmed blacks.
By yesterday, candles and flowers had piled up at an impromptu
memorial at the scene of the
shooting. Mayor Bill de Blasio
and police chief Bratton somberly attended a mass at Saint
Patrick’s cathedral in New York
led by Cardinal Tim Dolan.
But the double-killing, in a city
where murders are at their lowest
UKIP issues
online rules
after gaffes
LONDON: UK Independence
Party (UKIP), the British antiEuropean Union party, has
ordered a crackdown on the
use of social media by supporters and members following a
series of controversies.
Recent incidents include
UKIP
c andidate
William
Henwood tweeting the suggestion that black comedian Lenny
Henry does “not have to live with
whites” and could emigrate and
Andre Lampitt, the star of the
party’s 2014 European elections
broadcast, calling Islam “evil”
and saying that Africans should
“kill themselves”.
Last week, possible parliamentary candidate Kerry Smith
quit after leaked recordings of
him describing gay people as
“disgusting old poofters” and
a Chinese person as “chinky”
emerged online.
A new party constitution,
approved by the national executive council and published in
Sunday’s Observer newspaper,
promises a harder line on web discipline, and the ability to suspend
anyone should they “embarrass”
the party.
“Party members shall refrain
from using the UKIP logo in
terms of their online postings,
including avatars, unless they
have express written consent
to do so from the party leader,
the party chairman, the party
secretary, the general secretary,
the party director, the regional
chairman or regional organiser
for their region,” it reads.
UKIP
chairman
Steve
Crowther recently wrote that
the party had adopted a new
set of rules “to fill a notable
hole in our code of discipline”.
“My advice: Just don’t,” he said
of members thinking of joining
social media.
“Remember life before you
could delight the whole world
with your every passing thought?
It wasn’t so bad, was it? I have no
Facebook page, Twitter account
or Instagram thingy. It’s lovely,”
he added.
The party recently claimed
its first two members of parliament, and is threatening to
lure voters away from the main
parties at next year’s general
election.
AFP
A picture provided by New York City Police Department shows officers Wenjian Liu (left) and Rafael Ramos (centre)
who were murdered. Police named the shooter as 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley (right). BELOW: A man pauses at a
memorial to the two officers in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighbourhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
rates in 20 years, further strained
the already fraught relations
between de Blasio and police.
A number of officers, in apparent homage to their slain colleagues, turned their backs to
the mayor at the hospital on
Saturday night. Police officers
accuse de Blasio of failing to support them and of being too sympathetic to demonstrators who,
in recent weeks, have been protesting police violence against
African-Americans.
In July, Eric Garner, an
unarmed father of six, died after
police held him in a chokehold
while he was being arrested for
selling individual cigarettes illegally in New York.
Michael Brown, an 18-yearold in the Ferguson suburb of St
Louis, Missouri, was shot dead by
a police officer in August, sparking months of protests.
Grand jury decisions not to
indict either white officer responsible triggered mass protests in
New York and other US cities.
“Mayor de Blasio... the blood of
these two officers is clearly on
German accident
your hands,” said Edward Mullins,
president of the Sergeants
Benevolent Association of some
11,000 active or retired New York
police officers.
Earlier this month, there was
even an online petition in which
police asked the mayor not to
attend their funerals if they died
in the line of duty.
The former Republican governor of New York, George Pataki,
also condemned “these barbaric
acts,” which he said were the
“predictable outcome of divisive
anti-cop rhetoric of #ericholder &
#mayordeblasio #NYPD.” Holder
is the US attorney general.
De Blasio responded yesterday, calling it “unfortunate that
in a time of great tragedy, some
would resort to irresponsible,
overheated rhetoric that angers
and divides people”.
And a number of voices called
for calm and for unity, including
US President Barack Obama, who
on Saturday “unconditionally”
condemned the killing, and called
on Americans “to reject violence
and words that harm, and turn to
words that heal”.
The families of Garner and
Brown also strongly urged against
“any kind of violence directed
toward members of law enforcement. It cannot be tolerated.
We must work together to bring
peace to our communities.”
And Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams also stressed
that responsibility lay first and
foremost with the shooter.
“Blood is not on the hands of the
mayor. The blood is on the hands
of the sick person who took the
life of two innocent police officers.” Baltimore police on Saturday
had tried to warn their New York
counterparts of Brinsley’s plans,
but it was too late.
TAMPA: A veteran Florida
police officer was shot and
killed while on duty early yesterday, law enforcement officials
said, providing no details about
the suspect in custody or motive
for the shooting.
Officer Charles Kondek, 45,
was gunned down in Tarpon
Springs, about 30 miles northwest of Tampa, after responding
to a call for service around 0700
GMT, the Tarpon Springs Police
Department said. The officer later
died of his injuries at a local hospital, the police department said.
A suspect was taken into custody after fleeing the shooting
scene and crashing into a pole
and another vehicle, the Pinellas
County Sheriff’s Office said. Police
officials did not identify the suspect
or give any information about the
type of call Kondek had responded
to ahead of the shooting.
Kondek served on the Tarpon
Springs police force for more than
17 years and previously worked as
an officer for the New York City
Police Department, officials said.
AFP
REUTERS
Florida police
officer killed
Obama vows to ‘do everything
he can’ to close Guantanamo
Police officials investigating the site of a car accident on Autobahn
38, close to Allstedt, Germany, yesterday. Three people were killed
and two injured. According to the police, two cars collided between
access point Eisleben and Allstedt. Shortly before the accident, other
drivers had reported a car driving on the wrong side.
WASHINGTON: US President
Barack Obama said in a TV
interview that he will do “everything I can” to close the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, after four Afghan detainees held there were sent home.
Obama promised to shut the
internationally condemned prison
when he took office nearly six
years ago, saying it was damaging America’s image around the
world. But he has been unable to
do so, partly because of obstacles
posed by the US Congress.
“I’m going to be doing everything
I can to close it,” Obama said on
CNN’s “State of the Union with
Candy Crowley,” programme in an
interview taped on Friday. “It is
something that continues to inspire
jihadists and extremists around the
world, the fact that these folks are
being held,” he said.
“It is contrary to our values
and it is wildly expensive. We’re
spending millions for each individual there. And we have drawn
down the population there significantly,” he added.
TIES WITH CUBA
Obama said his plan to normalise relations with Cuba gives the
Sony hack ‘not an act of war’
Greek PM offers early polls
ATHENS:
Greek
Prime
Minister
Antonis
Samaras
yesterday offered to hold early
elections in late 2015 to clinch
a crucial presidential vote next
week that could affect the country’s economic future.
“We can find the proper timeframe for national elections, even
at the end of 2015”, provided a
president is elected and crunch
EU-IMF loan talks are concluded,
Samaras said in a nationally televised address.
“It is a national duty, and common sense also dictates, that we
(first) conclude negotiations with
the (EU-IMF) creditors,” Samaras
Officer Charles Kondek
said. Upcoming votes in parliament
to elect a successor to President
Karolos Papoulias, whose term
ends in March, look likely to end in
a stalemate which would automatically spark early elections.
Parliament last week fell 40
votes short of the required 200
to elect the government’s candidate for president, former EU
Environment Commissioner
Stavros Dimas. Parliament will
vote again on Tuesday when 200
votes are again required in the
300-seat chamber. Should that
also fail, a third and final vote
requiring 180 votes would be held
on December 29.
AFP
WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama moved to prevent US anger at North Korea from spiraling out of control yesterday by saying the massive hacking of Sony Pictures was not
an act of war but instead was cyber-vandalism.
The hack attack and subsequent threats of violence against theaters showing the film prompted Sony to withdraw a comedy The
Interview prepared for release to movie theatres during the holiday
season. Obama put the hack in the context of a crime.
“No, I don’t think it was an act of war,” he told CNN’s “State
of the Union with Candy Crowley” show. “I think it was an act of
cyber vandalism that was very costly, very expensive. We take it
very seriously. We will respond proportionately.”
Obama said one option was to return North Korea to the U.S. list
of state sponsors of terrorism, from which Pyongyang was removed
six years ago. At a time when so much information is digitized, “both
state and non-state actors are going to have the capacity to disrupt
our lives in all sorts of ways,” he said. “We have to do a much better job of guarding against that. We have to treat it like we would
treat, you know, the incidence of crime, you know, in our countries.”
REUTERS
US a chance to influence events at
an important moment of change
for the communist nation, and
he brushed off critics who accuse
him of kowtowing to dictators.
Obama said a half-century of
trying to push out the Castro government through isolation has not
worked. He said his administration is taking a look at whether to
remove Cuba from the US list of
state sponsors of terror, acknowledging that Havana’s inclusion
makes it difficult for the US to
pursue closer ties.
“If we engage, we have the opportunity to influence the course of
events at a time when there’s going
to be some generational change in
that country,” Obama told CNN’s
“State of the Union” in an interview. “And I think we should seize
it and I intend to do so.”
Obama’s move to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba elicited
cheers from longtime opponents
of the strict US position toward
Cuba. Obama said it’s wrong to
accuse him of letting dictators
outmanoeuvre him, citing Russian
President Vladimir Putin as an
example. After all, Russia’s currency is now collapsing under the
weight of US and European penalties, he pointed out.
“There is this knee-jerk sense,
I think, on the part of some in
the foreign policy establishment
that, you know, shooting first and
thinking about it second projects
strength,” Obama said.
AGENCIES
France probes possible lone wolf attack on police
JOUE-LES-TOURS: France yesterday probed a suspected ‘radical Islamist’
attack on police that left two officers
seriously injured and the assailant dead,
prompting security to be stepped up at
police and fire stations nationwide.
Bertrand Nzohabonayo was shot dead on
Saturday after entering a police station in
the central town of Joue-les-Tours armed
with a knife, seriously wounding two officers — slashing one in the face — and hurting another. “The investigation is leading
towards an attack... motivated by radical
Islamist motives,” said a source close to
the probe, which is being carried out by
anti-terror investigators from the Paris
prosecutor’s office.
The assailant, a French national born
in Burundi in 1994, cried “Allahu Akbar”
(“God is great”) during the assault, added
the source. Local prosecutor Jean-Luc
Beck said investigators would seek to
determine whether “he acted alone or if
he acted on orders”, adding that none of
the three injured police officers were in
critical condition.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve,
who rushed to the scene of the attack on
Saturday, said he had ordered “security
measures to be stepped up” for police personnel and firefighters across the country.
Nzohabonayo had previously committed
petty offences but was not on a domestic
intelligence watch-list although his brother
is known for his radical views and once
pondered going to Syria, the source said.
He is currently abroad, another source said.
On Thursday, Nzohabonayo posted the
flag of the radical Islamic State group as
his profile picture on a Facebook page identified as his by several experts on jihadist groups. But paradoxically, he also liked
a page called “Islamic State in Iraq: Not
in my name”, for Muslims that “refuse to
be associated” with violence waged by the
group in Iraq and Syria.
Photos circulating on social networks
showed a smiling man with a shaved head
and black beard. One of his former sports
teachers said he was a quiet, reserved boy.
“When he arrived at the football club
from the Paris region, he was around 16
or 17,” said the teacher, who asked not
to named. “He wanted to be the referee,
which is unusual at that age. He was
devoted to justice.” Several people near
his sister’s flat in a poor part of town
refused to believe the attack was spurred
by radical Islamist motives.
“That’s not what our town is about.
We have managed to install dialogue and
understanding between communities,” said
Ahmed Moussaoui, a retired man who
heads up a local association. The mayor of
the 36,000-strong town said the incident
was a “real shock for all residents”. “It’s
an isolated act in a peaceful town,” said
Frederic Augis.
AFP
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
14
US seeks China help
against hacking
ASIA / PHILIPPINES
Fishing boats destroyed
Bid to crack down on Pyongyang’s cyber-warfare operations
BEIJING: The US government
has reportedly asked China to
help block North Korea’s ability to launch cyber-attacks, in
the wake of the massive hack of
Sony Pictures.
Administration officials told
the New York Times the soughtfor cooperation was one of the
first steps toward the “proportional response” President Barack
Obama promised on Friday in his
first comments on the fiasco.
“What we are looking for is a
blocking action, something that
would cripple their efforts to
carry out attacks,” an official told
the Times.
China’s cooperation would
be essential to any attempt to
crack down on North Korea’s
cyber-warfare operations, as the
country’s telecommunications
run through Chinese-operated
networks.
Whether China will agree to
help remains to be seen, as tensions have been high between
the two countries over issues of
cyber security. In May, the Justice
Department brought charges
against five Chinese army personnel, accusing them of orchestrating hacks into US companies
including Alcoa and US Steel.
China responded, calling the
accusations “’extremely ridiculous” and ending bilateral talks
on cybersecurity.
A senior US administration
official said that during discussions on Internet security both the
US and China had “expressed the
view that conducting destructive
Seoul prosecutors probe data
leak at nuclear power plants
SEOUL: Seoul prosecutors have launched an investigation into a
leak of non-critical data at South Korea’s nuclear power operator,
the prosecutors’ office said yesterday, as worries mount about
nuclear safety and potential cyberattacks from North Korea.
An official with the prosecutors’ office confirmed media reports
that they had traced the location of an IP address linked to the leak
and had dispatched investigators to the site. She said she could not
comment further on the case while an investigation was under way,
including on whether North Korea might be behind the leak.
Diagrams of several of South Korea’s 23 nuclear reactors have
been posted on a Twitter account since the data leak last week,
which included employees’ personal records, blueprints of nuclear
plant equipment, electricity flow charts and estimates of radiation
exposure among local residents. There was no evidence, however,
that the nuclear control systems were hacked.
Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co Ltd (KHNP), operator of the
nuclear plants and part of state-run utility Korea Electric Power
Corp, said it had stepped up its monitoring and was on a heightened
level of alert for cyberattacks. “We are making utmost efforts, working closely with the government to assess the data leak at certain
nuclear power plants, which adds to social unease,” KHNP said. It
said that it will conduct large-scaled drills at four nuclear power
REUTERS
plant complexes against cyber attacks.
attacks in cyberspace is outside
the norms of appropriate cyber
behaviour”.
The United States has dismissed
a call by North Korea for a joint
investigation into the hacking of
Sony Pictures. Washington blames
North Korea for a breach of cyber
security at Sony which led to the
release of embarrassing emails and
prompted executives to halt the
release of “The Interview”.
Pyongyang has repeatedly
denied that it was behind last
month’s crippling attack, which
also led to the leaking of scripts,
and called on Saturday for a
joint probe with the US. But US
National Security Council spokesman Mark Stroh said: “If the
North Korean government wants
to help, they can admit their culpability and compensate Sony for
the damages this attack caused.”
The FBI blamed North Korea,
saying attackers used malware to
break into the studio and render
thousands of Sony Pictures computers inoperable, forcing the
company to take its entire network offline. It said analysis of the
software tools which were used
revealed links to other malware
known to have been developed by
“North Korean actors”.
The FBI also cited “significant
overlap” between the attack and
other “malicious cyber-activity” with
direct links to Pyongyang, including
an attack on South Korean banks
carried out by the North.
Despite denying the attack,
the North’s top military body the
National Defence Commission has
slammed Sony for “abetting a terrorist act while hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership”,
according to KCNA. Chinese state
newspaper the Global Times has
also criticised the movie, describing it as “senseless cultural arrogance” in an editorial.
THE GUARDIAN/AFP
South Korea
halts US poultry
imports due to
bird flu in US
SEOUL: South Korea has suspended imports of US poultry
and poultry products because
of an outbreak of bird flu in the
United States, the Agriculture
Ministry said in a statement
yesterday.
The suspension, from Saturday,
comes as South Korea is struggling to contain its own outbreak
of bird flu in birds.
“This import suspension is a
quarantine measure to prevent
the HPAI virus from entering the
country,” the ministry statement
said, referring to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)
virus.
The ministry said 18 countries
including South Korea had been
hit by the HPAI virus this year.
South Korea has had no human
cases.
Avian flu is an infectious viral
disease of birds. Most bird flu
viruses do not infect humans, but
some have caused serious infections in humans.
Two strains of avian influenza — H5N2 and H5N8 — have
been confirmed in wild birds in
Washington state, near the US
border with Canada, but there
was no immediate cause for public
health concerns, US agriculture
officials said on Wednesday.
Neither virus has been found in
US commercial poultry.
South Korea’s imports from
the United States in the first
11 months of the year included
63,245 tonnes of poultry meat
and 264,000 chicks, according to
ministry data.
The ministry said the import
suspension would not cause a
shortage as domestic poultry
meat supply is projected to rise
by 17.5 percent to 67,000 tonnes
this month from a year earlier on
top of 9,000 tonnes in inventory.
REUTERS
Two foreign flagged fishing boats registered in Papua New Guinea are destroyed by the Indonesian Navy
yesterday after they were seized for illegal fishing off the coast of Ambon, Maluku.
N Korea faces UN Council scrutiny
UNITED NATIONS: North
Korea
comes
under
scrutiny today at the UN Security
Council in the first-ever meeting on its dismal rights record,
amid calls for Pyongyang to be
referred to the International
Criminal Court.
Until now, the top UN body has
focused on North Korea’s nuclear
program as a security threat, but
the scope has widened to human
rights following the release of a
UN commission of inquiry report.
US Ambassador Samantha
Power said the UN report released
in February confirmed that “the
human rights violations in North
Korea are among the worst in the
world. They are widespread. They
are systematic.”
“And — given the threat they
pose to peace and security —
they have been going on outside
the scrutiny of the UN Security
Council for far too long.”
Ten of the 15 council members pushed for North Korea to
be put on the agenda, but Russia
and China argued that rights concerns should be addressed at the
UN Human Rights Council, and
not the Security Council. China is
expected to again raise objections
at the meeting today.
“The Security Council is not
the right place to discuss human
rights issues, and to refer human
rights issues to the International
Criminal Court will by no means
solve the problems,” said Chinese
foreign ministry spokesman Qin
Gang.
Under UN procedures, North
Korea can attend the council
meeting and voice its views, but
it has decided to stay away. “We
cannot recognize the Security
Council meeting. Its mandate is
not human rights,” said political counselor Kim Song from the
North Korean mission at the UN.
“We will not attend,” he said.
The UN General Assembly put
the international spotlight on
North Korea when it adopted a
landmark resolution on Thursday
calling on the Security Council
to consider referring North
Korea to the ICC for crimes
against humanity. The resolution, approved by a vote of 116
to 20 with 53 abstentions, draws
heavily from the findings of the
UN inquiry that detailed a vast
network of prison camps, torture,
summary executions and rape.
But diplomats agree the council is unlikely to follow up on the
resolution, with China widely
expected to veto an ICC referral
for North Korea. Today, two top
UN officials for political affairs
and human rights will brief the
council.
“It marks the first time human
rights in North Korea will be formally discussed at the Security
Council. It reflects the international community’s overwhelming appetite to see the devastating
crimes catalogued by the commission of inquiry addressed.”
AFP
10 years on, tsunami warning stumbles at the ‘last mile’
BANGKOK: In April 2012,
Indonesia’s Banda Aceh, the
city worst hit by the tsunami
that killed at least 226,000 people on Boxing Day 10 years ago,
received a terrifying reminder
of how unprepared it was for
the next disaster.
As an 8.6-magnitude quake
struck at sea, thousands of residents shunned purpose-built
shelters and fled by car and
motorcycle, clogging streets with
traffic. A network of powerful
warning sirens stayed silent.
No wave came. But if it had,
the damage would have been
“worse than 2004, if it was the
same magnitude of tsunami”,
said Harkunti Rahayu, from
Indonesia’s Bandung Institute of
Technology.
As the 10th anniversary of the
disaster approaches, experts and
officials say weaknesses remain
across the region in a system
designed to warn people and get
them to safety.
For millions in coastal areas,
warnings don’t always get
through, thanks to bureaucratic
confusion and geography. In the
most vulnerable areas, infrastructure is wanting, and many
lack the basic knowledge to keep
themselves safe from the deadly
waves.
Since the disaster, a sophisticated early warning system has
sprouted from next to nothing,
costing over $400m across 28
countries.
With 101 sea-level gauges, 148
seismometers and nine buoys, the
Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning
System can send alerts to countries’ tsunami warning centres
within 10 minutes of a quake,
Tony Elliott, the head of the
UNESCO secretariat that oversees the system, said.
Festival of Lights
Spectators watch the Festival of Lights displays along a financial district in Makati city, Metro Manila, yesterday. Filipinos are known for celebrating Christmas the longest by playing yuletide songs on local radio stations and at malls as early as November until the observance of the Three Kings in the first week of January.
But there has also been mismanagement and waste. In
Indonesia, a German-funded
detection initiative built an
expensive network of buoys —
and then scrapped them — after
reports of cost overruns and signs
they were ineffective.
Elliott said technological
advances mean the lack of buoys
is not a significant impediment in
tsunami detection.
A far bigger concern is getting
warnings to at-risk coastal communities, and making sure people
get to safety in time.
In some of the countries worst
affected in 2004 — Thailand,
Indonesia and India — much
progress has been made, officials
said. But concerns remain about
this final, crucial stage.
The 2012 failure in Aceh
prompted a reassessment in
Thailand, where 5,395 people died
in 2004, said Somsak Khaosuwan,
head of Thailand’s National
Disaster Warning Centre.
Samit Thammasarot, a former
head of the agency, was more
damning. “If a tsunami happened
today, would we be prepared? No,
we would not,” Samit said.
REUTERS
Distance learning law
signed in Philippines
BAGUIO CITY: Formal education is just a click away. Online
courses are now accepted as
formal education with the signing of the distance learning law.
Authored by Baguio Rep
Nicasio Aliping Jr and signed
by President Benigno Aquino on
December 9, Republic Act 10650
has institutionalised distance
education as a mode of delivery of
open learning. Distance education
is a mode of delivering instruction, often on an individual basis,
to students who are not physically
present in a traditional setting
such as a classroom.
Aliping noted that students
who have no means to attend formal schools are hesitant to enrol
in distance learning programs,
fearing that courses offered
through these programmes will
not be acceptable to companies.
But he said students need
not worry anymore because RA
10650 has institutionalised distance learning. “This law applies
to public and private Higher
Education Institutions (HEIs)
that have existing open learning
and distance education programs,
and prospectively, other higher
education institutions that will
be authorised as qualified implementers of open learning and
distance education programmes,”
said Aliping, vice chair of the
House committee on higher and
technical education.
RA 10650 mandates the
Commission on Higher Education
to assist HEIs in developing their
capability to offer open learning
distance education programs.
“It (also) mandates the
University of the Philippines to
lead in the development of the
open distance learning and design
model curricular programs that
will serve as prototype programs
to be implemented by other higher
educational institutions,” Aliping
added. Several private schools are
already providing distance learning through correspondence and
online courses.
THE PHILIPPINE STAR
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
PAKISTAN / AFGHANISTAN
15
Pakistan executes four more militants
Hangings come amid massive protests by citizens across the country against killing of students by Taliban
PESHAWAR: Thousands of
Pakistanis yesterday mourned
the 149 people — mainly children — massacred by the
Taliban, as the government
executed four more militants on
death row despite an outcry by
rights groups.
After the attack, Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif ended a
six-year moratorium on the death
penalty, reinstating it for terrorism-related cases with the first
executions of two militants taking
place on Friday.
Four more were hanged in
the eastern city of Faisalabad
yesterday.
Pakistan
has
described
Tuesday’s bloody rampage as
its own “mini 9/11”, calling it a
game-changer in the fight against
extremism.
Men, women and children from
Peshawar and other cities visited
the army-run institution to offer
prayers for those killed in the
country’s deadliest-ever terror
attack.
Flowers, bouquets, placards
and lighted candles were placed
in front of photos of murdered
students.
Masons laid bricks and poured
cement to raise the height of the
wall around the Army Public
School as mourners chanted slogans such as “Death to terrorists”, “Long live Pakistan army”,
“The blood of martyrs will not go
waste” and “Taliban are savages”.
“What kind of a person can
kill a child?” asked local resident
Imdad Hussain.
“What kind of justice is this,
what kind of Islam is this?” he
asked, urging the government
swiftly to wipe out terrorists.
A local woman, her face covered
with a shawl, said parents had
thought their sons and daughters
would be safe in school. But now
they believed their children were
not safe anywhere.
“First they attacked mosques,
then markets and now they have
started attacking schools. We
cannot tolerate this. We can die,
but we will not let our children be
killed,” she said.
Shugufta Bibi, 28, told AFP her
friend lost his son in Tuesday’s
attack and she had come to pay
respects to his memory.
“I demand that the government
close in on the terrorists and hang
them in public,” Bibi said.
The city’s Christian community will cancel Christmas celebrations and will just hold a
service on December 25, said the
Rev Patrick John of All Saints
Church.
The two militants hanged
Friday in the central province
of Punjab were Aqil, convicted
of an attack on army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009, and
Arshad Mehmood — sentenced
for involvement in a 2003 assassination bid on former military
ruler Pervez Musharraf.
Ghulam Sarwar, Zubair Ahmed,
Akhlaq Ahmed and Rashid Tipu
were hanged yesterday in the
same prison for the attempted
assassination.
Pakistan’s decision to reinstate
Supporters of political party Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) hold signs condemning the attack by Taliban gunmen on the Army Public School in Peshawar,
during a rally in Lahore yesterday.
executions was slammed by
human rights groups, with the
United Nations also calling for it
to reconsider.
Human Rights Watch on
Saturday termed the executions
“a craven politicised reaction
to the Peshawar killings” and
demanded that no further hangings be carried out.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister
Chaudhry Nisar said some 300
suspects had been arrested from a
suburb of Islamabad, and around
4,000 intelligence based raids
made across Pakistan in the latest crackdown.
Nisar said a joint working
Roadside blast, Taliban attack kill 14 in Afghanistan
KUNAR: A roadside bomb and
a Taliban attack on a police post
have killed 14 people including
children in Afghanistan, officials said yesterday.
Seven civilians died when a
bomb hit a pickup truck travelling from Asadabad, the capital
of the eastern province of Kunar,
to Nari district near the border
with Pakistan on Saturday.
“Last evening a pickup truck,
with women and children onboard,
was blown up by a roadside bomb,
that killed seven people including
two little girls,” Nari police chief
Mohammad Yousuf told AFP.
He blamed the Taliban for the
blast, which also left three women
wounded.
Mohammad Rahman Danish,
the district chief of Nari, confirmed the incident, part of worsening violence as US-led foreign
combat troops leave Afghanistan
after 13 years of fighting.
There was no immediate claim
of responsibility for the blast, but
roadside bombs are the Taliban’s
weapon of choice in their battle against Afghan and foreign
forces. The bombs also increasingly kill and wound civilians. A
UN report released on Friday
said 3,188 civilians had been
killed and 6,429 injured as of the
end of November.
The United Nations Assistance
Mission in Afghanistan report
warned that civilian casualties
were expected to exceed 10,000 by
the end of the year, making it the
deadliest year for non-combatants
since the organisation began issuing its reports in 2009.
Compared to 2013, this year
saw a 33 percent rise in casualties
among children and a 12 percent
increase among women.
The Taliban were accountable
for 75 percent of all civilian casualties, the report said.
Casualties among Afghan
troops and police have also soared
as they rather than foreign troops
bear the brunt of the fighting.
More than 4,600 were killed in
the first 10 months of this year.
In northern Afghanistan
Saturday, seven police were
killed and about a dozen wounded
when some 200 Taliban fighters attacked their post in the
Qushtapa area of Jawzjan province, provincial police spokesman
Ahmad Farid Azizi told AFP.
“We asked for air support from
Nato, but they didn’t come. After
hours of fighting the police were
finally overpowered and lost their
lives,” he said.
Nato’s combat mission will end
on December 31.
A follow-up mission of about
12,500 US-led Nato troops will
stay on to train and support
Afghan security forces.
AFP
So many Santas!
Pakistani Christian children dressed as Santa Claus pose during a Christmas peace rally in Karachi yesterday.
Afghan police officers attend their graduation ceremony in Kabul yesterday.
Afghan govt sites
‘hit by malware’
WASHINGTON:
Malicious
software likely linked to China
is being used to infect visitors to
a wide range of official Afghan
government websites, US cybersecurity researchers say.
ThreatConnect, a Virginiabased cybersecurity firm, said
its researchers last week found
a corrupted JavaScript file that
is being used to host content on
“gov.af ” websites, and there are
no antivirus protections available
for the malware.
Rich Barger, chief intelligence officer of ThreatConnect,
told Reuters his company was
confident the new campaign,
“Operation Poisoned Helmand,”
was linked to the “Poisoned
Hurricane” campaign detected
this summer by another security
firm, FireEye, that linked it to
Chinese intelligence.
He said the latest attack was
very recent and one timestamp
associated with the Java file was
from December 16, the same
day Chinese Prime Minister Li
Keqiang visited Afghanistan
to meet with Afghanistan’s
chief executive officer, Abdullah
Abdullah.
China is seeking to take a more
active role in Afghanistan as the
United States and Nato reduce
their military presence.
“We found continued activity
from Chinese specific actors that
have used the Afghan government infrastructure as an attack
platform,” Barger said, noting
that Chinese intelligence could
use the malware to reach a wide
array of global targets checking
trusted Afghan government sites
for information.
Barger said the attack was a
variant of what he called a typical “watering-hole” attack in
which the attackers infect a large
number of victims, and then follow up with the most “promising”
hits to extract data.
He said researchers this summer saw a malicious Java file on
the website of the Greek embassy
in Beijing while a high-level delegation led by Keqiang was visiting
Greek Prime Minister Antonis
Samaras in Athens.
The two events were not
directly related, Barger said, and
additional research was needed
into the status of ministerial and
official government websites on
or around the dates of notable
Chinese delegations and or bilateral meetings.
REUTERS
group of parliamentary parties
would complete its recommendation by today evening on the government’s future course of action
on eliminating terrorism.
AFP
Eight bodies
found in
Balochistan
QUETTA: Authorities yesterday found eight bullet riddled
bodies in Pakistan’s restive
southwestern
Balochistan
province, which is facing a
tribal insurgency, sectarian
violence and Taliban attacks,
officials said.
Five bodies were recovered
from the district of Pashin and
three from that of Ziarat, provincial home secretary Akbar
Durrani told AFP.
“We have found eight bodies
today which are being brought to
Quetta for identification and further investigation,” Durrani said.
Local police confirmed the discovery of bodies but had no immediate details.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but least developed and most
sparsely populated province,
is racked by Islamist militants,
banditry and sectarian violence
between Sunnis and Shias.
In October, the Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan said that
more than 300,000 people, including minority Shias and Hindus,
had left Balochistan over the past
10 years due to rising unrest.
Pakistani rights group Defence
for Human Rights says as many
as 2,000 people have disappeared
from across the country, many
from Balochistan.
Rights groups accuse the
government of gross violations
including holding people in secret
and failing to charge them or put
them on trial.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court and
high courts have also been investigating cases of missing people
and issuing warnings to the government to recover these people.
AFP
Injured Afghan
journalist dies
KABUL: An Afghan journalist who was seriously injured
during a suicide attack on a
French cultural centre died of
his wounds in hospital yesterday, officials said. One German
man was also killed and 20 other
people wounded in the blast
on December 11 during a performance at the packed auditorium of the French Institute
of Afghanistan in the capital
Kabul. The performance was
entitled “Heartbeat, The Silence
AFP
After The Explosion”.
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
16
INDIA
No BJP-RSS conflict on conversions: Naidu
Conversion
in PM’s
home state
sparks anger
Parties fight on religious conversions
HYDERABAD: Parliamentary
Affairs Minister M Venkaiah
Naidu said there is no conflict between the BJP and the
RSS over the issue of religious
conversions.
He told reporters here that
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) chief Mohan Bahgwat said
the people who were converted
have got a right to be re-converted.
Naidu said the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP), the government
and Mahatma Gandhi all stated
the same. “(BJP president) Amit
Shah said if you are worried about
conversion, let there be an anticonversion law. Where is the conflict,” he asked.
Naidu reiterated that the central government will not forcibly
and unilaterally bring a law to ban
conversions. He, however, said this
would be done with broad consensus. He also made it clear that the
government has nothing to do with
conversions or re-conversions.
“Government is not getting
involved either in conversions or
reconversions. The BJP has nothing to do with it. Some individuals may take part because of their
belief but one can’t find fault with
the government of India,” he said.
The BJP leader claimed that
conversions and re-conversions
were happening even before
Independence and that there is
nothing new in it. He pointed out
that Arya Samaj and Hindu Maha
Sabha had launched ‘Shudhi’ programme on a large scale in Uttar
Pradesh way back in 1923.
Naidu said thousands and lakhs
of people across the country were
getting converted but opposition
parties are not worried about
that. He quoted a newspaper
report about 70 Hindus being
converted to Christianity in Uttar
Pradesh through inducements and
allurements.
“Converting to a religion is people’s choice. The government has
no role in this. I am only pointing
out when there are allegation of
allurements, you don’t talk about
it. If Hindus are converted, you
don’t feel there is an issue. If others are converted, you feel it is a
big issue,” he said.
“If there is inducement, allurement or force for conversions or
re-conversions, then it is wrong
and action has to be taken by the
state government. If you feel state
government laws are not effective,
then there is a need for an allIndia law,” he said.
He lamented that the opposition
did not respond positively to the
government’s offer in parliament
to bring a central legislation. He
disagreed with the opposition that
this will be an interference in the
freedom of faith guaranteed by the
constitution. Naidu argued that
the freedom to profess and propagate religion does not mean it
has given right to convert people.
Stating that nobody would have
any objection to voluntary conversions, the minister said forceful
and fraudulent conversions create
tensions in the society and hence
the state has to intervene. IANS
Kerala government orders probe
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A report about 35 people getting converted to Hinduism would be probed by a senior police
official, Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala said. The
conversion reportedly took place yesterday in Alappuzha and
Kollam districts. In Alappuzha, members of eight Christian families — a total of 30 people — reportedly embraced Hinduism at a
temple function organised by the VHP. In Kollam, there were five
IANS
people who reportedly became Hindus.
A tribesperson (right) participates in a conversion ritual of some 200 Christians into Hinduism at Valsad of Gujarat.
Mohan Bhagwat to press ahead on
conversions in challenge to Modi
NEW DELHI: The head of
India’s most powerful Hindu
group vowed to press ahead with
a campaign to convert Muslims
and Christians to Hinduism,
stoking a sensitive debate that
has stalled parliament and
threatened the prime minister’s
economic reform agenda.
Mohan Bhagwat of Rashtriya
Swayamsewak Sangh, which is
also the ideological wing of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s party,
said India was a “Hindu nation”
where many Hindus had been forcibly converted to other religions.
“We will bring back those who
have lost their way. They did not
go on their own,” Bhagwat said
in a speech late on Saturday.
“They were lured into leaving.”
Cold wave hits northern states
DELHI: Icy winds and a cloudy
sky badly affected normal life in
several north Indian states yesterday, with most people forced
to stay indoors, officials said.
It was a chilly Sunday in Delhi
with the maximum temperature
recorded at its lowest so far this
winter — seven notches below
average — at 15 degrees Celsius.
The met department has forecast
a foggy start today which will be
as chilly.
Dense fog is expected today
morning and sky will remain
cloudy, said an official of India
Meteorological Department.
The maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to
hover around 16 and 6 degrees
Celsius, respectively. The minimum temperature yesterday was
two notches below average at 6.4
degrees Celsius. The movement of
over 40 trains were affected due
to fog in the morning.
In Bihar, the cold wave is likely
to intensify in the state, with the
minimum temperature to go
down further, a Met department
official said.
Patna recorded a low of around
8 degrees Celsius, while Gaya
district had Saturday recorded
a minimum temperature of 6.2
degrees Celsius. Though the
authorities have denied any
deaths due to the cold, unconfirmed reports put the toll at
seven. “There will be no respite
from the cold wave. The winds
will keep the weather cold for
the next two days at least,” the
official said.
While most people preferred
to stay indoors, the poor were
seen huddled around fires to keep
themselves warm in the cloudy,
foggy weather.
Dense fog also led to many
long-distance trains running late,
railway officials said.
Cold wave conditions intensified
in the desert state of Rajasthan
with Churu recording a minimum
temperature of 0.5 degree Celsius.
Mount Abu, the only hill station in the state, shivered at 2
degrees Celsius, while Sikar was
chilly at 3 degrees Celsius. Dabok
near Udaipur and Pilani in the
Shekhawati region were cold
at 3.4 and 3.8 degrees Celsius,
respectively.
Bikaner recorded a minimum
of 4.8 degrees Celsius, while
state capital Jaipur was chilly at
5.5 degrees Celsius, almost three
IANS
degrees below normal.
Bhagwat’s comments came after
Modi’s BJP said it did not support
forced religious conversions and
called for an anti-conversion law.
Modi is under fire for being
slow to rein in hardline affiliate
groups that have been accused
of promoting a Hindu-dominant
agenda. This month, a group of
Muslims complained that they
had been tricked into attending
a conversion ceremony by Hindu
groups, while a Hindu priestturned-lawmaker of the ruling
party planned a conversion ceremony on Christmas Day, although
it was cancelled after the prime
minister intervened.
Supporters
define
such
events as a “homecoming”, saying that families signing up for
the ceremonies were originally
Hindus. “We don’t want to convert anybody ... but then Hindus
should also not be converted,”
Bhagwat said.
Bhagwat’s comments are likely
to further irk opposition parties that have disrupted parliament over the conversion issue,
demanding that the prime minister himself make a statement
on the issue in the upper house.
Although Modi has privately
warned lawmakers in his party to
back off from controversial issues
such as the conversion campaign,
he has so far not made any official statement on the subject,
leaving it to colleagues to fend
off criticism.
REUTERS
AHMEDABAD:
Hardline
Hindu groups came under
fire yesterday after some 200
Christians
were
converted
in the prime minister’s home
state, amid increasing concern
at the right-wing government’s
perceived pro-Hindu tilt.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad
(VHP or World Hindu Council)
said it converted Christian tribal
people to their original Hindu
faith in Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s Gujarat late Saturday.
The mass event drew widespread criticism from Christian
groups and Modi’s political opponents yesterday. They accused
radical organisations linked to
Modi’s ruling party, like the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS), of forcing or enticing
religious minorities to convert to
Hinduism.
“Extreme right wing is flexing
its muscles. VHP/RSS through
Hindutatva ... rewriting history
and economic policies,” Digvijay
Singh, a leader of the opposition
Congress party, posted on Twitter.
A Gujarat-based priest said
he could not “accept that anyone
who has been a Christian will convert to other religion by personal
choice”. “VHP is forcing people
and luring them to convert their
religion,” Father Dominic said.
The mass ceremony took place
in a tribal village 350km south of
the state capital Ahmedabad.
“Over 200 people were asked
to throw their religious pendants
in a holy fire and were given
new pendants with the image
of (Hindu) Lord Rama,” Ajit
Solanki, a Gujarat state VHP
secretary, said.
AFP
Bull run
Nomads from Maharashtra along with their decorated bull perform during a street show in which the animal
steps on the six-year-old boy Ram (left) in Bhopal yesterday. The owner performs about ten shows daily and
earns about Rs500 per day.
Manmohan Singh: Busy as always, but not writing memoirs yet
NEW DELHI: He has just completed
200 days out of office, but former prime
minister Manmohan Singh (pictured)
keeps himself perhaps as busy when in
power, attending parliament for half a
day daily, meeting people and attending party meetings. And he hasn’t yet
decided on writing his memoirs as yet.
No, he also isn’t troubled by a court
direction that he be quizzed on the coal
blocks issue as he had anyway offered to
be questioned by the CBI, say aides.
Singh, India’s 13th prime minister, was
known to be a workaholic, keeping a punishing schedule despite his age and his
heart condition.
And he continues to keeps himself as
busy now after a decade at the head of a
Congress-led United Progressive Alliance
(UPA) government. And he has refused
to give interviews, an aide said. “He sticks
to his daily schedule; only now he starts
a little later everyday and retires a little early,” the aide said, declining to be
named. A member of the Rajya Sabha,
Singh rarely misses a day in parliament.
He has made it a point to attend half a
day’s session every day during the ongoing winter session, that has been marked
by daily opposition rancour against the
BJP-led National Democratic Alliance
government and demands for Prime
Minister Narendra Modi to come to the
Rajya Sabha and make a statement on
the controversy over conversions and
other issues. “He goes for half a day every
day. He does not participate in the ‘hungama’ (‘ruckus),” the aide said.
Singh, 82, stepped down in May when
the Modi government took over after the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the
Lok Sabha polls. Singh is also not fazed
by a trial court directing the Central
Bureau of Investigation to examine him
in a coal block allocation scandal during
his tenure that is being probed for alleged
corruption.
The aide was dismissive about the
court direction, saying there was “nothing new in it” and Singh had always
offered himself for questioning in the
matter. The former prime minister held
the coal portfolio for some time in UPA-I.
The aide also denied reports that Singh
is writing his memoirs. “He is not writing
any book now. He has not made up his
mind,” the aide added.
Singh, known for his understated manners and quiet gravitas, has always kept
away from flamboyance and is camera
shy. India’s first Sikh prime minister,
Manmohan Singh’s light blue turban is
synonymous with his image. As prime
minister, he sported a simple churidarkurta in summer and bandhgala dark
suits in winter, but the blue turban was
a constant, as it is even today.
The former prime minister, who
underwent a coronary bypass in 2009,
is careful about his diet and health. He
keeps to his daily routine of walks and
exercises to keep fit and meets people
who call on him.
As a member of the Congress Working
Committee, the party’s highest decisionmaking body, Singh attends all meetings.
Though he keeps away from publicity
events, he recently appeared on a Aap
ki Adalat show on India TV and spoke
with a degree of clarity and passion on
several issues, including the telecom and
coal scandals.
On the much-talked about two heads
of the UPA government, where Congress
chief Sonia Gandhi was reportedly said
to be taking major decisions, bypassing
Singh, the aide said that Gandhi had publicly denied there were two centres of
power and both were “working together”.
Sonia Gandhi still calls on Singh to
seek advice, something which Sanjaya
Baru, the former prime minister’s media
adviser, also mentioned in his book.
“Madam came last week, she comes for
advice,” said the aide.
Singh, who is widely respected as an
ace economist and the brain behind
the economic liberalisation that began
in India in 1991, said earlier this month
that India can achieve a growth rate of
8-9 percent provided there is a “national
consensus” on methods to take advantage
of a globalised world.
For most of a decade, Singh had presided over 8.5 percent GDP growth
though it almost halved in the last few
years, which the then government blamed
on the global economic slowdown, high
oil prices and the US Federal Reserve
withdrawing its stimulus.
In November, Singh was conferred with
one of Japan’s highest civilian honours —
‘The Grand Cordon of the Order of the
Paulownia Flowers’ for his contribution
towards building Japan-India relations.
The former prime minister, while he
preferred to keep a low profile in India,
was an energetic persona on his trips
abroad and took a keen interest in foreign policy.
At his last press conference on January
3, Manmohan Singh had asserted that he
had not been a weak prime minister and
that history would be kinder to him than
contemporary media.
IANS
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
INDIA
Will form next Kashmir
govt on our own: PDP
No plans to align with the Bharatiya Janata Party
JAMMU:
The
Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday said it was confident of
forming the next government in
Jammu and Kashmir on its own
and would not align with the
Bharatiya Janata Party.
Reacting to some media reports
that said the PDP had said it
was open to forming an alliance
with the BJP if it does not get
the needed simple majority of 44
in the 87-member state assembly, the PDP’s chief spokesman
Naeem Akhtar said: “No, we did
not say we will form an alliance
with the BJP.”
“We said we will form the next
government in the state on our
own as we are confident of getting
the required numbers. So there is
no need for us to say we will form
an alliance with the BJP or any
other party.”
However, he said “since Jammu
and Kashmir is passing through
such difficult times, we will need
the support of every party, including the BJP.”
Media reports said the 12th
state assembly for which polling
ended on December 20 would not
have any single political party
that can form a government on its
own, and that the voters delivered
a fractured mandate.
Counting of votes will take
place tomorrow.
IANS
People queue up to cast their votes at a polling station near Jammu.
BJP keeps
everyone
guessing about
Jharkhand CM
RANCHI: Exit polls are
predicting a BJP government
in Jharkhand, but nobody
appears to know who will be
the next chief minister in the
event of a BJP win.
Most exit polls say the BJP
will secure enough seats in the
81-member house to form a
government of its own.
BJP leaders and activists
are wondering who Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and
party president Amit Shah will
pick as the chief minister — if
a BJP victory does take place.
Prominent among those
leading the pack of probables are former chief minister
Arjun Munda and BJP national
vice president Raghubar Das.
Munda, who has held the
post thrice, said: “The party
will decide my role.” Das spoke
on similar lines. “The central
leaders will decide.”
Experts said Modi’s decision may be based on how the
party fares in the election. If
the BJP secures a majority,
Modi may opt for a non-tribal
to lead the state. Some say the
two ministers from Jharkhand
in Modi’s ministry — Minister
of State for Social Justice and
Empowerment Sudarshan
Bhagat and Minister of State
for Finance Jayant Sinha —
could also be in the race. IANS
BJP aims big in TN; DMK’s Napoleon joins party
17
Infighting forces Amit
Shah to lead BJP
campaign in Delhi
NEW DELHI: Miffed with
infighting and lack of coordination among state leaders that may harm the party’s
prospects in the upcoming
Delhi assembly polls, BJP president Amit Shah has decided
to take charge of the election
machinery in the capital from
December 25, a top source said.
According to a senior party
leader who is in the know of
the development, Shah is currently occupied with the polls
in Jharkhand and Jammu and
Kashmir but once the results
are out, he will shift focus to
Delhi and dedicate at least two
months to the city before the
assembly election are held, likely
in February 2015.
“The Delhi BJP needs direction and guidance from a single
authority. At present, everyone
is acting like he is the captain
of the ship which is resulting in
utter confusion,” the source said.
The source informed that
owing to the threat from the
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Shah
started keeping an eye on the
political developments in Delhi —
where the BJP has remained out
of power for the last 15 years —
since he became the party president in July.
The December 2013 polls threw
up a hung 70-member house,
with the BJP winning 31 seats,
the AAP 28 and the Congress
eight, with three seats going to
other parties and independents.
The AAP formed a government
that lasted 49 days, necessitating fresh polls. “He (Shah) knows
that Delhi is not like other states
where the contest is between BJP
and Congress. The general antiCongress mood prevailing across
the nation has helped BJP but
in Delhi, it’s the AAP that is the
main opponent of the BJP,” the
source added.
“Therefore, the party needs to
put in much more effort but Shah
knows that the party is struggling with infighting and poor
coordination,” said the leader.
Though, such allegations have
been levelled against the party
earlier as well, this time the
cracks are showing.
A couple of weeks back a party
leader, in charge of an event,
openly chided a party spokesperson for talking to the media
about the preparations.
He was unhappy with the
spokesperson hogging the limelight and instead wanted the
media to give him footage.
Furthermore, in a meeting
held between Shah and the Delhi
BJP leaders and office bearers in
November, it was decided that
all the party parliamentarians
would hold 2,700 public meetings
across the city.
However, a month later, that
figure has been reduced to
around 1,400, the source said.
“The state unit has failed in
successfully organising these
meetings and managing to gather
enough crowds. Their management has been sloppy and hence
the MP’s lost interest,” said the
source.
Furthermore, sources said
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan too has
been reduced to mere photo
opportunities by some which has
further added to the woes of the
Delhi BJP’s leadership.
Though, Shah is a tough taskmaster and has set a 60-seat
goal in Delhi and hence, he is all
set to take charge of Delhi after
December 25, another source
said.
According to party leaders,
Shah believes in working at the
ground level and has directed
the Delhi leaders, at a meeting
Thursday, to do the same. Shah
had earlier met the leaders in
November.
The source further said that a
major reshuffle in the Delhi BJP
is in the offing once the election
is over. “A new team is likely
to be formed for Delhi after the
polls,” the source said.
IANS
CHENNAI: The Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) will make
a serious bid to take power in
Tamil Nadu by leading an alliance in the 2016 assembly elections, its president Amit Shah
said yesterday.
Shah said the BJP would mobilise 60 lakh new members in
Tamil Nadu and it would be the
largest party in the state in 2016.
He also told reporters that the
party would lead an alliance during the next assembly elections
and also declare its chief ministerial candidate.
Meanwhile, sidelined DMK
leader and former Union minister D Napoleon joined BJP in the
presence of Shah here yesterday.
Advani backs
Bharat Ratna
for Vajpayee
Kerala’s Congress chief isolated over liquor policy
NEW DELHI: Senior BJP
leader LK Advani has backed
awarding the Bharat Ratna
to former prime minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, and said he
regarded it as “significant” that
the Narendra Modi government
has decided to observe Dec 25,
Vajpayee’s birthday, as ‘Good
Governance Day’.
In an interview to CNN-IBN
news channel, Advani said: “A
Bharat Ratna for Atal Bihari
Vajpayee should not be seen in
terms of a reward for doing his
duty but as an award that recognises his stature. It would be
very appropriate and befitting for
a patriot like Vajpayee.”
“I regarded it significant
that the new government has
decided to observe December 25,
Vajpayeeji’s birthday as ‘Good
Governance Day’,” the Bharatiya
Janata Party leader said.
“Though from the point of view
of Bharat Ratna, I don’t think
Bharat Ratna is appropriate
as a reward for something that
Vajpayee has contributed to the
country. Whatever he has done,
he has been doing his duty both
as a patriot as well as the person
assigned for the responsibility of
becoming the prime minister.”
Advani said Vajpayee “has
been doing his duty and I do not
think in terms of Bharat Ratna
being a reward for performing
one’s duty”. “If he is given Bharat
Ratna, as I have myself suggested
once, it would be very appropriate and befitting for a patriot like
Vajpayee,” he said.
The government has drawn
flak for an earlier directive asking
schools and universities to observe
the December 25 holiday of
Christmas as ‘Good Governance
Day’. The ministries have lined up
programmes to mark Vajpayee’s
birthday.
IANS
Napoleon, 51, had resigned
from the DMK on Saturday. He
was a minister in the Congressled UPA government. He was a
supporter of MK Alagiri, another
former central minister and a son
of DMK chief M Karunanidhi.
Napolean was sidelined in the
party because of his closeness to
Alagiri. Napoleon entered politics
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: State
Congress president VM Sudheeran, who
has blamed “external forces” for diluting
Kerala’s liquor policy, yesterday came
under heavy attack from within the
party as well as from outside of it for his
remark.
State Congress vice-president MM
Hassan told reporters in Kasargode that
Sudheeran’s statements on the tweaked
liquor policy “breached party discipline and
caused a dent on the image of the UDF
government”.
Bowing to pressure from various quarters, the Congress-led United Democratic
Front (UDF) government in Kerala
Thursday decided that Sundays will no
longer be dry days.
The front allowed the Oommen Chandy
cabinet to make the necessary changes on
the policy, but demanded that the fundamentals of the policy — to implement prohibition in Kerala in a phased manner by
October 2, 2024 — should not be touched.
Referring to the diluted liquor policy,
Sudheeran Saturday told reporters in
Thrissur: “The biggest flaw in democracy
is when ‘external forces’ set the agenda for
governance. I am just airing the feelings of
the people.”
Following the new liquor policy that
came out in August, from October 2 bars in
the state were prohibited from selling liquor on Sundays. Hindu social group, SNDP,
leader Velapally Natesan said Sudheeran
has become a laughing stock and he does
24-year-old rape case
reopens with arrest
NEW DELHI: A 24-year-old
rape case that was begging for
justice due to non-appearance of
the accused has been reopened
in a fast-track court here dealing with sexual offences against
women after the arrest of the
absconding offender.
Additional Sessions Judge
Sarita Birbal reopened the trial
after the accused, Lakhpat, who
was evading arrest, was produced
before the court by the police. The
court has now posted the matter
for January 6, 2015 for recording
the statements of the remaining
prosecution witnesses.
The prosecution has alleged
that Lakhpat kidnapped a
12-year-old girl from east Delhi
on July 6, 1990 and took her to his
village in Bulandshahr in Uttar
Pradesh and raped her.
It added that Lakhpat, who was
around 24-years-old at the time
of incident, was a tenant in the
victim’s house.
The girl was later rescued
and the police arrested Lakhpat
as an assistant to his uncle and
DMK leader KN Nehru. In 2001,
Napoleon entered the Tamil Nadu
assembly from Villivakam constituency here. In 2009, Napoleon
won the Perambalur Lok Sabha
constituency and was made the
minister of state for social justice
and empowerment in the UPA
government.
IANS
and lodged a first information
report against him in east Delhi’s
Bhajanpura. He was granted bail
on December 21, 1994.
The trial began January 5,
1995 after a sessions court here
framed various charges dealing
with rape and kidnapping against
Lakhpat. He had appeared in the
court for the next few hearings
but then absconded. Thereafter,
the sessions court hearing the
case issued a non-bailable warrant against him but he was
untraceable.
The court declared him a proclaimed offender on February 2,
1998 and stayed the trial, saying
it could not be conducted without
Lakhpat’s presence. Till then, four
of the 11 prosecution witnesses,
including the victim, who is now
36, were examined.
On October 28, acting on a
tip-off, police arrested Lakhpat
from RK Puram in south Delhi
and produced before a magistrate,
who remanded him to judicial
custody.
IANS
not enjoy any support in his party.
“The only thing that has happened after
he became president is that the once warring factions in the Congress party have
come under one roof and he has become a
loner,” said Natesan.
Government chief whip in the state
assembly PC George said the huge majority of the Congress party was now strongly
behind Chandy because of the adamant and
untenable approach on the liquor policy
taken up by Sudheeran.
Indian
National
Trade
Union
Congress (INTUC) state president R
Chandrasekheran said either Sudheeran
should tow the approach of the state government or he should resign as president. INTUC is the trade union wing of
the Congress. The party high command
appointed Sudheeran the state party chief
in February this year, ignoring request
from Chandy and state Home Minister
Ramesh Chennithala.
Since then, things have gone from bad
to worse, with the changes in liquor policy
leaving Sudheeran totally isolated in the
party.
Meanwhile in Kottayam, Chandy told
reporters that he has not called any meeting of the party’s legislators Monday.
“Since I was out of the capital city for the
past two days, I have told those MLAs who
expressed their desire to meet me to come
to the state capital. There is no meeting of
legislators as reported in the media,” said
IANS
Chandy.
Protest against terrorism
RSS activists burn the effigies of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, who is wanted for the 1993 Mumbai
bombings (right), Pakistan chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (centre) and a leader of Lashkare-Taiba and 2008 Mumbai attacks accused Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi during a protest in New Delhi yesterday.
The protestors were demanding the handover of the three men from Pakistan.
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
20
Largest indoor theme park
PRAYER TIME
Fajr (Dawn)
MORNING BREAK
4:53
Shorook (Sunrise)
6:15
Zuhr (Noon)
11:32
Asr (Afternoon)
2:30
Maghrib (Sunset)
4:50
Isha (Night)
6:20
WEATHER
Today
Tuesday
Wednesday
Clear
Clear
Partly cloudy
High: 26°
Low: 15°
High: 23°
Low: 18°
Weather
Conditions:
Moderate
remperature
daytime with
some clouds and
relatively cold by
night.
High: 23°
Low: 17°
DOHA - SUN & SEA
SUN
TIDE
SUNRISE | SUNSET
06:15 16:50
THE REGION
05:30 16:15
WIND
12:30 22:30
15-25/28 KT
TODAY
TOMORROW
HI/LO WEATHER
MUSCAT
SEA
HIGH | LOW
26/21
Clear
26/22
Clear
MAKKAH
32/21
Partly cloudy
31/20
Partly cloudy
KUWAIT
19/07
Clear
21/08
Clear
BAHRAIN
22/15
Clear
21/16
Partly cloudy
SANAA
22/06
Clear
22/07
Partly cloudy
RIYADH
20/12
Partly cloudy
22/11
Partly cloudy
DUBAI
26/20
Clear
24/20
Clear
BAGHDAD
16/07
Clear
15/05
Partly cloudy
THE WORLD
TODAY
TOMORROW
HI/LO WEATHER
ATHENS
12/07
Clear
HI/LO WEATHER
12/10
Clear
WASHINGTON
05/05
Chance of ice
10/11
Rain
SYDNEY
26/19
Thunderstorm
26/17
Chance of rain
LONDON
13/10
Partly cloudy
13/09
Partly cloudy
PARIS
11/07
Cloudy
10/06
Partly cloudy
ISTANBUL
28/24
Clear
29/24
Clear
MANILA
27/23
Chance of storm
28/23
Partly cloudy
DHAKA
24/15
Clear
24/15
Clear
DELHI
14/07
Partly cloudy
16/07
Clear
ISLAMABAD
16/07
Cloudy
16/04
Partly cloudy
4D printing to
create shape
changing
structures
NEW
YORK:
In
a
first,
researchers
from
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology have used a technology called four dimensional (4D) printing to create
a structure that can change
shape without external intervention. The new technology
marks an advancement over
3D printing that allows one to
print a range of items including toys, chocolates or medical devices, all while sitting in
a living room. The so-called
four dimensional printing
involves 3D printing items
that are designed to change
shape after they are printed.
“We can now generate structures that will change shape
and functionality without
external intervention,” lead
study author Dan Raviv was
quoted as saying by Live
Science.
The
researchers
printed the shape-shifting 3D
structure using two materials
— a stiff plastic, and a “secret”
water absorbent material
that could double in volume
when submerged in water.
The researchers printed up
a square grid and found that
when they placed the grid in
water, the water-absorbent
material could produce a broad
range of shapes. “The most
exciting part is the numerous
applications that can emerge
from this work,” Raviv added.
“This is not just a cool
project or an interesting
solution, but something that
can change the lives of many,”
IANS
he said.
A night view of the Wanda Movie Park designed by British architect Mark Fisher in Wuhan, Hubei province, central China. The building, hosting the
self-claimed world’s largest indoor theme park, is one of Wanda Group’s latest moves to build an entertainment empire.
HI/LO WEATHER
Hobbit draws holiday season crowds
LOS
ANGELES/NEW
YORK: The last movie of
Peter Jackson’s three “Hobbit”
films rode to the top of US and
Canadian weekend box office
charts, selling an estimated
$56.2m worth of tickets and
boosting the holiday movie season that is crucial to Hollywood.
“The Hobbit: The Battle of the
Five Armies” grabbed another
$34.4m from Wednesday and
Thursday screenings for a combined debut of $90.6m over its
first five days, distributor Warner
Bros. said yesterday.
“Night at the Museum: Secret
of the Tomb,” featuring the final
on-screen performance by the
late Robin Williams, finished
second at domestic theaters with
$17.3m from Friday through
Sunday, according to tracking
firm Rentrak’s estimates.
Third place for the weekend
before Christmas went to the
musical remake “Annie”, which
had been stolen by hackers who
attacked the Sony movie studio’s
computer network and placed on
online piracy sites three weeks
ago. “Annie” earned $16.3m at
domestic theaters.
“The Hobbit” stars Martin
Freeman in the story based on
the classic fantasy novel by J.R.R.
Tolkien.
“Night at the Museum”, the
third in the series about exhibits that come to life, features Ben
Stiller as a nighttime security
guard and Williams as Teddy
Roosevelt.
“This is an incredible result,
and a nice distraction from everything that’s been going on for
the past couple of weeks, to have
this enormous success going into
the holiday season,” said Jeff
Goldstein, executive vice president of domestic distribution
for Warner Bros, a unit of Time
Warner Inc.
Warner Bros’ New Line
Cinema and MGM produced the
film, which Goldstein said took in
about $10m more over five days
than the studio had expected.
“Night at the Museum” added
$10.8 from foreign showings.
Quvenzhane Wallis plays the
title character in “Annie”, a contemporary remake of the 1977
Broadway musical about an
orphaned girl. Rory Bruer, president of worldwide distribution
for Sony’s movie studio, said the
hackers’ release of the film “certainly doesn’t seem like it hurt
(box office performance), as we
did so well.” Biblical epic “Exodus:
Gods and Kings” finished fourth
for the weekend with $8.1m. “The
Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part
1” took the No. 5 spot with $7.8m.
REUTERS
A carnivorous plant that
is turning vegetarian
Place of light
Children have fun playing with each other in front of a giant advertising billboard in the Maboneng area of
Johannesburg yesterday. The urban Maboneng (meaning ‘Place of Light’) neighbourhood is popular on
Sunday afternoons for strollers and those going to the nearby shops, restaurants and entertainment venues.
LONDON: If you think that
only humans are turning vegetarian, here is a new study
that has found certain carnivorous plants are also becoming
vegetarians.
The
bladderworts
(Utricularia) is a species of carnivorous plant that catches and
digests tiny animals. Now, the
plant is turning to algae and pollen grains for a balanced nutrition. The species catches its prey
with the help of suction bladders,
trap doors and lightning speed.
Once captured by the bladderwort, the animal suffocates, and
is then broken down by enzymes
and digested.
This is how the plant worked
until it discovered vegetarianism.
“Bladderworts are switching to algae and pollen grains,”
said researchers Marianne
Koller-Peroutka and Wolfram
Adlassnig from the University
of Vienna in Austria.
When bladderworts lived in
areas where algae was plenty
and animals were scarce, the
vegetarian plants were actually
larger than the meat eaters.
Consuming animals gave the
plants a higher nitrogen content
which increased the development of hibernation buds which
are critical to helping them survive over cold winters.
The
bladderworts
(Utricularia) are one of the
largest genera (a principal
taxonomic category that ranks
above species and below family)
in carnivorous plants with over
200 species.
The study appeared in the
journal Annals of Botany.
IANS
Christmas Carol didn’t invent holiday, but it did help revive it
LONDON: A hundred and seventy one years and two days ago,
Charles Dickens first published A
Christmas Carol. But Christmas
always starts with him. People
say Dickens invented Christmas:
he didn’t — though he aided its
revival.
Britain’s newly urban population
didn’t have much energy or opportunity to celebrate it, thanks to the
extremely un-festive combination of
long hours of unregulated industrial
toil and displacement from the rural
communities they’d grown up in.
Dickens was the most successful of
numerous cultured Victorians keen
to revive the season, both out of
nostalgia for the (more fondly than
accurately) remembered country
Christmases of yore and a sense of
social conscience.
Many of our ideas about what
makes a merry Christmas (including the phrase itself) were his first.
Dickens placed charity at the heart
of the season and made us hope for
snow. In his imagination Christmas
was always white, which his biographer Peter Ackroyd puts down to
the eight unusually cold, happy winters of his boyhood, before his father,
John, ended up in debtor’s prison.
A Christmas Carol was an instant
hit. It didn’t make Dickens rich (the
author’s fault – he insisted on the
idealistic combination of top-spec
packaging and a low price. It was
the Blue Monday of its day) but it
forever tied him to the season. He
wrote four further Christmas books
and many festive essays in his journal All The Year Round. Not all of
Dickens’s ideas about Christmas
stuck, though, so while it’s always
a pleasure to pinpoint the origin of
traditions we now consider nonnegotiable, his assertions that didn’t
take fascinate me even more. Here
are a few of my favourites.
Dickens was insistent that
Christmas necessitated ghost stories. In fairness, it’s hard to think
of a more famous ghost story than
A Christmas Carol, but Marley
and the spirits are the only spooks
that are truly synonymous with the
season.
Death in general was integral to
the Dickensian Christmas concept.
He first covered the topic in The
Pickwick Papers. Then in 1851, when
he lost his father (whose strengths
and failings inspired many of his
heroes, from Scrooge to Micawber),
his daughter Dora, his sister and her
son with disability all in the same
year, he wrote the poignant and
beautiful What Christmas Is As We
Grow Older (Recommend it if you’re
having a crappy Christmas of any
sort). In it he insists we remember
the dead on this day more than any
other.
It’s pretty hard not to remember
the dead at Christmas, but Dickens
goes further. He is adamant that we
should use the day to celebrate other
losses, like our failures, abandoned
plans and ruined relationships.
In the same essay he says:
“Welcome, old aspirations, glittering creatures of an ardent fancy…
Welcome, all that was ever real to
Three year old Henry Butterworth skates with ice marshal Matt Nolan at
the Natural History Museum in London yesterday.
our hearts; and for the earnestness that made you real, thanks to
Heaven!”
Every time when one reads it,
wonders why we don’t do more of
that. We love the idea of Scrooge’s
transformation, but this kind of
self-acceptance and equanimity
is probably more useful to most
people. Finally, as well as death and
failure, there are goblins.
So if you want to experience the
authentic Dickensian Christmas
don’t forget to include some death,
a little failure and a goblin or two
along with your partridge in a pear
tree. Man, Christmas is weird.
THE GUARDIAN
Monday 22 December 2014
30 Safar 1436
Volume 19
Number 6287
Price: QR2
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
[email protected] | [email protected]
Editorial: 44557741 | Advertising: 44557837 / 44557780
Gulf producers stand firm on Opec output
No oil output reduction even if others do: Saudi, Kuwait
ABU DHABI: Oil-rich Arab
Gulf countries stood firm
against non-Opec crude producers yesterday, vowing they
will not cut output nor hold an
emergency cartel meeting to
support slumping prices.
Opec kingpin Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait said they would not
cut production even if non-Opec
members reduce their output,
while the United Arab Emirates
and Iraq shrugged off calls for an
emergency meeting of the group.
“If they (non-Opec countries)
want to cut production they are
welcome. We are not going to
cut, certainly Saudi Arabia is not
going to cut,” Saudi Oil Minister
Ali Al Naimi told reporters on the
sidelines of an energy conference
in the United Arab Emirates.
Kuwaiti Oil Minister Ali Al
Omair agreed.
“I don’t think we need to cut.
We gave a chance to others and
they were not willing to do so,”
Omair said, in a clear reference to
shale and sand oil producers from
North America and elsewhere.
“Opec will not cut. Nothing will
happen until June and there is no
emergency meeting,” he said.
The global oil market has
become increasingly competitive
in recent years with the surge in
shale and sand oil production from
countries outside the decades-old
alliance of the Organisation of
Petroleum Exporting Countries.
World oil prices have fallen
almost 50 percent since June,
mainly due to a supply glut, the
weak global economy and a strong
US dollar.
UAE Energy Minister Suhail
Al Mazrouei was emphatic that
Opec, which pumps a third of global crude supplies, will not make
any move soon to shore up the
market.
“We will not interfere with
market fundamentals and do
something that is a short fix,” he
said.
“We need at least six months”
to assess the market and “even if
nothing happens when we meet
after six months, we will not
change our position,” Mazrouei
said.
Iraqi Oil Minister Adel
Abdulmahdi also ruled out calls
for an Opec emergency session.
“We have to wait and see the
reactions of the oil markets and
other countries,” Abdulmahdi
said, adding that he believes oil
prices will stabilise around $60 a
barrel.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE,
Qatar and Iraq pump around 20
million barrels a day, or twothirds of Opec output.
The cartel decided last month
to maintain its production
Economic woes
unchanged at 30 million barrels
per day, which led to a slump in
oil prices.
The benchmark Brent oil price
is hovering around $60 a barrel
after losing almost half of its
value since June.
Gulf ministers blamed “irresponsible” non-Opec producers for the plunge in prices, but
voiced confidence markets would
rebound.
“One of the main causes is
irresponsible production by some
producers from outside the organisation,” the UAE’s Mazrouei said.
Naimi lashed out at non-Opec
members, blaming the global price
fall on a “lack of cooperation by
main producing countries outside
Opec, misleading information and
speculators’ greed”.
The Saudi minister said some
high-cost unconventional producers will not be able to continue
under low oil prices.
Analysts have said Saudi Arabia
is content to see shale oil producers
— and even some Opec members
such as Nigeria and Venezuela —
suffer from low prices rather than
reduce output to boost prices.
But Naimi dismissed claims of a
Saudi “plot” to push prices down
for political reasons, insisting that
the kingdom’s policy is “based on
pure economic principles”.
Russia and Opec-member Iran,
The Minister of Energy and Industry H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada (left)), Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali
Al Naimi (centre) and the UAE Energy Minister Suhail bin Mohamed Al Mazroui at the opening session of the
10th Arab Energy Conference in Abu Dhabi yesterday.
whose economies rely heavily on
oil revenues, have spoken of a
market conspiracy to hold prices
down after Opec’s decision to
keep output steady.
Gulf countries are forecast to
lose at least half their income
from oil, or around $350bn a year,
at current price levels. But Gulf
bourses yesterday rallied for the
second day in a row, as oil prices
steadied. The Dubai Financial
Market surged 9.9 percent, Qatar
was 7.6 percent higher and the
Qatari stocks surge on oil;
market cap gains QR43bn
BY SATISH KANADY
People stand among the empty shelves in an electronic shop in Minsk
yesterday as the Belarusian National Bank has imposed a 30 percent
fee on currency exchange transactions for both businesses and individuals. The Belarussian currency was dragged down by the slide of
the Russian ruble last week, leading authorities to impose draconian
measures, forbid price increases even for imported goods, and warn
people against panic.
DOHA: Qatari bourse posted
its best day in recent years yesterday, as investors took heart
from oil rebound. The benchmark index ended 7.58 percent
higher at 12,029, its biggest single day gain since early 2009.
The market was up 15.90 percent year-to-date.
Foreign institutional investors
and retailers were the main drivers. Analysts told The Peninsula
the US regulator’s decision ‘to be
patient’ on rate hikes sent the
non-Qatari institutional investors
bullish.
Ooredoo, Vodafone, Barwa,
Ezdan and QIB were among the
top gainers. Ooredoo, Vodafone
and Barwa surged by 10 percent
each. Ezdan soared 9.98 percent,
while QIB jumped 9.91 percent.
Vodafone was down 33 percent
since the mid-September peak.
Energy-related stocks Gulf
International and MPHC leapt
9.96 percent and 9.94 percent,
respectively. Gulf International
was down 40 percent since the
market peaked in September.
Sector-wise, Telecoms and Real
Estate stocks were the best
performers. The market gained
QR43bn in the single day trade as
the market capitalization surged
to QR661bn.
The market was up across
the board as it re-opened after
a long weekend holidays. Of the
43 stocks, 41 advanced yesterday. A total of more than 26
million shares worth a total of
QR1.25bn exchanged hands yesterday. Vodafone and Ezdan were
the most heavily traded stocks.
Total traded value staged a huge
jump from the previous session’s
QR643m. Total traded volume is
up from the previous session’s 14
million shares.
Qatari market traced the
rally of other GCC markets that
extended their gains following the
oil-triggered decline. Analysts
cautioned that GCC rebound is
likely to slow as oil outlook is
still gloomy. A renewed drop of
oil could also hit the stock market
again. The market commentators
said the GCC countries could lose
at least half their oil revenues or
around $350bn a year as crude
prices plunge. A prolonged drag
in oil prices will hit Gulf State
hard. Qatar bourse, in line with
its GCC counterparts, was among
the best performing markets earlier this year. But panicked selling
in recent weeks has wiped out all
the years’ gains.
The value of banking stocks
spiked to QR637m from the previous session’s QR232m. Value
of consumer goods increased to
QR65m from QR42m. Industrials’
value jumped to QR213m from
QR180m, as Insurance was up
QR13m from QR812,368.
The value of telecoms, the best
performer of the day, climbed
to QR85m from QR33m. The
value of Real Estate sector,
another stellar performer of the
day, increased to QR186m from
QR94m.
THE PENINSULA
Cuba’s famed cigars get a foot in door of US market
HAVANA: Milagros Diaz has
been rolling cigars for 48 years,
so long she cannot even smell
tobacco anymore, and she is
thrilled that the US market is
finally opening up for her handmade Cuban “habanos”.
Since US President Obama
announced on Wednesday he
would restore diplomatic ties with
Cuba and start dismantling economic sanctions, Americans have
been filing into the cigar shop at
the Hotel Nacional in Havana,
where she hand-rolls cigars using
techniques little changed since
the 19th century.
“The Americans!” she said, her
face lighting up as she clapped her
hands over her head. “They’re not
scared anymore. I’m super happy
because in my 67 years I never
thought I would see diplomatic
relations. And we think we’re
going to sell more, because this is
just getting started.”
Cigars have been Cuba’s signature product ever since Christopher
Columbus saw natives smoking
rolled up tobacco leaves when
he first sailed to the Caribbean
island in 1492. Fidel Castro, who
took power in Cuba’s 1959 revolution, was often seen puffing on
his favored, long and thin lancero
model until he quit in 1985.
Cuban cigars are considered by many as the best in the
world — brands such as Cohiba,
Montecristo and Partagas - but
the US trade embargo blocks
their access to a market that last
year imported 317.6m premium,
hand-rolled cigars. When Obama
unveiled the new Cuba policy,
which aims to end more than
five decades of conflict, among
the first forbidden Cuban products legalised was the cigar.
Under new rules to be implemented soon, the United States
will make it easier for some
Americans to travel to Cuba and
they will be able to return with
$100 worth of alcohol and tobacco.
The restrictions could be
further loosened over time.
Wholesale shipments directly to
the United States would require
the US Congress to lift the
embargo, or for Obama to declare
an exception for cigars under the
Trading with the Enemy Act.
Cuba’s government estimates
the windfall from the embargo
being lifted on Cuban cigars and
rum would allow it to pump more
than $200m a year into social welfare programs. Their status as “forbidden fruit” has only boosted their
appeal among cigar lovers in the
United States. A small black market
means determined customers can
find them but no one doubts there
is pent-up demand.
REUTERS
Saudi bourse rose 2.5 percent.
Abu Dhabi shares increased 3.5
percent, Kuwait added 3.3 percent, while the small markets of
Oman and Bahrain rose 5.5 percent and 1.4 percent respectively.
AFP
Doha Bank in
Dh500m deal
with Sobha Group
DOHA: Doha Bank’s Corporate
Finance division has successfully closed a corporate finance
deal of Dh500m with Sobha
Group of Dubai, with a syndicated facility of Dh800m for the
Sobha Hartland project.
Sobha Group is a multinational, multi-product group
with significant developments
and investments in the UAE,
Sultanate of Oman, Qatar,
Bahrain, Brunei, Tanzania,
India and China. Activities of
the group include contracting,
construction, real estate development, metal glazing works,
building services, manufacturing
of construction materials, architectural and engineering design
and consultancy.
The facility was arranged by
Doha Bank with a five-year tenor
and will enable Sobha Group
to fund its expansion plans in
Dubai. “Sobha Group is pleased
to have this facility from Doha
Bank which will help us in pursuing our strategic growth plans
in Dubai by partnering with a
financing partner with footprints
in markets where we are active.
Currently we are placing our
focus on Sobha Hartland, our latest
project, which is a eight million sq
ft mixed use freehold development
located in Mohammed Bin Rashid
Al Maktoum City, just 3km from
Dubai’s iconic Burj Khalifa.” said
PNC Menon, Chairman, Sobha
Group.
“We are pleased to have the
opportunity to finance Sobha
Group’s future growth. Doha
Bank is committed to supporting
the wider business community in
the UAE. For this reason, we see
the potential to further grow our
relationship with Sobha Group in
terms of cross-selling our financial products and support their
long term financial needs,” said
Dr R Seetharaman, CEO,Doha
Bank.
THE PENINSULA
22
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
BUSINESS
Nakilat to build 11 vessels for New Port Project
Variety of vessels will be built at Ras Laffan Shipyard for delivery in 2016
DOHA: Qatar’s New Port
Project (NPP) has signed an
agreement with Nakilat Damen
Shipyards Qatar (NDSQ) to
construct 11 workboats for use
at the port.
The Minister of Energy and
Industry H E Dr Mohammed
bin Saleh Al Sada and the
Minister of Transport H E
Jassim bin Saif Ahmed Al
Sulaiti witnessed the signing
ceremony on Wednesday.
The contracts were signed by
Abdullah Fadhalah Al Sulaiti,
Chairman of NDSQ and Managing
Director of Nakilat, and Capt.
Abdulla Al Khanji CEO Qatar
Ports Management Company &
NPP General Supervisor.
NDSQ will build four 29m-long
Azimuth Stern Drive (ASD) tug
boats, three 16m-long mooring
boats and four15m-long glass
reinforced plastic (GRP) pilot
boats. The 11 vessels will be built
entirely at Qatar’s Erhama bin
Jaber Al Jalahma Shipyard in Ras
Laffan for delivery in 2016. The
vessels will be engaged in service
at NPP performing a variety of
marine support services to vessels
visiting the port.
Dr Al Sada said: “This agreement is a landmark in the continued growth of Qatar’s marine
infrastructure and industry. By
collaborating with NPP on providing the required vessels to the
New Port, Nakilat and Erhama
Bin Jaber Al Jalahma Shipyard
are further enhancing Qatar’s
position as a leader in ship
construction.”
Al Sulaiti said: “The cooperation between Nakilat and the
NPP is an excellent example
of how local organisations are
working together to support the
development and growth of our
local economy. We are extremely
proud that the New Port’s workboats will be built at our country’s
own state-of-the-art shipyard
facilities.”
The Minister of Transport
confirmed that this agreement
comes in line with the directives
of the Emir H H Sheikh Tamim
bin Hamad Al Thani and reflects
the full support of the Prime
Minister and Interior Minister
H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser
Al Thani, to ensure that the
domestic sector will have the
largest share in implementing the economic development
projects.
The New Doha Port is one
of the largest infrastructure
projects in Qatar, located on 26
sq km along the main port centres, with a cost around QR27bn,
the new port consists of a container terminal, general cargo
berth, imported cars, imported
cattle and grain , and support
vessels station, coastguard
The Minister of Energy and Industry H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada and the Minister of Transport H E Jassim bin Saif Ahmed Al Sulaiti after the
signing of the agreement.
vessels station and marine support unit and support ships.
When launched , the new
port project is expected to meet
the current and future needs
in the light of the development
surge in Qatar, which includes
various infrastructure and
industrial sectors which will be
provided by the construction of
this huge commercial port like
handling free services according to the latest global technology methods and standards
Woqod discusses its 2015 budget
DOHA: Qatar Fuel’s (Woqod)
Board of Directors yesterday
discussed its estimated budget
for the coming fiscal.
The meeting was chaired by
Woqod’s chairman Sheikh Saoud
bin Abdulrahman Al Thani
(pictured).
CEO
Ibrahim Jaham Al
Kuwari said that the Board of
Directors discussed the projected
budget for 2015 which includes
Capital Expenditure (Capex) and
Operating Expenditure (Opex)
and approved it.
Expenditure on Capex and
OPEX have been estimated at
approximately QR 1.75bn for
the coming fiscal year.
During this year, Woqod will
focus on accelerating the process of commissioning 8-12 new
petrol stations, 4-6 expansions, 4
new Fahes Centers ,4 new Sidra
C-Stores, Bitumen facilities and
Gas operations.
THE PENINSULA
of security and international
safety.
NakilatDamen Shipyards
Qatar is a joint venture between
Nakilat and Dutch shipbuilder
Damen and is based at Erhama
Bin Jaber Al Jalahma Shipyard
in Ras Laffan, Qatar. Nakilat
Damen Shipyards Qatar began
operations in 2010 and builds
ships in steel, aluminum and
fiber reinforced plastic (FRP),
up to 170m in length.
THE PENINSULA
Amira Foods enters Qatar market
DOHA: Amira Foods, the company that has made Amira Rice an international brand, is officially establishing its presence in Qatar announcing
a strategic partnership with Global Food Trading (GFT), one of the leading food distributors in the country, according to a press statement. GFT
was formed in 2012 with the vision of becoming the leading operator in
the food trading and distribution industry in Qatar.
“Today, Amira Foods is available in 40 countries and the decision to
enter the Qatar market makes for good business sense,” said Karan
Chanana, Chairman and CEO of The Amira Group. According to him,
total rice consumption in the GCC, Yemen and Iran is approximately
7 million tonnes, which is valued around $9.5bn. THE PENINSULA
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
BUSINESS
Plant closure
23
Gulf markets rally on
oil, Saudi budget hopes
Saudi index up 2.5pc; trade volume highest since Aug
A worker walks by Ford vehicles in a parking lot at the Ford assembly plant in Genk in the Belgian province of Limburg, yesterday. The Ford Motor Company has closed Genk plant as part of its strategy to
cope with reduced sales following the eurozone crisis.
DUBAI: Stock markets around
the Gulf rose sharply for a second straight day yesterday after
oil prices bounced and before
the release of Saudi Arabia’s
2015 budget plan, which is
expected to show the kingdom
continuing to spend heavily on
economic development.
The main Saudi index rose 2.5
percent, bringing its gains over
the past three days to 16 percent though it is still 24 percent below
its September peak.
Trading volume hit its highest
level since late August, a positive technical sign suggesting the
market has established a floor.
Bourses in Saudi Arabia and
the rest of the Gulf plunged in
the past several weeks because
of fears that sliding oil prices
would force governments to cut
back sharply on their spending,
hitting corporate profits.
Those fears have eased in the
last few days. Brent crude oil
bounced back above $60 a barrel late last week, while Saudi
Finance Minister Ibrahim
Alassaf said last Wednesday that
his government would continue
spending strongly on development projects and social benefits
in its 2015 budget, which is
expected to be announced today.
Saudi real estate developer
Dar Al Arkan, which could benefit from government efforts
to resolve the country’s housing
shortage, was the most heavily
traded stock yesterday, soaring 9.3
percent. Other big gainers included
miner Ma’aden, up 4.0 percent,
and petrochemical producer Saudi
Kayan, up 9.8 percent.
However, the Saudi market
came well off its early highs, after
rising 5.0 percent at one stage.
Many oil traders are not sure
that Brent crude has established a
firm floor at $60, and any renewed
slide towards $50 could push Gulf
bourses down again.
Dubai’s stock market, the
region’s most volatile and one of
its most heavily leveraged markets, was the biggest loser in the
Gulf earlier this month and it
was the biggest gainer yesterday,
as trading volume hit its highest
level since late August.
The Dubai index jumped 9.9
percent, adding to Thursday’s
13.0 percent leap, as blue chip
Emaar Properties rocketed 13.7
percent and builder Arabtec
gained 11.6 percent. The index
is still 27 percent below its
September peak.
Qatar’s market surged 7.6 percent, partly because it was closed
for a national holiday on Thursday
so it missed out on the start of the
Gulf ’s rally. Oman’s market performed well, climbing 5.5 percent,
after the executive president of
the State General Reserve Fund,
the country’s largest sovereign
wealth fund, said that the SGRF
had boosted its buying of shares
in the local market because prices
had slid to attractive levels.
Bahrain underperformed the
region, rising just 1.4 percent,
after Fitch Ratings cut Bahrain’s
credit outlook to negative at the
weekend, following a similar move
by Standard and Poor’s.
The Bahraini market had
dropped relatively little during
the Gulf ’s earlier downtrend,
apparently because of its low
liquidity, so it has relatively small
room to rebound. The Egyptian
stock market, which also began
rebounding on Thursday, got a
further boost from news that
Fitch upgraded Egypt’s debt to
B, citing government policies to
cut debt and stimulate growth.
REUTERS
Bahrain’s energy projects not affected by oil slide: Minister
ABU DHABI: Falling oil prices
will not affect the development of oil and gas infrastructure in Bahrain, including an
import terminal for natural gas
and expansion of a major pipeline and refinery, the country’s
energy minister said yesterday.
Global oil prices have slumped
by about half since June because of
oversupply fears, a move expected
to squeeze the budgets of oil producers. Fitch Ratings downgraded
Bahrain’s credit outlook last week
to negative, saying the fall in oil
exacerbated an already challenging fiscal situation.
But the implementation of
projects won’t be affected, AbdulHussain bin Ali Mirza told reporters on the sidelines of an energy
conference in Abu Dhabi.
Among the projects is a floating platform to import liquefied
natural gas (LNG), which will
give the kingdom gas to fuel its
industrial expansion. “It will be
the second half of 2017,” Mirza
said when asked when the project
would be completed. He confirmed talks were held last week
with a Russian delegation about
possibly importing LNG from the
European nation.
Russia was among a number of
nations to have expressed interest in supplying Bahrain, but any
agreements would depend on
price and the level of gas needed
by the kingdom, which would vary
over time, Mirza said.
A number of bidders recently
Global economy growth likely
to be weaker than 2014: QNB
DOHA: As 2014 comes to an
end, the global economy shows
signs of weakness with significant downside risks. Some of
these risks are likely to materialise next year, leaving the
global economy in worse shape
than in 2014, QNB said in its
Economic Commentary yesterday. It made five predictions
that will expected to shape the
global economic outlook for 2015
and beyond.
“Looking back, our expectations for 2014 were for a moderate recovery in the world economy
that would enable an orderly exit
from US Quantitative Easing
(QE) and a resumption of global growth to its pre-crisis levels. The reality turned out to be
quite different,” the Economic
Commentary said .
The US recovery has been uneven in 2014, with negative growth
in the first quarter, followed by
two quarters of rapid growth. The
Eurozone’s initial recovery fizzled,
leaving the common currency
area near recession and at risk
of deflation. Japan remained stuck
in deflation notwithstanding the
large expansion of the balance
sheet of the Bank of Japan and
the significant depreciation of the
Yen and fell again into recession
in Q3. China’s growth was kept
above 7.0 percent by a series of
fiscal and monetary stimuli, but
declining house prices for the last
seven months have significantly
weakened private consumption. Emerging Markets (EMs)
continued to slow amid falling
commodity prices and uneven
policy responses. Growth in the
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
and Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA)
remained strong on high infrastructure spending; however, the
recent sharp decline in oil prices
casts a shadow on the growth
momentum going forward.
What was, however, the largest surprise was the continued disinflationary pressures
in the global economy. We had
already warned about the risk
of a Great Deflation. Since then,
this risk seems to be materialising. Weaker-than-expected global growth has led to a further
sharp fall in commodity prices.
The IMF Global Commodity
Index has fallen by 17.4 percent in
the twelve months to November
2014, reflecting a 23.2 percent
decline in in fuel prices and 5.8
percent decline in other commodities. These strong disinflationary pressures are likely to be the
determinant factor for the global
economy going forward.
FIVE PREDICTIONS FOR
2015
The US Federal Reserve (Fed)
will not increase policy rates in
2015. Unlike the consensus forecast for an increase in Q2 2015,
we believe that global disinflationary pressures and the continued
strengthening of the US dollar are
likely to lead to near zero inflation
in the United States in 2015. As
a result, the Fed will not have a
rationale for raising interest rates
as inflationary expectations will
remain well below its 2 percent
inflation target. If the Fed does
raise policy rates, the effects on
the global economy would be significantly worse.
The Eurozone will enter deflation and another recession. The
recent sharp decline in oil prices
will push the Eurozone into deflation in 2015, notwithstanding the
efforts of the European Central
Bank (ECB) to avoid it at all
costs. This will inevitably lead to
weaker consumption and investments, thus pushing the common currency area into another
recession.
China’s growth momentum will
slow amidst a strong risk of deflation. Declining house prices and
lower global commodity prices
will continue to weaken domestic demand and create strong
disinflationary pressures. The
Chinese authorities are likely to
try to stimulate the economy further, but this would come on top
of previous stimuli and may not
be sufficient to avoid a significant
growth slowdown. The slowdown
is also likely to lead to near-zero
inflation.
Several oil-exporting EMs are
likely to be pushed into a balance
of payments crisis. The substantial decline in crude oil prices
may push countries, like Russia
and Venezuela, to default on its
debt obligations. This may lead
to contagion across other EMs,
forcing international institutions
to step in.
Lower commodity prices and
a weaker global economy will
inevitably imply a slowdown in
the strong growth momentum
in the GCC and oil-exporting
SSA countries. In particular,
the recent decline in oil prices
will force a reassessment of the
ambitious infrastructure investment programmes across the two
regions. The exception is likely to
be Qatar, where the investment
programme in preparation for the
2022 World Cup is unlikely to be
delayed.
Overall, global growth in
2015 is likely to be significantly
weaker than in 2014. According
to the October 2014 IMF World
Economic Outlook, global economic growth was projected to
accelerate from 3.3 percent in
2014 to 3.8 percent in 2015. If our
predictions materialise, it is more
likely that the global economy will
expand only by 1.5 percent-2.0
percent. As the old saying goes,
“wish for the best, prepare for the
worst.”
THE PENINSULA
submitted proposals to build the
terminal, he said, declining to be
drawn on their identities or when
a decision on the winner would
be made.
Among the expected bidders for the $500m scheme are
consortia including Petrofac,
Marubeni, Daewoo and Samsung
C&T Corp, according to Project
Finance International, a Thomson
Reuters unit.
Other projects planned by
Bahrain include the $5 billion
Bahrain Petroleum Co refinery
upgrade and expansion, for which
a basic engineering study could be
expected by the end of next year,
Mirza said.
A new crude pipeline between
Bahrain and Saudi Arabia could
see work start in the second half
of 2015, he added.
REUTERS
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
24
BUSINESS
US seeks $18bn fine
from BP for oil spill
Company sets aside $3.51bn for the penalties
WASHINGTON: The government wants BP Plc to pay $16bn
to $18bn in water-pollution fines
for the worst offshore oil spill in
US history while seeking more
than $1bn from the co-owner of
the blown-out well that caused
the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster.
The federal government said
BP deserves the maximum fine,
which BP said would be the biggest Clean Water Act penalty
ever and called it a “gross outlier”
compared to other cases.
US District Judge Carl
Barbier in New Orleans ruled in
September that London-based
BP acted with gross negligence
in drilling the well, a finding that
quadruples the per-barrel penalty.
As of October 28, the company
had set aside $3.51bn for the penalties, saying that’s a reliable estimate of its liability if it wins an
appeal of the judge’s ruling.
Barbier will conduct a non-jury
trial next month to set pollution
fines for BP and its well partner,
Anadarko Petroleum Corp., after
weighing multiple factors including the spill’s size and the level of
responsibility each company bears
for the disaster.
“APC’s culpability is minimal
compared to that of BPXP,” the
government said in today’s filing,
referring to Anadarko and BP’s
exploration unit. While Anadarko
doesn’t deserve the maximum
fine, the government said, a substantial penalty is warranted
because it provided virtually no
assistance after the spill and a
small fine wouldn’t be sufficient
punishment for a multibillion-dollar oil company, the government
said in the filing.
BP said it deserved a fine “at
the lower end of the statutory
range” because it already has
incurred $42bn in liabilities from
the spill, including more than
$14bn spent to stop and clean up
the damage. The company said a
smaller fine is also appropriate
because the spill caused less environmental and economic harm
than had been expected.
PE NA LT Y
BEHAVIOUR
F OR
BAD
“Despite initially dire predictions, more than four years of
data show that the impact was
far less than feared and that the
Gulf has largely recovered, due
in significant part to this massive cleanup and response effort,”
Geoff Morrell, a BP spokesman,
said in an e-mailed statement.
“The US seeks to dismiss BPXP’s
extraordinary response efforts,”
which would “disincentivize companies involved in future accidents
from pursuing the best possible
response without regard to cost.”
Ed Hirs, a professor of economics at the University of Houston,
said the government’s proposed
fine “is a penalty for bad behaviour.” “It hurts and it certainly
is not immaterial but it doesn’t
cripple the company,” said Hirs,
who is also managing director of
Hillhouse Resources, a Houstonbased oil and gas company. “The
company goes forward.”
The maximum $18bn fine is less
than the $23.5bn in net income
that BP booked last year, Hirs
said. As for Anadarko, they are
“guilty by association,” he said.
“They didn’t have a say how the
well was drilled.”
BP, the parent of the exploration unit, helped fund the cleanup
and response effort, although it
wasn’t legally obligated to pay
for them, the company said in a
court filing yesterday. The parent
company shouldn’t be expected to
voluntarily shoulder additional
billions in penalties, its lawyers
said, particularly in light of the
45 percent fall in crude oil prices
since mid-August.
BP said a high enough pollution penalty would “exhaust” the
exploration unit’s “available funds
in 2015 and result in a funding
shortfall,” according to company
lawyers. They blacked out the
specific level of fine that would
trigger that result.
“If ever there was a case that
merits the statutory maximum,
this is it,” government lawyers
said in their court filing. BP might
deserve some credit for what it’s
paid so far, they said, but “no
amount smaller than $16bn suffices for this disastrous violation
of law.”
Anadarko argued it should pay
no water-pollution fines because
it was a passive investor in the
well. “No Clean Water Act penalty
is warranted against Anadarko
because it bears no fault for the
discharge, it has already paid
more than $4bn in damages, and
there is no reasonable justification
for any punishment,” Anadarko’s
said in its filing.
John Christiansen, Anadarko’s
spokesman, didn’t immediately
respond to phone or e-mail messages seeking additional comment
on today’s filings.
Anadarko paid BP $4bn to
resolve its portion of spill cleanup,
response and damages costs,
which it was obligated to share
as co-owner of the well, under the
Oil Pollution Act.
The US said that settlement
with BP should be disregarded
because it represents a “resolution of cross-claims arising from
the incident between business
partners” and would leave APC
paying no government pollution
penalty.
BLOOMBERG
Lufthansa first class cabin in Airbus 330-300.
Lufthansa launches new first and
business class on Doha sector
DOHA:
Passengers
flying
out of Doha can now experience further comfort and convenience on board Lufthansa
German Airlines with the new
First Class and Business Class
on daily services between the
Qatari capital and Frankfurt
operated by the retrofitted
Airbus 330-300.
“We are delighted to offer two
of Lufthansa’s leading products,
the award-winning Lufthansa First
Class and the new Business Class,
to our most discerning customers
in Qatar, who always seek the best
travel experience,” said Karsten
Zang, General Manager, UAE
and Director Gulf and Pakistan at
Lufthansa German Airlines.
Lufthansa’s new First Class
is continuously enjoying strong
recognition worldwide. Not
only has there been excellent
feedback from top customers
since its introduction in 2010,
it has also won numerous accolades. Lufthansa’s First Class
and its range of services were
awarded 5-Stars by Skytrax in
their star ranking, while the
American Academy of Hospitality
Sciences (AAHS) presented its
International 5 Star Diamond
Award to Europe’s leading airline.
These awards promise passengers an outstanding travel
experience, since five stars are
synonymous with top quality,
first-class comfort and personal
service. And this will soon be the
case not only in First Class, but
throughout the Lufthansa product range.
Upon entering the cabin, the
first impression is one of spaciousness, inviting passengers to
relax and unwind. Superb-quality
materials plus a clear, uniform
design language echo the elegant
features of the First Class Lounges
and the First Class Terminal
in Frankfurt. Lufthansa’s First
Class cabin offers ergonomically
contoured seats, which convert
into a fully flat, two-metre long
bed — the largest, most comfortable bed of its class.
The generously proportioned,
open design and exclusive ambience with simple, distinct lines
and subtle colours creates a light,
appealing and inviting atmosphere. A concept with separate
cabins was deliberately rejected
because at numerous customer
events, and during in-flight tests
and surveys, Lufthansa passengers expressed a clear preference
for an open-plan design. However,
thanks to a flexible privacy screen,
First Class guests can determine
the degree of individual privacy
they desire.
THE PENINSULA
Dubai’s largest jewellery outlet
Gulf Air technical staff at the airline’s base maintenance facility in Bahrain.
Gulf Air insources 18-month check of Airbus A330
Bollywood star Kareena Kapoor Khan inaugurating the 123rd showroom of Malabar Gold & Diamonds in
Deira Gold Souk, Dubai. Also seen are Ahamed M P, Chairman, Malabar Group and Shamlal Ahamed M P,
Managing Director-International Operations. The new showroom is Dubai’s largest jewellery outlet.
Movenpick named as Best Business Hotel
DOHA: Mövenpick Tower &
Suites Doha has won the Best
Business Hotel in Doha 2014
Award at the World Luxury
Hotel Awards. The trophy
and certificate were presented
to General Manager Ghada
Sadek in a gala ceremony held
recently in Cape Town, South
Africa.
This win comes on the heel of
the hotel being recently recertified by Green Globe for sustainable hospitality last month, as
well as receiving a certificate of
excellence from Trip Adviser
earlier this year.
The World Luxury Hotel
Awards program is a global
event that encourages top hotels
to offer their guests world class
facilities and excellent service.
The accolades were presented in
an array of different categories
and on an international level.
The World Travel Awards is a
major happening in the world
tourism and has been recognizing top hotels for over 20 years;
the program rewards excellence in all sectors of travel and
tourism. This distinction is the
result of votes by professionals
in this hospitality industry, as
well as from members of the
public.
“It is a great honour to
receive the prestigious distinction of “Best Business Hotel”
at the World Luxury Hotel
Awards. “This honour rewards
the ongoing investments of our
owning company and the effort
put forth by the entire team
at Mövenpick Tower & Suites
Doha,” commented Sadek. “It is
truly exciting to be recognized
at an international level for our
service and product.”
THE PENINSULA
Mövenpick Tower & Suites Doha
General Manager Ghada Sadek with
the trophy.
MANAMA: Gulf Air, the
national carrier of Bahrain,
recently announced the completion of its first insourced Airbus
A330 18-month check at the airline’s base maintenance facility.
In line with the airline’s ongoing
efforts to streamline its operations for greater efficiency and
cost reduction, Gulf Air’s technical division successfully insourced
its A330 fleets’ 18-month checks in
a move that underscores the airline’s engineering expertise and
technical capabilities.
Gulf Air’s Acting Chief
Executive Officer Maher Salman
Al Musallam spoke at a ceremony
celebrating this achievement:
“The successful completion of
this milestone, ahead of schedule,
demonstrates our strong in-house
technical expertise – for which
I congratulate Gulf Air’s entire
Technical Division. I look forward to marking additional successes over the coming months
as we establish a robust aircraft
maintenance system that delivers important cost savings for our
national carrier while preserving
the quality of aircraft servicing.”
THE PENINSULA
Retaj Hotels wins
two World Luxury
Hotel Awards
DOHA: Two Retaj Hotels in
Doha were announced winners of the World Luxury
Hotel Awards 2014 during a
gala dinner ceremony held
in Cape Town, South Africa,
recently.
The five-star hotel Retaj
Royale Doha won ‘Best General
Manager’ while four-star hotel
Retaj Al Rayyan won ‘Luxury
City Hotel’ alongside other 9
Hotels in Qatar who have competed in different categories.
Established in 2006, The
World Luxury Hotel Awards
is a recognised global organisation providing luxury hotels
with recognition for their world
class facilities and service
excellence provided to guests.
Medhat Nouby (centre), Acting CEO of Retaj Hotels and Hospitality and,
Ahmed Khorshed (left), Retaj Royale Doha General Manager with trophies.
Also seen is Mostafa Abo El Soud (right) Retaj Al Rayyan Doha general
manager.
Awards are presented to luxury
hotels in different categories on
a country, continent and global
basis.
THE PENINSULA
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
BUSINESS VIEWS
Dubai real estate market
can ride out cheap oil
BY MATT SMITH
he plunge in oil prices may take more of the froth off
Dubai’s booming real estate market, but broad-based
demand for property is likely to prevent any crash. As
the global financial crisis slashed oil and equity prices
in 2008, Dubai’s real estate market began a collapse that roughly
halved residential prices in 12 months and forced the restructuring
of tens of billions of dollars of corporate debt.
So oil’s current slide is being watched closely in Dubai. During the
last slump, a sharp downturn in the Dubai stock market preceded
the beginning of the property crash by about nine months; the stock
index is now down 37 percent from its May 2014 peak. This time
around, however, there are major differences. The United Arab
Emirates has built up huge fiscal reserves which are expected to
let the government keep spending heavily, insulating the economy
from the reduction in oil revenues.
Also, Dubai’s real estate market looks healthier and less vulnerable to a crash than it did in 2008, when frenzied buying by
speculators and overextended property developers created a bubble that was waiting to burst. “I wouldn’t say lower oil will have
much effect on Dubai’s property market in the long run because
demand is there — if not from the Gulf, then from India, China
and Europe,” said Harshjit Oza, assistant director of research at
Naeem brokerage in Cairo. He said Dubai real estate would not be
able to escape a temporary impact from cheaper oil, but noted the
UAE as a whole was not as dependent on oil as the other big Gulf
economies, and that Dubai — with little oil itself and big tourism,
travel and trading sectors — was even less exposed.
Dubai’s real estate industry began rebounding from its last slump
in 2012. Residential prices soared by roughly a third in the 12
months to mid-2014, bringing them near their 2008 peaks.
In the last several months the market has begun slowing.
Consultants CBRE estimate residential prices rose just 3 percent
in the third quarter of this year and 2 percent in the fourth; Knight
Frank calculates mainstream prices - for properties under Dh10m
($1.4m) — fell 5.2 percent in the third quarter.
The big threat to the market is that lower oil revenues in the
Gulf could slash the amount of money available to buy Dubai property, just as the supply of new units increases next year as projects
launched at the start of the boom are completed. But many analysts
think such fears are misplaced. Oil revenues do not flow directly
into Gulf real estate markets; they go into state coffers, and governments then decide how much they want to inject into their
economies via state spending.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar have spent the last
five years building up fiscal reserves that will let them keep spending actively even if Brent oil, at $115 a barrel as recently as June,
stays around $60 or goes even lower. “There is no need now for a
very steep and quick reduction of spending, which would not necessarily be desirable,” Harald Finger, the International Monetary
Fund’s head of mission for the UAE, said last week.
Gulf economic officials, including the Saudi finance minister
and the UAE economics minister, have made similar statements.
So the impact of cheaper oil on property prices is likely to be
more psychological than economic. And the market is less jittery
than it was at the start of the last downturn, because many of the
excesses of the last boom have been avoided.
New regulations have limited short-term speculation in property
— the central bank increased the size of deposits required from
mortgage borrowers, and Dubai doubled its land transaction fee.
Despite their bullish rhetoric, developers have launched projects
more carefully than they did a decade ago.
Even if demand from the Gulf does ease, it may not matter much
because interest in Dubai property is diversified.
Figures from the Dubai Land Department show that while UAE
nationals bought a quarter of property in the emirate in the first
half of this year and Saudis 7 percent, over a fifth was bought by
Indians and 12 percent by Britons.
“In the early part of 2015, weaker sentiment as a result of lower
oil prices and the ongoing uncertainty in the euro zone is likely to
dampen residential investment activity from the Gulf and Europe,”
Knight Frank wrote of the Dubai market. “Emiratis and Indians,
however, are likely to remain important investors in real estate.”
Even if a long period of cheap oil slows economic growth in the
Gulf, it may increase wealth in the rest of the world - and some
of that money is likely to find its way to international cities such
as Dubai. This is a big difference from 2008, when the global crisis
reduced wealth globally.
“Purely from a real estate point of view, while there are potentially negatives - say if the oil and gas sector slows in terms of new
office openings etcetera - there are also a lot of potential positives,
given what it could do to the global economy,” said Matthew Green,
CBRE’s regional head of research.
REUTERS
T
25
As Ford closes, Europe
rust belt seeks ideas
BY ROBIN EMMOTT
and ROBERT-JAN
BARTUNEK
n the heart of western
Europe, the BelgianDutch-German rust belt
has been dealt another
blow.
Two car plants closed this
month as companies sought
cheaper labour elsewhere, the
final chapter of a manufacturing boom that began when coal
mines fuelling Europe’s industrialisation shut in the 1960s.
Now the region straddling
three borders is trying to
reinvent itself. A €315bn EU
investment plan, announced on
Thursday, is the latest potential help. It aims to encourage investors to back projects
around Europe needing financing including the start-ups that
could bring new ideas to skilled
but high-wage workers.
The final production day at
Ford Motor Co’s plant in the
eastern Belgian city of Genk came
barely two weeks after General
Motors closed its Opel Bochum
factory across the border in
Germany, both part of automakers’ strategy to adapt to falling
I
sales following the euro zone
crisis. “I worked at Ford Genk
for almost 40 years, I’ve never
applied for another job in all my
life,” said Pierre Boonen, 57, after
one of his last shifts at the plant
that generated work directly or
indirectly for around 10,000 people. “I never expected this.”
Workers have been compensated, but many are over 40 and
have little idea of what to do
next. “Even if the young have a
tough time finding a job, it’s even
worse for the older employees,”
said 53-year-old worker Margot
and as a group of protesters
outside the plant help up signs
reading “What now?”.
With the eurozone economy
facing deflation and near record
unemployment, investors are
also looking to the European
Central Bank to revive business confidence with a US-style
money printing stimulus programme. And while the Limburg
region is home to other manufacturing and chemical industries such as chip designer
Melexis to life sciences group
DSM contributing to an economic output bigger than some
eurozone countries, the demise
of car manufacturing in border
shows that parts of Europe
needs a new economic model.
“In the 1970s and 1980s, the
policy was to attract a big plant
and that was going to save you,”
said Karen Maguire, an expert
at the Paris-based Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and
Development. “That only lasts
for so long unless you can innovate, upgrade and diversify.”
One innovative local company is Polyscope, which set
up in a disused chemicals plant
in Dutch Limburg in 2007. It
exports granular plastics that
are turned into paper coating or sun roofs to the United
States and China. It employs 50
people and has annual revenues
of $40m.
“We need innovation connected to our industrial
base,” said Patrick Muezers,
Polyscope’s CEO and who previously worked in the automotive industry. “We cannot all be
consultants.”
Work has also begun on a
93-hectare science park on the
site of an old coal mine near
Genk — its rotting brick buildings and broken glass windows
still dotted around — to be
ready in 2017, with the aim of
developing medical and energy
technology.
Underpinning the entrepreneurs are public initiatives
aimed at effectively removing
the Belgian-Dutch-German border to create an economic region
that is not limited by national
boundaries and linking smaller
cities such as Eindhoven,
where Philips has its research
facilities, to the university cities of Belgium’s Leuven and
Germany’s Aachen.
“There’s a lot of potential
here. In a wider, 500km radius,
you have 60 percent of the purchasing power of the whole of
Europe,” said Johann Leten at
Flemish business group Voka.
Some in Genk want to see
the development of electric cars
and have launched a campaign
to convince US electric car
producer Tesla to take over the
Ford plant, starting an Internet
site called ‘Welkom Tesla’.
“Nobody was prepared for a
complete closure of the Ford
plant,” said union representative
Erik Verheyden. “It would be
great to produce a niche product
here with a guaranteed market.
It could still happen.”
REUTERS
Cartoon Arts International / The New York Times Syndicate
Fear factor fades as M&As hit seven-year high
BY PAMELA BARBAGLIA
and SOPHIE SASSARD
hief executives got
their
deal-making
confidence back in
2014, emboldened by
a clearer outlook for
their businesses to take the global
value for mergers and acquisitions
(M&As) to their highest annual
level since 2007.
The total was boosted by a rush
of large deals in the telecoms,
healthcare and consumer sectors, with transactions, some of
which had been contemplated for
years, promising to cause a chain
reaction as rivals move to defend
their territory. In the latest example British telecoms group BT’s
move to buy mobile operator EE is
expected to put pressure on rivals
to seek their own tie-ups as fixedline and mobile networks and payTV services converge.
“The need to stay competitive
and strengthen the core business
is the main catalyst,” said Wilhelm
Schulz, head of M&A in Europe,
C
Middle East and Africa (EMEA)
at Citi.
Global deal volume to December
11 hit $3.27 trillion, up 40 percent
from the same period last year,
according to Thomson Reuters
data. This was the highest level
since 2007, when the total was
$4.12 trillion during a leveraged
buyout boom which saw private
equity firms sign multi-billiondollar cheques and load companies
with debt.
In contrast deals in 2014 were
mainly driven by more cautious
company boards, using shares
rather than debt to fund purchases. Executives haven’t lost all
their post-crisis inhibitions and
still prefer safe bets rather than
bold adventures such as French
telecoms group Iliad’s attempt
to buy T-Mobile US. “The market is rewarding tried and tested
deals, driven by synergies,” said
Paulo Pereira, a partner at Perella
Weinberg.
But expectations that the pace
of deal-making will keep up in
2015 have taken a knock from
the oil price slump and deepening Russian economic crisis.
“The geopolitical risk remains
a concern for 2015,” said Gilberto
Pozzi head of M&A for the EMEA
region at Goldman Sachs. “If the
oil crisis further deteriorates and
political tensions escalate, M&A
activity could suffer as CEOs
would become more risk averse.”
So far, however, the appetite for
big deals shows no signs of weakening as the quest for market
supremacy persists.
Comcast Corp’s $45bn bid for
Time Warner Cable will give the
pair a near 30 percent share of the
US pay TV market, while telecoms
giant AT&T is looking to acquire
satellite TV provider DirecTV in
a $48.5bn deal. Both deals are still
under review with US regulators.
In Europe, Lafarge and Holcim
aim to complete their merger next
year, having secured European
Union approval, to create the
world’s biggest cement maker with
over $40bn in annual sales.
However, some other potentially major deals barely got off
the drawing board, such as brewer
SAB Miller’s approach to familycontrolled Dutch rival Heineken.
“There is no stigma to dealjumping any more,” said Chris
Ventresca, JP Morgan’s global cohead of M&A. “Companies have
greater confidence and can withstand a bump in the road because
there is less uncertainty on their
prospects,” he added.
Expanding abroad has been
a key motivator this year for
European companies looking to
escape from the continent’s sluggish economies, with the United
States a prime target.
In September Germany’s
Siemens struck a $7.6bn all-cash
deal to buy US-based Dresser
Rand. “The largest world economy is open for transactions and
is growing in a more predictable
way than many other geographies,” said Severin Brizay, head
of M&A in EMEA at UBS.
At the same time US firms are
becoming more cautious about
Europe. “They need to see that
the economies in Europe are
stabilized and going up, but there
is not a big consensus on that,”
said Ventresca.
Some also had to think again
after the US Treasury moved to
deter so-called “inversion” deals
whereby companies were making acquisitions to reincorporate
abroad to avoid high taxes at home.
As a result US drugmaker AbbVie
pulled the plug on its $55bn deal
to buy Dublin-based Shire, while
Pfizer faced a UK political backlash against its proposed $118bn
acquisition of AstraZeneca.
However, changes in US tax
rules so far have not killed off
further inversion deals altogether.
“Companies will always factor in minimising taxes as they
consider the best way to structure their business. That is their
job,” said Bob Eatroff, co-head of
M&A for the Americas at Morgan
Stanley.
Meanwhile in Europe, the emergence of unexpected but deeppocketed “left-field” buyers from
developing economies has raised
the stakes for some prospective
Western acquirers, including private equity firms. Buy-out firms,
whose acquisitions accounted for
around 8 percent of the M&A
market this year, have at times
struggled to compete on price.
Chinese buyers had a particularly strong year in Europe,
bankers said, targeting Germany’s
medium-sized manufacturing
firms and distressed assets in
Southern Europe.
“China needs M&A to achieve
true international expansion,
beyond markets such as Brazil or
Africa, and a wider access to technology,” said Pereira.
With cross-border activity
on the rise, the ingredients for
another busy year are all there
with bankers predicting a new
wave of deals in financial services,
chemicals and energy as well as
continuing consolidation in both
healthcare and the telecoms,
media and technology (TMT)
sector. “Investors tend to punish
idleness,” said Lazard Germany’s
co-head of investment banking,
Ken Oliver Fritz.
REUTERS
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
26
QE Indices Summary
QE Index
12,029.59
QE Total Return Index
17,942.03
7.58 %
QE Al Rayan Islamic Index
3,936.37
9.35 %
QE All Share Index
3,066.99
7.54 %
QE All Share Banks & Financial
Services
3,175.87
5.16 %
QE All Share Industrials
3,920.05
8.66 %
QE All Share Transportation
2,213.98
QE All Share Real Estate
2,165.38
9.98 %
QE All Share Insurance
3,652.44
9.03 %
QE All Share Telecoms
1,406.68
10.00 %
QE All Share Consumer Goods &
Services
6,676.68
9.89 %
QE Market Summary Comparison
Index
Change
%
YTD%
Volume
Value (QAR)
Trades
Today
Previous day
21-12-2014
17-12-2014
12,029.59
847.94
7.58
15.90
26,106,586
1,259,977,420.41
9,437
11,181.65
124.32
1.12
7.73
14,078,190
643,117,229.91
7,846
Up 41 | Down 01 | Unchanged 01
WORLD STOCK INDICES
7.58 %
9.05 %
MARKET
INDEX
All Ordinaries
Day’s Close
5140.648
Pt Chg
9.617
% Chg
0.19
Year High
5672.3
Year Low
5072.7
Cac 40 Index/D
4074.21
-18.99
-0.46
4598.65
3789.11
Dj Indu Average
17068.87
-111.97
-0.65
17991.2
15340.69
Hang Seng Inde/D
22585.84
-84.66
-0.37
25362.98
21137.61
Iseq Overall/D
4999.37
-2.07
-0.04
5325.15
4275.26
Karachi 100 In/D
30667.14
-209.14
-0.68
32315.56
25273.11
Nikkei 225 Index
16819.73
64.41
0.38
18030.83
13885.11
S&P 500 Index/D
1972.74
-16.89
-0.85
2079.47
1737.92
Straits Times/D
3227.23
12.14
0.38
3387.84
2953.01
Straits Times/D
3290.99
-1.82
-0.06
3387.84
2953.01
Straits Times/D
3274.06
-8.82
-0.27
3291.83
2953.01
GOLD & SILVER
EXCHANGE
RATE
GOLD
QR140.9686
SILVER
QR 1.8649
Buying Selling
CRUDE OIL
BRENT
$ 59.36
DUBAI
$ 55.82
US$.......................... QR 3.6305
UK ........................... QR 5.6914
Euro ......................... QR 4.5091
CA$.......................... QR 3.1014
Swiss Fr .................. QR 3.7548
Yen .......................... QR 0.0308
Aus$ ........................ QR 2.9551
Ind Re ...................... QR 0.0567
Pak Re ..................... QR 0.0359
Peso ........................ QR 0.0806
SL Re....................... QR 0.0275
Taka ......................... QR 0.0466
Nep Re .................... QR 0.0355
SA Rand .................. QR 0.3081
QR 3.6500
QR 5.7711
QR 4.5728
QR 3.1623
QR 3.8074
QR 0.0314
QR 3.0143
QR 0.0579
QR 0.0366
QR 0.0823
QR 0.0281
QR 0.0477
QR 0.0362
QR 0.3142
QATAR EXCHANGE | DAILY TRADING REPORT | 21-12-2014
Abe victory means gain for big firms, pain for smaller ones
TOKYO:
Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe’s victory
in elections this month, an
endorsement of his economic
policies, may help the nation’s
biggest companies get richer
while extending a surge in
bankruptcies among smaller
ones.
Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda
Motor Co. are expected to post
record profit this year after the
policies known as “Abenomics”
weakened the yen, boosting
their earnings from overseas.
Aggregate net income at 196 of
the largest listed companies will
rise to a record 18 trillion yen
($151bn) this fiscal year, based
on analyst estimates compiled by
Bloomberg.
At the same time, the number
of Japanese companies citing the
weaker yen among the reasons
for going bankrupt has almost
tripled this year as surging costs
of imported food, metals and construction materials squeeze small
businesses, according to Teikoku
Databank Ltd.
Japan may see a continued rise
in such bankruptcies, especially
of small companies outside large
cities, the research company
estimated.
“There’s a huge gap between
the big exporting companies and
smaller companies,” said Takeshi
Minami, chief economist at
Norinchukin Research Institute.
“Abenomics is designed to create
a strong economic structure in
which the strong survive and the
weak go away.”
Small and mid-size businesses
account for about 32 million jobs
in Japan, more than double the
14 million offered by big companies, which mostly gain from currency depreciation, according to
a 2014 report by an agency at the
Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry.
When Abe took office in 2012,
Uchida Co., which supplies molds
to automakers, bet on growth by
building a new factory. Two years
later, the company isn’t profitable.
Indeed, Abenomics may yet put
the company out of business, said
Takumi Tanaka, Uchida’s senior
managing officer.
The yen’s 28 percent plunge
versus the dollar under Abe has
pushed up costs for imported
materials, while a sales tax
increase and a 16-month decline
in real wages have stymied
domestic demand at Uchida’s customers, including Honda. Japan’s
economy is in its fourth recession
since 2008, even as the weaker
yen spurred a record stock rally.
“We expected that Abenomics
would help both big companies
and smaller suppliers like us, so
we invested 800 million yen to
build a new factory,” Tanaka said
in an interview. “We dug a deep
pit of risk, and now we keep waiting in the hole for the economy to
get better.”
RECORD PROFIT
The yen broke through 120
versus the dollar on December 4
for the first time since 2007, as
Abe’s handpicked central bank
chief pumped a record amount
of cash into the economy to stoke
inflation. While some small firms
struggle to pass on higher costs
of imported materials to customers, large exporters are reporting higher profit and the total
number of corporate failures is
in decline.
Even as domestic auto industry sales declined in seven of
the eight months since Japan’s
sales tax was raised on April
1, Honda, Uchida’s biggest customer, will probably report
record net income of 609bn yen
this fiscal year, according to the
average of 23 analyst estimates.
Toyota forecasts annual profit of
2 trillion yen, also a record.
Abe secured a pledge this week
from companies to spread the
wealth generated by the weaker
yen by boosting wages. Data
from the Bank of Japan show the
companies are hoarding record
amounts of cash and also investing heavily overseas.
“I want companies with high
profits that are benefiting from
the weak yen to raise wages,
investment, and on top of that,
consider the prices they pay their
suppliers,” Abe said at a meeting
of business and labor leaders on
December 16.
Japan’s recession, deepened by
companies’ reluctance to plow
gains from the weak yen back
into domestic investments and
consumers’ hesitance to spend,
prompted Abe to call an election,
betting he’d emerge with firmer
support for his economic agenda.
The administration has said it
will address concern about companies hurt by a weak yen in a
stimulus package that may be
compiled this month.
The package can’t come soon
enough for the auto-parts and
materials suppliers in Tokyo’s
Ota ward, which have seen their
fortunes go from bad to worse
under Abenomics.
Ota ward had 4,362 factories
in 2008. By 2010, that had dwindled to 1,748, according to figures
compiled by the local government.
Most of the survivors were betting on Abenomics to reverse the
trend but are still waiting for that
to happen.
SHIFTING RATES
The shifting exchange rates
— as the yen held near postwar
highs versus the dollar for much
of 2009 to near the end of 2012,
before plunging to the lowest
in seven years as of this month
— have added to their woes,
according to Toshiaki Funakubo,
70, chairman of the Ota Ward
Industrial Association.
With the yen appreciation
of the past several years, companies started procuring from
suppliers outside Japan, he said
in a phone interview. The transition has ended the era when
a drop in the yen automatically
boosted the economy by stimulating exports.
“Even with the yen at 120 to
130 to the dollar, jobs are not
going to come back from China
in the next couple of years,” said
Kazuo Takahashi, chairman of
Takagi Co., a tool maker that’s
been in business since 1866.
“Prices will just go up and life
will get harder.”
Companies like Tanaka’s might
benefit little from Abe’s plans for
a corporate tax cut, since they
wouldn’t owe much to the government anyway, given previous
annual losses.
“I still believe Abenomics has a
chance, though I feel the moves
are way too slow,” said Funakubo.
“We’ll all go bankrupt waiting.”
BLOOMBERG
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
SPORT
27
Eagles play-off hopes crushed
with shock loss to Redskins
NFL: Chargers beat San Francisco 49ers to stay in play-off contention
NEW YORK: The Philadelphia
Eagles’
play-off
ambitions
suffered a near-fatal blow
with a surprise 27-24 loss to
the
Washington
Redskins
yesterday.
By contrast, the San Diego
Chargers kept their postseason
hopes alive in dramatic fashion
when they rallied from a 21-point
halftime deficit to beat the San
Francisco 49ers in the second
game of the day.
Nick Novak kicked the winning
field goal from 40 yards in a 38-35
overtime victory.
In Maryland, a 26-yard field
goal from Kai Forbath with five
seconds left condemned the
Eagles to a third successive loss
and leaves them needing the
Dallas Cowboys to lose their last
two games if they are to have a
chance of winning the NFC East.
The crucial moment came
after Eagles quarterback Mark
Sanchez threw an interception
with 91 seconds remaining with
Redskins cornerback Bashaud
Breeland diving in front of Jeremy
Maclin to make the pick.
The Redskins scored on the
resulting possession and although
a poor kickoff handed the Eagles
one last chance, Sanchez’s ‘Hail
Mary’ pass into the end zone was
knocked down by David Amerson
and Washington ended their sixgame losing streak.
The Eagles fell to 9-6. Dallas
lead the NFC East on 10-4. The
result also meant the Detroit
Lions (10-4) clinched their first
playoff berth since 2011.
It was a cruel end to an otherwise impressive display from
former New York Jet Sanchez.
The quarterback completed
37-of-50 passes, throwing for a
career high 374 yards and two
touchdowns but as well as the
interception, he also gave up a
fumble that resulted in a field goal
early in the first quarter.
The Eagles led 14-10 at halftime after an 11-yard touchdown
run from LeSean McCoy and a
three-yard pass from Sanchez to
Riley Cooper.
Redskins running back Alfred
Morris had completed a first
quarter 28-yard touchdown run
before Washington dominated
the third quarter, scoring twice
on one-yard rushes from Darrel
Young to take a 24-14 lead.
Sanchez found Cooper again,
with the receiver producing a
brilliant high catch at full stretch,
in the fourth quarter before a
field goal from Cody Parkey levelled the game at 24-24 before the
Breeland interception.
In Santa Clara, California,
the 49ers looked set to eliminate the Chargers from the
play-off hunt when quarterback
Colin Kaepernick completed an
astonishing 90-yard touchdown
run late in the third, the second
Vancouver
Canucks
defenceman
Christopher
Tanev
celebrates
after scoring
the winning
goal against
Calgary
Flames
goaltender
Jonas
Hiller (not
pictured)
in overtime
at Rogers
Arena,
yesterday.
The
Vancouver
Canucks
won 3-2 in
overtime.
This handout photo taken and
released yesterday by Fubon
Financial shows Kenyan runner
Julius Chepkwony Rotich
crossing the finish line to win the
men’s title at the Taipei marathon.
Kenyans
Rotich, Timbilil
win Taipei
marathon
Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III (right) throws the ball to team-mate Jordan Reed (centre)
as Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Brandon Boykin (second left) defends in the fourth quarter at FedEx Field.
longest by a QB in NFL history.
The Chargers were down by 14
points after three quarters but
Rivers responded magnificently,
throwing two touchdown passes,
the second an 11-yard effort
to Malcolm Floyd with just 29
seconds left to send the game to
overtime.
The result does not guarantee
San Diego (9-6) a spot in the playoffs, but it gives them a fighting
chance.
“I was the main reason we were
in that big hole (at half-time), but
it’s awesome to fight back to win,”
Rivers said.
“We said this is the first round
of the playoffs for us. We won the
first round. We’ve got a long way
to go though.”
REUTERS
Crosby ends long wait as
Penguins down Panthers
LOS ANGELES:
Sidney
Crosby scored his first goal
in nearly a month to lead the
Pittsburgh Penguins to victory
over the Florida Panthers.
Crosby, who had gone eight
games without scoring and missed
three contests with the mumps,
broke his drought with the game’s
final goal in the third period. It
was his 10th goal of the current
season.
Islanders 3, Lightning 1
Centres John Tavares and
Anders Lee scored 12 seconds
apart late in third period as the
New York Islanders stormed home
to beat Tampa Bay Lightning.
Lightning goalie Andrei
Vasilevskiy was 3:09 from a shutout in his first career start, but
the Islanders rallied to win their
fourth successive game.
Blue Jackets 3, Blackhawks 2
Defenceman Jack Johnson
scored in the ninth round of a
shootout as the Columbus Blue
Jackets beat Chicago, snapping a
13-game losing streak (0-10-3) to
the Blackhawks.
Columbus goaltender Sergei
Bobrovsky had 39 saves. He also
NHL Results
Los Angeles
Colorado
Philadelphia
Montreal
Washington
NY Islanders
Pittsburgh
NY Rangers
Columbus
Nashville
Vancouver
San Jose
4
5
7
4
4
3
3
3
3
6
3
3
Arizona
Buffalo
Toronto
Ottawa
New Jersey
Tampa Bay
Florida
Carolina
Chicago
Minnesota
Calgary
St Louis
2
1
4
1
0
1
1
2
2
5
2
2
stopped eight of nine shooters in
the shootout.
Flyers 7, Maple Leafs 4
Centre Claude Giroux scored
two goals and picked up an assist
as the Philadelphia Flyers roared
back after giving up the first two
goals to beat the Toronto Maple
Leafs in a game that featured six
goals in the first period.
Capitals 4, Devils 0
Centre Nicklas Backstrom had
two goals and an assist and goalie
Braden Holtby posted his second shutout of the season as the
Washington Capitals extended
their unbeaten streak to eight
games with a win over the New
Jersey Devils.
Predators 6, Wild 5 (OT)
Defenceman Mattias Ekholm
scored his first goal of the season
in overtime, lifting the Nashville
Predators to their fourth win in
the past five games as they beat
the Minnesota Wild.
Kings 4, Coyotes 2
Centre Anze Kopitar collected
three assists and winger Marian
Gaborik had a goal and an assist
as the Los Angeles Kings beat the
Arizona Coyotes, who have lost
eight of their past 10 games.
Canadiens 4, Senators 1
Wingers Brandon Prust and
Brendan Gallagher and centers Tomas Plekanec and Alex
Galchenyuk scored for the
Montreal Canadiens in their victory over the Ottawa Senators.
Rangers 3, Hurricanes 2 (SO)
Centre Mats Zaccarello scored
the only goal in a shootout as the
New York Rangers extended their
winning streak to five games
with a victory over the Carolina
Hurricanes.
REUTERS
Mavericks rally to beat Spurs
NEW YORK: The new-look
Dallas Mavericks had to sweat
out the debut of guard Rajon
Rondo as they fended off an
injury-ravaged San Antonio
Spurs.
Guard Monta Ellis scored a
season-high-tying 38 point for
Dallas, while point guard Rondo
chimed in with six points, nine
assists, seven rebounds following his trade from Boston on
Thursday. He also drew four
offensive fouls.
Only eight players logged minutes for the Spurs, who were
missing stars Tim Duncan and
Manu Ginobili.
Hawks 104, Rockets 97
The Atlanta Hawks blew a
16-point lead but steadied with
a 7-0 stretch run to beat the
Houston Rockets.
Kyle Korver finished with a
game-high 20 points, including
a dagger threepointer
in
the middle of Phoenix
99
Atlanta’s latePortland
114
game run that
104
ended Houston’s Charlotte
19-game home Atlanta
104
winning streak
99
against Eastern Dallas
C o n f e r e n c e Denver
76
opponents.
LA Clippers
106
Trail Blazers
114, Pelicans 88
Forward LaMarcus Aldridge
scored a game-high 27 points
and grabbed 12 rebounds to power
the Portland Trail Blazers to an
emphatic victory over the New
Orleans Pelicans.
The Trail Blazers showed no
signs of weariness a night after a
triple-overtime game against San
Antonio as they opened a 34-point
lead in third quarter and coasted
to their fifth consecutive victory.
NBA Results
NY Knicks
90
New Orleans
88
Utah
86
Houston
97
San Antonio
93
Indiana
73
Milwaukee
102
Clippers 106,
Bucks 102
Guard Chris
Paul scored 27
points and the
Los
Angeles
Clippers overcame another
poor bench performance to hold
off the Milwaukee
Bucks.
Nuggets 76,
Pacers 73
Forward Danilo Gallinari
scored 19 points and the Denver
Nuggets beat the Indiana Pacers
in an ugly offensive game in which
both teams scored a season-low in
points and shot below 40 percent.
Suns 99, Knicks 90
Eric Bledsoe poured in 25
points to lead the Phoenix Suns
to a road win over the New York
Knicks.
Guard Carmelo Anthony,
slowed by a sore left knee, scored
25 points for the Knicks, who have
lost 14 of their past 15 games.
Hornets 104, Jazz 86
Guard Kemba Walker scored
20 points, and center Al Jefferson
had 19 points and 10 rebounds as
the Charlotte Hornets ended a
10-game losing streak to the Utah
Jazz.
Meanwhile, Rajon Rondo tallied six points and nine assists in
his Dallas debut as he helped lead
the Mavericks to a 99-93 win over
the short-handed San Antonio
Spurs yesterday.
The four-time all-star Rondo
also had seven rebounds for the
Mavericks who snapped a 10 game
regular season losing streak to
the reigning NBA champions.
Point guard Rondo was acquired
from the Boston Celtics in a
blockbuster trade. AGENCIES
Tyson
Chandler (left)
of the Dallas
Mavericks
makes a slam
dunk against
the San
Antonio Spurs
at American
Airlines
Center,
yesterday in
Dallas, Texas.
TAIPEI: Julius Chepkwony
Rotich of Kenya beat his compatriot and defending champion
Josphat Kamzee Jepkopol to
win the men’s title in the Taipei
marathon yesterday.
Rotich crossed the line in
two hours, 14 minutes and four
seconds to take home a prize of
Tw$1.2m ($38,130).
Compatriot Hillary Yego came
second on 2:17:00 while Jepkopol
trailed on 2:20:03.
A field of Kenyan big names
also dominated the women’s
race, with Alice Jemeli Timbilil,
the 2010 Armsterdam marathon
winner, clocking 2:34:55.
She was followed by Carolyne
Chemutai Komen with 2:36:17 and
Viola Chepleting Bor with 2:38:29.
More than 100,000 runners
took part in the event, with about
4,200 competing in the full 42-kilometre (26.2-mile) marathon and
others running shorter distances.
Meanwhile, Kenyan athletics
bosses have defended the country’s record on doping, despite
32 athletes having tested positive
for banned substances in in- and
out-of-competition tests in the
last five years.
On a day when the results of
the “B” sample for top woman
marathon runner Rita Jeptoo
were awaited, officials said they
had done enough to tackle the
problem of doping in the sport
and warned that any athletics
agents implicated in the scandal would be struck off the list
of managers of Kenyan runners.
“We are not saying we have no
doping issues, in fact we have a
big problem. But we have taken
appropriate action in accordance with the provision of the
rules as provided for by the
International Association of
Athletics Federation (IAAF). We
cannot do better or worse than
that,” Athletics Kenya (AK) president Isaiah Kiplagat told a news
conference.
AFP
28
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
SPORT
Nicol David of Malaysia
celebrates after winning
a point against Egypt’s
Raneem el Weleily during
the World Championship
final in Cairo, Egypt on
Saturday. RIGHT: David
responds to a drop shot by
Weleily during the match.
David captures eighth world title
Malaysian squash ace saves four match points against Egypt’s Weleily in marathon final
CAIRO: Nicol David regained
the world title in her most
exciting final, and with her
most memorable performance
yet, saving four match points
in a row to overcome the thirdseeded Egyptian Raneem el
Weleily on Saturday.
David also extended her record
of world titles to eight with her
5-11, 11-8, 7-11, 14-12, 11-5 win.
But she but had to recover
from a game and 2-6 down, from
6-10 down in the fourth game,
and from el Weleily’s constantly
dynamic attacks, fuelled by the
energy from a noisy partisan
home crowd.
During her second game crisis
David worked her way patiently
into the match. During the fourth
game, when it seemed she must
surely be beaten in a world final
for the first time, she altered the
emphasis of her game superbly.
If she saw a slight gap, she
would risk pitching the ball in
short with drops, volley drops,
and trickle boasts off the sidewall
– not normally frequent ingredients in her game – but ones
which she had the courage to try
now. El Weleily still struggled
hard after the disappointment of
losing so great a chance, three of
her match points disappearing as,
under pressure, she volleyed the
ball down.
She saved game points at 11-10
and 12-11 but once the match
went to a fifth, the force was with
David.
At the end she fell on the court
with emotion, and then leant on
a wall sobbing.
Later, though David performed
the formalities with customary
grace, the tears of joy and disbelief kept welling up like never
before, and bringing catches to
her words.
“I don’t know what to feel actually,” she said quietly afterwards.
“You work so hard and when
the final plays out like this you
don’t know what to do with yourself – but I am so very happy.
“There were moments when
I thought it could be over, but I
didn’t want it to end that way.
“Raneem is so strong, and I
knew that if I didn’t do something
Nicol David
of Malaysia
kisses the World
Championship
trophy after
defeating
Raneem el
Weleily in the
final on Saturday
in Cairo.
about it she would take it. I
wanted to make it happen, so, yes
there was a change of emphasis
Chen Long
of China
celebrates
with trophy
after winning
the final
of BWF
Destination
Dubai World
Superseries
against
Danish HansKristian
Vittinghus at
the Hamdan
Sports
Complex
in Dubai,
yesterday.
in the way I played. “It was quite
difficult to do that, when Raneem
is going for broke. It gives you a
little less time to play. But I had
to take time away from her too,
and I found a way to do that.”
El Weleily was also in tears, but
was comforted by Egypt’s minister of sport, Khaled Abdel Aziz,
and acknowledged the surprising
way in which David had rescued
her title.
“There will be lots of positives
to take from my performance,”
she said.
“I had to do something about
what happened -- and I didn’t. I
can perhaps be champion in the
future. But I will need to learn a
lot,” the 25-year-old added.
David’s win meant she is the
first player ever to lose the world
title and regain it within one
calendar year. She lost the title
before her home crowd in Penang
in March.
It followed last month’s achievement of remaining 100 consecutive months as world number one,
a record never likely to be broken
It also suggested that at the
age of 31 there could still be
time remaining for her at the
very top – a very significant factor if during the coming weeks
squash earns a place in the 2020
Olympics.
AFP
World champion Chen wins
Superseries title in Dubai
DUBAI: China’s world champion Chen Long finished 2014
on a high by winning the World
Superseries Finals title on
Sunday, brushing past HansKristian Vittinghus of Denmark
21-16, 21-10 in just 47 minutes.
It was Chen’s fourth major title
of the season and he secured it in
some style with Vittinghus failing
to win another point from 10-10
in the second game.
“I’m happy with my game. This
is the first time Dubai is hosting
such a big event and I’m very
happy with the way it was organised,” said Chen.
“I believe that with so many
Chinese and Indian people living here, badminton has a great
future in Dubai and I’m looking
forward to coming back.”
Taiwan’s Tai Tzu Ying claimed
the women’s title with a 21-17,
21-12 win over South Korea’s
Sung Ji Hyun.
“Tai is now as good as the top
Chinese players,” admitted Sung.
“She is very aggressive and powerful; I found it hard to return her
smashes today.”
Tai played down her victory in
the match.
“I didn’t expect it to be this
easy. Maybe Sung was not at her
best and she made many mistakes,” said the Taiwanese player
who found her form late in the
season.
“I fell sick twice this year; that’s
why I could not compete at a high
level.”
AFP
Cricket festival marks Qatar’s National Day in Doha
DOHA:
The
Organising
Committee for associated activities for the Qatar’s National
Day celebrations conducted a
successful Six-Nation Cricket
Tournament, participated by
expatriates teams of Qatar,
India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka,
Nepal and Bangladesh on
Thursday.
Pakistan won the event after
beating in an exciting final,
watched by around 11, 000 cricket
enthusiasts at the West End Park
Stadium in Doha.
Legendary Pakistan batsman
Zaheer Abbas also famous as the
‘Asian Bradman’ was the Guest of
Honour in the event.
The six-nation contest started
with quarter finals with India and
Nepal featuring in the first match.
India gave a strong target of 129
to Nepal could only reached to 79
runs to hand comfortable win to
their counterparts.
Fans holding flags
of their favourite
teams at the SixNation Cricket
Tournament to mark
Qatar’s National
Day in Doha. RIGHT:
Pakistan expatriates
team which won the
tournament pose for
a group photo after
the presentation
ceremony.
The second quarter-final saw
Qatar - a combined team of many
nationalities - beating Sri Lanka
to march in the semi-finals of the
tournament.
Meanwhile, India qualified for
the final after beating Bangladesh
by 43 runs while Pakistan overcame Qatar to set up a clash with
arch-rivals.
The men in green posted a
massive score of 190 runs in 15
overs after some solid hitting.
India also started aggressively
but they succumbed at the score
of 146 in the allotted overs after
a disciplined bowling from their
opponents.
It was the second successive
Qatar National Day Cricket trophy for Pakistan.
Apart from the matches, several other activities including
draws offering coveted prizes
were also arranged for the fans
who turned out for the tournament.. Former Pakistan captain
Abbas along with Col Muftha gave
away trophies and prizes among
the players. THE PENINSULA
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
SPORT
Dhoni pins hopes on fast
bowlers to get job done
India have the pace threat and aggression, says skipper M S Dhoni
BRISBANE:
Captain
Mahendra Singh Dhoni said
India have the pace threat and
aggression to win Tests away
from home and it’s just a matter
of time before results go their
way.
The Indians lost by four wickets
to Australia in Saturday’s second
Test in Brisbane after going down
all guns blazing by 48 runs chasing 364 in the opening Adelaide
Test.
While India have been in
contention in both Tests, the
Australians have won the key
moments to turn around the
contests.
The Brisbane loss was India’s
fifth straight away defeat and
their 15th in the last 18, with only
one win.
India were thumped 3-1 in
England this year and trail
Australia 2-0 in the four-match
Border-Gavaskar series, but
Dhoni is undeterred.
“There’s plenty of areas we’re
showing improvement, but we’re
still not crossing the line,” Dhoni
said. “We need to give it a bit more
time. Once they start crossing
that line, once they harness that
aggression in the right channel
you’ll see plenty of good results
from this side.”
Dhoni, lining up for his 90th
Test match as a player and 60th
as captain in the third Test in
Melbourne on Boxing Day, said it
is important for India to compete
against the Australians in what
is the toughest tour for overseas
teams.
“The exciting thing is we have
competed. What’s really important is it can turn at any point of
time,” he said.
“The competition has been
good, though the results have not
been in our favour.
“It’s exciting to see the youngsters putting in a fight. It’s just a
matter of time. It will turn out to
be a very consistent side.”
Dhoni said it was important for
his team to fight it out to the end
of their Test matches, irrespective
of their situation in the contest.
“It’s important that you fight it
out with the opposition and then
whatever the result is, you accept
it,” he said.
“At the same time, you don’t
throw in the towel. It was quite
good to see our fast bowlers still
running in, giving 100 percent.
“We have seen the execution
power of our fast bowlers has
increased.
“Ishant Sharma is the leader of
the pack. He is someone who can
India’s captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni walks off the ground with his players after bad light ended play during
the second day of the second cricket Test match against Australia at the Gabba in Brisbane in this December
18, 2014, file photo.
consistently now bowl in one area.
“Varun Aaron is still raw. He
does go for runs, but it’s exciting
to see somebody from India bowling at a good pace and using the
bouncer to get the opposition out.
“We were able to get a few
wickets in Australia’s second
innings and that helps the youngsters learn that to get another
50, 60, 70 runs it can really matter. Especially, when it comes to
Australia and a fifth-day wicket.”
India have not beaten Australia
at the Melbourne Cricket Ground
in 33 years and have lost their last
five Tests there by big margins.
REUTERS
Aussie media slate ‘whingeing’ Australia
captain Smith
for slow
India after Brisbane Test loss fined
over rate
BRISBANE: Beaten India were distracted
by their gripes over the state of practice
wickets and food as they reached their
breaking point on their Australian tour,
local media said yesterday.
M S Dhoni’s tourists fell 2-0 behind in the
four-match series with a four-wicket loss
to Australia in the second Gabba Test on
Saturday, with the home side one win away
from regaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
While Mitchell Johnson triggered another
Indian batting collapse which left the home
side the task of chasing down 128 runs for
victory on the fourth day, Australia’s media
focused on the siege mentality that has enveloped the tourists.
“Not only do the numbers not lie, they act as
a self-fulfilling prophecy. This was Australia’s
10th win in a row at home, and their 14th
in the last 17, with only one defeat. This was
India’s fifth away defeat in a row, and their
15th in the last 18, with only one win,” Fairfax
Media’s Greg Baum wrote.
“For every touring team, every summer,
there is a time, a place and a breaking point.
On Saturday, it was the Gabba nets, before
play.”
Dhoni blamed the state of the Gabba’s practice wickets for injuries to Shikhar Dhawan
and Virat Kohli that he said had unsettled
the team before their batting collapse against
Australia.
“Immediately, a siege mentality settled on
the Indian camp, which protested the standard of the practice pitches, also the lack of a
gym, and in their paranoia refused even to
divulge which bowler or bowlers had inflicted
the damage,” Baum said.
“They trail (in the series) because of tails,
failing to extract runs from their own bottom
order or restrain Australia’s. Perhaps in trying
to match Australia’s machismo, they have been
excitable, excessive and distracted.”
Former Australia Test captain Ian Chappell
blasted India’s lack of leadership.
“That’s the sort of thing (practice wickets)
you might bitch about in the dressing room,”
Chappell told Channel Nine.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India
issued a statement during Saturday’s play,
attacking the state of practice wickets at the
Gabba ground.
“When you come out with a statement like
that, particularly after you’ve lost a few wickets in the morning, it looks like whingeing,”
Chappell said.
Johnson featured in the post-match commentary for his performance with bat and ball
Burns added
to Test squad
BRISBANE:
Batsman
Joe
Burns (pictured) was a surprise
addition yesterday to Australia’s
13-man squad for the third
Test against India, starting in
Melbourne on Boxing Day.
The 25-year-old Queensland
right-hander was named as a
replacement for injured Mitchell
Marsh in the Australian team
that defeated India by four wickets in Brisbane on Saturday to
take a 2-0 series lead.
Burns has yet to play Test
cricket, but reached his highest
first-class score of 183 against
New South Wales last month
to put himself in the frame for
selection.
“It took a fair while to sink in,”
Burns said after he was called by
chief selector Rod Marsh with the
news on Sunday.
“I’m over the moon at the news
as it is the best Christmas present
I could ever hope for.”
Team coach Darren Lehmann
said Burns offered flexibility with
his ability to bat anywhere in the
top six.
“He’s a very good player against
fast bowling, he’s had a good couple of summers at the Gabba with
Queensland,” Lehmann said.
“There have been some good
contenders for that spot and
it’s always a tough call on other
players.
“He’s a very aggressive player,
which is the way we like to play
our cricket.
“We went with Joe, he’s a
to turn the Test for Australia. “They made
hard work of the run chase, but Australia
defeated India by four wickets in the Brisbane
Test after a wrecking-ball performance by
Mitchell Johnson caused the touring side to
implode,” Fairfax Media said.
“Having made 88 in the partnership with
victorious captain Steve Smith that twisted
the Test in Australia’s favour on day three,
Johnson ensured it would finish on day four
with a vintage spell of menacing fast bowling
on Saturday morning.”
Fairfax Media said the Indians were also
dissatisfied with the Gabba catering, which
led to two players, Ishant Sharma and Suresh
Raina, eating their lunch outside the venue
on Friday.
The Australian’s Gideon Haigh reserved special praise for new skipper and official manof-the-match Smith.
“Everywhere you looked in this game there
was Smith. He marshalled Australia well
through an inhospitable first day, repaired
their innings on the second day, secured them
a lead on the third. On the fourth morning,
he looked astonishingly assured,” Haigh said.
“For the last Ashes tour he was the last
man picked; for the next he will be the first.”
REUTERS
BRISBANE: Australia captain
Steve Smith was fined 60 percent of his match fee for a slow
over rate in his first test as skipper in a four-wicket victory in
the second Test against India in
Brisbane. The 25-year-old, who
scored 133 and 28 in the game,
is standing in for the injured
Michael Clarke as captain
but match referee Jeff Crowe
adjudged Australia to be three
overs short of their target.
“As such, Smith has been fined
60 percent of his match fee, while
his players have received 30 percent fines,” the International
Cricket Council (ICC) said in a
statement on their website (www.
icc-cricket.com).
India pace bowler Ishant
Sharma was fined 15 percent of
his match after he was found
guilty of breaching the ICC Code
of Conduct. The breach relates
to “language or a gesture that
is obscene, offensive or insulting
during an International match”.
REUTERS
Retired Indian cricketers
Sachin Tendulkar (right)
and Saurav Ganguly
pose before the start of
the Indian Super League
(ISL) final football
match between Kerala
Blasters and Atletico de
Kolkata at The D Y Patil
stadium in Navi Mumbai
on Saturday. Tendulker
retired from international
cricket in 2013 while
Ganguly quit the game
in 2008.
younger player and we feel he has
something about him.”
Lehmann said selectors went
with an extra batsman for Marsh
after Shane Watson bowled well
in India’s second innings to adequately fill Marsh’s all-rounder
role.
Marsh, who injured his right
hamstring while bowling on the
opening day of the Gabba Test,
will stay with the Test squad and
be assessed for the fourth Sydney
Test, starting on January 6.
Lehmann said opener David
Warner had a bruised left thumb
after being struck by India
paceman Umesh Yadav on the
final day of the Gabba Test.
“Last night it was just bruised
so hopefully he pulls up alright
and we’ll get to Melbourne and
sum it up as we go,” he said.
“The initial signs are good and
I’m pretty confident he’s going to
be fine.”
Lehmann said he would have
liked Australia to have finished
better in their chase after 128
runs for victory at the Gabba.
“The game was played at a fast
pace, it was four and half runs an
over for the whole Test match,”
he said.
“It was exciting again and it’s
been an amazing nine days of Test
cricket.
“I certainly would have liked
us to do it a bit better than six
wickets down, one or two down
would have been a lot better, but
they got the job done, that’s the
main thing.”
Australia squad : David
Warner, Chris Rogers, Shane
Watson, Steve Smith (capt),
Shaun Marsh, Joe Burns, Brad
Haddin, Mitchell Johnson, Ryan
Harris, Peter Siddle, Mitchell
Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh
Hazlewood.
REUTERS
29
Soccer:
Club World
Cup still a
hit outside
Europe
MARRAKECH, MOROCCO:
Greeted
with
overwhelming indifference in Europe, the
Club World Cup is still seen
as the pinnacle of club football
elsewhere as thousands of San
Lorenzo fans demonstrated this
week.
An estimated 9,000 fans made
the tortuous and costly trip from
Buenos Aires to Marrakech to
witness what they believed was
the most important week in their
club’s history.
Goalkeeper Sebastian Torrico
said before Saturday’s final
against Real Madrid, won 2-0 by
the European champions, that
it would be “the most important game of my life” and coach
Edgardo Bauza expressed similar
sentiments.
“It’s the match all the players
want to play. This is the most
important game at club level,” he
said.
“At my age this is like touching
heaven,” added 34-year-old team
captain Juan Mercier.
“I’ve played a lot of second
division football and reached the
top flight at a late age, so I never
thought I’d ever be in a situation
like this, about to take on Real
Madrid.”
San Lorenzo had become
almost obsessed by the tournament since winning the South
American Libertadores Cup five
months ago.
Until the 1990s, the South
American champions used to
compete on equal terms with
their European counterparts
and led by 13 titles to 12 when
the old Intercontinental Cup was
scrapped in 2004.
But Europe leads by seven wins
to three under the new format,
reflecting the huge gulf which
has been caused by the continued
exodus of top players worldwide
towards Europe.
The December timing of the
tournament also does not help.
While the European sides
reinforce their teams in the six
months between winning the
Champions League and taking
part in the club cup, the opposite
happens with teams from the rest
of the world where winning a title
means the best players get sold.
Asian champions Western
Sydney Wanderers have yet to
win a league game this season and
Moghreb Tetouan, who qualified
as champions of the host nation,
are 10th in the Moroccan league
and had not won in five games
going into the tournament.
San Lorenzo, meanwhile
ambled through the 19-match
campaign in the Argentine Inicial
tournament, winning eight times
to finish eighth.
Nevertheless, the chance to pit
themselves against teams such as
Real Madrid remains a huge pull
for the likes of San Lorenzo and
their mainly journeyman players.
Predictably, Real Madrid sailed
through their two matches without conceding a goal, beating Cruz
Azul 4-0 and San Lorenzo 2-0,
reinforcing the concept that the
tournament is uncompetitive.
In fact, Real probably encountered more resistance in those two
games than they would in a typical La Liga game or Champions
League group stage tie.
San Lorenzo coach Edgardo
Bauza pointed out that it is not
just teams from other continents
that succumb to Real’s array of
cherry-picked, world class players
as the Spaniards had won their
previous 20 games going into the
tournament. Bauza said there is
also a huge gap between the elite
group of European teams, such
as Real, Barcelona and Bayern
Munich, and the rest of their own
continent.
“The big difference is between
us and the four or five best teams
in the world, not all the European
teams,” he said. “If you take out
the top four or five, we could play
a match on equal terms against
almost any European opposition.”
The semi-professionals of
Auckland City were another team
who had no complaints about the
tournament.
“It’s a luxury to come to a tournament like this and play against
high level team,” said coach
Ramon Tribulietx.
REUTERS
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
30
SPORT
Pakistan star Afridi to
quit ODIs after World Cup
‘I have informed the Pakistan team management about my decision’
KARACHI: Pakistan’s experienced all-rounder Shahid Afridi
has announced his retirement
from one-day internationals
after next year’s World Cup in
Australia and New Zealand.
Afridi told a news conference
on Sunday that after the World
Cup, which starts on Feb. 14, he
will focus on T20 matches leading
up to the T20 World Cup in India
in 2016.
Afridi has been named captain
of the national T20 side by the
Pakistan Cricket Board.
“I am the first Pakistan player
to be able to announce his retirement properly and on a high. I
always wanted to do this having
seen the problems faced by other
bigger players in the past,” he
said.
“I have informed the Pakistan
team management about my decision but not the cricket board as
yet.
“I want to go out of ODIs with
self-respect and with my fans
wanting more from me,” he added.
Afridi, 34, has played 389 oneday internationals plus 27 tests
and 77 T20 matches for Pakistan.
He held the ODI record for the
fastest century, set in 1996 against
Sri Lanka, until New Zealand’s
Corey Anderson bettered it this
year.
Afridi who is close to completing 400 wickets and 8000 runs in
ODIs, having taken 391 wickets
and scored 7870 runs so far, said
he was hopeful he will be able to
reach this landmark in the World
Cup.
“Having taken a decision it is a
big burden off my mind and I am
confident I will be able to focus on
giving my best in the World Cup,”
said the colourful all-rounder.
Known for his run-ins with
the establishment and his outspoken comments on Pakistan
cricket, Afridi retired from test
matches during the series against
Australia in England in 2010.
“It was not an easy decision to
take and I think many of my seniors also found it difficult to go out
at the right time.
“But no one is indispensable in
cricket and I am sure sooner or
later someone will take my place
in ODIs as well,” Afridi said yesterday.
REUTERS
Pakistani spinner Shahid Afridi delivers the ball during the fifth and final day-night international match against
New Zealand at the Zayed International Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi in this December 19, 2014, file photo.
No way back for KP
despite Cook sacking
LONDON: England cricket
chiefs have moved quickly to
make it clear that Alastair
Cook’s dismissal as one-day
captain has not opened the door
for a return to international
cricket for batsman Kevin
Pietersen.
The South African-born maverick’s undermining of Cook was
one of the reasons Pietersen was
cast aside by England in January
after England’s 5-0 defeat in the
last Ashes series in Australia.
The swashbuckling strokemaker has a much better relationship with middle-order
batsman Eoin Morgan, who has
replaced Cook as captain for the
World Cup in Australia and New
Zealand early next year.
The 34-year-old batsman said
earlier this month that he still
had hopes of a recall but England
and Wales Cricket Board (ECB)
managing director Paul Downton
moved to quell any hopes of a
comeback.
“We parted company with
Kevin in January because
throughout the ECB management, from the dressing room
up to the board, it was felt that
it was the right decision to go in
a slightly different direction,” he
told Britain’s Daily Telegraph.
“If anything more bridges have
been burnt by Kevin’s book. There
is no interest from our point of
view in going backwards.
“We’ve got an exciting group of
young players and Eoin’s excited
to be working with those guys.
England Test
captain Alastair
Cook (right)
chats with
former teammate Kevin
Pietersen at
the Melbourne
Cricket Ground
in this file
photo taken
in December
2013.
He wants to fulfil that team’s
potential.”
Pietersen, a former ICC ODI
player of the year, released a
book in October which contained
attacks on the national cricket
board and several of his former
team mates.
Head selector James Whitaker
was even blunter.
“The ECB management made
this decision in January and it is
the same decision now,” he told
the paper. “There is no way that
Kevin Pietersen will ever get back
into an England team.”
Pietersen, who is in Australia
playing Twenty20 cricket in the
domestic Big Bash league, might
draw some comfort from the fact
that Whitaker backed Cook’s captaincy in September and Downton
gave him another vote of confidence last week.
REUTERS
McCullum to revert to
middle order in SL series
WELLINGTON: New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum (pictured) will drop back down the order for the Test series against
Sri Lanka despite scoring a double century as an opener against
Pakistan last month.
McCullum had only opened the innings in
the UAE as a stop-gap measure, chairman
of selectors Bruce Edgar said yesterday, and
would revert to his middle order position for
the first Test in Christchurch that starts on
Dec. 26.
“This is another series, in different conditions and against a completely different opponent,” Edgar said in a statement in naming
the test squad.
“In these circumstances, we feel Brendon’s
better suited to, and offers more value, down
the order.”
Hamish Rutherford and Tom Latham will
likely open the innings at Hagley Oval, though the recalled Dean
Brownlie could also contend for the position after stating previously
he had a preference to bat at the top of the order.
Off-spinner Mark Craig was also named as the sole slow bowler for
the match after some strong performances against Pakistan in tandem
with leg-spinner Ish Sodhi, who has dropped out of the 13-man squad.
All-rounder Corey Anderson was also not considered due to a groin
injury he sustained during the one-day series against Pakistan.
New Zealand squad: Brendon McCullum (captain), Trent Boult,
Doug Bracewell, Dean Brownlie, Mark Craig, Tom Latham, James
Neesham, Hamish Rutherford, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor, Neil Wagner,
BJ Watling, Kane Williamson
REUTERS
West Indies add Deonarine
to test squad in SA
PRETORIA: Left-handed batsman Narsingh Deonarine has been
added to the West Indies Test squad for the final two matches in
South Africa, the country’s cricket board has announced.
Deonarine comes in for Assad Fudadin, who fractured a finger in the
warm-ups ahead of the first test in Pretoria that ended in an innings
and 220-run defeat for the tourists on Saturday.
Deonarine, 31, also a right-arm off-spin bowler, has played 18 tests,
the last of which in New Zealand a year ago.
The second test starts in Port Elizabeth on Friday, with the final
game to be played in Cape Town from Jan. 2.
REUTERS
Holder replaces Bravo as WI captain
ST
JOHN’S,
ANTIGUA
AND BARBUDA: Barbados
all-rounder Jason Holder was
named as the new captain of
the West Indies one-day squad
yesterday, taking over from
Dwayne Bravo who has been
axed after his high-profile role
in October’s India tour fiasco.
Holder, 23, will lead the West
Indies into their five-game series
against South Africa in January
before heading the squad at the
World Cup in Australia and New
Zealand in February and March.
Bravo was left out of the
15-man squad although he was
named in the Twenty20 party
for the three-game series, also in
South Africa, next month.
“Jason is one of the good, young
players who we believe will form
part of the long-term future of
West Indies cricket,” said Clive
Lloyd, the chairman of selectors.
“We expect him to be around for
a very long time. He is a young
man with a very bright future. We
have invested in him. The selectors decided that now is the time
to make the transition and Jason
will have people around him to
help and guide him. Some might
say it’s close to the time of next
year’s World Cup but we know
that we have a good one-day team
which can do very well.”
Holder has appeared in 21 ODIs
and has taken 29 wickets while he
has also appeared in one Test and
a T20 international.
Dwayne Bravo was at the forefront of the controversial decision to quit the tour of India four
matches into a five-game one-day
series after a pay dispute.
He was one of the main players who came in for particular
criticism when a task force published its report into the debacle last week. The new-look
West Indies squad also features
Jonathan Carter, who has received
his maiden overseas tour call, and
sees Narsingh Deonarine making
a comeback after some strong
recent performances.
Left-handed batsman Leon
Johnson is retained and allrounders Carlos Brathwaite and
Andre Russell are also included
in the squad which has the experienced top order duo of Chris
Gayle and Dwayne Smith.
Fast bowling duties will be handled by Jerome Taylor with support from Sheldon Cottrell.
Sulieman Benn is the lone specialist spinner in the ODI squad.
Kemar Roach, who was originally identified for selection, has
joined the injury list after being
hurt in the West Indies’ innings
and 220-run defeat to South
Africa in the first Test which
ended Saturday.
West Indies ODI squad: Jason
Holder (captain), Sulieman Benn,
Carlos Brathwaite, Jonathan
Carter, Sheldon Cottrell, Narsingh
Deonarine, Leon Johnson, Chris
Gayle, Denesh Ramdin, Andre
Russell, Marlon Samuels, Lendl
Simmons, Dwayne Smith, Jerome
Taylor; 15th man TBA.
West
Indies
Twenty20
squad: Darren Sammy (captain), Sulieman Benn, Carlos
Brathwaite, Dwayne Bravo,
Sheldon Cottrell, Andre Fletcher,
Chris Gayle (subject to fitness
test), Jason Holder, Ashley Nurse,
Kieron Pollard, Denesh Ramdin,
Andre Russell, Marlon Samuels,
Lendl Simmons, Dwayne Smith.
REUTERS
Jason Holder ... new skipper
Rugby: A
major relief
for Galthie as
Montpellier
end their
losing run
PARIS: The pressure eased
slightly on coach Fabien Galthie
as Montpellier ended a run of
seven successive defeats with
a thrilling 23-20 victory over
Toulouse in their Top 14 clash
on Saturday.
A penalty with under two minutes remaining by Teddy Iribaren
sealed victory for the hosts and
gave them their first win since
October 11.
For Toulouse -- who had their
own blip earlier in the season with
five successive defeats -- it was
only their second loss in the last
10 matches.
Galthie, who has until recently
enjoyed immense success with
Montpellier including guiding
them to the 2011 French championship final, was delighted,
though he admitted the performance left a lot to be desired.
“This is a huge win and an
immense relief,” said the 45-yearold former France captain.
“You can’t put a price on this
win. The injury to Francois
(Trinh-Duc, their fly-half who
broke his leg in the last game they
won back in October) really hurt
us badly. We have had a chain of
events subsequently that has been
complicated and traumatising.”
Benoit
Paillaugue
gave
Montpellier a 6-0 lead early on
with two penalties but the visitors reduced the deficit through
former All Black Luke McAlister
with a penalty in the 25th minute.
Toulouse head coach Guy Noves
attempted to rectify a serious
problem in his front row as they
came under increasing pressure
in a succession of scrums close to
their try line by sending on Vasil
Kakovin for Kisi Pulu, who had
had a torrid time, with only 29
minutes on the clock.
However, it made not a jot of
difference as Montpellier won the
next scrum and Paillaugue this
time decided to spread the ball
with Jonathan Pelissie feeding
Wynand Olivier.
The 31-year-old South African
centre made no mistake stretching out his arm to touch down
when he was tackled short of the
line -- Paillaugue converted for
13-3.
Kakovin’s introduction as a
saviour for the front row wasn’t
a success. He was sin-binned in
the 37th minute as the scrum
collapsed under Montpellier
pressure.
However, it was Toulouse
who struck the final blow of the
first-half.
A superb run by Maxime
Medard from a penalty awarded
in the final minute ended up with
Vincent Clerc going over for the
88th try of his Top 14 career
-- McAlister converted to send
Toulouse in only 13-10 down.
Despite being a man down,
Clerc struck again a minute into
the second-half -- McAlister converted for 17-13.
However, the Toulouse scrum
was still creaking and Pulu,
who had had to come back on
when Kakovin was sin-binned,
was yellow-carded in the 50th
minute and shortly afterwards
Montpellier were awarded a penalty try as the referee’s patience
ran out.
Paillaugue converted for 20-17.
McAlister levelled with a penalty but Iribaren held his nerve to
give the hosts a much needed confidence boost ahead of games with
Castres and defending champions
Toulon.
Toulon went back to the top
of the table with a 30-6 win over
Lyon later Saturday, shrugging off
a host of injury absentees to overcome a poor start which had seen
them trail 6-3 at the interval.
New Zealand flanker Chris
Masoe grabbed two tries for the
European champions with his
second score coming in the last
minute, which also secured a
bonus point.
Australian winger Drew
Mitchell also scored a try.
Racing Metro celebrated their
signing of All Blacks star Dan
Carter with a three-try 27-8
home win over La Rochelle.
REUTERS
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER 2014
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
SPORT
31
Hummels can’t rule out Dortmund relegation
LEFT TO RIGHT: Borussia Dortmund’s goalkeeper Mitchell Langerak, Mats Hummels and Ciro Immobile react
after the German Bundesliga first division match against Werder Bremen in Bremen on Saturday.
BERLIN: Mats Hummels says
there is no guarantee Borussia
Dortmund will avoid relegation
next May after finishing the
first-half of the Bundesliga season in the bottom three.
“There is no guarantee things
will improve,” the Dortmund captain admitted to German daily
Bild on Sunday after his side were
beaten 2-1 at Werder Bremen on
Saturday, which left them 17th in
the table.
“Almost all of our first choice
players were missing at some
point in the first-half of the season and weren’t always 100 percent fit.
“We should manage to get everyone fit during January’s winter
break, then we can show a different side when we have our best 15
or 16 players.
“We have had the worst half
to the season anyone could have
imagined. The worry has been
considerable for weeks and the
way we are playing, we are right
down there.”
Dortmund were last relegated
from Germany’s top flight in
the 1971/72 season, when they
Skrtel overcomes head
injury to rescue Reds
finished the first half of the season in 15th, compared to their
current ranking of 17th.
Despite scoring Dortmund’s
consolation goal in Bremen,
Germany star Hummels was one
of several below-par performers
in his team having been beaten
for pace by Bremen’s goal-scorer
Davie Selke in the build-up to
Werder’s second goal.
Dortmund qualified as group
winners ahead of Arsenal for the
last 16 of the Champions League,
where they have drawn Juventus,
but have endured the worst start
to a Bundesliga season for 27
years.
Their tally of 15 points from
17 games is their worst since the
1987/88 season.
Having finished as runners-up
to Bayern for the last two years,
this is the first time Dortmund
go into the winter break in a
direct relegation spot in the club’s
history.
Their ten defeats and just four
points picked up away from home
are both top-flight low marks.
“The fact that we look like complete idiots on the pitch, serves us
right,” said coach Jurgen Klopp.
“We played the shittiest firsthalf of the season in our lives.”
But Klopp has said he will
ensure Dortmund put in a more
convincing display when the season resumes at the end of January
when they play fellow Champions
League side Bayer Leverkusen
away. “It will be much more difficult to beat us,” added Klopp.
“We’re not that far away from
climbing out of trouble. We will
be a fierce hunter (of those above
us), I can promise that.”
Meanwhile, Spanish forward
Joselu struck deep into stoppage time as Hanover 96 rallied
from two goals down to draw 2-2
at bottom club Freiburg in the
Bundesliga yesterday.
Mike Frantz put the home side
ahead on the stroke of halftime
while, drilling the ball in following
a cut-back by Christian Guenter,
and they also hit the woodwork
twice in the second half.
Leaders Bayern Munich, who
triumphed 2-1 at Mainz on
Friday, are 11 points clear of second-placed VfL Wolfsburg.
AFP
Ronaldo honoured in hometown
Slovakian’s goal earns Liverpool 2-2 draw with Arsenal
LIVERPOOL: A bloodied and
bandaged Martin Skrtel headed
home a last-gasp 97th-minute
equaliser to earn Liverpool a
2-2 draw against Arsenal in
the Premier League at Anfield
yesterday.
Having bossed the first half,
Liverpool went ahead through
Philippe Coutinho, only for goals
from Mathieu Debuchy and
Olivier Giroud to leave Arsene
Wenger’s Arsenal on the brink of
a smash-and-grab victory.
But Giroud’s accidental kick to
Skrtel’s head led to nine minutes
of stoppage time and the tattooed
Slovakian centre-back claimed
his revenge with a memorable
header in front of the Kop - for
the leveler.
But though the goal – Skrtel’s
first of the season – gave
Liverpool’s fans some muchneeded Christmas cheer, it did
little to improve their team’s
standing in the table following
a run of only two wins in nine
games.
Brendan Rodgers’s side, who
had Fabio Borini sent off, are now
17 points below leaders Chelsea
and nine points below the top
four.
Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal –
destroyed 5-1 on their previous visit in February – trail the
Champions League places by four
points.
With Liverpool fielding seven
midfielders in a 3-4-3 formation, which saw Raheem Sterling
reprise his role as a ‘false nine’,
it was unsurprising to see the
hosts dominate possession from
kick-off.
Steven Gerrard curled a freekick wide in the early stages and
Adam Lallana drilled a left-foot
effort narrowly over after skilfully
spinning onto a pass from Lazar
Markovic.
After fielding a tame effort
from Coutinho, Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny produced a decisive stop, spreading
himself to thwart Markovic, who
had been freed to run at goal by
Gerrard’s flick.
Markovic also whipped a firsttime shot over the bar from a
Sterling pass, before the breakthrough arrived in the 45th
minute.
After Giroud conceded possession, Jordan Henderson played
a pass into the feet of Coutinho,
who threw Debuchy off-balance
before drilling a low shot into the
bottom-left corner.
There had been a sense of inevitability about the goal, but barely
a minute later, Arsenal silenced
the Kop by equalising with their
first attempt at goal.
Alexis Sanchez’s right-wing
free-kick was half-cleared,
Mathieu Flamini kept the ball
alive, and Debuchy climbed at
Liverpool’s Slovakian defender Martin Skrtel (centre) celebrates after scoring his team’s second equalising goal
during the English Premier League match against Arsenal at Anfield in Liverpool, yesterday.
the back post to head home via a
deflection off Skrtel.
Skrtel’s misfortune continued
early in the second period as he
was left with a nasty gash on the
back of his head after being accidentally kicked by Giroud, which
prompted a six-minute stoppage
in play.
Liverpool came close to scoring when play resumed, with
Sterling slyly using his hand to
knock the ball past the onrushing Szczesny before crossing for
Gerrard, whose diving header
sent the ball over.
But it was Arsenal who struck
next. Giroud clipped Kieran
Gibb’s pass wide to Santi Cazorla
and then exploited sluggish
defending to meet the Spaniard’s
low cross with a shot that flew
past Brad Jones.
Rodgers sent on strikers Borini
and Rickie Lambert for the closing stages.
Borini drew a brilliant save
from Szczesny with a late header,
but after being booked for hurling the ball away when a throw-in
decision went against him, he was
sent off after catching Cazorla
with a high foot.
Szczesny saved from Gerrard,
but just as it looked like Arsenal
would hang on, Skrtel met
Gerrard’s right-wing corner with
an emphatic near-post header to
earn the 10 men a point.
In the day’s other game,
Sunderland claimed a dramatic
1-0 victory at Newcastle United
in the Tyne-Wear derby.
The 90th-minute goal from
former Newcastle youth player
Adam Johnson secured victory
for his side.
AFP
Portuguese football player Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid poses with
his son beneath his statue during the unveling ceremony in his hometown
in Funchal, yesterday. Ronaldo returned to his home town of Funchal to
attend the unveiling of a statue sculpted in his honour. “This is a very
special moment, to have a statue of me,” said an emotional Ronaldo at
the ceremony.
Marseille finish year
on top with Lille scalp
Liverpool’s English midfielder Steven Gerrard (top left) and Arsenal’s
English striker Danny Welbeck (top right) jump for the ball during their
English Premier League match at Anfield, yesterday.
PARIS: Belgian striker Michy
Batshuayi
repaid
Marseille
coach Marcelo Bielsa’s faith
in giving him his first start by
scoring the decider in the 2-1
win over Lille yesterday that
guarantees they top the table
going into the New Year.
Batshuayi secured OM’s ninth
consecutive home victory after
Idrissa Gueye had cancelled out
the Nolan Roux own-goal which
gave the home side the lead.
Marseille, who last won the
title in 2010 when coached by
Didier Deschamps, lead defending
champions Paris Saint-Germain
– who drew 0-0 with Montpellier
on Saturday – by three points and
are five ahead of Lyon, who play
Bordeaux later.
Batshuayi, who had to bide his
time to get a start after signing
from Standard Liege in the summer, had got the nod when Bielsa
told regular starter Dimitri Payet
he could go on holiday after failing
to impress in training this week.
And the Belgian Under-21
international did not let the mercurial Argentinian coach down as
Marseille secured the symbolic
title of ‘Autumn Champions’ in
front of a record Stade Velodrome
attendance of 62,048 spectators.
Andre-Pierre Gignac had a
superb chance in the 12th minute
as a weak defensive header fell to
him inside the penalty area but he
sent his shot well wide of the post.
Batshuayi went close to breaking the deadlock in the 27th
minute as he created space for
himself and unleashed a fine curling effort that went just wide of
the post.
The hosts went 1-0 up in the
32nd minute in the most unfortunate circumstances for Lille as
Roux tried to put out a poor corner by Florian Thauvin only for
it to flash off his boot and beat
Vincent Enyeama at the near
post.
Lille were fortunate not be
reduced to 10 men 10 minutes
into the second half as Gueye
flashed out his arm and caught
Mario Lemina full in the face but
despite a harsh talking to by the
referee he didn’t receive even a
booking for that.
He made the most of his good
fortune by levelling in the 61st
minute, his shot from the edge of
the area taking a deflection before
rolling past Steve Mandanda.
However, the hosts sent massed
ranks of Marseille fans – many in
Santa Claus hats – into ecstasy
in the 69th minute as Batshuayi
turned his marker and let fly with
a right-footed effort that gave
Enyeama no chance.
AFP
Sport
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Juventus, Napoli target
title glory on Doha turf
Italian Super Cup final at Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium
BY ARMSTRONG VAS
Juventus
coach
DOHA:
Massimiliano Allegri yesterday
said his players were fired up to
clinch the first title of the season but the Italian giants won’t
underestimate rivals Napoli in
their Super Cup clash today.
The teams square off here today
at Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium for
their first silverware of the season. The clash is a repeat of the
contentious 2012 edition, which
ended 4-2 for Juve in extra time.
“This is our last game of the
year and our third target for the
campaign after qualifying for the
last 16 of the Champions League
and remaining top of the Serie A
table,” Allegri said yesterday.
Allegri, who took over from
coach Antonio Conte in the summer, has had a roller coaster ride
this season at Juve.
The 47-year-old has guided the
club three points clear at the top
of Serie A heading into the winter
break.
The former midfielder is not
new to the Super Cup having
steered AC Milan to victory
in 2011 in the traditional season opener between the Serie A
champions and the Italian Cup
winners.
This year the event had to be
moved to the middle of the season on account of the FIFA World
Cup in Brazil. The Juve trainer
warned that Napoli is ‘more difficult to face’ in a one-off game
like the Super Cup.
“Napoli is a European team, an
LEFT: Napoli’s coach Rafael
Benitez during a press
conference before a training
session at Al Sadd Stadium
in Doha yesterday. Napoli
will face Juventus in the
Italian Super Cup final at the
same venue today. RIGHT:
Juventus’s Italian Gianluigi
Buffon listens to a question.
opponent that is more difficult to
face in a one-off game than over
the course of a season. They have
individuals who can change a
match by themselves,”
“Perhaps they don’t have the
consistency and balance to challenge for the title all year round,
but on their day they can cause
trouble for anyone.”
Allegri said Napoli defence
is not their forte but picked
out Napoli’s Argentina striker
Gonzalo Higuain as the threat.
“The Partenopei defence does
Napoli’s Italian
midfielder
Christian
Maggio
during a press
conference
before a
training
session at Al
Sadd Stadium
in Doha
yesterday.
not look impeccable, but we need
to play over 90 minutes and that’s
a very different situation to a
Serie A game,” said Allegri, who
is aiming to win his first title with
Juventus.
“Gonzalo Higuain has extraordinary quality, but fortunately
I have Tevez, Morata, Llorente,
Giovinco and Coman, so I’ll stick
with my players.”
Allegri’s opposite number Rafa
Benitez said Napoli were confident they can win the Super Cup.
“Juventus are ahead of us in the
Serie A table, but the match is
just a one-off match and we have
confidence,” Benitez said.
“What matters is the hunger
for victory and the right mentality. We’ve always done well
against the big clubs and are convinced we can do it.
“In everyone’s heads and
hearts, we are all expecting the
victory. We know what the fans
want from us. It is an important
game and we are fully focused. We
have the utmost respect for our
opponents, but we know our own
strength and want to win this.”
The former Chelsea coach said
he has not decided on his final
eleven yet.
“Who will start? Everyone
deserves to play, so I will make
my decision tomorrow.”
Benitez said his players were
high on motivation ahead of the
clash today.
“I don’t need to fire up the players too much as the occasion is
motivation enough,” he said.
This will be the seventh time
that the Super Cup to be played
abroad.
It was held in Washington, DC,
in 1993, in Tripoli, Libya in 2002,
New Jersey in 2003 and Beijing on
three occasions — 2009, 2011 and
2012.
THE PENINSULA
LEFT: Juventus
players during
the official pitch
inspection
before a
training session
at Al Sadd
Stadium.
Napoli
Juventus
‰S.S.C. Napoli S.p.A., simply known as Napoli,
has always been one of the most-beloved soccer teams in Italy. As a matter of fact, several
market surveys have shown that Napoli fans are
among the top four in Italy in terms of numbers
and the enthusiasm in supporting the team.
‰ In over eighty years of history, Napoli has
won plenty of national and international honours, including 2 Scudetti (Serie A championships) - 5 Italian Cups - 1 Italian Super Cup - 1
UEFA Cup, etc.
‰ Perhaps the most exhilarating period of
Napoli’s history occurred in the latter half of
the 1980s, when Napoli fielded the world’s most
renowned player at the time, Diego Armando
Maradona, flanked by a team of illustrious
champions.
‰Juventus Football Club, commonly referred to
as Juventus and colloquially as Juve, are a professional Italian association football club based in
Turin, Piedmont.
‰The club is the third oldest of its kind in the
country and has spent the majority of its history, with the exception of the 2006–07 season,
in the top flight First Division (known as Serie
A since 1929).
‰Juventus is historically the most successful
club in Italian football. Overall, they have won
fifty-six official titles on the national and international stage, more than any other Italian club:
a record thirty league titles, a record nine Italian
cups, and a record six national Super Cups. The
club currently ranks fourth in Europe and eighth
in the world with most trophies won.
Juventus’s
head coach
Massimiliano
Allegri arrives
for a press
conference.