PM launches expanded RAF A3 water plant By Ramesh Mathew

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1 INDEX QATAR 2-6, 28 REGION 7 ARAB WORLD 8, 9 INTERNATIONAL COMMENT BUSINESS CLASSIFIED SPORTS 26, , QATAR Page 28 Umm Slal Interchange opens for traffic GULF BUSINESS Page 1 GWC earns Q1 net profit of QR50.5mn DOW JONES QE NYMEX 20, % 10, % Latest Figures TIMES WEDNESDAY Vol. XXXVIII No April 19, 2017 Rajab 22, 1438 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals % published in QATAR since 1978 In brief QATAR Official Emir condoles with Saudi King Salman HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-thani, HH the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-thani and HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-thani yesterday sent cables of condolences to King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-saud of Saudi Arabia on the crash of an armed forces helicopter in which 12 people died. The victims were participating in the coalition forces in support of Yemen legitimate government carrying out their duty at Ma arib governorate. HH the Emir, HH the Deputy Emir and HE the Prime Minister asked Allah Almighty to grant them Paradise and their families patience and solace. QATAR Disputes MME launches online rental payment service The Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) has launched the online issuance of a rental payment certificate, which is offered by the office of the rental disputes committee that pertains to MME Financial Affairs Department. The service is now available free of charge through MME website at Rashid Muhsin al- Nadilah, head of the office, pointed out that the certificate is considered an official statement from the office indicating the name of the tenant (the payer), the name of the beneficiary (the landlord), and the sum of the monthly rent, duration and the date of deposit at the office. The service is now available only for individuals. QATAR Weather Windy conditions to prevail in country Strong winds, dusty conditions and low visibility are expected to continue affecting the country over the next few days, intensifying during the weekend, the Qatar Met department said yesterday in a report. The weather office has also issued a warning for offshore areas. Weather charts indicated the continuation of northwesterly windy conditions. The wind speed is expected to range from 15-25/30 knots today, while the sea level will be 6-8ft. Stronger northwesterly windy conditions were likely across all areas in Qatar on Thursday and Friday, ranging from 20-30/38 knots. The maximum temperature will be 39C in Wakrah and Mesaieed and 37C in Doha today. Yesterday, the maximum was 39C in Turayna, 38C in Sheehaniya and Batna, 37C in Mesaieed and 36C in Doha. HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-thani formally launching the expanded RAF A3 station yesterday as HE the Minister of Energy and Industry Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-sada and QEWC managing director Fahad bin Hamad al-mohannadi look on. PICTURE: Shaji Kayamkulam Regional and local car debuts at motor show By Joey Aguilar Staff Reporter Eight regional debuts and 14 local car launches highlighted the opening of the Qatar Motor Show (QMS) 2017 yesterday at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre (DECC). The five-day event, under the patronage of HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-thani, is jointly organised by Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) and Fira Qatar. HE the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-sulaiti led the show s official opening and VIP tour, which was attended by dignitaries, government officials, prominent businessmen, diplomats, and guests. Speaking to reporters after the tour, the minister described QMS, which features 110 vehicles, as an exceptional show that contributes to the country s economy. He noted that the Qatar government is always trying to help and support the private sector, especially in doing business in the country. In a statement published by the official Qatar News Agency, al-sulaiti said: The current edition of the exhibition area has seen an increase by 18% from the previous one which includes 38 exhibitors. He also stressed the importance of raising public awareness on the need to use hybrid cars, featured by a number of companies at the show, to help preserve the environment. QMS 2017 also saw the launch of the BAIC brand for the first time in Qatar, including Mercedes s E-Coupe, E43 and SLC 43; Lexus s LC 500; Chevrolet s Tahoe Midnight edition, Trailblazer Z71, Camaro ZL1, Malibu Turbo, Silverado Midnight edition; Ford s HE the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-sulaiti cuts a ribbon to open Qatar Motor Show 2017 yesterday as HE the Minister of Municipality and Environment Mohamed bin Abdullah al-rumaihi and other dignitaries look on. PICTURE: Noushad Thekkayil Fiso Raptor; Lincoln s Continental; Ram s 1200 and 1500 limited editions; Hyundai s Ioniq Hybrid; and Genesis s G90; and G80. Alfardan Sports Motors, the official dealer of Ferrari in Qatar, also unveiled the brand-new 812 Superfast in a glittering ceremony at the event. After months of preparation, we are pleased to raise the curtain on the 2017 edition of the show, an event that is proudly led by local talents, QTA s Exhibitions Department director Ahmed al-obaidli said in a statement. It sheds light on what our nation has to offer within the technology and automotive sector. Themed Driving to Innovation, QMS 2017 also features the latest technology, innovation, and performance trends in the automobile industry. It gives international carmakers the opportunity to interact with consumers, offering hands-on experiences with their products and technology. The show allotted a 5,000sq m showroom for classic cars some of the rarest and most iconic pieces in the world, which are presented by the Sheikh Faisal Museum, strategic partner Mawater, and Alfardan. Mawater, a classic car and motorcycle club, is organising a daily classic car parades from the VIP parking of DECC at 3pm until April 22. The classic sedan parade will take place today followed by a sport muscle cars parade tomorrow. On Friday, a GCC mixed classics parade will hit the road followed by a pick-up classic trucks parade on the concluding day. Batabit, a centre that aims to effectively participate in building a generation of responsible riders, will host a speed bikes parade today and a series of biking parades (choppers and spiders parades) until April 22 at the Doha Corniche. Visitors are encouraged to take part in the daily social media competitions at the show which will be open today and tomorrow from 4pm to 10pm. On Friday and Saturday, entry is from 1pm to 10pm. Pages 3, 4, 5 PM launches expanded RAF A3 water plant By Ramesh Mathew Staff Reporter The QR1.75bn Ras Abu Fontas A3 (RAF A3), one of the major desalination projects to supply potable water to Qatar s residents, was formally dedicated yesterday by HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-thani, at Wakrah. The project s expansion took a little more than 18 months. The station, using superior reverse osmosis (RO) technology for the desalination process, has the capacity to supply an additional 36mn gallons of water (mlgd) to the country s water networks. The first phase of the project, with a capacity of 22mlgd, had been operational since September last year. While speaking at the ceremony, HE the Minister of Energy and Industry Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-sada expressed hope that the expanded project, which is one of the most advanced stations of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena), would help effectively meet the country s growing water needs. The application of the RO technologies, said the minister, would help the station contribute to sustainable development in line with the goals and objectives of the Qatar National Vision Al-Sada said the technology is cost-effective as well as environmentfriendly and it would help the station remain independent from the production of electricity. The minister also indicated that Umm Al Houl Power and Water Project, which is currently being built on the southern side of Wakrah will be fully operational in the first quarter of 2018 and about 136mlgd of desalinated water would be available from the plant when it is completed. Already 36mlgd of water is supplied from the project, which is also using the RO technology. The water production from Umm Al Houl would be about one-fourth of the country s total requirements. The plant also has a capacity to produce 2,520MW of power, making it the second largest of the country, after Ras Girtas on the country s northern side. Also speaking, Qatar Electricity and Water Company (QEWC) managing director Fahd bin Hamad Ahmed al- Mohannadi said water and electricity production from their company has reached its pinnacle and the plants have achieved maximum utilisation in the more than 44 years since its commencement. The QEWC is second largest utility in Mena region. It is the main supplier of electricity and desalinated water in Qatar with a market share of 62% of electricity and 79 % of the water. The company has a electricity generation capacity of 5,432MW and water desalination capacity of 258mlgd, while the total power generation capacity in Qatar is 8,750MW and water desalination capacity is 328mlgd. The available power generation capacity in Qatar currently exceeds its requirements by 2,700MW. The company has experienced remarkable growth over the decades in line with the rapid development of the country s economy and growth in population. This has contributed to an increase in the demand for electricity. Page 2 British PM May calls for early election in June London British Prime Minister Theresa May called yesterday for an early election on June 8, saying she needed to strengthen her hand in divorce talks with the European Union by bolstering support for her Brexit plan. Standing outside her Downing Street office, May said she had been reluctant to ask parliament to back her move to bring forward the poll from But, after thinking long and hard during a walking holiday, she decided it was necessary to try to stop the opposition jeopardising her work on Brexit. Some were surprised by May s move - the Conservative prime minister has repeatedly said she does not want to be distracted by campaigning - but opinion polls give her a strong lead and the British economy has so far defied predictions of a slowdown. Page 15 Qatar Airways in world first on IATA baggage tracking Qatar Airways has become the world s first airline to achieve compliance with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Resolution 753 at its hub at Hamad International Airport (HIA). The resolution requires the airline to track every piece of baggage from the start of the journey all the way through to its finish. Qatar Airways said it has met the IATA mandate one year in advance. Resolution 753 was developed to reduce mishandling and baggage fraud, increase passenger satisfaction and enhance the overall baggage management landscape at airports around the world. The resolution was issued in 2016 and made mandatory for all IATA airlines, which have until June 1, 2018 to comply. The certification has been achieved thanks to the airline s Baggage Management System (Haqiba) developed in-house, as well as its seamless real time integration with the Qatar Airways website and mobile app. Qatar Airways offers real time updates on checked baggage through the Track my bags feature on its website and mobile app, providing passengers with a truly hassle-free baggage experience. The mobile app provides real time notification to passengers with relevant updates on the bag, as well as the ability to retrieve the details on need basis using My trips. The information includes various stages of the baggage handling process such as check-in, transfer, arrival, as well as reference to bag tags and Qatar Airways has become the first airline in the world to achieve compliance with IATA resolution requires the airline to track every piece of baggage from the start of the journey all the way through to its finish. baggage belt. This information guides passengers during the journey and provides insight into any instance of delayed or lost baggage. The Haqiba system enables Qatar Airways staff to proactively manage the delayed bags to provide an optimised handling process. Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Akbar al-baker said: Our careful attention to our passengers baggage, from the beginning of their journey all the way through to its finish, is yet another indication of the importance we place on customer experience. We have proactively taken steps to align our baggage management systems with IATA s requirements. As a result, we are delighted that the association has declared Qatar Airways the first airline worldwide to become certified for endto-end tracking for our hub at Hamad International Airport. Nick Careen, IATA senior vice president (Airport, Passenger, Cargo and Security) said: Qatar Airways efforts over the past year to comply with IATA Resolution 753 on baggage tracking have paid off. We congratulate the airline on becoming the first in the world to achieve full compliance of the resolution at their hub in Doha. Qatar Airways ability to track baggage at every stage of its journey will allow the airline full visibility to manage its baggage operations and to more easily trace, retrieve and deliver missing or delayed bags, leading to a better experience for passengers. The certificate was presented to Qatar Airways hub - Hamad International Airport (HIA); once all its stations in the network are compliant with the resolution, IATA will award the airline a platinum certificate. This year, HIA was ranked the Sixth best airport in the world by the 2017 Skytrax World Airport Awards, as well as having been named Best Airport in the Middle East for the third consecutive year. The airport was also named as having the Best Staff Service in the Middle East for the second year in a row.

2 2 QATAR Ugandan president arrives FM meets Ugandan counterpart OFFICIAL Emir issues three laws Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni arrived yesterday on an official visit to Qatar. HE the Minister of Municipality and Environment Mohamed bin Abdullah al-rumaihi and Uganda s ambassador to Qatar Yahya Rashid Ssemuddu received the president and his accompanying delegation at Hamad International Airport. HE the Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-thani met Uganda s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sam Kutesa in Doha yesterday. They discussed bilateral relations and the means to enhance them, in addition to issues of joint interest. HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-thani yesterday issued the following laws: 1. Law No 5 of 2017 on the regulation of dealing in subsidised commodities. 2. Law No 6 of 2017, amending some provisions of Law No 7 of 1987 on the rules of practising commercial activity by GCC citizens in Qatar. 3. Law No 7 of 2017 on allowing Gulf companies in GCC states to open branches in the country. The laws are effective and are to be published in the official gazette. Instruments of ratification Work on renewable energy projects under way: minister Significant works are currently under way to ensure that 200MW power would be generated from renewable energy sources, mainly solar, by the turn of the decade, it was informed yesterday at a briefing held after the launch of the Ras Abu Fontas A3 water plant. HE the Minister of Energy and Industry Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-sada, Qatar Electricity and Water Company (QEWC) managing director Fahd bin Hamad al-mohannadi and Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) president Issa Hilal al-kuwari were present. While speaking to journalists, the minister said that after the completion of the 200MW solar plant in Duhail, efforts would be made for generating another 500MW of power from renewable energy. The government, said the minister, is committed to ensure that water and electricity are provided to the country s residents when any major project is planned and executed, whether it is residential, commercial or industrial. While lauding the efforts of those involved in the timely completion of Ras Abu Fontas A3 project the minister said the works of large-scale Umm al- Houl water and project are in full swing and it would be commissioned in the first quarter of Replying to a query, Fahd al-mohannadi said water production using reverse osmosis technology will not only be 15 to 20% cheaper but the process is also very environment-friendly. The construction and operation of the plant and generation of desalinated water are also less expensive when it is done through RO, he At the meeting it was informed that three quality control tests HE the Minister of Energy and Industry Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-sada is explaining a point yesterday as QEWC managing director Fahd bin Hamad al-mohannadi, Kahramaa president Issa Hilal al-kuwari, Mitsubishi Corporation s Katsuya Nakanishi and other dignitaries look on: PICTURES: Shaji Kayamkulam A view of the gathering at the launch of the expanded Ras Abu Fontas A3 water plant. lasting 15 days would be held before desalinated water is supplied to customers through the country s networks. The tests are held at the laboratories of the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa), Ministry of Public Health and also at an international facility outside the country. At the meeting, Mitsubishi Corporation s senior vice-president (regional CEO, Middle East and Central Asia) Katsuya Nakanishi said the three projects executed by their company in Qatar would ensure water for no less than 500,000 residents. Kahramaa spends QR1.9bn on projects in 2016 A number of substations were constructed and overhead lines and cables laid by the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) in 2016 at a cost of QR1.9bn as part of expanding its electricity networks. In a statement yesterday recalling the developments initiated under president Issa bin Hilal al-kuwari, Kahramaa said last year witnessed the construction and energised several substations, cables, and Over Head Lines (OHL) at different areas to ensure the safety, service sustainability, and reliability of transmission and distribution networks. In 2016, Kahramaa launched a number of electricity substations including a substation supplying the power to the new Hamad Port at a total cost of QR188mn. In addition, the corporation also managed to build two substations 132 /11 kv and associated cables to supply power to the Mall of Qatar and Doha Festival City at a total cost of QR171mn. Moreover, Kahramaa energised a number of substations to feed power to different vital development projects and authorities including Al- Gharrafa substation 132/66/11 kv at a total cost of QR145mn, Lusail super substation 220/66/11 kv costing QR134mn, and Al-Dhakirah substation costing QR67mn in addition to other substations, cables, and OHL at different areas. HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-thani yesterday issued the following instruments of ratification: 1. An instrument of ratification endorsing a draft memorandum of understanding (MoU) on co-operation in the field of protecting endangered wildlife and the conservation of its natural habitat between the governments of the State of Qatar and the Republic of Azerbaijan, which was signed in Doha on February 27, An instrument of ratification endorsing an MoU on cooperation in the field of financial policy and budget affairs between Qatar s Ministry of Finance and Azerbaijan s Ministry of Finance, which was signed in Baku on March 8, An instrument of ratification endorsing the ratification of an agreement on waiving visa requirements for holders of diplomatic, special and official passports between the governments of Qatar and Colombia, which was signed in Bogota on July 27, An instrument of ratification endorsing a draft agreement on air services between the governments of the State of Qatar and the Republic of Montenegro, which was signed in Doha on Jan. 29, An instrument of ratification endorsing the ratification of an MoU on co-operation in the field of standardisation between Qatar General Organisation for Standardisation (QS) and Turkish Standards Institution (TSE), which was signed in Trabzon on Dec 18, An instrument of ratification endorsing the ratification of an MoU on co-operation in the field of information and communication technology between Qatar s Ministry of Transport and Communications and Turkey s Ministry of Transport, Maritime and Communication, which was signed in Trabzon on Dec 18, An instrument of ratification endorsing a draft memorandum of understanding for cooperation in the field of residency and expatriate affairs (foreigners) between Qatar s Ministry of Interior and the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Interior, which was signed in Doha on February 26, Emir issues decree Health Ministry announces new Corona Virus case The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has announced that a new Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus (Mers-CoV) case has been confirmed on a 25 yearold Qatar resident. This is the second Mers- CoV case to be confirmed in the country this year. There have been a total of 20 Mers-CoV cases since 2012 and seven out of them have died. The new Mers-CoV patient had complaints of fever, cough, cold, and body pains for several days and sought medical advice in a primary healthcare centre. Samples were taken from him and he tested positive for Mers- CoV according to Hamad Medical Corporation s laboratories. Despite his stable condition, the patient was admitted to hospital, in practice with the national infection prevention and control protocol for confirmed and suspected Mers-CoV cases to ensure appropriate medical attention. However, neither any history of contact with similar cases nor recent travel outside the country by the patient was reported. He was also not suffering from any other diseases. Once the case was confirmed, the rapid response team of the Health Protection and Communicable Disease Control Department at the MoPH started a field investigation to identify the possible source of the infection and to verify whether any of the patient s contacts has suspected symptoms. All traced contacts will be monitored over a period of two weeks while those who develop suspected symptoms will then be subjected to confirmatory laboratory investigation. MoPH has also announced that the previous Mers-CoV case, a 62 years old patient reported last month and admitted to Hamad General Hospital, has completely recovered and discharged. MoPH advises citizens and residents, in particular those with comorbidities (other diseases) or low immunity to abide by cough etiquette and handwashing with soap and water thoroughly and avoid unnecessary contact with sick animals. MoPH also has informed that Health Protection &CDC Hotlines and are accessible 24/7 to respond to any enquiry related to infectious diseases. HMC hosts symposium to examine urinary tract infections More than 250 healthcare professionals gathered in Doha this week to examine the causes and treatment options for an increasingly common illness Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs). The Challenges in Urinary Tract Infections Symposium, held by Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), gathered physicians and healthcare workers from a range of specialities including gynaecology and urology. During the symposium, held under the chairmanship of Dr Khalid al-rumaihi, senior consultant and head of Urology Section, attendees examined the challenges in diagnosing, treating and preventing UTIs, especially difficult cases. Dr al-rumaihi explained that a UTI affects part of the urinary system. UTIs, which can range from bladder infections to kidney infections, are among the most common and debilitating bacterial infections, affecting more than 150mn people worldwide every year. Symptoms of a UTI include dysuria (also known as painful urination or a burning sensation when urinating), an urgent need to urinate as well as bladder pain and fever, he UTIs are considered to be the most common bacterial infection and can affect men and women of all ages. In fact, more than half of women will experience a UTI during their lifetime, said Dr Hana a al-hothi, consultant in the Urology Department at HMC and head of Organising Committee. The incidence of UTIs is also increased during pregnancy, menopause and in patients with spinal cord injuries, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis. The elderly are at greater risk for serious illness from UTIs because the condition is often further along before they are diagnosed and because they often have other health problems that make them more vulnerable. The symposium also focused on myths surrounding UTIs including hygiene and diet. Challenges in diagnosis and testing, as well as treatment of the infections in the elderly and new strategies for treatment of recurrent infections, were also discussed. Patients with acute UTIs are typically prescribed a short course of antibiotics. However, some patients do not respond to this treatment. If left unchecked, infections can become chronic and patients can end up in hospital, said Dr Ahmed Hayati, clinical fellow at HMC. HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-thani yesterday issued Emiri Decree No 20 of 2017 ratifying an agreement between the governments of Qatar and the Kyrgyz Republic on avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of financial evasion of income taxes, which was signed in Doha on June 1, 2014, and whose text is attached to the decree. Real estate transaction The trading volume of registered real estates between April 9 to 13 at the Ministry of Justice s real estate registration department stood at QR 659,535,613mn, the ministry The department s weekly report said that the trading included empty lands, residential units, residential buildings, compounds, towers, multipurpose buildings and multipurpose empty lands. Most of the trading took place in Doha, Umm Slal, Al Rayyan, Al Wakrah, Al Khor, Al Thakhira, Al Daayen.

3 QATAR 3 Almana displays new Ford and Lincoln models Ian Partridge speaking during yesterday s unveiling ceremony. By Peter Alagos Business Reporter Power and luxury take centre stage with new Ford and Lincoln models on display at Qatar Motor Show Almana Motors Company (AMC), the exclusive distributor for Ford and Lincoln in Qatar, is attracting a large number of visitors and car enthusiasts to its stand where it is showcasing the latest Ford muscle cars and trucks such as the latest edition of the Ford Mustang Shelby, as well as luxury Lincoln models. AMC will also roll out two models of the F-150, the most popular truck in the US for the past 40 years. Similarly, the limited edition Shelby F-150 pick-up and the all-new and improved F-150 Raptor are under the spotlight. For those seeking a slice of luxury from their drive, AMC is displaying the all-new 2017 Lincoln Continental and the Lincoln MKZ, which provides an additional bonus of the versatility of a crossover. Lincoln and Ford are two iconic brands and we are honoured to be able to showcase the latest models to loyal followers of the brands, while attracting new audiences at such a prestigious event as Qatar Motor Show, said AMC general manager Ian Partridge. This is an important date on the calendar for Almana Motors Company. Supporting this event and the automotive industry in Qatar is crucial to our development and growth. The interaction with visitors is key for us as we seek to drive new customers to our showrooms, while keeping our loyal customers up to date with the latest models. Speaking to on the sidelines of the event, Partridge was optimistic in giving his forecast for 2017 as retail sales in Qatar went up 50% over the past year. From a retail perspective, we grew our market share over the course of the year. And we re very pleased with our achievements and with what we ve set out to do to make the business more profitable for us to be able to give back to our customers. Among the significant things we ve looked at is customer satisfaction, which is why in the last 12 months, we have become the number one dealer on Ford sales in the GCC, the Middle East, and Africa, Partridge pointed out. Shelby F-150 pick-up and the all-new F-150 Raptor on display. UCA lines up full range of brands at Qatar Motor Show Officials flank the new Lexus LC 500 Coupe during its unveiling at Qatar Motor Show 2017 yesterday. New Lexus LC 500 makes debut Abdullah Abdulghani and Bros Co (AAB), the sole distributor for Lexus in Qatar, has unveiled the latest Lexus LC 500 at Qatar Motor Show 2017, which was officially opened yesterday. AAB chairman Dr Nasser Abdulghani al-abdulghani said attractive shape and contemporary style of the new Lexus LC 500 Coupe represents the future design of the Lexus brand. The design of the front lights is particularly prominent but there are other details such as the side air vents, the triangular rear lights, and the unique roof line that ends up unconnected to the rear of the car, which looks sporty with the crumpled exhaust holes on both sides. The overall car shape, especially when viewed sideways, seems to be heavily derived from the Lexus LFA. The LFA is definitely one of the coolest sports cars ever. Inside, there is a strange mix of luxury and sporting touches. The Lexus LC 500 features a 5.0-litre V8 engine with 471 horsepower. The engine sits at the centre of the car behind the front axle and in front of the passenger compartment making it a vehicle with a front-facing engine. This gives the LC 500 the perfect weight distribution with 52% front and 48% rear, which Lexus believes to be the perfect driving pleasure. The new light steel and steel base is even more resistant to torsion than the carbon fibre from which the Lexus LFA was manufactured. Carbon fibre was also used to make the car s roof and light aluminium steel in several parts to reduce the car weight and centre of gravity, and increase its rigidity. The new base will be the starting point for the next Lexus models that adopt the position of front engines and rear wheel drive. Lexus Middle East general manager Yugo Miyamoto said: We would like to be a luxury lifestyle brand that doesn t just provide cars but also appeals to human emotion stimulating the imagination and offering a sense of surprise. Lexus Qatar also has dedicated a zone for its hybrid vehicles the RX 450h and GS 450h, which are characterised by smart technology and fuel-saving features. Lexus Hybrid vehicles switch smoothly and automatically between the electric motor and gasoline engine. As a leading brand in the luxury category of hybrids, Lexus offers technologies that include the best of innovation and luxury. Another zone is dedicated for the high performance vehicles, the eight cylinders, 5.0 litre F models where the GS F and RC F are also showcased. United Cars Almana (UCA) showcased its full range of brands from muscle cars to allpurpose 4x4s and trucks during yesterday s opening of Qatar Motor Show 2017 at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre (DECC). UCA, the authorised sales and service dealer of Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge in Qatar, took centre stage at the event s seventh edition to exhibit the diversity of its products. Muscle car enthusiasts will appreciate UCA s display of the Dodge Challenger Hellcat and the Dodge Charger Hellcat, as well as the Chrysler 300 SRT. During the five-day event, UCA will demonstrate to fans versatile SUVs and 4x4s such as the Dodge Durango RT, Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT, and the Jeep Wrangler. Also, truck fans will not miss out on the Ram 1200 and the monster splendid Ram 1500 Limited, which are both on display. UCA general manager Gurdeep Multani said: Qatar Motor Show is one of the most important events on the calendar and it is the perfect platform for us to display our vehicles. The show has allowed us to showcase models for the first time. The Ram 1200 is introduced in Doha for the first time and we are excited to display a complete new range of Ram 1500 Sport, Longhorn, and Limited. What sets our brands apart Gurdeep Multani unveils the new Ram PICTURES: Noushad Thekkayil is that they come with Mopar accessories, allowing you to customise your car while staying under warranty. The year 2016 was a great year for us and we have hit our first quarter business plan for this year, witnessing a 91% growth for Ram. UCA is one of 21 exhibitors participating in the event, which was designed to bring customers and car fans closer to brands and highlight advanced technologies in the auto industry. One of the exhibition favourites is the unique display of classic cars and some of the rarest collectible cars in the world. The Jeep Wrangler Rubicon is among the top brands on display at the UCA stand. Toyota highlights hybrid as technology of the future AAB chairman Dr Nasser Abdulghani and other senior executives pose with the Toyota Kikai concept car at Qatar Motor Show yesterday. PICTURE: Noushad Thekkayil Abdullah Abdulghani & Bros Co (AAB), the sole agents of Toyota vehicles in Qatar, is demonstrating the unique features of hybrid, seen as the technology of the future, at Qatar Motor Show Speaking to reporters yesterday, AAB chairman Dr Nasser Abdulghani said guests at the Toyota booth will get a unique personalised experience of hybrid technology through various activities. The booth, he said, was built under the wave concept, which conveys a feeling of dynamic vibrancy. He said Toyota always strives to introduce various advanced technologies with class-leading performance and excellent fuel efficiency, enhanced refinement, and comfort for passengers. During the event, AAB highlighted the concept car, Toyota Kikai (or machine in Japanese). The Toyota Kikai concept was designed to explore and emphasise the fundamental appeal of machines their fine craftsmanship, beauty, simplicity, and fascinating motion. As a true concept car, the Toyota Kikai s appeal is simultaneously free from and reliant on the core concepts of automobiles. The car aims to highlight elements like beauty, precision, and mechanical workings of a car by literally providing windows on action that s normally out of view. The look and feel of the Toyota booth also follows the company s recently-announced brand campaign go share the fun with the all-new 2017 Toyota. It captures the sentiments of car owners and encourages them to explore, excite, and enjoy with their families while driving Toyota. The visitors to our booth can explore more about Toyota s most popular models Toyota Yaris, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Camry, Sporty Toyota 86, and Toyota Prius, which is the largest selling hybrid model in the world. It s said Where the road ends, adventure begins, and this is where Toyota Land Cruiser comes into action and is most popular in Qatar, Abdulghani pointed out. Visitors to the Toyota booth can also look at three variants of Toyota Land Cruiser GX, GXR, and top of the range VXS. Also on display is Toyota Fortuner 2017, which was awarded Best Mid-size SUV Middle East Car of the Year in the MECOTY 2017 Award. Abdulghani also said Toyota Motor Corporation awarded the company with the Diamond Award, Marketing Award for Excellence, Outstanding Customer Service Excellence Award, and the Outstanding Customer Service Leadership Award for its exceptional performance in 2016.

4 4 QATAR All-new Discovery makes debut Ferrari s 812 Superfast. Ferrari launches its fastest road car ever Alfardan Premier Motors Co, the exclusive retailer of Land Rover in Qatar, revealed the full-sized, three row, and seven-seat Land Rover Discovery SUV at the opening of Qatar Motor Show (QMS) 2017 yesterday. Boasting unbeatable capability and versatility, the allnew Discovery embodies Land Rover s drive to go above and beyond, combining British desirability with an unstoppable spirit of adventure. The fifth-generation model benefits from Land Rover s strong, safe and light full-size SUV architecture, delivering comfort and adaptability like no other. The all-new Discovery was on display at Jaguar Land Rover s stand, giving guests a first look at the vehicle s dynamic appearance, sophisticated surfaces and precisely engineered details. Since its reveal, the all-new Discovery has been highly anticipated by customers here in Qatar. We have already received a number of orders for the vehicle mirroring the outstanding response the new model has received from enthusiasts all over the region, Alfardan Premier Motors general manager Rabih Ataya said at the launch. An iconic Land Rover vehicle, we expect the all-new Discovery to continue driving traffic to our showrooms, he added. Bruce Robertson, managing director, Jaguar Land Rover Middle East and North Africa, noted that the all-new Discovery is leading the next chapter of the Land Rover Discovery family with revolutionary design and engineering. It is created as a highly desirable, extremely versatile and hugely capable premium SUV, he A nod to our brand heritage and DNA, this new model fully demonstrates the spirit of adventure that has always been at the heart of the Discovery family. Introducing the all-new Discovery here in Qatar alongside our partners Alfardan Premier Motors, we are extremely excited to offer customers and enthusiasts the ultimate combination of practicality and sophisticated design, Robertson Powered by Jaguar Land Rover s efficient six cylinder engine, the all-new Discovery is also paired with a smooth and responsive ZF eight-speed automatic gearbox. Land Rover s advanced 340PS supercharged petrol 3.0-litre V6, the Si6, provides 450Nm of torque to deliver relaxed performance and capability. The all-new Discovery is available exclusively at Alfardan Premier Motors showrooms across Qatar with prices starting from QR217,900. By Joey Aguilar Staff Reporter The launch of Ferrari s brand new 812 Superfast at Alfardan Sports Motors exclusive pavilion yesterday marked a glittering start for the five-day Qatar Motor Show (QMS) Alfardan Sports Motors, the official dealer of Ferrari in Qatar, noted that it is committed to bringing Ferrari s Italian heritage to the forefront with the unveiling of 812 Superfast at the show. The brand itself is very strong and attractive. Ferrari is always a people s dream and for those who appreciate technology, Charley Dagher, general manager of Ferrari at Alfardan Sports Motors, told. True to its name, the 812 Superfast is the fastest road-going Ferrari ever built with a 6.5-litre V12 engine. The 812 Superfast achieves its maximum power output at 8,500rpm with a maximum speed of 340km/h, springing from in 2.9 seconds. It is a significant model in Ferrari history and it is not just the fastest, but also the most powerful production car up to date, Dagher stressed. We are eager to demonstrate Ferrari s superior technological advancements and impeccable craftsmanship that make the brand a leader in the luxury sports car segment, he added. The stunning model is a benchmark in the mid-front-engine sports car segment, pushing the boundaries of speed and performance like never before. Designed as the flagship V12 Berlinetta, the model embodies Ferrari s revered V12 heritage that sprung to life in 1947, with the birth of the brand. The new Ferrari model s timely world premiere at Geneva Motor Show, followed by QMS 2017, coincides with Ferrari s 70th anniversary celebrations this year. Ferrari is building on its recognition as the only manufacturer to have continuously produced sports cars with 12-cylinder engines throughout that time, Dagher noted. The 812 Superfast further impresses with its trendy silhouette and a radically redesigned cabin that reveals its sportier DNA. In addition, Dagher said 812 Superfast is the first Ferrari to feature electric power steering, which when integrated with all of the electronic vehicle dynamics controls can fully exploit the performance of the car. The vehicle also sees the debut of the Virtual Short Wheelbase 2.0 system that improves the agility and response time to steering wheel inputs. We are extremely thrilled to be part of QMS. This is an incredible opportunity to connect with fast car aficionados, and offer them a unique perspective of the Ferrari world, Dagher added. HE the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-sulaiti and other dignitaries listen to a briefing by Alfardan Group president and CEO Omar Alfardan during the QMS 2017 VIP tour yesterday. PICTURE: Jayan Orma Jaidah Automotive unveils 2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Skyline Automotive introduces Hyundai Ioniq hybrid Jaidah Automotive, Chevrolet s exclusive dealer in Qatar, held the Qatar debut of the 2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, the most powerful Camaro in the model s 50-year history, at the seventh edition of Qatar Motor Show yesterday. Attending the motor show on behalf of Jaidah Automotive was Khalid Samir, director of Operations at Jaidah Automotive. Also present at the event were Markus Leithe, managing director Middle East - General Motors; Abdallah Madhoun, regional sales and marketing manager for Chevrolet GM Middle East; and other representatives. Madhoun said: We are excited to showcase the Camaro ZL1, which will go on sale in Qatar in the next couple of weeks. The Camaro ZL1 is designed to excel at everything, delivering on design, dependability, quality, and performance. The ZL1 is the track capable version of the award-winning sixth generation The 2017 Camaro ZL1, makes its Qatar debut at Qatar Motor Show PICTURE: Jayan Orma of the Camaro and can challenge the most advanced sports coupes in the world. The Camaro ZL1 is the first production car to use a new, advanced 10-speed automatic gearbox, which offers strong economy and performance benefits. It is also available as a six-speed manual. Acceleration is delivered via a new supercharged 6.2L V-8 engine, with an estimated 650hp. Its 0-100kph time is a mere 3.6 seconds, and it can complete the quarter mile in 11.4 seconds at a speed of 204kph. It builds on the sixth generation Camaro s segment leadership as the fittest in the segment. Samir said: The vehicles we are showcasing this year portray Chevrolet s latest innovation in safety, design, and technology. At Jaidah Automotive, we pride ourselves on delivering the Chevrolet Complete Care promise through a nationwide campaign under the name We Will Handle It that visitors in QMS will be able to find out more about. He added: Jaidah Automotive has grown significantly over the past year with the strategic expansion of the new showroom and GM Quick Service Centre in Al Rayyan. We attribute our success to providing comprehensive services to our customers. We recently launched the global Incadea DMS system a fully-integrated and configurable dealer management solution that will support us in better serving our customers. In addition to the Camaro ZL1, some of Chevrolet s hottest vehicles will be on display at the show, including the Tahoe Midnight Edition, Trailblazer Z71, Malibu Turbo, and Silverado, featuring the newest Chevrolet truck accessories. Skyline Automotive, the official distribution partner of the Hyundai Motor Company in Qatar, led the Qatar debut of Ioniq Hybrid the next generation eco-friendly vehicle at yesterday s opening of the Qatar Motor Show General Manager Paiman el-malla said Ioniq is an innovative, industry-leading hybrid and is the first car in the world to offer separate hybrid, full electric, and plug-in hybrid powertrains within one body type. It has been making waves around the world since its global launch last year, and has collected a slew of the industry s most coveted awards. The Ioniq Hybrid boast s the best fuel mileage of any non-plug-in vehicle. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the US rated the Ioniq Hybrid at 58mpg in combined city and highway driving, which translates to 4.1litres per 100km. The compact electric motor works with the specifically-calibrated 1.6 GDi petrol engine to improve fuel economy and lower CO2 emissions to an estimated 79g/km. The petrol engine, together with a 32kW electric motor, delivers a combined 103.6kW of power and up to 265Nm of torque and a top speed of 185km/h. The electric motor recharges on the go, working together with the dual-clutch transmission to deliver smooth and responsive automatic gear changes with the use of low-viscosity transmission oil. Skyline Automotive is expecting robust demand for the hybrid version of the car, which is expected to hit the market from May The Ioniq Hybrid is one of nine cars presented by Skyline Automotive at The Ioniq Hybrid makes its Qatar debut at the Qatar Motor Show PICTURE: Noushad Thekkayil the show. Our enthusiasm for bringing the Ioniq to Qatar is part of our goal to offer customers a diverse product range to meet their individual needs and expectations, which are evolving to include environmentally-friendly options for mobility. Automotive enthusiasts pursuit of greater fuel efficiency has created a strong global market for eco-friendly vehicles that meet drivers everyday needs, Qatar notwithstanding. That s why more options are needed to help make responsible choices easier for consumers, el-malla He added: The Ioniq is also the first major step towards our mission to support the development of Qatar on an economic, social, and environmental level. We believe there is enormous potential and desire from people and businesses in Qatar to reduce their environmental footprint and we hope to help them make that choice with the Ioniq. World s newest luxury car brand Genesis arrives in Qatar Paiman el-malla unveils the Genesis flagship full-size G90 sedan and the G80 mid-luxury sedan. PICTURE: Jayan Orma Genesis, the world s newest luxury auto brand, made its Qatar Motor Show debut yesterday, marking the brand s official arrival in the country. The Genesis flagship full-size G90 sedan and the G80 mid-luxury sedan have been brought to Qatar by its exclusive dealer Skyline Automotive. Our aim is to be the best luxury auto brand on the market and earn client loyalty by offering superior cars supported by an impeccable client service and attention to detail, said Paiman el-malla, general manager of Skyline Automotive. He said Skyline Automotive has taken customer service to the next level for Genesis clients through an enhanced owner experience. Committing to a worry-free customer journey, the Genesis Experience combines a suite of customer programmes with an industry-best warranty to exceed anything currently available in the luxury market. Skyline Automotive also offers Genesis owners complimentary maintenance for five years, and Genesis owners get the ultimate convenience of having their vehicle picked up and dropped off at a time and location of their choice. Also, Genesis Concierge is an exclusive lifestyle concierge membership offered to Genesis owners on a complimentary basis for two years. The service brings together a global network of over 1,300 consultants, many of whom are based in the Middle East to address the specific needs of regional clients. It offers a fully-integrated concierge programme combining travel, medical, and security assistance through a partnership with SOS International. The Genesis G90 and G80 models, on display at the Qatar Motor Show, are the first in a planned range of cars expected to redefine the top end of the automotive market in Qatar. There is a strong appetite to welcome the new G80 Sport edition arriving in May, followed by the Genesis brand s third and smallest model, the dynamic rear-drive G70 sedan, which will be available in Qatar exclusively at the Skyline Automotive dealership this fall. An entire lineup of new luxury Genesis models, including SUVs and a coupe, will be rolled out through to To find out more about Skyline Automotive, its showrooms, and the network of aftersales centres across Qatar, as well as Genesis models, customers can visit ae/ar/genesis.html

5 QATAR 5 Supercar Fittipaldi EF7 unveiled By Joey Aguilar Staff Reporter Former World Formula 1 champion Emerson Fittipaldi led the Middle East debut of his racing supercar Fittipaldi EF7 Vision Gran Turismo by Pininfarina at the Qatar Motor Show 2017 yesterday. It was launched at the Geneva Motor Show and this is the second presentation of this brand new car, Fittipaldi told. He is also the chairman and CEO of Fittipaldi Motors. It is easy to operate, easy to drive, and I call this a ladies and gentlemen car, even ladies can drive it, he stressed. Fittipaldi noted that they will build 39 units in two years for markets across the globe, including Qatar and other GCC countries. Nasser Bin Khaled (NBK) Automobiles, the authorised general distributor of Mercedes-Benz in Qatar, will be the distributor of the car. Fittipaldi sees Qatar and the Middle East as a big market for such a supercar, having four Grand Prix race tracks. I designed and built the concept of this car to be easy and fun on the race track, he The capacity in the region is big for safe race tracks, they are modern, and people here enjoy safe and fun driving. He claims the all-carbon fibre supercar is the lightest car in the world, weighing less than 1,000kg with a 193kg V8 engine. Iconic Italian design company Pininfarina and race-bred German Fittipaldi and NBK Automobiles are planning to bring the supercar by the end of this year in Qatar for a test drive on the race tracks engineering firm HWA AG fulfils Fittipaldi s dream to produce a car with fierce track-racing capabilities for drivers of all skill levels. The supercar also features an integrated gearbox, suspension and braking system developed by HWA AG, and with ultra-lightweight, all-carbon fibre chassis construction with an exceptionally low centre of gravity. Fittipaldi and NBK Automobiles are planning to bring the supercar by the end of this year in Qatar for a test drive on the race tracks. I have tried for years to explain to others what it truly feels like to be behind the steering wheel of a championship race car, Fittipaldi This is what our dream team created in the EF7 Vision Gran Turismo by Pininfarina, he noted of the first car to be released under the Fittipaldi Motors. The carbon fibre monocoque is a specially designed safety capsule for both driver and passenger, enabling drivers to feel comfortable in the car, even while at its limits, he added. Owners of the supercar will be able to join the Fittipaldi Racing Club, which will provide exclusive VIP high-performance driving and racing experiences at some of the world s premier racing circuits, led by Fittipaldi and other racing professionals. Emerson Fittipaldi (left) and a dignitary from NBK unveil the Supercar Fittipaldi EF7 Vision Gran Turismo by Pininfarina yesterday at QMS PICTURE: Jayan Orma NBK showcases new Mercedes-Benz models at QMS 2017 Commercial Bank sponsors supercar Commercial Bank has announced its sponsorship of the supercar at Qatar Motor Show 2017, which is being held at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre until April 22. Commercial Bank CEO Joseph Abraham said, Commercial Bank has a long association with this important Qatari consumer event, and 2017 represents the fourth year in a row we are sponsoring this vital show. This year, Commercial Bank is sponsoring the Qatar Motor Show supercar the new Lotus Evora 410, showing for the first time in the region. We look forward to welcoming thousands of local and expatriate car fans to enjoy pure motoring indulgence at the show, and take a photo with the supercar. Held under the patronage of HE the Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-thani and organised by Qatar Tourism Authority, the seventh edition of Qatar Motor Show was inaugurated yesterday. By Joey Aguilar Staff Reporter Three new Mercedes-Benz models the E Coupe, AMG E 43, and AMG SLC 43 have been unveiled at the opening of Qatar Motor Show 2017 yesterday, at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre (DECC). The new models are showcased at the Nasser Bin Khaled (NBK) Automobiles pavilion, the largest at the event. NBK is the authorised general distributor of Mercedes-Benz in Qatar. NBK Automobiles continues its strong and effective participation at QMS, reflecting our values of luxury and excellence. Our participation at the show reiterates NBK s industry leading position and our commitment to our customers, NBK Automobiles general manager Khalid Sha aban He noted that the E Class Coupe s clear and sensual design, and long-distance comfort for four people combine beauty and classic virtues of a grand tourer with state-ofthe-art technology. As a member of the current E- Class family, the new Coupé is significantly more intelligent than its predecessor. It comes with all the features of the E-Class, the most intelligent executive saloon, Sha aban It has a sporty, luxurious interior with refined details, and embodies the synthesis of sporty emotion and luxurious intelligence. The looks of the AMG E 43 can be easily recognised as part of the AMG NBK Automobiles reveals three new Mercedes-Benz models at QMS PICTURE: Jayan Orma family, according to Sha aban. Its V6 bi-turbo engine boasts a high power output combined with low fuel consumption and emissions. The high power output of 295 kw (401hp) is attributable, among other things, to new, larger turbochargers and the higher charge-air pressure of 1.1 bar. Its interior design is sporty with model-specific details. Meanwhile, the model celebrated its 20-year anniversary in its relaunching last year under a new name SLK to SLC with a significantly optimised technology and enhanced look. The sporty range model comes with 270 kw (367hp). At the show, running until April 22, NBK Automobiles also displays a wide range of Mercedes-Benz models from different segments that appeal to all styles and choices, including the SUVs, sporty cars and the luxury series. The new Lotus Evora 410 at Qatar Motor Show.

6 6 QATAR DEC tenders deadline is extended to June 18 The deadline for submitting tender applications for the Doha Exhibition Centre (DEC) development project has been extended until June 18. The Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC) s Technical Committee to Stimulate Private Sector Participation in Economic Development Projects made the announcement yesterday in co-ordination with Qatar Tourism Authority, in response to requests from investors. In a statement, the committee also said a workshop and field tour would be organised for interested investors at DEC on May 3 from 10am. The deadline for submitting tender documents earlier was April 4. In December last year, the MEC had announced plans to develop DEC into a modern, integrated entertainment city offering diverse facilities and services. The initiative is aimed at encouraging investment in tourism-related projects and give private sector companies the opportunity to apply innovation in establishing comprehensive tourist facilities that will attract different categories of people, according to the statement. The total area of the project will include 57,600sq m of building space, 26,075sq m of parking lots, 14,992sq m of exhibition space, 479sq m for shops and 1,200sq m of open yards. In all, around 84,875sq m of space will be available for investment as part of the project, according to the master plan, had reported earlier. Potential investors and developers should develop the hall and facilities and convert them into an integrated entertainment city with long-term lease contracts for 25 years. The project will involve the creation of commercial outlets, restaurants and nurseries, parking lots, public convenience areas and other licensed tourist activities. Application documents for the tender can be obtained from the procurement section in the Financial and Administrative Department at the MEC headquarters, Lusail, Tower B, with an authorisation letter from the participating company. A security cheque should be attached to the tender application, or a guarantee letter issued by a local bank, valid until the contract is fully implemented. This will include the maintenance period, according to the terms and conditions of the tender. The committee has called for submitting tender applications, signed and stamped by the applicant s company and put inside envelopes, addressed to the head of the tenders and auctions committee concerned and delivered to the secretariat of the committee at the MEC. Related queries should be addressed to the procurement section until 10 days before the deadline for submitting bids. QU and Qapco officials cutting a ribbon to inaugurate the event. QU CENG hosts 4th Engineering Week Qatar University College of Engineering (QU-CENG) has launched its 4th Engineering Week aimed at orienting high school students and the wider community on the importance of science and engineering in Qatar s growth and development. The annual 4-day event sponsored by Qatar Petrochemical Company (Qapco) and Qatar Steel, is also a forum to provide secondary and preparatory school students with an insight into CENG s undergraduate programmes and with the opportunity to visit the booths that showcase information about CENG s undergraduate programmes and to live engineering experiences through competitions, quizzes and technical demonstrations. Also participating in the exhibition were CENG s research centres Kindi Lab for Computing Research, Gas Processing Centre and Qatar Transportation and Traffic Safety Centre Exxon- Mobil, Mowasalat, Fahes, ibte- CHar Digital Solutions LLC, and Qatar Green Building Council. Attending the opening ceremony were QU president Dr Hassan al-derham, Qapco managing director and CEO and head of CENG Industrial Advisory Board Dr Mohammed Yousef al-mulla, QU vice president for academic affairs Dr Hassan Alfadala, vice president for Students Affairs Dr Khalid al-khanji, CENG dean Dr Khalifa al-khalifa, associate dean for Academic Affairs Prof Abdelmagid Hammuda, associate dean for development and industrial Relations Dr Saud Ghani, and acting associate dean for research and graduate studies Prof Abbes Amira, among others were present on the occasion. Malabar Gold launches new promotion Malabar Gold & Diamonds, a leading jewellery retailer, is launching a campaign today at all its outlets in Middle East and Far East, offering opportunities for customers to win a total of 30kg of gold. During the campaign which runs until May 6, 2017, with every purchase of gold and diamond jewellery worth QR500, customers get a chance to enter raffle draws to win half kg of gold each in two raffle draws. Dr al-mulla briefed the audience on his personal experience in choosing engineering as a profession. He said: Today s objective is to increase students awareness and understanding of engineering, to encourage the interest of young people and to generate enthusiasm for the future of engineering, as this of course is vital if we want to attract young people into the oil and gas industry. I believe this will be achieved through the dedication and hard work of the team at CENG, he told his audience. In addition, customers also get a two gram gold coin on diamond jewellery purchase of QR5,000 and a one gram gold coin on purchase of diamond jewellery worth QR3,000. customers can protect the gold rate at Malabar Gold & Diamonds on payment of 10% of the entire amount on the selected jewellery until April 28. During the campaign, customers can buy 8gm gold coins of 22K with no making charges from any of Malabar Gold & Diamonds outlets in Qatar. Customers can avail the zero deduction offer on 22K (GCC) gold jewellery exchange as well. Malabar Gold & Diamonds have also unveiled the latest collection of jewellery in gold, diamonds and precious gems to suit the tastes of their multicultural and multinational customers. The new designs are incorporated as a part of various brands presented at Malabar Gold & Diamonds namely Ethnix Handcrafted Designer Jewellery, Era Uncut Diamond Jewellery, Mine Diamonds Unlimited, Divine Indian Heritage Jewellery, Precia Precious Gem Jewellery and Starlet Kids jewellery. Dodge, Jeep models are recalled The Ministry of Economy and C o m m e r c e (MEC), in collaboration with United Cars Almana, has announced the recall of Dodge Durango and Jeep Grand Cherokee models of 2016 because the fuel rail crossover tube may have been damaged during the engine manufacturing process. The MEC said the recall campaign comes within the framework of its ongoing efforts to protect consumers and ensure that car dealers follow up on vehicle defects and repairs. The MEC will coordinate with the dealer to follow up on the maintenance and repair works and communicate with customers to ensure that the necessary repairs are carried out. The MEC has urged all customers to report any violations to its Consumer Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud Department through the following channels: Hotline: 16001, e- mail: info@mec.gov.qa, Instagram: MEC_Qatar, MEC mobile app for Android and IOS: MEC_ Qatar Officials and dignitaries at the cake-cutting ceremony. Ezdan Gharafa Mall marks anniversary Ezdan Mall Company, a subsidiary of Ezdan Holding Group, held an array of events and celebrations to mark Ezdan Mall Gharafa s fourth anniversary, from April 9 to April 15. The occasion was marked by a cake-cutting ceremony held at the main entrance of the mall in the presence of the Group general manager of Ezdan Mall, Ezdan Holding Group representatives, retailers, guests, partners, as well as officials from various ministries and embassies in Doha. A selfie video contest, titled I Love Ezdan Mall, was held at two locations within the mall as part of the celebrations. The participants took video clips in which they congratulated Ezdan Mall on its anniversary and indicated four reasons why they were attracted to the mall. They then shared the clips on their social media pages with the hashtag #EzdanMall4. Winners of the contest received Ezdan Mall shopping vouchers and special prizes from mall retailers. The activities also included interviews by Khalifa al-haroon, who is also known as Mr Q, with mall guests as well as people at different tourist destinations in Qatar, such as Souq Waqif. There were questions for the public and gifts were given to the winners who gave the four best reasons for visiting Ezdan Mall. Malik Awan, general manager of Ezdan Mall, stressed that since its inauguration in 2013, Ezdan Mall Gharafa has contributed to the growth of the country s retail industry by stimulating the shopping sector and meeting the needs of shoppers. He also pointed out Ezdan Mall s key role in terms of social responsibility, explaining that Green Dream 2022 is one of the most promising environmental projects carried out by a shopping centre in Qatar with the aim of educating the community about the importance of adopting a greener lifestyle in their everyday lives. Speaking on Green Dream 2022, Malik added: The initiative has witnessed the participation of more than 2,200 students a month from various schools in Qatar, while workshops and awareness lectures have been attended by more than 6,000 students every week. Samsung Galaxy S8 launched By Joseph Varghese Staff Reporter Samsung Gulf Electronics launched the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in Qatar at a special event on Monday evening. The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ usher in a new era of smartphone design and fantastic services, opening the door for new ways to experience the world, said Tarek Sabbagh, head of IT & Mobile (IM) Division at Samsung Gulf Electronics. Available in 5.8-inch Galaxy S8 and 6.2- inch Galaxy S8+, the Infinity Display and bezel-less design form a smooth, continuous surface with no buttons or harsh angles resulting in an immersive viewing experience, Tarek Sabbagh presenting the features of the new the Galaxy S8 and S8+. PICTURE: Shaji Kayamkulam which makes multi-tasking more convenient. The Galaxy S8 s compact design enables comfortable one-handed operation and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on both the front and back and provides a durable and a highquality finish. In addition to the new design innovations, Samsung delivers cutting-edge technology including an advanced camera, enhanced performance and more to the devices that users love. The smartphones have an advanced 8MP F1.7 Smart autofocus front camera and 12MP F1.7 dual pixel rear camera for the best lowlight, zoom and anti-blur photos with enhanced image processing. The phones feature the industry s first 10nm processor, enabling heightened speed and efficiency. It is also gigabit LTE and gigabit Wi-Fi ready with support for speeds up to 1Gbps so users can quickly download files. It is the world s first mobile device certified by the UHD Alliance as Mobile HDR Premium, with the same vibrant colours and contrasts while watching any programme. They also offer next-level gaming experiences with vivid and superior graphic technology, and come pre-loaded with a Game Pack, featuring top game titles, including select titles. As for security, both the phones offer a wide selection of biometric technologies including a fingerprint scanner, iris scanner and facial recognition so users can select a secure biometric authentication method that works best for them. The phones are IP68 water and dust resistant, MicroSD support up to 256GB, alwayson display and fast and wireless charging capabilities. The phones will be available across major retailers in Qatar from April 28 at QR 2,799 for Galaxy S8 and QR 3,149 for the Galaxy S8+ and will be offered in a rich colour palette including Midnight Black, Orchid Gray, and Maple Gold.

7 REGION 7 US wants quick return to Yemen talks: Mattis Riyadh US Defence Secretary James Mattis is greeted by Saudi Armed Forces Chief of Joint Staff General Abdul Rahman al-banyan upon his arrival at King Salman Air Base in Riyadh yesterday. Washington wants a return as quickly as possible to UNbacked Yemen peace talks, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said as he began a Middle East tour yesterday in Saudi Arabia. The United States provides limited military support to a Saudi-led coalition which for two years has been fighting in support of Yemen s government against rebels supported by Iran. Today, Mattis will meet the kingdom s top leaders in Riyadh. Washington provides intelligence as well as aerial refuelling to coalition warplanes conducting air strikes in Yemen with American-supplied weapons. Asked by reporters about the chance of stepping up American support, Mattis did not reply and instead put the accent on a return to peace talks. Our aim is that this crisis can be handed to a team of negotiators under the aegis of the United Nations that can try to find a political solution as quickly as possible, he said as he flew to Riyadh. Seven ceasefires alongside peace efforts by the United Nations have so far failed to stop the fighting. It is necessary to end the firing of missiles provided by Iran against Saudi Arabia as well as the death of innocent people in Yemen, Mattis Yemen s Houthi rebels allied with troops loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh have fired ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia. Rebels have also shot shortrange rockets over the kingdom s southern border. Washington alleges that Iran has shipped missiles to Yemen but Tehran denies the charge. A United Nations Panel of Experts in January reported that it has not seen sufficient evidence to confirm any direct large-scale supply of arms from Iran. Some in US President Donald Trump s administration would like to increase American military support for the Saudi-led coalition to better counter Iranian ambitions in the region. Mattis has called Iran the world s biggest state sponsor of terrorism. The UN estimates that more than 7,700 people have been killed over the past two years and more than 40,000 wounded in impoverished Yemen, which faces a serious risk of famine. Riyadh has expressed optimism that Trump s team will be more engaged in the region, particularly in containing Iran, compared with former president Barack Obama. In December, the Obama administration blocked a sale of precision guided weapons to Saudi Arabia because of concerns over civilian casualties in Yemen. 12 soldiers die as Saudi Arabia chopper shot down in Yemen Agencies Riyadh Twelve Saudi soldiers, including four officers, were killed yesterday when their helicopter went down in Yemen, the Arab coalition fighting Yemeni rebels said in a statement. The Saudi Black Hawk fell during operations in the province of Marib east of Sanaa, the coalition said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency, without clarifying the reason. The causes of the incident are being investigated, the statement added. Coalition spokesman General Ahmed Assiri said it was too early to comment on the causes of the crash, which is one of the deadliest incidents involving coalition forces in Yemen. The rebel-controlled Saba news agency said a helicopter crashed east of the provincial capital Marib without giving further details. However, the Yemen defence ministry s news website reported the helicopter was shot down in a friendly fire incident. The 26 September news website quoted a senior source in the Yemeni army command as saying that the helicopter came down as a result of a misreading of the air defence system which resulted in the destruction of the plane before it landed. A Saudi-led coalition began air strikes over Yemen in March 2015 in support of President Abd- Rabbu Mansour Hadi s internationally recognised government in its fight against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which play key roles in the coalition, have suffered the alliance s heaviest losses in Yemen, with dozens of soldiers killed. In September 2015, a rebel missile strike on a coalition base in Marib killed 67 coalition soldiers, most of them Emiratis. The United Nations says that more than 7,700 people have been killed since March 2015 in Yemen, which also faces a serious risk of famine this year. Seven ceasefires brokered between government and rebel forces by the United Nations have failed, while UN-backed peace talks have repeatedly broken down. The Saudi-led coalition has recently made some gains against the Houthis in western Yemen, but fighting on other fronts, including Marib, has been static, with little ground changing hands. The Houthis seized much of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, in a series of military operations that began in 2014, eventually forcing Hadi to flee. The Saudi-led coalition accuses Iran of trying to use the Houthis to expand its influence in Yemen, one of the poorest Arab countries. The Houthis regard their move on Sanaa as a revolution against corruption. Kuwait quizzes IS suspect deported from Philippines Kuwait City Kuwait was yesterday began questioning a suspected Islamic State group militant deported from the Philippines as it remanded four relatives in custody, the country s media reported. Hussein al-dhafiri was arrested in an upscale district of Manila late last month along with his Syrian wife Rahaf Zina on suspicion of being members of IS and of planning attacks in both countries. He was deported to Kuwait on Friday to stand trial in his home country on charges of membership of a banned organisation and of plotting attacks. His wife, whom he married after her high-ranking IS commander husband was killed in Syria, remains in custody in the Philippines pending deportation. Judicial authorities in Kuwait have remanded four relatives of Dhafiri in custody for 21 days pending further inquiries, Al-Qabas newspaper reported. They face similar charges to Dhafiri, the paper added. Philippine Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre said on Thursday that Dhafiri was suspected of manufacturing explosives and of possible operational planning against Kuwait. Washington believed he could pose a threat to the national security of the Philippines, Aguirre added. A statement issued by the Kuwaiti embassy in Manila on Friday said evidence was obtained by the emirate s security services that Dhafiri was planning to carry out terroristic attacks in the State of Kuwait. Kuwaiti courts have handed down multiple convictions on charges of IS membership or financing. Some of the defendants have been found guilty of fighting with the militants in Iraq or Syria. All have received lengthy jail sentences. In June 2015, a Saudi blew himself up in a Shia mosque in Kuwait City, killing 26 worshippers in an attack claimed by the Sunni extremists that was the deadliest in the emirate s history. Iran marks Army Day An Iranian military truck carries parts of the S-300 air defence missile system during a parade on the occasion of the country s Army Day in Tehran yesterday. Emirates says travel flows from US to Iran, subcontinent seen declines Travel flows from the United States to Iran and the subcontinent have seen some declines since restrictions were imposed on travel and electronic devices on US-bound flights, said Thierry Antinori, Emirates Airline s chief commercial Officer. The United States introduced security measures on March 25 banning electronic gadgets larger than a mobile phone from passenger cabins on direct flights to the US from 10 airports in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, including Qatar. The move came in the same month when President Donald Trump signed a new executive order, keeping a 90-day ban on travel to the US by citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

8 8 ARAB WORLD Israel vows not to negotiate with Palestinian hunger strikers Jerusalem Israel vowed yesterday not to negotiate with hundreds of Palestinian detainees on the second day of a hunger strike led by prominent prisoner and popular leader Marwan Barghouti. More than 1,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons launched the hunger strike on Monday, issuing a list of demands ranging from better medical services to access to telephones. Issa Qaraqe, head of prisoner affairs for the Palestinian Authority, said on Monday that around 1,300 prisoners were on hunger strike and the number could rise. The Palestinian Prisoners Club put the number at 1,500. A spokesman for the Israel Prisons Service said around 1,100 prisoners started the hunger strike and roughly the same number were believed to be continuing yesterday. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan vowed that Israeli authorities would not negotiate with the prisoners and said Barghouti had been moved to another prison and placed in solitary confinement. He said Barghouti had been placed in solitary confinement because calling for the hunger strike was against prison rules. Some 6,500 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel for a range of offences and alleged crimes. Of those, 62 are women and 300 are minors. Some 500 are held under administrative detention, which allows for imprisonment without charge. Thirteen Palestinian lawmakers are also among the detainees. Palestinian prisoners have mounted repeated hunger strikes, but rarely on such a large scale. Barghouti s call for the strike has given it added credibility, with the 57-yearold serving five life sentences over his role in the second Palestinian uprising. He was convicted of attacks that killed five people. Barghouti is popular among Palestinians, with polls suggesting he could win the Palestinian presidency. Graffiti showing the iconic image of his cuffed hands raised above his head flashing a peace sign during his trial in has been daubed on walls across the occupied West Bank. Decades of experience have proved that Israel s inhumane system of colonial and military occupation aims to break the spirit of prisoners and the nation to which they belong, by inflicting suffering on their bodies, separating them from their families and communities, using humiliating measures to compel subjugation, Barghouti wrote in a New York Times opinion piece. In spite of such treatment, we will not surrender to it. Hamas, the movement that runs the Gaza Strip, saluted the brave prisoners on hunger strike. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement on Monday calling on the international community to save the lives of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The start of the hunger strike coincided with Palestinian Prisoners Day. Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated in support of the inmates. It also comes ahead of commemorations this summer marking the 50th anniversary of Israel s occupation of the West Bank, including now annexed east Jerusalem, in the Six-Day War. The hunger strike has met with harsh criticism from members of Israel s right-wing government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not comment directly on the protest, but yesterday slammed Barghouti. Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he wanted to take the approach of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who publicly refused to accede to the demands of IRA hunger strikers in 1981, 10 of whom died. While many Palestinians view Barghouti as a hero, Israelis point to the bloody suicide attacks of the second uprising of and his role in the uprising. Syrians, who were injured in a suicide car bombing that targeted buses carrying evacuees from besieged government-held towns, sit in a tent on the Syrian-Turkish border in Idlib province yesterday. Syrians in frantic search for their children after blast Bab al-hawa Fatima Rashid was recovering in a Syrian hospital after a deadly suicide blast when she glanced at a teenager with a bloody, disfigured face. She did not recognise her daughter. The wounded teenager was later taken across the border to Turkey for treatment and now Rashid, like many parents caught up in a horrifying attack on Saturday, is searching frantically for her child. I lifted the curtain back in the emergency room and I saw a girl. Half her face was gone and she was bleeding, Rashid said, speaking at a shelter for displaced families near the Syria- Turkey border. I didn t think about whose daughter she was. When I woke up the next day, the doctors came to show me a picture of that girl. I remembered what my daughter Ghadir had been wearing. That was her, she said, with tears in her eyes. At least 68 children were among 126 people killed when a suicide car bomb tore through buses evacuating Fuaa and Kafraya, two villages in northern Syria under rebel siege. Dozens of wounded, including 37-year-old Fatima and her children, were rushed to hospitals in nearby opposition-controlled territory, while others were taken to government-held Aleppo city. Fatima has no news of Ghadir, her son Adel, 15, her 13-month-old daughter Rimas, or her husband Mohannad. Only Zahra, seven, is safely at Fatima s side. The carnage on Saturday came as thousands gathered to be evacuated from Fuaa and Kafraya as part of a complex deal that also saw people leave Madaya and Zabadani, towns near Damascus surrounded by progovernment forces. I saw a car distributing potato chips to the children. My daughter asked me to get her a bag, but a little kid came and snatched the bag from me, Fatima A smile briefly crossed her face before it turned dark again, as she remembered the devastating scene that followed. I went to get another one and suddenly something exploded. I flew back onto the ground and there were bodies on top of me...i pulled myself and my daughter out from under the bodies and ran. They took us to a hospital and treated us well... But when they took Ghadir to Turkey, I didn t know anything. They didn t even have her name, Fatima Dozens of survivors from Fuaa and Kafraya were squatting on blankets and rugs in the displacement centre, awaiting news of relatives of whom they lost track after the explosion. Several children, some as young as three, sat shell-shocked in a row, staying quiet as people asked for their names or where their parents were. One woman, whose daughter was taken to another village for treatment, anxiously tried to locate her in unfamiliar rebel-controlled territory. Where is this village? How am I supposed to know anything about her? she called out. Nearby, Umm Mohamed, her face scratched and her left hand wrapped in gauze, was hysterical. She was flanked by her two young boys, whose faces were bandaged, but her third child was nowhere in sight. I want information about my son. Is he in Turkey? Did he die? she screamed, as mothers nearby tried to soothe her. He s eight months old, he can t tell people who he is. No one knows his name. How am I supposed to get to him? In a section of the tent reserved for men, Shareef al-hussein, 35, waited with his two sons. Haydar, 10, was lightly wounded in the forehead. All that was visible of four-year-old Hamza s face from behind his bloodied bandages was his nose. My children cry every day because they want to see their mother.we hope to go back one day to Kafraya, Hussein He and fellow evacuees were besieged for two years by rebel fighters some of whom helped rescue people hurt in the suicide attack. They got us medication and food, they helped us with the kids, Hussein said, which requested that rebel fighters not be present during the interview. Osama, a resident of Fuaa who had joined a local pro-government militia in the village, said he was not afraid of being in opposition-controlled territory. Our brothers here are assuring us that we are not their hostages, he Syria s six-year war has so bitterly divided its population that many antiregime rebels and residents of government-held territory struggled to believe they were under the same tent. Abu Obeida, a 33-year-old rebel fighter, said he helped rescue wounded civilians after Saturday s attack, but acknowledged it was difficult to say how he would have reacted if a deal between the two sides had not been underway. But I had to rescue the children and the old people, he added. It s a human issue. US-allied groups form civilian council to govern Raqqa Beirut US-allied militias in northern Syria announced yesterday the formation of a civilian council to govern Raqqa after their planned capture of the city from Islamic State militants. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which include a large contingent from the powerful Kurdish YPG militia, has advanced towards Raqqa with the help of air strikes and special forces from the US-led coalition. The SDF made up of both Kurds and Arabs waging a military campaign against Islamic State said local officials had been setting up the council for six months. reported last month that the political wing of the SDF was helping to install a civilian council to run the eastern Syrian city, Islamic State s base of operations in Syria. A preparatory committee met with the people and important tribal figures of Raqqa city to find out their opinions on how to govern it, the SDF said in a statement. Spokesman Talal Selo said the SDF would provide all the support and had already turned over Coalition strikes kill 20 civilians: monitor Air strikes by the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group killed 20 civilians in Syria s eastern Deir Ezzor province, a monitor said yesterday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deaths came in two separate incidents on Monday. It also reported 10 civilians, among them nine children, were killed in a suspected Russian air strike yesterday on a town in the rebelcontrolled province of Idlib. some towns around Raqqa city to the council after driving out Islamic State militants. The extent of Kurdish control in Raqqa s future is sensitive both for residents and for Ankara, which has fought a threedecade Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey and fears growing YPG ascendancy just over the border in northern Syria. The United States says a final decision has yet to be made on how and when Raqqa will be captured. But the SDF is pressing its assault near the city to isolate and ultimately take Raqqa while plans for civilian rule take shape.

9 ARAB WORLD 9 Mummies discovered in ancient tomb near Luxor Displaced Iraqis who had fled their homes are seen at Hammam al-alil camp south of Mosul, yesterday. Iraq opens new Tigris bridge escape route Mosul Iraqi s army has built a new pontoon bridge over the Tigris river south of Mosul, after flooding had blocked all crossing points, opening an escape route for families fleeing fighting between government forces and Islamic State. On Friday, the army dismantled makeshift bridges linking the two parts of Mosul due to heavy rain, forcing residents leaving Iraq s second-largest city to use small boats. The city s permanent bridges have been largely destroyed during a six-month military campaign to seize back Mosul from the militants, which overran it in Long queues formed at the new bridge yesterday with families crossing in public buses, trucks and taxis. Aid shipments also resumed to the Hammam al-alil camp, southwest of Mosul, the main arrival point for people fleeing the fighting. Deliveries from Erbil, located some 80km east in peaceful Iraqi Kurdistan, where aid agencies are based, had stopped due to the flooding. Everything is back to normal, said a spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency UNHCR. Some 20,000 people have escaped from Mosul in the past four days, fewer than before due to the lack of transport, the UNHCR said in a report. Almost 330,000 people have fled Mosul since Iraq started an operation to expel Islamic State in October. They were some of the around 400,000 people still in western Mosul where military forces are trying to dislodge the militants from the Old City. Fighting continued in the Old City where heavy smoke could be seen from the area A displaced Iraqi man cries as he meets his brother at Hammam al-alil camp south of Mosul. of the Grand al-nuri Mosque, from where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria. Aircraft, helicopter and artillery opened fire, while gunfire could also be heard at several positions of Iraq s federal police near the Old City. They (Islamic State militants) carry out attacks on our defensive lines, but each time we repel them and they run away, leaving bodies of their dead fighters behind, Lieutenant Colonel Hussein Lazim Zghayer said of the force s 9th division. Minutes ago, they launched an attack and we responded by shelling them with mortar rounds, killing two of them and their bodies were left in front of our defensive lines, he Government forces, including army, police and elite counter terrorism units have taken back most of Mosul, including the half that lies east of the Tigris river. The militants are now surrounded in northwestern Mosul, using booby traps, sniper and mortar fire against the assailants. Luxor, Egypt Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed several mummies, colourful wooden sarcophagi and more than 1,000 funerary statues in a 3,500-year-old tomb near the city of Luxor, hailing an important discovery. The 18th Dynasty tomb containing at least eight mummies was discovered in the Draa Abul Nagaa necropolis near the famed Valley of the Kings, the antiquities ministry said in a statement yesterday. It belonged to a nobleman named Userhat who worked as the city judge. It was opened to add more mummies during the 21st Dynasty, about 3,000 years ago, to protect them during a period when tomb-robbing was common, Mostafa Waziri, the head of the archaeological mission, said at the site. It was a surprise how much was being displayed inside, Antiquities Minister Khaled el- Enany told reporters outside the tomb. We found a large number of Ushabti (small carved figurines), more than 1,000 of them, Enany This is an important discovery. Ushabti figurines were often placed with the deceased in ancient Egyptian tombs to help with responsibilities in the afterlife. Antiquities officials had initially said six mummies along with partial remains were discovered near the southern city, but said they had later identified two more mummies. There are 10 coffins and eight mummies. The excavation is ongoing, Waziri Inside the tomb, archaeologists wearing white masks and latex gloves inspected the sarcophagi, which were covered with intricate drawings in red, blue, black, green, and yellow, and featured the carved faces of the dead. The coffins were mainly well-preserved, though some had deteriorated and broken over the years. Archaeologists were also examining a mummy wrapped in linen which was inside one of the coffins. White, orange, green, and patterned pots were also found in the tombs. The necropolis is located across the Nile from Luxor, on the west bank, where many of the famous ancient Egyptian pharaohs were buried, including Tutankhamun. The age of the tomb was determined through the drawings on the ceiling, said Waziri. It is a T-shaped tomb (which) consists of an open court leading into a rectangular hall, a corridor and an inner chamber, the ministry said in a statement. A nine-metre shaft inside the tomb held the Ushabti figurines, as well as wooden masks and a handle of a sarcophagus lid, the ministry Members of an Egyptian archaeological team work on a wooden coffin discovered in a 3,500-year-old tomb in the Draa Abul Nagaa necropolis, near the southern city of Luxor, yesterday. Trapped civilians could face worst catastrophe: UN Erbil, Iraq The battle to dislodge Islamic State from the Old City of Mosul, where hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are trapped, could turn into the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the war against the militants, the United Nations warned yesterday. About 400,000 civilians, or a quarter of Mosul s pre-war population, are trapped in the Old City, according to UN estimates. As many as half a million are estimated to remain overall in neighbourhoods still under IS control in western Mosul. If there is a siege and hundreds of thousands of people don t have water and don t have food, they will be at enormous risk, UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq Lise Grande told in a telephone interview. We could be facing a humanitarian catastrophe, perhaps the worst in the entire conflict. Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, was captured by the ultra-hardline fighters in mid Iraqi government forces have taken back most of it in a USbacked offensive launched in October, including the half that lies east of the Tigris River. The militants are now surrounded in the northwestern quarter including the historic Old City, countering the offensive with booby traps, suicide motorbike attacks, sniper and mortar fire, occasionally using shells filled with toxic gas. It is a deteriorating situation, we fear for the lives of the 400,000 people in the old city, said Grande. Families...tell us that they are being shot at as they are escaping. It s terrifying. Residents who have managed to escape from the Old City have said there is almost nothing to eat but flour mixed with water and boiled wheat grain. What little food remains is too expensive for most residents to afford, or kept for Islamic State members and their supporters. The narrow alleyways of the Old City restrict the use of suicide cars by the militants and tanks, armoured personnel carriers and Humvees by the government forces. The fighting has killed several thousands among civilians and fighters on both sides, according to aid organisations. More than 327,000 have fled in the past six months. The security forces know the situation on the ground and they need to decide how this is best done, whether by evacuating civilians or protecting them in their homes or opening routes they can escape through, said Grande. Police arrest church bombings suspect Cairo Egyptian police yesterday arrested a man wanted for alleged involvement in twin church bombings this month claimed by the Islamic State group, an official Acting on a tip-off, police arrested Ali Mahmoud Mohamed Hassan, one of 19 suspects whose names police made public after the Palm Sunday explosions, the official Hassan was arrested in the southern province of Qena, from where the two suicide bombers also came. The interior ministry had raised a reward for information leading to the suspects arrests to 500,000 pounds ($27,518). The Palm Sunday bombings followed an earlier attack by a suicide bomber who detonated his explosives in a packed Cairo church in December, killing 29 people.

10 10 AFRICA MARGINALISED Cameroon doctor strike leaves patients unseen GROTESQUE UN rights chief slams rape chants by Burundi youth REPAIRED Abuja airport reopens after six-week shutdown POLITICS Zambia opposition leader claims attack during arrest A doctors strike in Cameroon left patients without critical care in the capital Yaoude, the latest in a string of union actions that have crippled a country in the midst of political crisis. The doctors union, known as SYMEC, demanded better working conditions and pay and left nurses to attend to sick patients in some of Yaounde s major hospitals. The strike adds to the turmoil in the central African country where protests have erupted since October in the Anglophone south- and northwest regions. Teachers and lawyers have been on strike for months to protest marginalisation by the French-speaking majority under President Paul Biya s 35-year rule. The UN rights chief yesterday condemned the feared youth wing of Burundi s ruling party for repeatedly calling for the rape and murder of opposition supporters. Zeid Ra ad Al Hussein said the calls for violence which often took the form of songs or chants by members of the Imbonerakure youth wing of the CNND-FDD party amounted to a campaign of terror. The grotesque rape chants by the young men of the Imbonerakure across several provinces in various parts of Burundi are deeply alarming particularly because they confirm what we have been hearing from those who have fled Burundi about a campaign of fear and terror by this organised militia, Zeid said in a statement. Nigeria yesterday reopened the capital s airport in Abuja, officials said, following a six-week closure for runway repairs that disrupted international air traffic to the country. During the shutdown, authorities diverted flights to Kaduna, a provincial airport 160km away, where carriers including British Airways, Lufthansa and South African Airways refused to fly on security grounds. Ethiopian Airlines was the only foreign carrier to use Kaduna airport during the closure. Other international airlines continued to fly into Nigeria s commercial capital Lagos. Abuja runway 100 % completed and certified by Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, aviation minister Hadi Sirika wrote on Twitter. Zambia s main opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema yesterday claimed he was assault by police during his arrest as he appeared in court on charges of obstructing the presidential motorcade. The leader of the United Party for National Development (UPND), who appeared before a magistrates court, is facing two separate charges over the alleged incident, which occurred on the weekend of April 8-9. One of the charges is treason which will be heard at a later date in the High Court. Police went to arrest him on April 11, with Hichilema telling the magistrate that they had attacked and teargassed him in an ordeal that lasted 15 hours. Zambian opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema waves to supporters from a police van as he leaves a courtroom in Lusaka yesterday. Famine looms in Nigeria Zimbabwe s President Robert Mugabe reviews the guard of honour during the country s 37th Independence Day celebrations at the National Sports Stadium in Harare. Mugabe impatient over pace of reforms in mining sector Harare Zimbabwe s mining industry needs to be reorganised so that it contributes more towards the African country s economy, President Robert Mugabe said yesterday. Although Mugabe did not give details on what form the transformation would take, his government has, in recent DR Congo opposition demands probe into expensive passports Agencies Kinshasa Opposition leaders in Democratic Republic of Congo have called on national authorities to investigate a report by last week that most of the money paid by Congolese citizens for new passports goes overseas. Documents reviewed by of a 2015 deal between Congo s government and a Belgian company called Semlex to produce biometric passports show that most of the $185 price for a new passport goes to Semlex and a small company called LRPS in the United Arab Emirates. According to a person with direct knowledge of the country s passport deal, the UAE-registered company which receives $60 for every passport issued is owned by Makie Makolo Wangoi, believed to be a close relative of Congo President Joseph Kabila. Neither the Congolese presidency nor Wangoi or Semlex responded to requests for comment on last week s story. Felix Tshisekedi, speaking to reporters in the capital, Kinshasa, said the main opposition bloc that he leads would only speak to incoming Prime Minister Bruno Tshibala once he takes action over the passport affair. He should start by resolving the years, pressured mining firms to transfer majority stakes to black ownership under a 2008 law and to cede some claims. There is a lot of work which is going on in that sector, not least the reorganisation whose completion we impatiently await, Mugabe, Zimbabwe s sole ruler since independence in 1980, told thousands at a rally to mark the southern African country s 37th independence anniversary in a Harare stadium. Zimbabwe, where mining generates more than 50% of export earnings, holds significant mineral deposits and the world s top two platinum producers, Impala Platinum and Anglo American Platinum, have operations there. Mining has also overtaken agriculture as the leading provider of employment, after the Mugabe government started seizing white-owned farms to resettle landless blacks in The government has also leaned on producers to invest in local refinery facilities. problem of the scandal taking place in the republic today the scandal of the passports, Tshisekedi Tshibala should show his independence by resolving this problem and then we will speak. Claudel Andre Lubaya, an opposition member of parliament and former provincial governor, also called on the attorney general to investigate the matter. The youth activist group Lucha reacted to the story by saying on Twitter that Congo is hostage to a band of thieves and criminals. In a television interview on Tele 50, vice minister of foreign affairs Yves Kisombe confirmed that the Treasury receives $65 per passport while a private Platinum miners currently ship their matte to neighbouring South Africa for processing. While Mugabe s government has signalled plans to relax the ownership rules for existing mines, it has shifted its focus to seizing land owned by foreign mines, which it claims to be idle. Much is expected from this important sector. It must play its part towards this overall development vision we have, Mugabe enterprise gets $120, but denied any impropriety. There is no individual, no biological family, no political family, no influential person whatsoever, of whatever entourage who has any interest in this, he Corruption is endemic in the vast Central African state. Kabila s counsellor on graft and money laundering said in 2015 that the country loses up to $15bn a year to fraud, or roughly three times the annual budget. Kabila also faces calls from the opposition to step down this year after he refused to quit power at the end of his constitutional mandate in December, citing delays organising an election to replace him. Dakar The devastation wrought by Boko Haram, which has left millions of people in northeast Nigeria on the brink of famine, could exacerbate Europe s migration crisis if the world fails to act urgently, the country s chief humanitarian co-ordinator Nearly 5mn people in the region are desperately hungry and risk starving to death this year if they do not receive food aid, according to figures from the United Nations. This could drive even more Nigerians to flee the country and attempt the perilous journey to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea, unless the international community ramps up support and funds, said Ayoade Alakija, Nigeria s humanitarian co-ordinator. With so many people facing famine, this is the wrong time to criticise us and simply say You are the giant of Africa. The world could see a mass exodus from a country of 180mn people if support is not given, and fast...if people facing famine fall into famine, she told the Thomson Foundation in an interview in the Senegalese capital of Dakar. While the European Union has been strained by the influx of 1.6mn refugees and migrants between 2014 and 2016, a greater number of people in northeast Nigeria, some 1.8mn, are displaced and unable or unwilling to go home, Alakija added. For Nigeria, this is an unprecedented humanitarian crisis of large magnitude. We, and the wider world, were largely unprepared for it, she said, adding that Nigeria was struggling to respond as it deals with its first recession in 25 years. Boko Haram s eight-year insurgency to carve out an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria has killed at least 20,000 people and forced some 2mn to flee their homes. The state s handling of the situation in northeast Nigeria has been hit by allegations of officials stealing and selling aid, and having sex with women in exchange for food. Alakija said the Borno state government had taken measures to improve protection efforts such as having more female officials in camps for the displaced and tackle corruption. But you need to put such incidents in the wider context of widespread suffering and desperation, she We need to tackle the root cause of the crisis, not just these symptoms. The humanitarian response has also been fraught at times due to tensions between the state and international aid agencies. The president s spokesman in December said aid agencies, including the United Nations, were exaggerating levels of hunger to get more funding from donors, while Borno s state governor in January said many of the groups were profiting from the crisis. This arose from a lack of understanding and the fact that Nigeria has never faced this kind of situation before...there is no denial of the scale of the crisis within the country, but rather incredulity around what has been going on, Alakija For the first six years of the insurgency, the previous government did not adequately acknowledge or respond to it, she It was not until (President Muhammadu) Buhari came to power (in 2015) that Nigeria, and the world, woke up and smelt the coffee. With Boko Haram s insurgency in its eighth year and showing little sign of ending, many aid agencies are thinking beyond just emergency aid, and considering how best to foster and improve long-term development and resilience-building efforts. The government is tackling the crisis on several fronts, not just handing out food parcels, said Alakija. We are focusing on rebuilding entire communities, so that people can go back to their homes, jobs, and resume their lives as normal. Cowdung offers mixed energy results for rural Zimbabweans By Lungelo Ndhlovu, Filabusi, Zimbabwe Irene Moyo, a cook at Phangani Vocational Training Centre, no longer wakes up at dawn to prepare breakfast for the students. Until the institution installed a manure-fed biogas digester three years ago, the mother of five spent two hours a day collecting firewood in the nearby mountains to meet the school s heating and cooking needs. It was very exhausting... because of the distance to the mountain, chopping firewood and pushing the wheelbarrow, said 43 year-old Moyo, who works in Matabeleland South province in southwestern Zimbabwe. It became much tougher when it was wet, as firewood produced a lot of smoke which affected my eyes, she The biogas stove lights instantly and is quicker at boiling sugar beans, eggs, sorghum porridge and tea for the 200 students. She no longer worries about making the lunch hour and dinner schedule. There is also no shortage of student and staff volunteers to feed cow dung into the digester, as the payoff is warm bathing water on chilly mornings. Biogas the process of producing energy by fermenting waste is gaining in popularity around the world as a way of reducing reliance on fossil fuels, cutting deforestation and providing cheap, reliable and easyto-produce local energy. It has proved an attraction in rural areas, beyond national power grids, where animal dung is plentiful but firewood is becoming harder to access. But a $3mn project to roll out biogas across Zimbabwe, set up by the government in partnership with development organisations SNV and Hivos International, has had a low take-up in most rural areas. Cost is a problem, in a country where 20% of the population live on less than $1.90 a day. Over the last five years, about 40 digesters have been built at farms and institutions, and some 250 home units well short of the project s aim of 7,400 home digesters by Considering the high costs associated with constructing biogas digesters for many rural households, the uptake has been good, said Blessing Jonga, biogas expert at the Ministry of Energy and Power Development. He said home units can cost $800 and institutional units $2,000 or more, with cement the biggest expense. People also have to buy stoves, lamps and refrigerators designed to run on biogas. Despite the challenges, Zimbabwe is pushing to scale up biogas use, said Dumisani Nyoni, Matabelelend North Provincial officer for the Agriculture Ministry. We realise that with shortages of electricity in Zimbabwe and Africa in general, there is need to think (of) renewable energy and promote the use of biogas and solar systems, Nyoni One way to cut costs and expand biogas use is to train local technicians to make biogas Communal farmers lead cattle as they plant maize crops in Mvuma district of Zimbabwe. stoves, lamps and other equipment, said Kuda Mudokwani, a researcher specialising in climate change and disaster risk reduction at the Fambidzanai Permaculture Centre, a nongovernmental organisation in Matabeleland South. Right now biogas products, even refrigerators, come from China but they can be modelled and produced here...this will also create jobs for our people, said Mudokwani. People in rural areas can mould their own bricks and crush quarry stone which will also reduce the costs of building a digester, said Mudokwani. This way, we will beat the cost associated with setting up digesters and roll out the programme more widely in Zimbabwe, Mudokwani added. In the meantime, the government has made imported solar and biogas products duty free, to help cut costs, said Jonga. Agriculture and mechanisation officer with the Agriculture Ministry, George Chinyama, said households can get around the high set-up costs by saving as communities. That way they can also approach the Ministry of Energy to assist them, said Chinyama. Some district councils have set up revolving funds which can be lent to communities to build a digester and paid back after they have sold their crops, said Sandra Gobvu, a spokeswoman for Environment Africa, an NGO that has also been backing the use of biogas in Zimbabwe. They can also earn money from selling the nutrient-rich manure which is a by-product of the digesters, she The $3mn push, which is due to end this year, aims to help Zimbabweans run everything from hospitals, clinics and schools to commercial dairy farms on biogas power. The national Rural Electrification Agency and its partners will continue to fund and promote biogas after the project ends, Nyoni Stella Nyanhete, a farmer who has installed a biogas digester for her home in Mashonaland Central province, said it had proved a good source of energy for cooking and lighting. The manure from six cattle is enough to run her digester. It s a resource that never runs out as long as we have cattle that produce dung, she

11 AMERICA 11 AVIATION Boeing to lay off hundreds more engineers: source CRIME ACCIDENT INQUIRY SCIENCE Rape charge against former NFL player dropped Army helicopter crash leaves one dead No clues on how Prince procured fentanyl Frog excretes mucus that fights flu: study Boeing Co warned employees on Monday it planned another round of involuntary layoffs that would affect hundreds of engineers at its commercial airplanes unit, according to a source and a memo seen by. The latest job cuts followed a prior involuntary reduction of 245 workers set for May 19 as the company responded to increasing competition and slowing aircraft sales. The additional layoffs are due to start June 23, according to the memo from John Hamilton, vice president of engineering at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. We are moving forward with a second phase of involuntary layoffs for some select skills in Washington state and other enterprise locations, the memo A felony rape charge against former San Francisco 49ers defensive end Ray McDonald was dismissed on Monday because his accuser did not want to testify, prosecutors McDonald was arrested in 2015 on the rape charge after a woman said he sexually assaulted her at a party at his home. Despite my best efforts to convince the victim to testify, she refused, Deputy Santa Clara County District Attorney Chris Lamiero said in a statement. That is her legal right. A current member of the 49ers, linebacker Ahmad Brooks, still faces sexual battery in a case involving the same woman at the same party, said Sean Webby, a spokesman for the district attorney s office. A Black Hawk US Army helicopter crashed on a Maryland golf course on Monday, killing one crewmember and seriously injuring two others, the military The UH-60 Black Hawk from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, made a hard landing shortly before 2pm EDT (1800 GMT) near Leonardtown, Maryland, about 56km southeast of Washington, base spokeswoman Jennifer Brande One of those injured was in critical condition and the other in serious condition at the University of Maryland s R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, the Army said in a statement. The Army did not release the names of the crewmembers. The helicopter were conducting a routine training flight, the Army Police investigating the death a year ago of pop star Prince found numerous opioids scattered around his home but appear not to have identified where or who supplied the dose of fentanyl that caused his death, according to court documents unsealed yesterday. Some of the strong painkillers found at the musician s Paisley Park complex outside Minneapolis had prescriptions in the name of his friend and bodyguard, the affidavits and search warrants showed. The probe included searches of Prince s computer, cellphone records of his friends and interviews with his associates. In October 2016 it was termed an active homicide investigation in the documents, but no one has been criminally charged. A frog in India excretes a mucus from its skin that could one day help people fight off types of flu viruses. The colourful, tennis ball-sized frog is known as Hydrophylax bahuvistara, said the report in journal Immunity. Different frogs make different peptides, depending on where their habitat is. You and I make host defence peptides ourselves, said flu specialist and study co-author Joshy Jacob of Emory University. It s a natural innate immune mediator that all living organisms maintain. We just happened to find one that the frog makes that just happens to be effective against the H1 influenza type. When researchers delivered small electric shocks, they collected the excretion that contained a peptide, or chain of amino acids, that appears to fight off the H1 strain of flu virus. Trump to seek change in rules on H-1B visas Bunny on a roll Washington US President Donald Trump was to sign an executive order yesterday directing federal agencies to recommend changes to a temporary visa programme used to bring foreign workers to the United States to fill highskilled jobs. Two senior Trump administration officials who briefed reporters at the White House said Trump will also use the buy American and hire American order to seek changes in government procurement practices to increase the purchase of American products in federal contracts. Trump is to sign the order when he visits the world headquarters of Snap-On Inc, a tool manufacturer in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The order is an attempt by Trump to carry out his America First campaign pledges to reform US immigration policies and encourage purchases of American products. The order he will sign will call for the strict enforcement of all laws governing entry into the United States of labour from abroad for the stated purpose of creating higher wages and higher employment rates for workers in the United States, one of the senior officials It will call on the departments of Labor, Justice, Homeland Security and State to take action to crack down on what the official called fraud and abuse in the US immigration system to protect American workers. The order will call on those four federal departments to propose reforms to ensure H-1B visas are awarded to the most skilled or highest paid applicant. H-1B visas are intended for foreign nationals in specialty occupations that generally require higher education, which according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (US- CIS) includes, but is not limited to, scientists, engineers or computer programmers. The government uses a lottery to award 65,000 visas every year and randomly distributes another 20,000 to graduate student workers. Companies say they use visas to recruit top talent. More than 15% of Facebook Inc s US employees in 2016 used a temporary work visa, according to a analysis of US Labor Department filings. A majority of the H-1B visas are, however, awarded to outsourcing firms, sparking criticism by sceptics who say those firms use the visas to fill lowerlevel jobs. Critics also say the lottery system benefits outsourcing firms that flood the system with mass applications. The senior official said the end result of how the system currently works is that foreign workers are often brought in at less pay to replace American workers, violating the principle of the programme. Indian nationals are by far the largest group of recipients of the H-1B visas issued each year to new applicants. NASSCOM, the Indian IT service industry s main lobby group, said it supports efforts to root out any abuses occurring in the H-1B system, but slammed allegations against the sector, saying the idea that H-1B visa holders are cheap labour, is inaccurate and a campaign to discredit the sector. It warned that any onerous additional restrictions to the visa programme would hurt thousands of US businesses and their efforts to be more competitive, by hindering access to needed talent. NASSCOM said it would comment further when there are specific proposals under consideration. The Indian commerce ministry, which has been liaising with the US on the visa issue, declined to comment. A senior ministry official said it would wait for actual action before making any official comment. India s No 2 IT Services firm Infosys has said it is ramping up work on on-site development centres in the United States to train local talent in a bid to address the visa regulation changes under consideration. Infosys also warned on an investor call last week that its operating margin forecast for fiscal 2018 may get impacted by onerous changes to US visa rules. President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, their son Barron and the Easter Bunny arrive for the 139th annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. Facebook killer takes own life after chase Stephens is thought to have been mentally unstable New York A US hunt for the gunman accused of murdering a grandfather and posting the crime on Facebook ended yesterday with the suspect killing himself after a brief pursuit with police in Pennsylvania. Steve Stephens, 37, thought to have been mentally unstable, had been on the run after allegedly shooting dead 74-yearold Robert Godwin Sr on Easter Sunday, seemingly at random in broad daylight in Cleveland, Ohio. The murder and a video later posted to Facebook sparked outrage across the world and renewed scrutiny of the growing number of grisly videos being posted on social media. Facebook has since removed the footage, and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged yesterday that the world s largest social network had a role to play in stemming the worrisome trend. There is a lot of work to do here, he told a developers conference. And we will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening. Authorities in Cleveland have urged a nationwide debate on the issue of violence posted to social media, and to find answers to the plague of gun crime. The manhunt ended when police received a tip off shortly after 11am (1500 GMT) that Stephens was sitting in a white Ford Fusion vehicle in a McDonald s parking lot near Erie Pennsylvania, just over the border from Ohio. There was a short pursuit in which the vehicle was stopped. As the officers approached that vehicle, Steve Stephens took his own life, Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams Stephens, who had been described as armed and dangerous, had been on the FBI s Most Wanted list with authorities offering up to $50,000 in rewards for information leading to his arrest. According to a timeline of events pieced together by police and Facebook, Stephens posted a video on Sunday afternoon saying he intended to kill, and followed up two minutes later with video of Godwin s shooting. In a third video 11 minutes later, streamed live from Stephens s car, he said he intended to kill others. Police currently believe that Godwin is the only known victim. Stephens s mother told CNN she called him after learning about the video, and he had told her he was shooting people because he was mad with his girlfriend. The incident was the latest in a string of disturbing crimes captured on Facebook video, including the alleged gang rape of a 15-year-old girl, two fatal shootings, and the kidnapping and torture of a disabled 18-year-old man. I think everybody has learned from this, said Williams. This is something that should not have been shared around the world, period. Our kids, although they should not have seen this, I m sure a lot have. They need to take this as a lesson. We can t do this in this country. We just can t. Facebook took down Stephens s videos and disabled his account about two hours after he first started uploading. Justin Osofsky, vice president of global operations for the social media giant, acknowledged in a company blog post, that the delay was too long. As a result of this terrible series of events, we are reviewing our reporting flows to be sure people can report videos and other material that violates our standards as easily and quickly as possible, he More than 400 tips had poured in before the suspect was spotted in Pennsylvania. Police expressed regret that Stephens had taken his own life. There might be people out there in similar situations and we could find out why he did what he did, said Williams. If you re feeling, you know, not quite right and if there are things going on in your life that you need assistance with, you need to reach out and call somebody. And we ll get you that help, he added. Members of Godwin s family had offered Stephens their forgiveness. I don t want that man to die, I want him brought to justice, one of his sons, Robby Miller, told CNN. This particular incident received a lot of attention and rightfully so, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson told reporters. We cannot resolve this underlying issue of violence particularly gun violence if we do not function and operate and have the same compassion and commitment that we ve shown here, Jackson It was not immediately clear how long Stephens had been in Erie, an area of remote woodland, farms and barns. Police initially searched the area on Sunday. Stephens worked for a behavioural health agency serving children through mental health services, foster care and adoption, at-risk youth and other programmes. President blames Obama for formation of MS-13 Washington President Donald Trump yesterday blamed without proof his predecessor Barack Obama for allowing the MS-13 criminal gang to take root in US cities. The MS-13, also known as the Mara Salvatrucha, is one of the criminal groups behind a wave of violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The gang was formed in Los Angeles by Salvadoran immigrants fleeing civil war in the 1980s. The gang, however, remains active in the United States. US officials deported several gang members in the early 2000s to their countries of origin contributing to the explosive spread of crime in the region. Domestic crime blamed on MS-13 include the murder of four Hispanic youths last week in New York state, as well as 11 people killed in Suffolk County, New York last year, including two teens murdered with machetes and baseball bats. The FBI formed a special task force in 2004 before Obama took office focused on investigating and prosecuting MS-13 members. The weak illegal immigration policies of the Obama Administration allowed bad MS 13 gangs to form in cities across US. We are removing them fast! Trump wrote on Twitter. In an interview that aired yesterday on Fox, Trump said his administration has kicked out dangerous immigrants, though he didn t specify that they were gang members. I m talking about illegal immigrants that were here that caused tremendous crime that have murdered people, raped people; horrible things have happened. They are getting the hell out, or they are going to prison, Trump told Fox. Trump claimed that we never did anything about it, and now we re doing something about it. Last week, Guatemalan authorities arrested two Salvadorans accused of being Mara leaders, while in neighbouring El Salvador police confiscated money and weapons in a prison controlled by Salvatrucha gang members. US President Donald Trump praised China for its help in pressuring North Korea, while defending his softening stance on trade and other issues with the Asian giant, in an interview that aired yesterday. In the comments to Fox News, Trump cited the strength of his newfound relationship with President Xi Jinping in explaining why he has dropped his past criticism of China. Now, what am I going to do? Start a trade war with China while in the middle of him working on a bigger problem, frankly, with North Korea? he So, I m dealing with China with great respect. I have great respect for him. Now, we ll see what he can do. What am I going to do? In the middle of him talking with North Korea I m going to hit them with currency manipulation? This is the fake media that just does a number, he said, speaking Monday on the sidelines of the annual White House Easter egg roll. Think of it. He s working so nicely. Many coal ships have been sent back, fuel has been sent back. They re not dealing the same way. Nobody s ever seen it like that. Nobody s ever seen such a positive response on our behalf from China. The turning point in Trump s relationship with China appears to have come when he met with Xi at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on April 6-7. A US aircraft carrier the Navy had said was heading toward the Korean Peninsula amid rising tensions has not yet started sailing to the region, a US defence official acknowledged yesterday. The Navy on April 8 said it was directing a naval strike group headed by the USS Carl Vinson supercarrier to sail north as a prudent measure to deter North Korea. Pentagon chief Jim Mattis on April 11 said the Vinson was on her way up to the peninsula and President Donald Trump the next day said: We are sending an armada. Very powerful. But a defence official yesterday told that the ships remained off the northwest coast of Australia. A Navy photograph showed the Vinson off Java over the weekend. They are going to start heading north towards the Sea of Japan within next 24 hours, the official said on condition of anonymity. The official added that the strike group wouldn t be in the region before next week at the earliest it is thousands of nautical miles from the Java Sea to the Sea of Japan. At the time of the strike group s deployment, many media outlets said the ships were steaming toward North Korea, when in fact they had temporarily headed in the opposite direction.

12 12 AMERICAS Uber may be forced to add tip feature Activists rally in Washington San Francisco Ride-services company Uber Technologies Inc may be required to provide passengers a way to tip their drivers, despite its longstanding resistance, if a plan by New York City s taxi regulator is implemented. The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission said on Monday that it plans to propose a rule no later than July that would require all for-hire vehicles to allow passengers to tip drivers using the same method they use to pay for the ride. In Uber s case, this would involve adding a tipping feature within the its smartphone app. The commission said its proposal is a response to driver concerns over falling wages, as Uber has reduced fares in New York City and across the country. Tips could help boost drivers income. Uber has said previously it opposed tipping because it was an inconvenience to passengers and slowed the transaction between rider and driver. I found myself having to work longer hours away from my family to earn the same money, Luiny Tavares, who has driven for Uber for five years, said on a call with reporters that was organised by the Independent Drivers Guild. The guild, set up last year to advocate for drivers, started a campaign last summer to pressure Uber to add a tipping feature in its app. Uber was unable to move on the option, said guild founder Jim Conigliaro, so the guild brought the issue to the taxi commission. Any tipping proposal faces a protracted process before it becomes a rule Uber must follow. The taxi commission has the authority to initiate rulemaking on its own, but rules must be certified by city legal authorities. There is also 30-day public comment period and public hearing, and a board of commissioners votes on the final rule. We have not seen the proposal and look forward to reviewing it, said Uber spokeswoman Alix Anfang. Adding a tipping feature to Uber s app would remove one significant difference between Uber and its chief US competitor, Lyft. Lyft has a smaller market share but is the preferred service of many drivers because it allows tipping through the smartphone app. Lyft said in March that its drivers have earned more than $200mn in tips since the company s founding. A Black Lives Matter protest in Seattle, Washington. Police arrest suspect in jogger s murder Massachusetts Massachusetts police have arrested a man in connection with the August killing of woman who had been out jogging in the woods, a case that closely resembled a second daylight murder in New York City less than a week earlier. With the arrest of 31-yearold Angelo Colon-Ortiz in the Massachusetts case on Friday, authorities now have identified suspects in both cases, which are not believed to be related. Vanessa Marcotte, a 27-year-old account manager for Google in New York City, was found with her body partially burned on August 7 in the Massachusetts town of Princeton, where she was visiting family. Her murder followed the August 2 killing of 30-yearold Karina Vetrano, who was strangled in the New York City borough of Queens while out on an isolated jogging path. We got him, Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr told a news conference Saturday announcing the arrest. The suspect s DNA matched that of samples taken from Marcotte s hands. Similarly, DNA recovered from beneath the fingernails of the victim in the New York case matched that of a suspect who was taken into custody in February. The Massachusetts suspect was charged with aggravated assault and battery and assault with attempt to rape, and more charges could be forthcoming, prosecutors said in a statement. Colon-Ortiz was being held on $10mn bail and was due to appear in Leominster district court on Tuesday. A breakthrough in the case came when a Massachusetts state trooper spotted a man driving a vehicle who matched a description of the suspect in Marcotte s killing, prosecutors The trooper wrote the license plate number on his hand and later visited the home of the suspect, who provided a DNA sample, prosecutors The arrest was the result of hard work by police who tirelessly investigated this case from the day of Ms. Marcotte s death, Early Arkansas vows to pursue executions Execution has been stayed over Don Davis mental competency Arkansas Arkansas attorney general and governor are vowing to pursue a series of executions scheduled over the next two weeks even after the state s Supreme Court halted the first two lethal injections hours before they were to take place. Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said she will continue to seek justice for the families of victims and pursue two executions scheduled for Thursday, a pair set for April 24 and one planned for April 27. I will continue to respond to any and all legal challenges brought by the prisoners, she said in a statement late on Monday. The families have waited far too long to see justice, and I will continue to make that a priority. Rutledge s statement came moments after the US Supreme Court denied her request to vacate a stay issued by the Arkansas Supreme Court on the execution that was scheduled on Monday for Don Davis, sentenced to die for the 1990 slaying of Jane Daniel, 62, during a home burglary. The legal fight in Arkansas, which last put someone to death 12 years ago, came after the number of US executions fell to a quarter-century low in Capital punishment in several states was stymied by problems with lethal-injection drugs and legal questions over their protocols. Davis and fellow inmate Bruce Ward, both of whom have spent more than 20 years on death row, were scheduled to die on Monday night before the Arkansas Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, stayed the executions after their lawyers raised questions about their mental competency. Rutledge s office declined to challenge the stay ordered for Ward. While this has been an exhausting day for all involved, tomorrow we will continue to fight back on last minute appeals and efforts to block justice for the victims families, said Governor Asa Hutchinson in a statement. In a separate ruling on Monday, the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals in St Louis overruled a lower court decision that had blocked the state s original plan to put eight inmates to death. On April 6, US District Judge J P Marshall halted one of the executions, saying the expedited schedule did not allow proper time for considering clemency for inmate Jason McGehee, who is one of the inmates set to die on April 27. Critics have contended that Arkansas rush to the death chamber was reckless. The state has said it had to act quickly because one of the drugs in its difficult-to-obtain lethal injection mix, the valium-like sedative midazolam, expires at the end of April. Attorneys for the eight were likely to appeal the federal appeals court ruling to the US Supreme Court. They filed a separate petition for stays on Monday with the US Supreme Court over a procedural matter. The state also argued that US District Judge Kristine Baker abused her discretion on Saturday when she ruled about potential harm from midazolam. The drug has been used in flawed executions in Oklahoma and Arizona. Critics contend it does not put a person in a deep enough state of unconsciousness and should not be used in executions. In 2014, Oklahoma was the last state to try carrying out two executions on the same night, an effort that went awry. Texas conducted the last successful dual executions in the United States in Rampage suspect dies in cell Seattle The gunman accused of killing five people during a shooting rampage last year inside a Washington state shopping mall has been found dead in his jail cell, a local official said on Monday. Arcan Cetin, who was being held on five counts of aggravated murder, was found hanging in his cell at the Snohomish County jail on Sunday night, according to Rosemary Kaholokula, a prosecutor with the Skagit County prosecutor s office. He had been evaluated by doctors at Western State psychiatric hospital and the results of the mental competency exam were expected at a hearing next week, she Cetin, 20, a Turkish-born legal US resident, confessed to police investigators that he had brought a.22-calibre rifle into a department store at the Cascade Mall in Burlington, Washington, on September 23, 2016, and shot five people. Officials found no evidence linking Cetin to any known Islamist militant groups or individuals. Man to be sentenced for 1979 murder New York The former delicatessen worker convicted of killing 6-year-old Etan Patz was due to be sentenced yesterday, nearly 40 years after the boy s disappearance in New York City helped raise national awareness about the plight of abducted children. Pedro Hernandez, 56, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison for murder and kidnapping before Justice Maxwell Wiley in Manhattan state court after a jury found him guilty in February. Patz vanished as he walked alone for the first time to a school bus stop in Manhattan s SoHo neighbourhood on May 25, He would become one of the first missing children to appear on the side of a milk carton seeking information. For more than three decades, the case endured as one of the country s most infamous missing child cases until police arrested Hernandez in May 2012 after receiving a tip. Hernandez, who worked in a bodega near the bus stop, confessed to strangling the boy and then leaving his body in a box outside. His lawyers argued that the admission was the result of police coercion as well as mental illness that made it difficult for Hernandez to separate fantasy from reality. Patz s body was never found, leaving the confession as the key piece of evidence at trial. The defence also pointed to another man, Jose Ramos, a convicted pedophile who was long considered a suspect in the crime. Ramos, who is in prison, had a relationship with a woman hired to walk Patz home from school. A previous trial ended in a mistrial in 2015 when a single juror out of 12 refused to convict Hernandez after weeks of deliberations, prompting prosecutors to retry him. Teenaged Cash me ousside star makes hay as viral villain Los Angeles When Barbara Ann Bregoli appeared on CBS s Dr Phil show in December to get advice about how to control her car-stealing teenage daughter, nobody could have predicted she would be giving birth to a villainous viral star. In just a few months, daughter Danielle, now 14, has garnered 8.8mn Instagram followers. She has racked up brand sponsorships and become regular fodder for the tabloids with provocative poses and viral videos, despite her self-confessed penchant for stealing cars and using foul language in an accent she said she picked up from the streets. She even has a catchphrase, Cash me ousside, how bow dah? (Catch me outside, how about that?) that she regularly includes in social media posts after she challenged the audience to fight her while on Dr Phil s show. Danielle Bregoli s infamy, including her catchphrase, has drawn endorsements from brands that experts say are likely paying her thousands of dollars to post about their products, a personal line of emojis and a deal for a reality TV show. A representative for Bregoli declined requests for an interview. Attempts to reach her mother by phone were unsuccessful. Danielle is the first of her kind in that she rode this singular TV experience and the catchphrase and profiles and memes that ensued have built a revenue-generating business, said Jonathan Davids, chief executive officer at influencer marketing platform Influicity. Yet, viral stars who become magnets for brands looking to quickly increase eyeballs may find that it is hard to find financial longevity in being a villain on social media, said Davids and other experts. So far, Bregoli s fan base has only grown after a slew of misdeeds, including an undated home video of Bregoli and her mother in a physical altercation, which started circulating last month and has now caught the attention of her hometown police in Boynton Beach, Florida. Bregoli has endorsed products such as clothing company FashionNova, teeth grills and weightloss drink FitTea. Brands could be paying her up to $50,000, said Rishabh Sharma, CEO of Poletus, which provides marketing tools to brands and influencers. Los Angeles-based clothing brand PizzaSlime, helmed by creative directors Nick Santiago and Matthew Hwang, partnered with Bregoli to create a line of merchandise that featured her catchphrase. We just thought she was funny, Hwang said of Bregoli. Most of PizzaSlime s nine Bregoli items, including t-shirts, blankets and totes bearing her face, are sold out online. Hwang said it was unlikely they would work with Bregoli again. We like to work with interesting ideas and people, and once we work together, we move onto the next thing, he Bregoli is not the only star to cash in on being a rebel but if she hopes to achieve long-term social media success, she has to evolve beyond the controversy, said Sharma. Corinne Olympios, 24, a contestant who divided opinion on the recent season of ABC reality show The Bachelor for tactics that included going topless, walked away from the show with more than 720,000 Instagram fans. The Miami native is moving on from The Bachelor with a clothing line launched this month and plans to write a book, create a beauty line and star in her own reality show. I m just trying to really build my brand right now, she told. For Bregoli to outpace her 15 minutes of viral fame, she would have to embark on a coming-of-age journey and perhaps transition from a rebel without a cause to a rebel with a cause, Sharma One such cause could be to speak out against cyber bullying, Sharma Last month, Bregoli posted an image of the barrage of negative comments and insults she received on Instagram, captioning it, Everyone want to point the finger at me. Danielle can still retain the rebel side, but instead of rebelling against her mother, she can rebel against some of the social injustice being done, Sharma

13 ASEAN 13 IN THE DOCK Laos drug kingpin denies Thai smuggling charges SPEECH SAFETY FIRST VISA RULES COMPENSATION Myanmar leader calls for strength from diversity Thai campaign sees drop in new year road carnage 296 N Koreans surrender in Malaysia for overstaying Vietnam land protesters ready to free hostages An alleged Laos drug lord linked to some of Thailand s rich and famous denied being a major player in the regional narcotics trade when he appeared yesterday in a Bangkok court. Xaysana Keopimpha, 42, was nabbed by Thai police on his way through Bangkok s main airport in January, shining a rare spotlight on communist Laos shadowy role in the Southeast Asian pill trade. He denies all the charges, said his lawyer Vorakon Phongtanakul, adding his client had also backtracked on a confession he allegedly signed in police custody. Under Thai law the maximum penalty for drug smuggling is death though the country has not executed anyone for years. Myanmar s President Htin Kyaw called for peace in the country amid fighting between the government and rebel groups, and encouraged the people to build strength from diversity, in a message yesterday to mark Buddhist New Year. Myanmar includes some 135 ethnic groups. The country has been beset by an armed conflict between the army and rebel groups. Federalism is the building of unified strength from diversity, President Htin Kyaw Since Nobel Peace Laureate and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi in August launched a peace process in Myanmar, fighting has flared up in the country. The number of people killed on Thailand s roads during the country s traditional new year week dropped by more than 10% following a junta campaign to end the annual carnage. The kingdom has some of the world s most lethal roads, with accidents spiking over Songkran the April new year festival as millions of city workers return to their country homes. Both Songkran and the western New Year are both dubbed the seven deadly days because of the surge in crashes and road fatalities. Figures released yesterday showed 390 people lost their lives on Thailand s roads during the previous seven days, an 11% decrease on the previous year. Malaysia said yesterday that 296 North Koreans had surrendered to authorities over the last week, as it enforces new visa requirements following a dispute over the murder of the half-brother of North Korea s leader. Malaysia revoked visa-free entry for North Koreans after the murder of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13. All of those who surrendered had over-stayed their visas, including 113 who had been on work permits and 183 on social visit passes, Malaysia s Immigration Department said in a statement. All had been in Sarawak, a Malaysian state in Borneo. Protesters in Vietnam s capital of Hanoi said yesterday they were ready to release the 21 officials remaining from a group taken hostage when a long-running land dispute escalated on the weekend. Police officers were among the 36 hostages seized on Saturday, following the arrest of four people protesting against what they called insufficient compensation for appropriated land. An initial group of 15 hostages was freed on Monday, when authorities also released all the detained protesters. We are ready to free all officials now, said Bui Viet Hieu, a representative of the protesters from the commune of My Duc, on the city s outskirts. Stage set Blast from the past! for dirty Jakarta election Jakarta Luar Batang is one of the Indonesian capital s oldest neighbourhoods, founded in the 17th century to collect tolls from ships sailing in from the Java Sea when the city was the centre of the Dutch East Indies spice trade. Now, it is being demolished and many of its residents are being evicted to make way for a giant seawall meant to keep Jakarta from sinking under rising sea levels. That has made it ground zero for the election of the city s governor, dubbed one of the most divisive election campaigns Indonesia has ever seen. The incumbent governor, Basuki Ahok Purnama, was cruising towards a decisive election victory last September when he allegedly criticised a verse from the Qur an that warns Muslims against allying with Christians and Jews. Hardline Islamist groups responded with mass protests demanding that Purnama, an ethnic Chinese and Christian, be prosecuted. Police eventually did charge him with blasphemy. It was Purnama who ordered the evictions from Luar Batang s slums to make way for one of his many infrastructure projects aimed at modernising this clogged and chaotic city. Many of those who filled the streets of Jakarta to protest against him late last year were among the displaced, and violence broke out in Luar Batang after one of those demonstrations. Luar Batang residents had just about given up their fight against evictions when the controversy over the Qur an comments erupted, said one woman who did not want to be named, sitting outside a small shack amid the rubble. We see it as a gift from God, she said, describing the slur as a means to bring down Purnama. Opinion surveys show Purnama running neck and neck with his challenger Anies Baswedan, who, like some 85% of Jakartans, is a Muslim. Purnama, 50, inherited the governorship after Joko Widodo was elected president in His brash talking style, a contrast with the soft-spoken Javanese politicians who dominate the ruling class, has grated on some voters. Purnama won the first round of voting in February in a three-way race with 43% of the ballots to set up today s second round with Basedan, who won 40%. The campaign has been the dirtiest, most polarising and most divisive the nation has ever seen, the Jakarta Post said in an editorial yesterday. Calling the capital the barometer of Indonesia s political pulse, the daily said the election would have a bearing on the next presidential election in Police on Monday blocked plans by hardline Islamist groups to guard polling booths, citing the risk of clashes after a campaign fraught with religious tensions, and said around 66,000 police and military personnel will be deployed on voting day. Prabowo Subianto, head of the Gerindra Party that Baswedan represents, said in a video message recorded over the weekend that religious people need a leader who respects their beliefs.prabowo lost the 2014 election to President Widodo. Purnama faces up to five years in jail if convicted of blasphemy. His trial will resume tomorrow, when prosecutors will submit their sentence request. Prabowo said he was concerned about potential voter fraud. Cheating is a common enemy to us. We don t want to cheat, he However, we will not hold back if we are cheated. A visitor takes pictures of scenes of torture at the site of the former Phu Quoc jail being kept as a national historical war relic in Phu Quoc island in southern Vietnam. Built by French during the first Indochina War, the prison became a prisoner of war camp of the former US-backed southern Vietnam s regime for detention of captured Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers during the Vietnam War. Thailand PM cautions against protest over missing plaque Bangkok Thailand s prime minister yesterday warned people not to protest against the mysterious disappearance of a plaque commemorating the end of absolute monarchy, a theft some activists see as a symbolic threat to democracy. The plaque was embedded in a central Bangkok square, marking a spot where events unfolded in a 1932 coup staged by Western-influenced young civilian bureaucrats and army officers to end absolute monarchy and establish a parliamentary system. The coup, also known as the Siamese Revolution, marked a turning point in Thailand after nearly seven centuries of absolute monarchy, and Thailand s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha arrives at a weekly cabinet meeting at the Government House in Bangkok. is seen as the birth of its democracy. The hubcap-sized brass plaque, with an inscription proclaiming the establishment of a constitution in 1932, was found to be missing on Friday, police It was replaced by one celebrating the monarchy. No one has claimed responsibility for removing it. Prime Minister Prayuth Chanocha said police were investigating and warned pro-democracy activists against a plan to gather today to protest. It s no good whatsoever to ask for it back tomorrow, Prayuth told reporters at the Government House in Bangkok. People need to know the laws. You can t just claim rights and liberty and do everything. The ruling junta has taken a tough approach to critics since taking power in a 2014 coup. It has banned political gatherings and has charged some activists with sedition. Prayuth, a staunch royalist, has also been accused of taking a hard-line approach to critics of the monarchy and the military. The square where the plaque went missing is close to parliament, to a royal throne hall and to an army barracks. The area is also surveyed by several police posts. The government has said it would not take responsibility for it. Please don t make us solve issues that are not a matter of life and death, Prayuth Activists plan to gather at a police station in the Dusit district where the plaque was located to file a complaint, despite a ban on gatherings of more than five people. The deputy national police chief said police would only investigate the plaque s disappearance if its owner or an aggrieved party filed a complaint. Bangkok to ban street food stalls in clean-up drive A woman arranges fried snacks on her street food cart the Pratunam district of Bangkok. Bangkok Street food stalls will be banned from all of Bangkok s main roads in a sweeping clean-up crusade, a city hall official said yesterday, prompting outcry and anguish in a food-obsessed capital famed for its spicy roadside cuisine. For months city officials have hemmed in hawkers of all kinds across the metropolis, where hitting the pavement for everything from late-night noodles to fried insects is the closest Thailand has to a national pastime. All types of stalls including clothes, counterfeit goods and food stalls will be banned from main city roads, Wanlop Suwandee, a chief advisor to Bangkok s governor, told. They will not be allowed for order and hygiene reasons, he said, justifying the ongoing crackdown after complaints from the public. Officials say nearly two-thirds of the city s 30,000 street vendors of all kinds have already been removed or relocated for clogging the pavements, leaving little space for pedestrians and aggravating traffic. I don t think there will be any stalls on major roads...we have nullified their permission (to operate), he added, without giving a deadline for the sellers to clear out. Yet many Bangkokians say this curbside chaos is part of the capital s charm and an affordable food option for all in a city where other costs of living are surging a stick of grilled pork goes for 10 baht (30 cents) while a bowl of chicken noodles costs as little as 35 baht ($1). If you want to clean out all the vendors it s like you are cleaning out our culture itself, said Chiwan Suwannapak, who works for a Bangkok tour agency. You can see the people who cook, you can interact with them...you can see what the ingredients are, she added. Street dining is also a social leveller in a city cut by inequality, with everyone from business execs to motorcycle taxi drivers pulling up plastic chairs to slurp down spicy soups or dig into fried chicken as cars tear by. The rich variety of foods ladled out from the push carts is also a major draw for tourists, who power a vital sector of the kingdom s economy. Bangkok is a fixture on established international lists for street cuisine and curious tourists are easily found picking through areas renowned for their street treats. If they go against the vendors, that will that affect business and it will affect the charm of Khaosan Road, said Sanga Ruangwattanaku, the president of a business association in the backpacker hotspot in Bangkok s old town. Since seizing power in 2014 Thailand s junta has embarked on a widespread morality and orderliness campaign, seeking to corral a kingdom where many revel in a spirit of flexibility, convenience and organised chaos. Critics say an attempt is underway to remodel Bangkok into a Singapore-lite, enforcing regulations that have long been abandoned or skirted around by a rampant culture of bribery. Many quietly hope the beautification campaign will fall flat with the push of the horde of hungry customers who prefer a quick streetside chow down to organised food courts outweighing the city hall drive. But for now the city hall edict has sent a shudder of dread through Bangkok s thousands of food vendors. Jurai Saisuthiwong, 61, who sells fried bananas on Thonglor a main drag in Bangkok s most upmarket area said the poor will suffer most from the clean-up. Authorities won t listen to us. They just want the city to be beautiful...they will not think about the poor and how this affects us, she told.

14 14 AUSTRALASIA/EAST ASIA China to gather friends for biggest summit of year on New Silk Road Beijing China will gather its friends and allies together for its biggest diplomatic event of the year in May, a summit on its New Silk Road plan, with most Asian leaders due to attend but only one from a G7 nation, the Italian prime minister. President Xi Jinping has championed what China formally calls the One Belt, One Road or OBOR, initiative to build a new Silk Road linking Asia, Africa and Europe, a landmark programme to invest billions of dollars in infrastructure projects including railways, ports and power grids. China has dedicated $40bn to a Silk Road Fund and the idea was the driving force behind the establishment of the $50bn China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced yesterday a list of those attending the conference, including some of China s most reliable allies Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Myanmar s Aung San Suu Kyi, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and Indonesian President Joko Widodo are coming too, all generally good partners of China. One Belt, One Road is to date the most important public good China has given to the world, first proposed by China but for all countries to enjoy, Wang The culture and historical genes of One Belt, One Road come from the old Silk Road, so it takes Eurasia as its main region, he said, adding that representatives of 110 countries would attend. While China says the New Silk Road is not political, it has run into opposition from India due to a section of it in Pakistan, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, where some projects run through the disputed Kashmir region. Wang dismissed those concerns, saying the Pakistan project had no direct connection to the dispute and India was welcome to participate in the New Silk Road. Indian friends have said to us that One Belt, One Road is a very good suggestion, he Nevertheless, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not on the list of leaders attending. Wang also made no mention of any attendance of officials from Japan, South Korea or North Korea, all countries with which China has strained ties. Nor was there mention of Australia, a strong US ally that has close trade links with China. The list included only one leader from the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni. Diplomatic sources in Beijing said China had hoped for at least some senior Western leaders to attend, including British Prime Minister Theresa May, to burnish the plan s credentials and make it less China-centric. British finance minister Philip Hammond will come as May s representative, while Germany and France are having elections at the time and will send highlevel representatives, Wang Wang confirmed Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte as among 28 leaders coming, along with the Spanish, Greek, Hungarian, Serb and Polish prime ministers and Swiss and Czech presidents. This is a positive, co-operative agreement, and we don t want to politicise it, Wang told reporters when asked if China was upset at the absence of most major Western leaders. This is an economic co-operation forum, an international co-operation platform that everyone is paying attention to, supports and hopes to participate in, he China is sensitive to any suggestion that what it sees as its benign intentions do not have a receptive global audience, especially in Western capitals. China was privately upset in 2015 after most Western leaders rebuffed invitations to attend a big military parade marking 70 years since the end of World War II. Western leaders were unhappy that the guest list that included Putin and wary of the message China would send with the show of strength. While China has portrayed the New Silk Road as a genuine effort to share the bounty of China s economic development and to fund infrastructure gaps, many Western countries are concerned about a lack of detail and transparency in the project and are suspicious about China s broader political intents. Diplomatic sources said the presence of Putin and other leaders from countries with dubious human rights records, like the Philippines and Central Asian states, had contributed to a reluctance among Western leaders to attend. Still, at a time of uncertainty about the US place in the world following President Donald Trump s pledges to put America first, China sees an opportunity to become more of a global leader and has found a receptive audience for its New Silk Road. Leaders from countries that would appear to have little, if any, connection so far to the plan are coming to the summit, including Chile and Argentina. Everyone wants to be China s friend now with Trump in office, said a senior Asian diplomat in Beijing. A senior Indonesian government official said China was aiming for a spectacular summit. The Chinese are gunning for... global leadership so I think this OBOR summit is going to be huge, the official VP Pence reassures Japan of US resolve on North Korea US VP Mike Pence meets with Japan s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Abe s official residence in Tokyo. Tokyo US Vice President Mike Pence reassured Japan of American commitment to reining in North Korea s nuclear and missile ambitions yesterday, after warning that US strikes in Syria and Afghanistan showed the strength of its resolve. Pence arrived in Tokyo from South Korea, where he assured leaders of an iron-clad alliance with the United States in the face of the reclusive North, which has conducted a series of missile and nuclear tests in defiance of UN sanctions. North Korea regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the United States and it showed no let-up in its belligerence after a failed missile test on Sunday, a day after putting on a huge display of missiles in Pyongyang. The era of strategic patience is over and while all options are on the table, President (Donald) Trump is determined to work closely with Japan, with South Korea, with all our allies in the region and with China to achieve a peaceable resolution and the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula Pence said in Tokyo before lunch with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. We appreciate the challenging time in which the people of Japan live with increasing provocation across the Sea of Japan. We are with you 100 percent, he Pence and Abe agreed that they needed to persuade China to play a larger role in dealing with North Korea, a Japanese government spokesman North Korea s deputy representative to the United Nations, Kim In-ryong, accused the United States on Monday of creating a situation where nuclear war could break out an any time and said the North s next nuclear test would take place at a time and at a place where our headquarters deems necessary. North Korea s Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol told the BBC that missiles would be tested on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis. South Korea s acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn, told a cabinet meeting that South Korea would strengthen its alliance with the United States and closely co-operate with China to rein in North Korea. We should stay on our toes to protect our territory and people s lives, Hwang The North has warned of a nuclear strike against the United States if provoked. It has said it has developed a missile that can strike the mainland United States, but officials and experts believe it is some time away from mastering the necessary technology, including miniaturising a nuclear warhead. Pence said on Monday the world had seen Trump s resolve in the past two weeks, with a US missile attack on a Syrian airfield and the dropping of a powerful non-nuclear bomb on Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan. North Korea would do well not to test his resolve or the strength of the armed forces of the United States in this region, Pence The Trump administration has said military action remains an option for dealing with North Korea. But, mindful that this would likely trigger massive retaliation and casualties in South Korea and Japan, US officials say the Trump administration s main focus is on tougher economic sanctions. Trump, asked on Monday if he was considering military action, told Fox News Channel he did not want to telegraph his plans, like the previous administration had done. US officials say tougher sanctions could include an oil embargo, a global ban on North Korea s airline, intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang. They also say greater Chinese cooperation is vital. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said China had taken some very helpful steps, although it remained to be seen how effective these would be. Susan Thornton, acting US assistant secretary of state for East Asia, said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and China s top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, agreed in a phone call on Sunday on the need for strict enforcement of UN resolutions and for international action to press Pyongyang to cease provocative actions and recommit to peaceful denuclearisation. Thornton said any new North Korean nuclear test would draw a pretty significant international response. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi repeated China s line that the crisis could only be resolved by diplomacy. I ve seen that the United States has reiterated it is willing to use political and diplomatic means to resolve this, as this is their first choice, he told reporters in Beijing. Of course I think that any country will feel that political diplomatic means are of course the first choice, Wang Pence s economic discussions in Tokyo will be closely watched to see how hard a line Washington is prepared to take on trade. Trump campaigned on an America first platform, and has vowed to narrow big trade deficits with nations such as China and Japan. However, Trump has also shown willingness to link trade to other issues, saying he would cut a better trade deal with China if it exerts influence on North Korea. Australia toughens foreign worker visas in new policy Sydney Australia will abolish a temporary work visa popular with foreigners and replace it with a new programme requiring better English-language and job skills, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said yesterday. Turnbull, struggling with poor voter approval ratings, rejected suggestions the visa policy change was in response to far-right wing political parties, such as One Nation, demanding more nationalistic policies. But in a Facebook announcement Turnbull said: Our reforms will have a simple focus: Australian jobs and Australian values. In a similar vein, US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order directing changes to a temporary visa programme used to bring foreign workers to the United States to fill highly skilled jobs. The order is an attempt by Trump to carry out his America First election campaign pledges. Turnbull said the visa change would attract better skilled workers and see Australians employed over cheap foreign workers brought in under the old 457 visa programme. Australia s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speaks as Immigration Minister Peter Dutton listens on during a media conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia. We are an immigration nation, but the fact remains Australian workers must have priority for Australian jobs, he We ll no longer allow 457 visas to be passports to jobs that could and should go to Australians. The 457 visa was introduced in the 1990s to expedite the entry of business professionals and highly skilled migrants but over time it was opened up to include a broad suite of workers. The programme has become mired in controversy with allegations the visa was being misused by employers to import workers on the cheap, not to fill genuine skill shortages. We are bringing the 457 visa class to an end. It s lost its credibility, Turnbull said at a press conference in Canberra. Anyone now in Australia on a 457 visa will not be affected by the new arrangements. The 457 visa, now used by about 95,000 foreign workers, will be replaced by a new temporary visa and the list of occupations that qualify for a visa will be reduced from more than 200. The new visa will be limited to a two-year period and a second four-year visa will require a higher standard of English language. From 1901 to around 1973, Australia restricted non-white immigration under a White Australia policy, which required an English language test. The Australian Industry Group (Ai Group), which represents more than 60,000 businesses, said the changes would improve the integrity of Australia s visa programme. The temporary skilled visa programme should now be considered as settled without the need for further reviews and disruptive policy change, said Ai Group Chief Executive Innes Willox. Some experts said the government should focus on boosting education and training systems to address Australia s skills needs. The opposition was not impressed though. Labor leader Bill Shorten tweeted the only job Malcolm Turnbull cares about saving is his own. Taiwan reviews political asylum bid by Chinese tourist Taipei Taiwan said yesterday it was reviewing a request for political asylum by a Chinese tourist, reportedly an anticorruption activist who was previously jailed on the mainland. The man named Zhang Xiangzhong has been identified by local media and a human rights group as the same person who was part of a movement calling for Chinese government officials to disclose their assets. Zhang arrived in Taiwan on April 12 but separated from his tour group the next day. He sought help on Monday from the Taiwan Association for Human Rights in applying for political asylum. Taiwan s immigration department said it had located Zhang and was providing him with temporary accommodation while authorities investigate his case. Any decision to let Zhang stay could further sour relations between Beijing and Taipei, which has worsened since China-sceptic President Tsai Ing-wen won Taiwan s leadership last year. We have to clarify details of his case to make further judgement and conclusions, said Chiu Chui-cheng of the Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan s top policymaking body on China. He would need to provide sufficient proof, including his involvement with democratic movements and that his life may be endangered if deported back to China, Chiu, the council s vice-chairman, told. Chui said mainland Chinese could not be granted political asylum but the government would evaluate whether he qualifies for a long-term stay permit. He said authorities still need to verify whether Zhang is the same activist associated with the New Citizens Movement who was jailed for three years by a Beijing court in 2014 on a credit card fraud charge. Zhang said he was motivated to leave the mainland by the wife of detained Taiwanese rights activist Lee Ming-cheh, according to a Radio Free Asia interview. In a case that has drawn international scrutiny, Lee Ching-yu pledged she would rescue her husband, who is under investigation in mainland China for suspected activities.

15 BRITAIN 15 May calls for early elections London Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday called for an early election on June 8, saying she needed to strengthen her hand in divorce talks with the European Union by bolstering support for her Brexit plan. Standing outside her Downing Street office, May said she had been reluctant to ask parliament to back her move to bring forward the poll from But, after thinking long and hard during a walking holiday in Wales, she decided it was necessary to try to stop the opposition jeopardising her work on Brexit. Some were surprised by her move she has repeatedly said she does not want to be distracted by campaigning but opinion polls give her a strong lead and the economy has so far defied predictions of a slowdown. Growth is faster-than-expected, consumer confidence is high and unemployment low, but the economy may be poised to pass its peak as consumers start to feel the strain from rising prices. The sterling rose to a fourmonth high against the dollar after the market bet that May would strengthen her parliamentary majority, which Deutsche Bank said would be a game-changer for the pound. But the stronger pound helped push Britain s main share index to close down 2.3%, its biggest one-day loss since June 27, days after Britain voted to leave the EU. It was with reluctance that I decided the country needs this election, but it is with strong conviction that I say it is necessary to secure the strong and stable leadership the country needs to see us through Brexit and beyond, May Before Easter I spent a few days walking in Wales with my husband, thought about this long and hard, and came to the decision that to provide that stability and certainty for the future that this was the way to do it, to have an election, she told ITV news. Britain joins a list of western European countries scheduled to hold elections this year. Votes in France in April and May, and in Germany in September, have the potential to reshape the political landscape around the two years of Brexit talks with the EU expected to start in earnest in June. May is capitalising on her runaway lead in the opinion polls. The Conservative Party is around 20 points ahead of the main opposition Labour Party and could win around 100 additional seats in parliament. The prime minister s own personal ratings also dwarf those of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, with 50% of those asked saying she would make the best prime minister. Prime Minister Theresa May speaks to the media outside 10 Downing Street, in central London yesterday. Snap poll spells trouble for Labour, say experts London The snap election is likely to decide the fate of embattled opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, but offers little prospect of resolving the deepseated tensions tearing the party apart, experts As the country gears up for a June 8 vote, the centre-left party lags far behind Prime Minister Theresa May s Conservatives in the latest opinion polls and is bitterly divided over Brexit. With her shock announcement calling for an election, May made a bid to strengthen her position going into negotiations for leaving the European Union but also to capitalise on Labour s weaknesses. It s a mixed blessing, it s an opportunity for the Labour right to oust Corbyn if he performs badly, but it could be a political disaster and Labour could poll its lowest vote since 1918, political expert and author Eliza Filby Wyn Grant, politics professor at the University of Warwick, said: Clearly if Labour suffers a big defeat, Corbyn is going to go. The Labour Party is then going to have to identify a new leader of the opposition who has real credibility and can rebuild the traditional bases of support, which is going to be a big task. It may not be possible within the span of one parliament to achieve that, he Veteran left-winger Corbyn, who was seen as a marginal figure, came to power in 2015 after the party changed the rules to allow grassroots members to elect the leader, as opposed to its MPs. The vote for Brexit last June brought tensions between Corbyn s team and the more centrist MPs to a head after the leader a long-time eurosceptic was accused of sabotaging the campaign to stay in the EU, the party s official position. However, a bid to oust him floundered. The party has traditionally counted on working-class communities in northern England and Scotland and progressive urban voters, but is in danger of losing both, warned Filby. They are under threat from so many different angles in Scotland from the SNP (Scottish National Party); from the Liberal Democrats in the cities; the Conservatives and possibly Ukip (UK Independence Party) in the north. She said Brexit only highlighted the deeper ideological differences between the anti-globalisation, pro-brexit working class bloc and the pro-eu, pro-immigration urban voters. Corbyn s strategy has been to say we will allow Brexit to pass but under certain conditions. That hasn t really worked in parliament and I m not sure it will work in the country, she Core voters in the north who voted for Brexit are not convinced, and metropolitan liberal voters aren t convinced by that either. Adding to the pressure is May s apparent ability to bridge the class divide, with the latest YouGov poll finding she was almost as popular with poorer voters as she was with the affluent. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP, will hope to woo disappointed pro-eu voters with their clear anti-brexit stance. Latest projections produced by the Electoral Calculus group predict that the Conservatives would win 381 seats, a gain of 50 seats from the 2015 vote, with Labour winning 182 seats, a loss of 50 seats. Despite the potential electoral disaster, Filby doubted that the vote posed an existential crisis for the 117-year-old party. I don t think it will be the final nail in the coffin. It s in a position where it is too strong to collapse and too weak to win. Corbyn himself remained bullish after May s announcement, insisting he wanted to lead a government that will transform this country. King s College professor Alex Callinicos said even replacing Corbyn would leave no end in sight to the battle over the party s soul. Even if the divisions went away, it still wouldn t be clear what Labour stands for, he Filby said that what the party needed was a unity candidate that can bring both elements, the parliamentary party and the voting constituency together. LibDems hope to gain dozens of seats Liberal Democrat strategists hope to gain dozens of seats from Labour and the Tories in London and the south-west by making opposition to Brexit the key issue of the seven-week snap election campaign. The party said it had gained 2,500 new members in the first hour since Theresa May announced the June 8 poll, and the Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron, focused on Brexit in his first statement. This election is your chance to change the direction of our country, Farron If you want to avoid a disastrous hard Brexit, if you want to keep Britain in the single market, if you want a Britain that is open, tolerant and united, this is your chance. Only the Liberal Democrats can prevent a Conservative majority. The party suffered a disastrous result in 2015, retaining just eight of its 57 seats after the coalition era. But it has gained one seat since, winning Richmond Park in south London from the Tories with an anti-brexit campaign. The former leader Nick Clegg has been selected to stand again in Sheffield Hallam, although he has yet to confirm his intentions in person. Vince Cable and the former environment secretary Ed Davey, who both lost their south London seats to Conservatives, are contesting the seats again. A senior LibDem source said the party had been preparing for a snap general election since before the referendum, with 400 candidates selected and many in place for more than a year, particularly in the south-west. PM s decision an enormous miscalculation, feels Sturgeon Guardian News and Media London Nicola Sturgeon has accused Theresa May of using the snap general election as a chance to move the UK to the right and force through deeper spending cuts. Sturgeon said the prime minister s decision was a huge political miscalculation because it would give voters a fresh chance to reject Conservative austerity and a hard Brexit, and give the Scottish National Party (SNP) a new mandate for an independence referendum. She is clearly betting that the Tories can win a bigger majority in England given the utter disarray in the Labour party, she That makes it all the important that Scotland is protected from a Tory party which now sees the chance of grabbing control of government for many years to come and moving the UK further to the right forcing through a hard Brexit and imposing deeper cuts in the process. That means that this will be more than ever before an election about standing up for Scotland in the face of a rightwing, austerity-obsessed Tory government with no mandate in Scotland but which now thinks it can do whatever it wants and get away with it. May s decision to call a snap election throws Sturgeon s plans for a second independence referendum into sharp relief. The first minister had been due to announce next week her plans to press for a referendum in the face of May s refusal to countenance one, potentially including a bill setting up a referendum before the UK government approves one. With the SNP defending 56 of Scotland s 59 Westminster seats, Sturgeon is certain to use the general election as a test of Scottish public opinion on her calls for a referendum. However, the SNP faces tough decisions in two seats that opposition parties will contest hard, with the Tories confident they may be able to challenge the SNP in several areas where voters oppose independence. The SNP has suspended two MPs: Natalie McGarry in Labour s former stronghold of Glasgow East, who is under investigation for financial impropriety, and Michelle Thomson in Edinburgh West, who is sitting as an independent pending police inquiries into her business dealings. Thomson s seat is favoured by the Liberal Democrats, who will campaign to keep the UK as closely aligned to the EU as possible. The SNP will need to see whether McGarry will stand for re-election as an independent in Glasgow East and whether to select a new candidate for Edinburgh West. She is clearly betting that the Tories can win a bigger majority in England given the utter disarray in the Labour party The snap election is a major gamble for the Tories. If Sturgeon wins a large majority of Scottish seats in the House of Commons in June, she will insist this is a renewed mandate for a new independence vote, piling pressure on May to agree to one. The Scottish Labour leader, Kezia Dugdale, whose party is defending a single Westminster seat in Scotland, in Edinburgh South, said her party relished the opportunity presented by the general election and would campaign tirelessly for Corbyn to be prime minister. Labour lost 40 Scottish MPs at the 2015 general election and its chances of regaining any of those seats appear slender, with polls putting Scottish Labour on about 15%, roughly 30 points behind the SNP. The polls are undoubtedly very challenging but as Jeremy Corbyn has said in the past we re on an election footing and has been on an election footing, Dugdale We relish the opportunity to take on and defeat this Tory government. No public self-analysis on leadership: Corbyn Guardian News and Media London Jeremy Corbyn has said he will not do a big public self-analysis about his leadership of the Labour party after polls showed that though the recent whirlwind of policy announcements had been popular with the public the party was trailing the Conservatives. The Labour leader told ITV s Good Morning Britain the party s poor showing in the polls could be remedied by talking about policies, including a pledge yesterday to fund a 17% increase in the carer s allowance, which would mean an extra 10 a week for about 1mn people. I m not going to go into any big public self-analysis, Corbyn said of his popularity with the public. What I will say is, of course I reflect on issues I reflect on decisions we ve made. I reflect on all of this all the time. Labour has launched a policy blitz over the past fortnight, including giving free school meals to all primary school pupils and restating commitments, including raising the minimum wage to 10 an hour by 2020 for over-18s, keeping the triple-lock on pensions and cracking down on late payments by businesses. I want the party to be united around these policies, Corbyn I think you will find the vast majority of Labour members support these policies and Labour voters will support these policies. Polling over the Easter weekend suggested voters favoured most of the policies Labour announced over the past few weeks, but many were still not persuaded to back the party over the Conservatives. Two polls by ComRes and YouGov gave the Tories a 21-point lead; another poll, by Opinium, found the lead had narrowed to nine points. Asked if he believed he had made any mistakes during his 18-month tenure as leader, he joked: I can t give you one mistake there are too many. Corbyn s latest policy announcement which launched in a speech in Birmingham yesterday and which would cost 538mn by the time of the next election will be funded by reversing the inheritance tax cut announced by George Osborne in The carer s allowance for people who spend more than 35 hours a week caring for someone is a week. Labour s pledge would increase it to the same level as jobseeker s allowance, Barbara Keeley, shadow minister for social care and mental health, agreed that continuing to push the new policies would help bolster the party s polling position. We all want to be in a better place, but we work through to being in a better place by putting forward new policies like this, she told BBC Radio 4 s Today programme. They will improve over time if people like the policies we ve put forward, but the policies are very important. Corbyn also praised Prince Harry for speaking publicly about mental health issues. When asked if he had ever had mental health issues, the Labour leader said: I think all of us go through stress at times. I m sure you do in your job. Everybody does. Jeremy Corbyn: admits to many mistakes during tenure. Bid to make education funding key poll issue Guardian News and Media London Teaching unions say they will carry the fight against budget cuts affecting schools directly to parents and voters, with the National Union of Teachers general secretary vowing to make education funding a key election issue. Kevin Courtney told the union s annual conference the snap election was an opportunity to challenge the funding shortages in England. In the run-up to this election, parents must demand of all politicians: will they invest in our country, will they invest in our children? he told delegates in Cardiff. I don t believe there s a parent anywhere in this country who voted for their child s class size to go up, or voted for their child to lose the opportunity to do art or dance or music. So parents must now demand clarity from candidates seeking office. We want to put pressure on every candidate in every constituency to pledge to oppose school cuts in their constituency and elsewhere. We can reach parents with this and we can make a difference in the general election. Courtney, in his first union address since his election as general secretary, demanded that the government publish its consultation on the controversial national funding formula planned for schools in England. It would be an absolute disgrace if they did not publish their response to this before the general election. Parents need to know what they are voting for, they need to know what the parties are saying about the funding of their children s schools, he But if the Conservative party attempted to appease unhappy MPs by taking more money from London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, then I m saying to Theresa May: expect industrial action from this union, and expect it soon, he added. Courtney accused the Tories of breaking their previous election manifesto pledge on school funding. Because that Conservative manifesto promise was broken, across the country we re seeing class sizes going up, we are seeing arts, dance, drama, music taken off the curriculum he

16 16 BRITAIN REALTY Tiny storeroom flat goes on sale for 350,000 LAW AND ORDER TRIAL WINNER INITIATIVE Police hunt man who racially abused three kids Woman admits owning dog that killed boy Durham farmer runs off with coal carrying crown Harrods workers China trek raises 125,000 A converted storeroom behind a former Victorian poorhouse in Bethnal Green is for sale at 350,000. Neighbours yesterday likened the former caretaker s store, which is 17 square metres, to Harry Potter s bedroom. Estate agent Foxtons describes the outbuilding in the car park of the block built in 1888 to house 166 of London s very poorest labourers as a bright studio, emphasising its transport links and proximity to Roman Road s restaurants and amenities. But neighbours reacted with surprise at the asking price, which is almost 150,000 more than the average house price of 207,308. Detectives are investigating a suspected hate crime after three children were racially abused and spat at. The two 12-year-old boys and the 13-yearold girl were walking home from a playground in Clissold Park in Stoke Newington when they were accosted. A car pulled up next to the group as they walked down Clissold Road near Stoke Newington School and Clissold Leisure Centre. The driver racially abused the children before spitting out of the window at them and driving off, Scotland Yard The victims called police then made their way home. The suspect is described as a man of Mediterranean appearance, possibly Turkish, with black hair and in his thirties. A woman has pleaded guilty to owning a dangerously out of control dog which killed a three-year-old boy. Dexter Neal died after he was mauled by an American Bulldog, while playing with a friend in Parker Way, Halstead, Essex, in August Jade Dunne, 29, formerly of Parker Way but now of Colchester, appeared before magistrates in Colchester yesterday. She was released on bail until she is sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court on May 16. Dunne admitted a single charge of owning a dog that was dangerously out of control causing injury resulting in death. Her American Bulldog, called Ruby, was later destroyed. A Durham farmer has beaten dozens of rivals to the title of World Coal Carrying Champion after charging through a northern town with a 50kg sack on his back. Andrew Corrigan collapsed on a bed of hay after completing Monday s 1.1km race in a time of four minutes, 31 seconds, receiving warm applause from the crowd who lined the course in Gawthorpe, near Wakefield. The quirky race started in the old mining town in 1963 when a man entered a pub and accused another of looking a bit unfit, leading to a race involving a sack of coal. The women s race, in which competitors each carried 20kg, was won by Jen Mustan in four minutes, 30 seconds. Harrods workers have completed a five-day trek along the Great Wall of China to raise thousands of pounds for the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children). Forty-one members of staff, ranging from shop assistants to company directors, took part in the six-day expedition. They spent six to eight hours every day hiking along steep staircases and crumbling watchtowers to complete the 29-mile trek, which finished on April 9. They raised 90,000 before they left and their total was 125,294 yesterday. Harrods has been an official NSPCC supporter since 2015, raising 300,000 to date. A second nine-day trek is planned in October. Mayoral candidate vows free childcare for parents Guardian News and Media London Parents in Liverpool would be given free childcare for all children over nine months under radical plans by the Women s Equality party. Tabitha Morton, the party s candidate in the Liverpool City Region mayoral elections next month, wants to use the 30mn of extra money available to the new mayor each year to help parents back into work. Nationally, the cost of childcare is thought to average around 6,000 a year. But under Morton s proposals detailed at Blackburne House in Liverpool yesterday, parents will get 15 hours free each week after the end of parental leave at nine months, paying just 1 for every additional hour. In England, parents currently receive 15 hours free only after their child s second birthday and if they are receiving benefits including tax credits and jobseeker s allowance. The WEP s plans, which Morton insists are fully costed, would make Liverpool the first city in the UK to offer universal, affordable childcare for all children from the end of parental leave. The party formed two years ago by Sandi Toksvig and Catherine Mayer claim the idea would create at least 40,000 jobs in the Liverpool region and allow more parents to work. Morton said: This will change things so dramatically in Liverpool, we have got a quarter of children living in poverty and three out of four are in single parent families. My proposal is that the metro mayor has 900mn over 30 years to spend, and we need to look at this differently: rather than building another bridge or road, we need to actually look at how we mobilise our economy. The way to do that is free childcare. Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, in conversation with US singer Lady Gaga in London. Vital to break down taboo of mental illness: William, Gaga London Evening Standard London Prince William yesterday joined forces with Lady Gaga to urge people to speak up about their mental health and break the taboo that surrounds it. The Duke of Cambridge shared a transatlantic FaceTime call with the singer as he praised her for writing an incredibly moving and very brave open letter about her battle with post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. In the call from Hollywood to Kensington Palace, which was posted on the monarchy s Facebook page yesterday, William, 34, said: It s time that everyone speaks up and feels very normal about mental health. It s the same as physical health. Everybody has mental health. We shouldn t be ashamed of it. Just having a conversation with a friend or family member can really make such a difference. Lady Gaga, 31, said: Even though it was hard, it was the best thing that could come out of my mental illness was to share it with other people, and to let our generations, as well as other generations, know that if you are feeling not well in your mind, that you are not alone. People that you think would never have a problem do. We have to make the strongest, most relentless attempt we can to normalise mental health issues, so that people feel like they can come forward. It was the latest stage in a campaign by the royals to raise the profile of mental health. A series of films, featuring stars including US singer Lady Gaga in conversation with Prince William from her residence in Los Angeles, US. Stephen Fry and Rio Ferdinand, have been published on YouTube under the #Oktosay banner. In an interview published yesterday, William called for an end to the stiff upper lip culture and said he wanted his children, George and Charlotte, three and one, to be able to grow up feeling able to talk about their emotions. At the weekend, Prince Harry, 32, revealed he had endured two years of total chaos in his late twenties and had sought counselling to help come to terms with the death of his mother, Diana, when he was 12. Last December Lady Gaga, real name Stefani Germanotta, published an open letter via her Born This Way Foundation revealing she had suffered from PTSD for five years. In the call, she agreed to join William, Kate and Harry to continue to promote their Heads Together campaign when she visits London in October. Asked by William how she felt about going public about her illness, she replied: It made me nervous at first. For me, waking up every day and feeling sad and going on stage is something that is very hard to describe. There is a lot of shame attached to mental illness. You feel like something is wrong with you. William said he had learned that it s really important to have this conversation. You won t be judged. It s so important to break open that fear and that taboo, that is only going to lead to more problems down the line. The singer replied: It can make a huge difference. I feel like we are not hiding any more. We are starting to talk. That is what we need to do. Heads Together has been chosen as the charity of the year for this Sunday s London Marathon. YouGov research published by Heads Together yesterday found 57% of 18 to 24-year-olds had a conversation about mental health in the past three months, compared with 44% of those aged and 32% of people over 65. Tackling violent crime top priority: police chief Agencies London New Metropolitan Police boss Cressida Dick yesterday pledged a fiveyear crackdown on violence to curb the rise in gun and knife crime in London. Scotland Yard s first female commissioner promised an end-to-end approach in tackling crime and a tough stance on violent offenders. Speaking within days of three young men being stabbed to death in the capital, she said knife and gun crime were among the most significant challenges she faced. She declared: I want to bear down on violent crime, in all its aspects from terrorism to sexual offences but definitely knife and gun crime, particularly as it affects young people. It s an absolute tragedy losing young people in the way we have been to knife crime. We are seeing too many young people carrying knives feeling that it will protect them when in actual fact it clearly doesn t and can be incredibly dangerous and tragic for them and their families. Violence, for me, is what this next five years is going to be about. You have to prevent people getting involved and you have to intervene really hard. Speaking on the London terror attack last month, Dick said the unarmed policeman who died during the attack might not have been able to protect himself even if he had been armed. The attack on Westminster, in which a man drove into a crowd of pedestrians before stabbing policeman Keith Palmer, prompted scrutiny of security arrangements at the Houses of Parliament. However Dick, who gave a reading at Palmer s funeral on her first day as Metropolitan Police commissioner last week, said that he might still have died even if he had been armed. It s very hard to say that if Keith had been armed, he would be alive today, Dick said on BBC radio. There s a backdrop of loads of members of the public where he was standing, so it might have been, even if he had had a firearm, difficult for him to take a shot. Khalid Masood ploughed a rented car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and stabbed Palmer to death, killing five in total before being shot dead by another officer. Some politicians have criticised security at the parliament and suggested that Palmer should have had a gun. Dick said she would wait for the results of reviews into the attack before drawing any conclusions. She said there would likely have to be some changes to security provisions, but added that the attacker was looking to challenge freedoms that Britons value. In a separate interview with LBC radio, Dick said that we need to be alert to any possible new attacks but emphasised that people should carry on going about their daily business as usual. Ready to run MP Chris Green poses in his running kit on College Green outside the Houses of Parliament ahead of the 2017 Virgin Money London Marathon to be held on April 23. Burnt toast forced Tube stations closure London Evening Standard London Two of London s busiest Tube stations were evacuated after staff set off the fire alarms by burning their toast, it was revealed yesterday. Victoria and Oxford Circus stations, as well as Wood Lane on the Hammersmith & City line, have all been shut by burnt toast in separate incidents. Meanwhile, Edgware Road station had to shut because a member of staff puffed on an e- cigarette, filling the mess room with smoke and setting off the alarms. The incidents are among reasons for 1,000 station closures over the past three years uncovered yesterday by City Hall Tories furious at the number of station shutdowns affecting thousands of passengers. A security alert was sparked at Sloane Square station but the suspicious device turned out to be a home-brewing kit left on a train by a passenger. A spokesman for the Tory group said: It s frankly ludicrous that Tube stations in central London are being evacuated and closed because of basic errors like staff burning toast. These may seem like funny incidents but I can guarantee no one trying to get to work or school at the time will have been laughing. Non-emergency closures at Tube stations in the areas covered totalled more than 222 days, or 5,300 hours, between February 2014 and February The majority of closures, 334 or 41%, were caused by industrial action. Staff shortages came second with 220 closures (27%). Defective lifts at Edgware Road, Regent s Park, Queensway, Covent Garden and Lancaster Gate caused 49 closures. Tony Devenish, Tory London Assembly member for west central who obtained the data through a Freedom of Information request, said: Sadiq Khan s policies are unlikely to tackle the stations three leading reasons for closures industrial action, non-availability of staff and defective lifts. He is already on course to have the worst strikes record of any London mayor.

17 EUROPE 17 Opponents seek to have Turkish vote annulled Ankara Turkey s main opposition began a battle yesterday to annul a referendum handing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers, while the bar association and an international monitor said an illegal move by electoral authorities may have swung the vote. A defiant Erdogan, whose narrow victory exposed the nation s deep divisions, has said that Sunday s vote ended all debate on the more powerful presidency he has long sought, and told European observers who criticised it: Talk to the hand. The crusader mentality in the West and its servants at home have attacked us, Erdogan told a crowd as he arrived on Monday at Ankara airport, referring to the foreign monitors assessment. We neither see, hear, nor acknowledge the political reports you ll prepare, he said later at the palace. We ll continue on our path. Talk to the hand. This country has carried out the most democratic elections, not seen anywhere in the West. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, whose job will cease to exist once the constitutional changes take full effect, said that Erdogan would be invited to rejoin the ruling AK Party as soon as official results are announced, a sign that the government has no intention of waiting to see the outcome of opposition appeals. Under the outgoing constitution, the president had been required to remain impartial and renounce party political ties. Few in Turkey expect legal challenges to the referendum to lead to a recount, let alone a rerun. But if unresolved, they will leave deep questions over the legitimacy of a vote which split the electorate down the middle, and whose polarising campaign drew criticism and concern from European allies. Turkey s bar association said a last-minute decision by the YSK electoral board to allow unstamped ballots in the referendum was clearly against the law, prevented proper records being kept, and may have impacted the results. With this illegal decision, ballot box councils (officials at polling stations) were misled into believing that the use of unstamped ballots was appropriate, the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) said in a statement. Our regret is not over the outcome of the referendum, but because of the desire to overlook clear and harsh violations of the law that have the potential to impact the results, it The main opposition People s Republican Party (CHP), which Yildirim: The people s will has been reflected at the ballot box, and the debate is over. Everyone should respect the outcome, especially the main opposition. Parliament extends state of emergency until July 19 DPA Istanbul Turkey s parliament has extended the ongoing state of emergency by three months, two days after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed victory in a referendum on vastly expanding his office s powers. Turkey s cabinet approved extending the state of emergency on Monday and then the motion passed in parliament, where Erdogan s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has a majority. At the end of this three-month extension, the emergency laws will have been in effect for a full year. The opposition is voicing concern over this. The emergency laws, granting the government sweeping powers, have been in effect since July last year, following a bloody coup attempt by a faction in the military. A large number of executive decrees hinge on the state of emergency, which gets extended every three months, including those that facilitated purges of the civil service and widespread arrests. More than 100,000 people have lost their jobs in the civil service and military, while 47,000 people have been jailed for allegedly being sympathizers of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, the man the government blames for the coup. He denies the charges. Also, thousands of Kurdish activists have been arrested over the past year, with the government saying that they are linked to terrorists, though many claim that they are only engaged in politics. Conflict with Kurdish militants restarted in 2015 after a ceasefire collapsed. Extending the state of emergency would further endanger human rights and the rule of law, which have already been badly damaged in Turkey, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said it will take its challenge to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary, presented a formal appeal to annul the vote to the YSK. CHP deputy chairman Bulent Tezcan said that the number of missing votes was unprecedented, although the exact number of unstamped ballots was unknown. YSK chairman Sadi Guven said on Monday that the last-minute decision to allow unstamped ballots was not unprecedented as the government had previously permitted such a move. An Austrian member of the Council of Europe observer mission said that up to 2.5mn votes could have been manipulated, almost double the margin of Erdogan s victory, and that the YSK decision on unstamped ballots appeared illegal. These complaints are to be taken very seriously and they are, in any case, of such an extent that they would turn around the outcome of the vote, Alev Korun told ORF radio. The European Commission, which unlike US President Donald Trump has declined to congratulate Erdogan on Sunday s vote, called on Turkey to launch a transparent investigation into the alleged irregularities. There will be no call to Erdogan from the Commission, certainly not a congratulatory call, a Western official with knowledge of EU policy told. Turkey is sliding towards a semi-authoritarian system under one-man rule. Election authorities have said preliminary results showed 51.4% of voters had backed the biggest overhaul of Turkish politics since the founding of the modern republic, a far narrower margin than Erdogan had been seeking. Erdogan argues that concentration of power in the presidency is needed to prevent instability. Opponents accuse him of leading a campaign toward oneman rule in Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) member that borders Iran, Iraq and Syria and whose stability is of vital importance to the United States and the European Union. Speaking in parliament yesterday, Yildirim said rumours of irregularities were a vain effort to cast doubt on the result. The people s will has been reflected at the ballot box, and the debate is over, the prime minister Everyone should respect the outcome, especially the main opposition. Omer Celik, minister for European affairs, said criticism of the referendum was politically motivated, defending what he said were Turkey s strong legal framework and transparent election process. The YSK said on its website on Sunday, as votes were still being cast, that it had received considerable complaints that voters had been given slips and envelopes without official stamps and that after an appeal from a ruling AK Party official it would accept unstamped documents as long as they were not proven to be fraudulent. The bar association, whose head Metin Feyzioglu is seen as a potential future leader of the opposition CHP, said it had also received phone calls from many provinces about unstamped ballots on Sunday and that its lawyers had advised that records of this should be closely kept once ballot boxes were opened. But it said that had failed to happen, and that evidence of irregularities had therefore not been properly archived. On its website, the YSK gave four examples of cases in previous decades where unstamped ballots had been accepted at individual ballot boxes. However, those cases only affected several hundred votes and the decision was taken days after the vote and only once the possibility of fraud had been ruled out. The YSK has also decided to annul elections in the past because of unstamped ballots. It cancelled the results of local elections in two districts in southeastern Turkey in April 2014 and re-held them two months later. And in Sunday s referendum, the YSK s overseas election branch had already rejected an appeal by a ruling AK Party official to have unstamped envelopes counted as valid. YSK officials could not be reached for comment. Shocked by the support among Turks in Germany for handing new powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sunday s referendum, several senior German lawmakers called yesterday for the rules on dual citizenship to be tightened. The latest unofficial results show 51.4% of voters in Turkey backed plans for an overhaul of the political system which will give Erdogan sweeping new powers, while support among 1.4mn eligible voters in Germany was far higher, at 63%. In the western city of Essen, as many as 75.9% backed the yes campaign, although some commentators have cautioned that People queue yesterday outside the High Electoral Board in Ankara to submit their personal appeal for annulment of the referendum while Turkish police officers stand guard at the entrance of the building. Right: Protesters hold leaflets reading no as they gesture and shout at a rally late on Monday at the Besiktas district of Istanbul. Vote numbers spark German integration row Berlin turnout in Germany was only 44%. Germany is home to some 3mn people with Turkish roots and some politicians said the loyalty many showed to Erdogan, a leader viewed by many in the European Union as increasingly authoritarian, pointed to a rejection of democratic values. Those in a liberal country like Germany who vote to abolish freedom in Turkey or to limit it have obviously not accepted our values, said Free Democrat (FDP) leader Christian Lindner, adding that Turks in Germany must respect its constitution. Senior politicians in Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives called for action. It is important that we reverse the changes that made it easier to get dual citizenship, said Bavarian conservative Stephan Mayer. The rules were relaxed in 2000 and About five months before a federal election, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), polling at between 7% and 11%, demanded a complete end to dual citizenship for Turks. That it needed a referendum in Turkey for the conservatives to realise that integration, above all of Turks, has failed, shows how removed they are, said Emil Saenze, deputy head of the AfD parliamentary group in Baden- Wuerttemberg. Many Turks came to West Germany after World War II, providing labour for its economic miracle. Experts say many second and third generation Turks have not successfully integrated into wider German society and language is a problem. The head of the Turkish Communities in Germany said those who backed Erdogan were protesting against their situation in the country. They wanted to protest about what they have felt for decades, Gokay Sofuoglu told SWR radio. That they feel discriminated against, that they feel excluded, he Observers also point out that many Turks in Germany come from conservative, rural areas of Turkey such as Anatolia and that the largest association of mosques in Germany, Ditib, brings in imams from Turkey. The local mosques are polling stations for (Turkey s ruling party) the AKP, sociologist Necla Kelek told Bild daily. Thousands of no supporters stage protests Istanbul Thousands of supporters of the no campaign in the referendum on granting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greater powers took to the streets of Istanbul late on Monday to protest alleged poll violations. At least 1,000 protesters thronged Besiktas on the European side of the city while on the Asian side around 2,000 demonstrators marched through Kadikoy, another staunchly secular and anti-erdogan neighbourhood, correspondents There has been anger among no supporters over last minute changes to the voting procedures but the authorities insist that the referendum was conducted cleanly. We will not make you president and We are shoulder to shoulder against fascism, the protesters in Kadikoy chanted, as they marched towards the offices of the Supreme Election Board (YSK). Others brandished viral hashtag slogans from the referendum night like The no is not finished and no has won. In Besiktas, protesters held pamphlets with the words We are right, we will win. In homes lining the route of the protest, people bashed pots and pans with kitchen utensils from the windows of their apartments to show solidarity. Police generally kept a low profile on the sidelines of the protest but warned against using offensive slogans. Smaller protests were also held in other Turkish cities and Turkish media reports said that 13 people were detained in a protest in the southern Mediterranean city of Antalya. 12 dead in police helicopter crash DPA// Istanbul/Diyarbakir A police helicopter with 12 people on board, including officers and a judge, crashed in eastern Turkey yesterday, killing all on board, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu The accident, which took place about 10 minutes after take-off, appears to have been caused by bad weather conditions in Tunceli province, a mountainous area, the governor s office and the minister Any other outside factor is out of the question, Soylu said, ruling out that the helicopter had come under attack. The region, about 560km east of the capital Ankara, is experiencing fog and rain. Search and rescue teams were dispatched to the area. Heavy fog in the region made the rescue operation for the Sikorsky S-70 Black Hawk helicopter difficult, Turkish media reports In March, seven people were killed, including four Russians, when a privately owned helicopter crashed in Istanbul after the aircraft hit a television tower.

18 18 EUROPE Big asteroid on track to streak past Earth today Paris An asteroid stretching 650m (2,000 ) across is on track to whoosh past Earth today at a safe but uncomfortably close distance, according to astronomers. Although there is no possibility for the asteroid to collide with our planet, this will be a very close approach for an asteroid this size, Nasa s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. Dubbed 2014-JO25, the asteroid will come within 1.8mn km of Earth, less than five times the distance to the Moon. It will pass closest to our planet after having looped around the Sun JO25 will then continue on past Jupiter before heading back toward the centre of our Solar System. Smaller asteroids whizz by Earth several times a week. But the last time one at least this size came as close was in 2004, when Toutatis 5km across passed within four lunar distances. The next scheduled close encounter with a big rock will not happen before 2027, when the 800m wide asteroid 199-AN10 will fly by at just one lunar distance, about 380,000km. The last time 2014-JO25 was in our immediate neighbourhood was 400 years ago, and its next brush with Earth won t happen until sometime after The April 19 flyby is an outstanding opportunity for astronomers and amateur stargazers, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) Astronomers plan to observe it with telescopes around the world to learn as much about it as possible, the space agency Besides its size and trajectory, scientists also know that its surface is twice as reflective as that of the Moon. It should be visible with a small optical telescope for one or two nights before moving out of range JO25 was discovered in May 2014 by astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona. Also today, a comet known as PanSTARRS will make its closest approach to Earth at a very safe distance of 175mn km (109mn miles), according to Nasa. The comet has brightened recently and should be visible in the dawn sky with binoculars or a small telescope. Asteroids are composed of rocky and metallic material, whereas comets generally smaller are more typically made of ice, dust and rocky stuff. Both were formed early in the history of the Solar System some 4.5bn years ago. Rajoy called to testify in major graft trial Madrid A court has summoned Mariano Rajoy to testify as a witness in a major graft trial, the first time in modern history that any Spanish prime minister has had to take the stand. The so-called Gurtel trial centres on a vast bribery network allegedly involving former members of Rajoy s Popular Party (PP), weakened by repeated accusations of graft. While Spain s 62-year-old leader is not accused of anything, his post as party chief since 2004 means he could provide valuable testimony. They have called him as witness, a spokesman for the National Court that deals with major corruption cases told, adding that no date had been set yet for the hearing. Rajoy will be the first acting prime minister who has to appear in court as a witness, said Jaume Munoz Jofre, a historian and author of Corrupt Spain: a brief history of corruption. The only comparable events since Spain s transition to democracy following dictator Francisco Franco s 1975 death, Rajoy: will be the first acting prime minister who has to appear in court as a witness. he added, were the court appearances of two former prime ministers. Felipe Gonzalez, a former Socialist leader, and Adolfo Suarez, prime minister during the transition, both testified as witnesses in separate trials in A source at Rajoy s office, who refused to be named, said the government was always willing to collaborate with judicial authorities as is normal in a democracy. But the PP said that while it respects the court s decision to summon Rajoy, we cannot agree with it. Slovaks gather to protest corruption Bratislava Thousands of Slovaks joined a rally yesterday to protest against corruption and demand the resignation of the interior minister, a close ally of Prime Minister Robert Fico, over his ties with a developer under investigation for tax fraud. Slovakia s economy has boomed and living standards have risen sharply since it joined the EU in 2004, but many Slovaks say their country lags western Europe in the fight against corruption. Other countries in the region including Romania and Hungary have also seen large antigovernment protests recently. Yesterday s demonstration in Bratislava, one of the largest since Fico took power in 2012, largely targeted Interior Minister Robert Kalinak, who has resisted pressure to step down over his business relations with real estate developer Ladislav Basternak, who is being investigated over possible tax fraud. Kalinak has said he bought a 17% stake in one of the companies belonging to the developer. Both he and Basternak have denied any wrongdoing. Critics argue that Kalinak remaining as interior minister prevents an independent investigation into the tax issue. Fico himself also lives in a rented apartment owned by Basternak in central Bratislava. As a new father, I want my son to grow up in a country where he can live decently and without making compromises with moral values, said Matej Matus, 35, one of around 5,000 protesters gathered in central Bratislava. Slovak President Andrej Kiska, a rival of Fico, has thrown his support behind the protesters and urged Kalinak to quit. If we remain silent nothing will change, therefore I challenge people to speak if they see something happening that isn t right, Kiska said this week. Fico did not reply to e- mailed questions yesterday. He backed Kalinak last year when the minister first faced protests demanding his resignation. The protesters also called for the publication of the results of an investigation into links between leading centre-right politicians and businessmen first revealed in 2011 that has not yet been closed. They demanded a fresh probe into decades-old crimes pardoned under amnesties granted by former prime minister Vladimir Meciar to his secret service chief and 12 others for the 1995 kidnapping of the then-president s son. Lawmakers cancelled those pardons this month after 84,000 signed the largest online petition in Slovakia s history demanding action. Fico s leftist SMER party won a second term in last year s election, but lost its parliamentary majority. Rising public anger with traditional parties led to the far-right People s Party-Our Slovakia group winning its first parliamentary seats. The government has stepped up anti-corruption efforts recently, introducing a 35% tax on dividends from companies in tax havens and banning firms with unclear ownership from doing business with the state. Slovakia ranked 54th among 176 countries in Transparency International s 2016 corruption perception index. The lawyers association, ADADE, which has filed the graft case with the court attributes functions to Rajoy which were not his responsibility, the party said in a statement, before adding that the group is headed by two men with close ties to the main opposition Socialists. The Gurtel case allegedly saw companies shower former PP lawmakers and civil servants with bribes in exchange for contracts. Altogether, 37 defendants face justice including two former party treasurers and businessman Francisco Correa, the alleged head of the network. The case even forced the resignation of Rajoy s health minister Ana Mato in 2014, accused of benefitting from illegally-obtained funds via her then husband who was mayor of the city of Pozuelo de Alarcon near Madrid. According to a confession published by Correa in online daily eldiario.es, companies would give him a commission of two to three percent on the value of public contracts. After taking his share, he would allegedly give politicians involved in awarding contracts some of the money too. He also claimed he gave money to Luis Barcenas, a man also on trial who was PP manager from 1980s to 2008 and then treasurer for a year. Further complicating matters, Barcenas claimed in 2013 that part of that money went into a secret party slush fund. The fund is an ingredient of the current case but not the focus, as a separate trial on it is pending. Barcenas was nevertheless questioned on the subject in January, and acknowledged there existed secret accounts in the PP, pointing to financial resources that did not appear in official book-keeping. Demonstrators take part in an anti-corruption rally in Bratislava. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is too extreme, but centrist Emmanuel Macron is too young. Conservative Francois Fillon cannot be trusted, Socialist Benoit Hamon is the establishment, and Communist-backed radical Jean-Luc Melenchon is just too risky. Just a week before the French cast their first votes for the next president, this is how the many undecided voters view this year s cast of candidates: with abject disappointment. Marc Jaurena lives in the northeastern city of Metz but drives nearly an hour to work in Luxembourg, 63km (40 miles) away. For me, working in Luxembourg, my job will be directly impacted by a Marine Le Pen election, Jaurena said, as the far-right leader has pledged that, if elected, she will pull France out of the euro currency and hold a referendum on whether the country should leave the EU. The 34-year-old Jaurena said he has also been scandalised by the fake jobs scandals that have But he said that rather than bribes, businessmen gave donations generously without expecting anything in return. I never received anything from Correa, not for me nor for the PP, he added, blasting the businessman s allegations as nonsense. When questioned by a judge in 2013, Barcenas had also claimed he had given Rajoy envelopes of cash. But in his January hearing, he defended Rajoy, saying that he had given orders not to use Correa s companies anymore in 2003, because he was told that Correa was engaged in illegal activities. Corruption is a major issue in Spain which last year scored its worst ranking in Transparency International s annual corruption perceptions index with the PP, rival Socialists and regional politicians hit by scandals. Such is public anger over the issue that many voters have flocked to two relatively new parties the far-left Podemos and the centre-right Ciudadanos. As a result, although the PP still won a general election last year, it failed to retain the absolute majority it won in 2011, and Rajoy now heads a minority government. embroiled not only Le Pen, but also Fillon. Fillon s campaign has been rocked by multiple scandals over expenses and conflicts of interest, including allegations that he gave his wife suspected fake jobs as a parliamentary assistant, for which she was paid a total of 680,000 ($725,000). As for Le Pen, the European Parliament has accused her farright National Front (FN) of using funds allotted for parliamentary assistants to pay staff for party work in France. She has dismissed the investigation into FN s expenses, saying that it is a plot to derail her campaign bid. Jaurena is also unmoved by the ethos of the Communist-backed eurosceptic Melenchon, and by what he called Macron s brainwashing. I know who I won t vote for, but I don t know who I ll vote for, he He is among the nearly 40% of voters who have yet to decide which way they ll vote or even if they ll show up at on election day on Sunday. This election is unusual. The campaign is rocked by scandals, political scientist Richard Kleinschmager told. The situation has become too complex to get people engaged. Voters indecision has reinforced the uncertainty of this year s two-round presidential election, in which four candidates Le Pen, Macron, Melenchon, and Fillon are neck-andneck for the first round of voting on April 23. Polls give each between 19% and 23% of votes. The top two candidates from that vote will go forward to the second-round run-off on May 7. For me, it s unclear, said 41-year-old Fabrice Blanchard, a commercial agent in Lorraine. Scientists: Space debris problem is worsening By Richard Ingham, Paris Scientists sounded the alarm yesterday over the problems posed to space missions from orbital junk the accumulating debris from mankind s six-decade exploration of the cosmos. In less than a quarter of a century, the number of orbiting fragments large enough to destroy a spacecraft has more than doubled, a conference in Germany heard. And the estimated tally of tiny objects which can harm or degrade spacecraft in the event of a collision, and are hard to track is now around 150mn. We are very much concerned, said Rolf Densing, director of operations at the European Space Agency (ESA), pleading for a worldwide effort to tackle the mess. This problem can only be solved globally. The peril from debris comes from hypervelocity. Travelling at up to 28,000kph (17,500mph), even a minute object impacts with enough energy to damage the surface of a satellite or manned spacecraft. In 1993, monitoring by ground-based radar showed there to be around 8,000 manmade objects in orbit that were larger than 10cm (4.5 ) across, a size big enough to inflict catastrophic damage, said Holger Krag, in charge of the ESA s space debris office. Today, we find in space roughly 5,000 objects with sizes larger than 1m (3.25 ), roughly 20,000 objects with sizes over 1cm... and 750,000 flying bullets of around 1cm, he For objects larger than 1mm (0.04 ), 150mn is our model estimate for that. Risks of a collision are statistically remote, but they rise as the litter increases and more and more satellites are deployed. The growth in the number of fragments has deviated from the linear trend in the past and has entered into the more feared exponential trend, Krag warned. The conference in Darmstadt, whose opening speeches were broadcast on the Internet, is the biggest-ever gathering dedicated to space debris. Experts will spend four days discussing the problem, including measures to mitigate space litter such as by de-orbiting satellites at the end of their working lives. Krag pointed to two events that had amplified the problem at a stroke, creating debris fields with the potential to generate further junk as pieces smashed into each other. The first was in January 2007, when China tested an anti-satellite weapon on an old Fengyun weather satellite a move that sparked an outcry by debris experts at the time. The other was in February 2009, when an Iridium telecoms satellite and Kosmos-2251, a Russian military satellite, accidentally collided. Given enough warning, satellites can shift position to avoid a collision, but this uses up fuel and potentially shortens operational life. The ESA receives a high-risk alert of collision every week on average for its 10 science satellites in low-earth orbit, Krag Each has to resort to one or two avoidance manoeuvres per year. In a message to the conference from the International Space Station (ISS), French astronaut Thomas Pesquet said the manned outpost in space was shielded for objects up to 1cm across. The ISS often has to make manoeuvres to avoid debris, but needs 24 hours warning to be able to do this, using its onboard thrusters, he If there is less time, our crew will have to close all the hatches and enter the safe haven which is our Soyuz spacecraft so that we can depart the ISS in the case of a collision, he This has happened four times in the history of the ISS programme. French voters disappointed, undecided days before vote By Christian Spillmann, Strasbourg A picture taken yesterday in Grenoble shows a hologram of Melenchon gesturing and speaking during a campaign meeting. He held a meeting in Dijon while his hologram appeared at the same time in Nantes, Montpellier, Grenoble, Clermont-Ferrand, Port de la Reunion, and Nancy. Macron, we don t know if he is of the right or the left. As for Hamon, he is from the outgoing government which has been marked by high unemployment and low growth. Only 17% of voters questioned in an Ipsos poll in February gave high marks to France s democratic system. In the western city of Rennes, Pierre, 28, voted for the then president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012, but he is leaning towards Macron this time around, because he s young. But for retired teacher Jeannette, 77, who is among the undecided voters, said Macron is too young. Undecided voters are a feature of this election, Kleinschmager Voters from the two major parties have been thoroughly weakened. Francoise, the daughter of a former mayor in the eastern province of Franche-Comte, said she would have voted for Fillon if there hadn t been the scandals. Honesty in life and in politics, it s essential, the 54-yearold pharmaceutical worker My father was mayor of a town, and when I made copies at city hall, he took out money to pay for them. So then when we see the Fillon family... I am outraged by the scandals. There is a danger in having so many undecided voters at this late stage, said Kleinschmager. The danger is when we don t know what to hold on to, he So we grab a lottery ticket while telling ourselves why not. That lottery ticket is Marine Le Pen. An Ipsos poll for the daily Le Monde out on Friday showed Macron and Le Pen who have been neck-and-neck for weeks at the head of the pack on 22% for the first round.

19 EUROPE 19 Suspect says he didn t know he was helping to stage bombing Moscow/Jalal-Abad, Kyrgyzstan The man Russian investigators say orchestrated a suicide bombing on the Saint Petersburg metro told a court yesterday that he was an unwitting accomplice in the attack, in which 14 people were killed and scores injured. Russian investigators said that before the April 3 attack, the suspected suicide bomber, Akbarzhon Jalilov, had spoken by telephone with Abror Azimov, who the investigators said was helping mastermind the attack from a Moscow suburb. At a preliminary court hearing in Moscow, the suspect, Azimov, said that he had participated in the preparation of the attack but only indirectly. I did not realise that I was helping with this act, he said, referring to the April 3 blast. I was being given instructions. Dressed in a black jacket and checked shirt, he spoke from a metal cage in the courtroom. Earlier in the court hearing, a state investigator told the court that Azimov had confessed to having taking part in preparations for the attack, but the suspect said he had not confessed to that. Since the attack, Russian authorities have detained nine people suspected of involvement. All are originally from Central Asia, a region of five mainly Muslim states that border Afghanistan, Iran and China. Abror Azimov is originally from the city of Jalal-Abad, in the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan. His wife said yesterday that Azimov and his brother, Akrom, had been working in a sushi restaurant in the Moscow region. He had been due to return home to Kyrgyzstan in April, but did not make the trip. Her husband was calm and well-adjusted, the wife, her head covered by a scarf, told Azimov being escorted inside the court building in Moscow. in Jalal-Abad. She said his brother Akrom had returned home from Moscow because he was sick, adding that he had been taken from hospital for questioning by Kyrgyz state security. Russia s Ren TV broadcaster, citing law enforcement agencies, reported that Azimov, along with the Saint Petersburg suicide bomber, had attended a radical Islamist training camp. It did not say where the camp was located. Azimov s wife and another brother, Bilol, told that he had travelled to Turkey but was only in transit there on his way home after an abortive attempt to find work in South Korea. The family, though Muslims, rarely went to the mosque, Bilol No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which happened on a day that Russian President Vladimir Putin was visiting Saint Petersburg, his native city. If it is proven that the bombing was carried out by radical Islamists, that could pose a test for Putin s policy of military intervention in Syria. The Islamic State (IS) group has threatened to take revenge for Russian air attacks on Syria by shedding blood on Russian soil. Police arrest 38 in major online child sex abuse swoop /DPA The Hague/Madrid Police have arrested 39 suspects in over a dozen countries across Europe and Latin America after busting an online paedophile ring that used the WhatsApp chat service to share images of child sex abuse, officials In co-ordinated swoops late last month, local and international authorities searched houses and seized hundreds of devices containing child sexual exploitation material in South and Central America as well as Germany, Italy and Spain, Europe s policing agency Europol said in a statement yesterday. These offenders are pushing the boundaries of modern technology to try to avoid being caught by law enforcement, Europol director Rob Wainwright Dubbed Operation Tantalio, the investigation was sparked in mid-2016 by the Spanish police s High-Tech Crime Unit focusing on the Tor encryption network, used by criminals to mask their identities. Prompted by clear evidence of prolific sharing of indecent images, the Spanish investigators revealed links diverting users to private groups on WhatsApp, Europol A total of 25 groups, formed by invitation only, are currently being investigated, according to Europol. Hundreds of devices containing pornographic material have been seized, it added. Spanish police said the photos and videos that were seized showed humiliating treatment and excessive brutality involving children from babies to children aged up to eight years. Europol and international law enforcement agency Interpol, which also took part in the investigation, said that 38 suspects had been arrested but Spanish police said so far 39 people had been held, including 17 in Spain. The other arrests took place in Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, El Salvador, Germany, Italy, Paraguay, and Portugal. The total of 39 arrests included six in Colombia, four in Italy, and two in Germany. Spanish police said 96 such groups were monitored and analysed in the investigation. Spanish police said they found handwritten material at a house they searched in Lugo in the north of the country, listing the names, ages, and places where encounters with minors took place. Some of them dated back 20 years. We need to continue to combine our joint resources and skills to tackle this threat to our children and bring these offenders to justice, Wainwright Actions like Operation Tantalio send a strong message that police across the globe will continue to work together to bring to justice those engaging in or benefiting from the heinous crimes, added Bjorn Sellstrom, Interpol Crimes Against Children operations co-ordinator. Frenchmen held over pre-poll attack plan / Paris Police arrested two men in Marseille yesterday on suspicion of planning an attack, just days before the first round of France s presidential election, with bomb-making materials and guns found in searches. The foiled plot sparked fears that the closing days of the campaign could be a target for extremists ahead of Sunday s vote, the country s most unpredictable election in decades. Elite police and agents from France s domestic intelligence agency detained the two Frenchmen identified only as 23-yearold Clement B and Mahiedine M, 29 in the Mediterranean port city. Interior Minister Matthias Fekl said they were known to be radicalised. They were aiming to commit in the very short term, in other words in the next few days, an attack on French soil, the minister Police found guns and bombmaking materials in searches across Marseille. The two men were seized in the southern port city a few moments apart from each other. Local mayor Lisette Narducci said explosives had been found after a search of an apartment EU patrol vessels in the Mediterranean are putting lives at risk by operating too far from the Libyan coast where migrants are embarking on the perilous voyage to Europe, the head of a rescue charity said yesterday. Growing numbers of migrants are attempting the crossing in flimsy, overcrowded boats as the spring weather improves. Nearly 9,000, mostly Africans, were rescued over the long Easter weekend, UN aid agencies Europe needs to rescue people because it cannot allow them to die at its own back door, said Chris Catrambone, an American businessman who co-founded the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), with his Italian wife Regina in near Marseille s largest train station. Sources close to the investigation said at least two assault weapons had been found. With the country still under a state of emergency, minister Fekl said 50,000 police, gendarmes and soldiers would be deployed for each leg of the election, and security reinforced for the candidates. Everything has been put in place to ensure the security of this big event for our democracy and our Republic. The security forces are mobilised everywhere across France to ensure the security of French people and to ensure the presidential campaign goes smoothly, he Search warrants seen by described the two men as dangerous. These are radicalised common law criminals who spent some time in prison, said one police source. Later in the day, soldiers and police were still sealing off a road where one of the men was arrested. Officials gave no indication of who the men had been targeting, but the campaign team of farright candidate Marine Le Pen linked the arrests to her planned campaign visit to the city today. The fact that the two individuals were arrested in Marseille as Marine Le Pen was preparing to hold a meeting the following day Firefighters secure a street in Marseille as police officers conduct an investigation after two Frenchmen were arrested on suspicion of planning to carry out an imminent and violent attack ahead of the first round of the presidential election on Sunday. He was speaking by telephone from the MOAS rescue vessel Phoenix, which after a frantic weekend s activity was heading slowly towards Sicily with 463 migrants on board, including 170 women and children, and seven dead bodies recovered from the sea. The crossing from Libya to Italy is now the main migrant route into Europe. More than 181,000 came to shore in Italy last year, and arrivals this year are up about a third on the same period of Some 850 are estimated to have died so far in That is fuelling a dispute over whether laying on more rescue vessels, and patrolling closer to Libya, is encouraging the flow of migrants and boosting the profits of people-smugglers. Since Italy abandoned its search-and-rescue mission in 2014, the European Union s border control agency Frontex has taken over patrolling the Mediterranean, but its vessels remain well clear of the coast of Libya. Both Frontex and a Sicilian prosecutor have said NGOs should not be working so close to Libya because they make it too easy for migrants to come to Europe, adding that some NGOs may be in contact with smugglers. Frontex said on Monday that it had rescued more than 1,400 people over the weekend. Smugglers are taking advantage of the proximity of the NGOs by using more unsafe boats and packing them even tighter, the EU agency explained in an to yesterday. While the NGO boats tend to hover just outside of Libyan territorial waters that end 12 nautical miles from the coast, Frontex vessels patrol much further north and can take a half-day or more is perhaps not a coincidence, a member of her entourage The main candidates were warned in the middle of the last week that there was a risk and that two individuals had been identified. We received their photos and security of the candidates. Their meetings and headquarters were given extra protection, Macron s spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told. Officials from Fillon s camp and Le Pen s National Front said they also had received word of a possible attack. France remains under a state of emergency after being a frequent target of terror attacks by Islamist militants that have killed more Migrants rescued in previous days watch from the Malta-based NGO Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) ship Phoenix as it takes part on Sunday in a joint rescue operation with NGO vessels Sea-Eye and Jugend Rettet Iuventa, and a Tunisian fishing boat, in international waters off the coast of Libya. EU urged to save more migrants at sea, not patrol make-believe border Rome to reach the boats in distress. Catrambone said that the only relevant question at sea is life or death. The priority needs to be saving lives, not patrolling a makebelieve border. The further they (Frontex) stay away, the more people will die. Saying there is a pull factor is just ignorance. It s avoiding responsibility, he All of about a dozen NGOs operating in the Mediterranean have taken similar positions in recent weeks. How many lives could have been saved in the last two years if the #EU had conducted a proactive search and rescue operation? #WhereIsFRONTEX, tweeted one of the groups, Doctors without Borders (MSF), on Sunday. Yesterday MSF said it was being sent 164 miles to respond to a rescue call. Where are #EU boats? it tweeted. than 230 people since January In the deadliest attack, Islamic State (IS) gunmen and suicide bombers slaughtered 130 people in Paris in November Candidates have been heavily guarded during the election campaign, but so far there have been few security scares. Nearly 9,000 rescued over the weekend Geneva Nearly 9,000 mainly African migrants were rescued in the Mediterranean this past long weekend after being put by smugglers in Libya onto unseaworthy boats heading toward Italy, UN aid agencies said yesterday. The migrants, many from Nigeria and Senegal with some from Bangladesh, are among an estimated 20,000 held by criminal gangs in irregular detention centres in Libya, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) On release, they pay to board the overcrowded boats, often just inflated rubber vessels that could not cross the Mediterranean. It is obvious that better spring weather has encouraged smugglers to take people from their detention centres, IOM spokesman Leonard Doyle told a news briefing in Geneva. The smugglers have clearly taken them to sea and pushed them out in the hope and belief that they would be rescued. More than 35 vessels, including private charity boats, the European Union border agency Frontex, the Italian and Libyan coast guards and 12 merchant ships were involved in rescuing dozens of vessels, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) This was an overwhelming search and rescue activity by all sides involved, UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch We repeat our calls on Europe, on the governments, to be out there saving lives. NGOs have been a great help in terms of filling up that vacuum, he added. At least 900 migrants have died or have gone missing while attempting to reach Europe by sea so far this year, including 97 missing in the latest incidents between Thursday and Sunday, during which time 18 bodies were also found, Doyle Some 36,000 migrants have been rescued, against 24,000 at this time last year, he

20 20 INDIA CONTROVERSY INVESTIGATION FACILITIES TRAGEDY DIPLOMACY Probe begins to verify if women entered temple Keeping mum on Narada issue on party orders: minister Northeast to get film institute, DD channel Girl,11, commits suicide after tiff with classmates Jaitley leaves today on 5-day visit to US The Kerala government is probing reports that a few women worshipped at the Sabarimala temple last week. State Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran said the probe will be conducted by the Vigilance Department of the Travancore Devaswom Board. I have asked for a report from the Devaswom Commissioner and action would be taken based on the report, he According to the temple rules, women in the age group of years cannot enter the temple. Photographs of woman devotees worshipping at the temple were published online on April 12. Temple officials ask women arriving at the Hindu temple for documents if they have doubts about their age. West Bengal Rural Development Minister Subrata Mukherjee yesterday said he had a lot to say on the Narada sting operation but was keeping quiet under party instructions. The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday filed a case against 12 Trinamool Congress leaders, including Mukherjee, who were purportedly seen taking money in the Narada sting operation video. I have a lot to say on the issue but my party has decided that any official statement and action will be at the party level. So I cannot say anything on this now, Mukherjee Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee dubbed the development a political game and said filing of the case did not mean the accused were guilty. Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu yesterday said that the central government is planning to set up a film institute and a dedicated Doordarshan channel in Arunachal Pradesh. Addressing a press conference in Guwahati in Assam, Naidu said the proposed institute, which will start from a temporary campus with an introductory 10-week course from May 15 this year, will be set up at Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh. The institute will also start similar courses throughout the year, focusing on introducing northeast students to the medium of cinema and filmmaking as a career and enrich their skills in the domain. The ministry will also launch a dedicated Doordarshan channel - ArunPrabha from Arunachal Pradesh by August this year, Naidu A Class 6 student allegedly committed suicide following a tiff with her classmates in south Kolkata s Behala, police said yesterday. Srestha Dey, 11, of Jodhpur Park Girls High School, committed suicide by hanging herself from the ceiling fan at her house at A K Paul Road in Behala s Parnasree area at around 10pm on Monday, a police officer According to the police, the girl was alone at home when the incident happened. A suicide note was found in the room. Her family said Srestha was upset over an argument with her classmates that day. She looked upset after coming back and said she had a fight with her friends in school, her mother She said she wants to discuss something with me. I was working downstairs. Never realised she would do something like this, the mother Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will leave today for a five-day visit to the US to attend the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, an official Jaitley will also take part in a G20 meeting on the financial sector, as well as interact with American investors, the official added. Jaitley s delegation includes, among others, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Arvind Subramanian, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel. On April 21, Jaitley, along with Patel and Das, will participate in the G20 meeting, the official added. They will will also attend a meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) on Global Development and Prospects. Congress seeks Mani s return to UDF IANS Thiruvananthapuram Nine months after the Kerala Congress (Mani), the third biggest ally of the Congress-led-United Democratic Front, walked out of the alliance, the Congress Party yesterday urged the former partner to return. In August 2016, the Kerala Congress (Mani) led by its supremo K M Mani, who completed 50 years as a legislator, walked out of the UDF. Since then the six legislators of the party have been sitting as a separate block in the 140-member Kerala assembly. It was state Congress president M M Hassan who yesterday extended the olive branch and wished for their return. The UDF is meeting on Friday and this will be taken up for discussion. Mani left on his own and every ally in the UDF, really wishes Mani would return. Well once the UDF meets, a clearer picture would emerge, Hassan told reporters. Mani, the then state finance minister was upset with a section of the Congress ever since they demanded his resignation from the Oommen Chandy cabinet in This was after allegations surfaced that Mani had taken bribe to open closed bars. The former finance minister found it tough to continue in the cabinet after the Kerala High Court made a stinging remark against him and he finally quit. Even though he remained in the UDF and fought the May 2016 assembly polls, in August that year he decided to end the 34- year relation with the UDF and walked out. K P A Majeed, general secretary of the second largest ally in the UDF - the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) - told reporters it was Mani who decided to walk out of the alliance. Even though we are yet to get the agenda notes for the Friday UDF meeting, it s always good to hear the news that the UDF will discuss about his return, said Majeed. Protest against Ola, Uber Drivers of app-based taxis stage a demonstration outside Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal s residence to press their demands in New Delhi yesterday. The protest is against their partners Ola and Uber. The drivers are demanding an end to share service employed by Ola and Uber, where many commuters share a taxi to various points along one route. They also want that these taxis to be run according to a Delhi government authorised meter, which should be certified by Standardisation Testing and Quality certification (STQC). No unity till Sasikala and family exit party: OPS Agencies Chennai Unity efforts in the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam hit a roadblock yesterday after former Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam sought the exit of the now jailed V K Sasikala and her family, and Chief Minister K Palaniswami said this was unacceptable. A day after some AIADMK ministers initiated unity talks with the Panneerselvam faction, the former chief minister made it clear that there cannot be any unification if Sasikala and her family members remained party members. Panneerselvam told reporters in Perikulam in Theni district, about 520km from Chennai: Our stand is that Sasikala and her family members should not be in the party. He said that both AIADMK founder, the late M G Ramachandran (MGR), and his successor the late J Jayalalithaa, who died on December 5, were against a family controlling the party. He said there was no change in his fundamental stance that the party and the government should not be under the control of a family. It will not be an unconditional unity. We will not deviate from our basic policies, which is against a family rule in the party. Any change in our stand will be an injustice to the people of Tamil Nadu and AIADMK cadre, he The party should not be in the hands of a family. Amma (Jayalalithaa) sent the family out and Sasikala gave an apology stating that she would not come into any post and she admitted the involvement of her family in shadow conspiracy. Thus nobody from the family must be there in the party and there is no change from our side on this, he He said Jayalalithaa admitted only Sasikala into the party and none from her family. The AIADMK split into two after Jayalalithaa s death. One faction is led by the now jailed general secretary Sasikala and the other by Panneerselvam. According to Panneerselvam, MGR never involved his brother in the party affairs when he founded the AIADMK and then ruled Tamil Nadu for a decade until his death in December The Sasikala faction hit back. Chief Minister Palaniswami said if Panneerselvam placed such conditions, then unity talks cannot proceed. Sasikala faction legislator Vetrivel questioned how a group of ministers discussed a patchup without the consent of party deputy general secretary T T V Dinakaran, a nephew of Sasikala. He said in Chennai that the meeting of the ministers was unofficial and only those meetings held at the AIADMK office were official. Efforts to unite the AIADMK factions picked up speed after Delhi police filed a case against Dinakaran for trying to bribe the Election Commission to allot his faction the now frozen two leaves election symbol. The Election Commission has also postponed by-election to the state assembly from R K Nagar that was set for April 12 as it found that voters were bribed with cash. Dinakaran was the ruling AIAD- MK s candidate. The Panneerselvam camp reportedly wants him to be made both the AIADMK general secretary and chief minister, with Palaniswami as his deputy. Asked if he would allow Palaniswami, a Sasikala backer, to remain the chief minister if the AIADMK unites, Pannerselvam said there was no point in talking about things that would not happen. Panneerselvam also said doubts concerning Jayalalithaa s death had to be cleared. The majority of the state s ministers met on Monday night and resolved to begin merger talks in the overall interest of the party. Finance Minister D Jayakumar said: We welcome OPS s statement on joining hands. We also want the two sides to come together. Dinakaran, who was meeting lawyers to deal with the Delhi case, is unhappy with the conditions set by the rival camp. A legislator and Dinakaran loyalist said the ministers met without his knowledge. Kejriwal faces rare anti-incumbency in civic polls We lost Punjab because we didn t do our homework properly. Probably we overestimated our appeal with the voter. We lost Rajouri Garden because people of Delhi seem to be not happy with our performance so far. We realise we have to pull up our socks and get to work more diligently to earn their respect and trust once again. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has always claimed his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is not like the run-of-the-mill corruptionridden, family-oriented political outfits that Indians have grown up with. It is, therefore, only natural to expect an honest assessment of a failure and an equally honest admission of it. But if you thought the above words were actually uttered by Kejriwal, you have another think coming! Instead, the boss of the party with a difference blamed the electronic voting machines (EVMs), bribery by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress Party and even the Election Commission of India (ECI) for being a rubber stamp of the ruling party at the Centre for the AAP s defeat in the assembly elections over the past several weeks. No fault of his or his party s, all the blame lies with his rivals. AAP s arrogance was so extreme that its treasurer Raghav Chadha even challenged India Today television saying he would quit politics if his party did not get at least 80 seats in the Punjab assembly elections, and if it did, the channel should stop broadcasting. (AAP won 20, but Chadha is still in politics, no harm done!) The anchor of another English television channel was interviewing Kejriwal. It went somewhat like this (not verbatim because much of the conversation was in Hindi): So what do you think went so wrong in Rajouri Garden that your party s candidate was not only defeated but also lost his deposit? We had reduced power tariffs by half and we have been giving free water to the citizens. We have embarked on a major health initiative through the mohalla clincs. All this is known to the people. Yet they rejected you. So tell me the one thing that you think you should have done differently so as to gain people s confidence. On the very first day of assuming office we had declared reduction in power tariffs and also announced free drinking water Yes, I know that. But what I am asking you is, what is the one thing that you think went wrong and the people voted against you. Let me ask you one question. Delhi Diary By A K B Krishnan Correspondent Can you tell me one thing that the BJP in their ten years rule did right in the municipal corporations of Delhi? No, you are still not answering my original question. You are trying to answer a question with another question, the anchor remarked somewhat frustrated and moved on to other allegations - and there are many - against Kejriwal. If only Kejriwal had been frank enough to simply say something similar to what the opening paragraph here had said! A genuine admission of mistake is rare in Indian politics be it the Congress, the BJP or any other party. But Kejriwal had the golden chance to be different, to proffer that new paradigm, but frittered it away to prove he and his party are cut from the same cloth as these others. Although the Congress government under Sheila Dixit had acquitted itself well - getting elected three consecutive times is proof of that - it fell victim to the saga of corruption that the Manmohan Singh government at the Centre had degenerated into and lost the fourth attempt in Narendra Modi was chief minister of Gujarat and although he was emerging as one of the candidates for prime ministership in 2014, he was never the force that he eventually turned out to be. Kejriwal s promise of a corruption-free government coupled with people-friendly reforms and development was like a breath of fresh air for Delhi s citizens. There was much goodwill going for him even when he formed a minority government. If, as promised, he were to concentrate on good governance, there was no way the opposition could have found favour with the people. But Kejriwal, ever the rebel, forgot he was now sitting on the other side of the fence. For the first time in its history India saw a chief minister striking. And strike he did in no uncertain terms, rallying thousands of people on to the main square in front of parliament. He even threatened to disrupt India s Republic Day parade which was due in a few days time. In a topsy-turvy way Kejriwal obliterated the dividing line between the ruler and the ruled! In spite of these shenanigans, the people of Delhi gave him an unheard of majority - 67 seats out of 70 when Kejriwal returned to fight the assembly elections in (Please note that EVMs were very much in use then and they had not given Kejriwal any reason to complain.) There were about 443mn eligible voters in India in Of this, Delhi s share was a mere 7.05mn. The AAP won 4,878,895 votes, meaning a little over 1% of the total Indian electorate. But Kejriwal thought he had won all of India! His ambition knew no bounds. Only Prime Minister Modi was a worthy opponent for him. Or so he presumed. And then began a non-stop, no-holds-barred attack on Modi. In the bargain Kejriwal found himself facing the law in a series of defamation cases, including one filed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley because the AAP chief alleged that the BJP leader and his daughter had made money out of Delhi s cricket association. Curiously, Kejriwal wants the people of Delhi to pay for his defence. His argument: I was doing it to protect the interest of the cricket-playing youth of the city. How does alleging - without hard evidence mind you - someone of siphoning off money be in the interest of Delhi youth? And if indeed there was evidence, wasn t it incumbent upon him to file cases against the culprits? By now Kejriwal has earned a dubious reputation of being a spit-andrun specialist, but unfortunately he chose the wrong target this time. Jaitley, a seasoned lawyer of the Supreme Court, was in no mood to let things drift. He filed both a criminal and a civil suit. If Kejriwal loses the first, he could be jailed for up to two years. And if he loses the second, he, along with his five other co-accused, will have to shell out Rs100mn in damages. For someone who wanted the taxpayer to foot the bill of his defence lawyer, the question being asked is: who will pay if the court convicts Kejriwal? Kejriwal had also allegedly used Delhi taxpayers money to advertise his government s achievements in far-off Goa and in Punjab in the run-up to the assembly elections there. In fact he went one step further and promoted himself in Kerala and had taken out a television advertisement when an elderly Muslim man was lynched by a Hindu mob in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh. The total bill for these acts was a whopping Rs970mn which the lieutenantgovernor is asking the ruling party to reimburse. The citizens of Delhi have another chance to make their choice known. The civic elections are due later this week. The three corporations (MCDs) have been under the BJP for the past decade. The debate is about which of the three was more corrupt and more mismanaged all these years. The BJP itself acknowledges this. The party has denied poll tickets to every one of its sitting members, something unprecedented in Delhi s history. This is a situation that Kejriwal would have otherwise exploited to the hilt. It was corruption in the Congress Party that propelled him to power in It is corruption in the BJP that should help him now. In the normal course of things it should be a cakewalk for Kejriwal. But unfortunately he is fighting anti-incumbency of the worst kind. The Rajouri Garden result is a pointer to that. If eventually candidates of the AAP lose these elections, it will be for no fault of theirs. It will be the sins of Kejriwal visiting his candidates.

21 INDIA 21 Mallya is arrested in London India says government in touch with Britain on extradition request Agencies Mumbai/ New Delhi Flamboyant businessman Vijay Mallya, pursued by Indian authorities over unpaid loans tied to his defunct Kingfisher Airlines, was arrested in London yesterday and appeared in court for an extradition hearing. A source close to Mallya said he attended a police station voluntarily and the arrest was a technical procedure. Mallya, 61, was arrested on behalf of the Indian authorities over accusations of fraud and appeared in Westminster Magistrates Court, British police Indian television channels said he was granted bail at the hearing. Mallya, in a message on Twitter, called the news of his arrest usual Indian media hype. India had asked Britain to extradite Mallya to face trial after the liquor and aviation tycoon fled there last March after banks sued to recover about Rs90bn ($1.4bn) that Indian authorities say Kingfisher owes. Mallya has repeatedly dismissed the charges against him and defended himself in messages on Twitter. On January 28 he said that not one rupee was misused. A spokesman for India s foreign ministry said the two governments are in touch over India s extradition request. India and Britain have a mixed record on extradition, say legal experts. Some cases have collapsed when evidence fell short of the standard of dual criminality, or actions that amount to a crime in both countries. The court usually focuses on whether there is sufficient evidence of criminality to extradite someone, said Andrew Smith, a partner at London law firm Corker Binning. India needs to show a prima facie evidential case against this man. CNN News18 channel said a team of Indian law enforcement officials would visit London to begin work on the extradition. The Central Bureau of Investigation did not immediately comment. Minister of State for Finance Santosh Gangwar said the government would do everything in its power to bring Mallya to justice. We will not spare anyone who is within the ambit of law. Criminals will not be spared, Gangwar told reporters in New Delhi after the arrest. We will definitely work to bring him back to the country. India s top brewer, United Breweries, part-owned by global giant Heineken, this year asked Mallya, its non-executive chairman, to step down from the board, following a regulatory order. United Breweries was not immediately available to comment after yesterday s development. India s capital markets regulator has barred Mallya from participating in the securities market for having allegedly diverted funds from whisky maker United Spirits. A court in January ordered a consortium of banks to start the process of recovering loans from the tycoon. Mallya was once known as the King of Good Times but dropped off India s most wealthy list in 2014, engulfed by the massive debts of his grounded carrier. His huge debt has come to symbolise the problems which bad loans pose to Indian banks and to overall financial stability in Asia s third-largest economy. Critics say the government has not done enough to tackle the issue of wealthy individuals such as Mallya, who obtain huge loans which they later fail to repay. Why was nod given if Yamuna was so fragile, asks Sri Sri Fire Service Week IANS New Delhi Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar yesterday said the authorities should not have given permission to hold the World Culture Festival (WCF) if the Yamuna was so fragile and pure. He said fine should be levied on the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and the central and Delhi governments for giving permission to hold the event. His remarks came after the report of an expert committee set up by NGT said it would cost Rs420mn and a decade for the ecological rehabilitation of the Yamuna floodplains from damages caused by the festival. The three-day festival, which featured yoga sessions, performances and prayers for world peace, involved the construction of a seven-acre stage that organisers boasted was the largest ever. Pontoon bridges, portable cabins and parking facilities were also constructed over dozens of acres in the fragile ecosystem. Ravi Shankar was fined Rs50m as environmental compensation before the event, a sum he initially refused to pay, insisting: We have done nothing wrong. I will go to jail but not pay the fine. In a statement issued yesterday, Ravi Shankar said the Art of Living (AoL) obtained all the necessary permissions including from the NGT. The NGT had the application file for two months and they could have stopped it in the beginning. It defies all principles of natural justice that you give permissions and slap a fine for not violating any rules. If the Yamuna was so fragile and pure, they should have stopped the World Culture Festival at the very beginning. A historic programme, deserving of applause and appreciation, is unjustly projected as a crime, he Ravi Shankar added that the event, which saw over 3mn attendees from 155 countries over a three-day period, polluted neither air, water nor land. The world over, cultural programmes are held on riverbanks. The whole idea was to bring awareness to save the river. The Art of Living that has rejuvenated 27 rivers, planted 71mn trees, revived several ponds, is being projected as destroying a dead river, Ravi Shankar The event was held on the left bank of the river between the Barapullah elevated road and the DND flyway between March 11 and 13, last year. The report of the seven-member expert committee, headed by former secretary of Water Resources Ministry Shashi Shekhar, told NGT about the ecological damage caused to over 300 acres of floodplains due to the festival. The experts have estimated that some 300 acres of floodplains west (right bank) of Yamuna and about 120 acres floodplains of the eastern side (left bank) have been adversely impacted ecologically at different magnitudes. The AoL has criticised the report stating it was deliberately leaked to the media and that some members of the committee were biased. The next hearing over the matter in the NGT is on April 20. Ravi Shankar is one of a number of gurus whose popularity and political influence have surged in recent years as a swelling Indian middle class tries to remain connected to its cultural and religious roots. Personnel of Assam s State Disaster Response Force perform at a light show to mark Fire Service Week 2017 at Dighalipukhuri Lake in Guwahati yesterday. India likely to receive normal monsoon rains this year: IMD Agencies New Delhi India s crucial monsoon rains are forecast to be normal this year, the weather office said yesterday, bringing hope to the agricultural sector which employs 60% of the population and has been hit by drought in recent years. Good monsoon rains are vital for Indian crops and a particularly dry season can reduce farm output, raising food prices which can be crippling for the tens of millions of India s poor. More than half of India s farms lack irrigation for their crops, meaning they rely almost entirely on the annual rains that fall between June and September. The country will receive 96% of the long-period average, K J Ramesh, director general of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), said at a news conference. The long-period average refers to a 50-year average of 89cm rainfall for the entire four-month season beginning June. We expect normal climatological distribution of rains and we also expect the trend of higher agricultural production and economic growth to continue. India s weather office defines rainfall between 96 and 104% of the long-period average as normal. Last year s monsoon was above average in much of the country, bringing relief to millions of rural farmers reeling from two years of drought. However, India s southern peninsula did not receive enough rain, resulting in drought in some parts of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. Ramesh said that the forecast assessment suggests 38% of probability for near normal monsoon rainfall. The actual status of the overall rainfall in India would however depend on the future status of El Nino and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) activities. El Nino is a climatic phenomenon which is the warm phase of the cycle of warm and cold temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that also impacts the monsoon. A high El Nino has a negative effect in terms of the weather, agriculture and economics. Similarly, IOD is a climate event occurring over the equatorial Indian Ocean. A positive dipole is associated with warming over the western Indian Ocean and cooling over the eastern Indian Ocean. The IMD data suggests that a moderate or strong El Nino and a positive IOD results in good rainfall. In 1997, the country experienced 102% monsoon when both phenomena were optimal. There is an uncertainty, as the probability of moderate El Nino in August has reduced. Moderate IOD is also developing in Indian Ocean...This is anyway good for India... we will get more answers in June, said Ramesh. Reactions poured in after the IMD s announcements. A normal monsoon means steady rains, ample irrigation water availability and a good crop to our farmers. In all, a good year for everyone, tweeted Science Minister Harsh Vardhan. The ICRA Ltd, an independent and professional investment information and credit rating agency, said that the timing of the rainfall would matter. In addition to the overall level, the timing of rainfall would be crucial. Higher rainfall in the early part of the monsoon may support sowing. However, adequate rainfall in the second half of the season would remain important for yields, said Aditi Nayar, Principal Economist at ICRA. ICRA said that though the current water-reservoir storage exceeds the level during 2016, it may still not prove adequate to shield the crop sector, if monsoon rainfall turns out to be appreciably weaker than the IMD s initial forecast. According to the Water Resources Ministry, reservoir storage is currently at around 31% of full capacity. I have no Khalistan links, says Canadian minister IANS New Delhi Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan yesterday rejected allegations that he supported Khalistan, and said: I don t promote the breaking up of any country. I don t want to be sucked into the internal politics of a province of a nation, he told reporters when asked about allegations that he was a Khalistani supporter. My goal is to build relationships. I am proud of the fact that I was born here. Sajjan arrived in India on Monday on a week-long visit. He will visit Punjab too. The Sikh politician was dubbed a Khalistan sympathiser by Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who has said he would not meet the Canadian minister. Sajjan spoke at an event organised by the Observer Research Foundation. Pressed about Amarinder Singh s allegation, Sajjan said: I am not gonna get into petty politics of one CM or anybody. My reason for going into Punjab is to pay respect to Harminder Sahib... I want to pay respect to the village I was born. I am very very proud of my roots. Captain is chief minister and it is my responsibility to offer a meeting. Sajjan said the chief minister was free to decide whether he wanted to meet him or not. The relationship between Punjab and Canada is based on its people. No one can take away my village, my home, from me. On the Ontario assembly passing a resolution calling the 1984 anti-sikh riots a genocide, Sajjan said: We are a federation and the Ontario legislature is democratically elected. A private member moved a motion and that s all it was. Earlier, Sajjan met his Indian counterpart Arun Jaitley. Speaking on their discussion, Sajjan said: We had some very fruitful discussion... on the great relationship that Canada and India has and how we can further this relationship. Talking about the possibilities in defence co-operation, he said: India s defence ties with Canada may be at a nascent stage but we certainly stand to benefit from your technological skills, your considerable aerospace technologies, simulation and modelling technologies, cold climate expertise, your culture of research and innovation. All are areas that suggest possibilities where Canadian defence manufacturers can become an active part of the Make in India initiative. A veteran of Afghanistan and Bosnia, Sajjan, a decorated soldier, spoke about the Taliban and how to deal with extremist violence. Taliban is a small entity... radical thinking that has sucked in a generation of young men into their ranks. Canada s Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan shakes hands with his Indian counterpart Arun Jaitley after his ceremonial reception in New Delhi yesterday. Ex-Delhi Congress president joins BJP IANS New Delhi In a setback to the Congress ahead of the April 23 civic polls, former Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely and former Youth Congress leader Amit Malik quit the party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party yesterday. Former DPCC President Arvinder Singh Lovely, a former minister, and former Youth Congress leader Amit Malik joined the BJP in the presence of party chief Amit Shah, the Delhi BJP said in a tweet. Federal minister Vijay Goel, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari and BJP s Lok Sabha member from East Delhi Maheish Girri were also present on the occasion. Lovely s joining the party will strengthen the BJP in several areas of east Delhi, said Tiwari. Lovely held important portfolios in former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit s government, including education, tourism, urban development, revenue, and transport. He was elected to the Delhi assembly for the first time in He has never lost an election ever since. Lovely had spoken in support of former Congress minister A K Walia when he threatened to quit the party over distribution of tickets for the April 23 civic polls. After Arvinder Singh Lovely s joining, I am getting loads of calls from Congress leaders. They feel suffocated in the Congress and want to join the BJP, Goel tweeted. Meanwhile in Manipur, Congress legislator Ginsuahau Zou and 14 councillors from the party joined the ruling BJP. Welcoming them, Chief Minister N Biren Singh said some more Congress MLAs would join the ruling party soon.

22 22 LATIN AMERICA Miami electric car dealer sees opportunity in Cuban gas shortage An electric car dealer with a Miami subsidiary is telling Cuba-based diplomats struggling with a gasoline shortage on the Communist-run Caribbean island that they should fret no longer. The US, which maintains a trade embargo on Cuba, licensed Premier Automotive Export to sell vehicles to non-state entities in Cuba, such as embassies and private companies, as part of detente under former president Barack Obama. We put together a special offer and are distributing the flier a 2016 Nissan Leaf electric sedan, plus super charger, for $25,000, including shipping direct from Miami to Mariel Port, said John Felder, owner of Premier s Cayman Islandsbased parent, Automotive Leasing and Sales Co. The cash-strapped Cuban government cut back deliveries of high-octane gasoline this month, sending diplomats, other foreigners and betteroff Cubans scrambling to locate fuel and waiting in long lines to fill up their cars. It was not clear how long the shortage would last, and the government has An electric car recently acquired by Guyana embassy is seen beside a vintage car during a ride for journalists in Havana, Cuba. not commented on the situation. Most Cubans who own cars, mainly vintage American and Soviet-era models, use lesser-quality fuel that can damage modern engines. To date, Felder has sold just one of his vehicles, to the Guyanese embassy before the shortages began. Ambassador Halim Majeed said his government purchased the car as part of its green energy initiative, but now it has proved handy indeed. I m lucky, and I m happy about that, he Majeed said other diplomats had always shown interest in his electric car, but there was more now. It is natural that when one faces an issue, you devise ways and means to overcome that challenge, he said, and in this situation, the electrical vehicle can help do that. Cuba depends on crisis-racked ally Venezuela for about 70% of its fuel needs, including oil for refining and re-exports. But socialist Venezuela s subsidised shipments have fallen by as much as 40% since Potential new suppliers usually want cash due to Cuba s poor credit rating. Two of three Cuban refineries have closed or have operated well below capacity for months. Victims of army torture fear Mexico security bill Switzerland president pays visit Jiutepec, Mexico One afternoon, young Mexican engineer Jethro Sanchez was out partying. Hours later, he was dying, his father says - burned with acid and choking on earth as soldiers buried him alive. Mexico called in the armed forces a decade ago to fight drug crime. But critics say the military has not been trained for that kind of police work and has ended up torturing innocent suspects. Now the Mexican Congress is debating proposals to formalise the use of the armed forces for public security, raising fears that the eventual reform will shield soldiers who commit abuses. His father Hector Sanchez, 63, who makes a living recycling auto parts, speaks in a choked voice as he stands next to the young man s grave. Jethro Sanchez was studying for his master s degree and was out celebrating a successful business investment, he says - not a drug trafficker as the military alleged. There was no reason for them to do what they did to him. As politicians argue over the new law, he says he wishes more relatives of torture victims would come forward. On May 1, 2011, Jethro Sanchez, 26, was at a local fair in Jiutepec, a town south of Mexico City, to celebrate the victory of a football team he had sponsored. A street fight broke out and Jethro Sanchez was detained by police, who handed him over to the military, claiming he was a drug trafficker. Soldiers threw acid in his face and buried him, Hector Sanchez claims. The body was found two months later in Puebla, 150kms to the east. After a six-year legal fight, the grieving father is hoping that three soldiers arrested in connection with his son s death will finally be tried and sentenced for the crime. In December 2006, Mexico s then-president Felipe Calderon turned to the military to wage his war on drugs. He argued that the police were too corrupt for the task and needed cleaning up. Since then, non-governmental organisations such as Amnesty International have documented scores of similar cases of torture and abuse in the country. For years, we have warned that involving armed forces trained for combat in internal matters, especially in the prosecution of crime, can be a big mistake, said Juan Mendez, the former United Nations envoy for torture, who wrote a report on Mexico. Currently, more than 50,000 military personnel are deployed throughout Mexico to help fight crime. Organisations opposed to the proposed internal security law fear that it will give nefarious elements within the military a blank check to commit abuses. Mexico s Congress has been studying proposals from various parties on the military s policing role since last September. Details of the proposals have yet to be published. But the issue has raised so many red flags that the law may not be approved before the current parliamentary session ends on April 30. The military has defended its record in the face of torture allegations. We are not systematic violators of human rights, said General Jose Carlos Beltran, the military s human rights director, in March. Argentina s President Mauricio Macri walks next to Switzerland s President Doris Leuthard at the Casa Rosada Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires, Argentina, yesterday. Disagreements delay Brazil pension reform Brasilia Disagreements over changes to the minimum retirement age for women have delayed the presentation of the Brazilian government s pension reform draft until today, a senior lawmaker said yesterday. The disagreements highlight the lingering political resistance to the unpopular reform, despite concessions made by President Michel Temer aimed at making his plan more palatable to lawmakers facing elections next year. Congressman Carlos Marun, who heads the lower house committee that will initially vote on the proposal, said discussions were continuing on whether to include a lowered retirement age for women to 62 or 63 years among changes aimed at securing passage of the reform. Temer s original proposal set a minimum retirement age of 65 years for men and women. Brazil is one of the few countries in the world without a minimum retirement age. Government officials said the administration is likely to accept the change in order to push through the overall reform, considered a crucial step in pulling Brazil out of its worst recession ever. Investor concerns over potential delays to the reform have weighed on demand for Brazilian assets in recent days. The country s benchmark Bovespa stock index slipped 0.3 % yesterday. To ease market concerns, Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles said the draft will keep about 80% of the content of the original proposal. Temer has said the government wants to limit the number of changes to the pensions proposal, which is needed to rebalance Brazil s overdrawn accounts and recover its investment grade credit rating. The International Monetary Fund said the Brazilian recovery hinges on the implementation of the pension overhaul and other fiscal reforms. In its World Economic Outlook report yesterday, the IMF raised Brazil s economic growth forecast for 2018 to 1.7% from 1.5% previously. Temer s chief of staff, Eliseu Padilha, has said the five major changes agreed by the government would reduce fiscal savings by about 20%. Some of those changes include transition rules that benefit workers closer to retirement age and a lower retirement age for rural workers as well as for police and teachers. The pensions proposal needs to be approved by the committee before it can be put to a floor vote in the full chamber. As it is a constitutional amendment, the measure has to be approved by a three fifths majority in two separate votes by both the lower house and the Senate. Govt begins work on Rio slum sewage services Thomson Foundation Rio de Janeiro Brazilian authorities have taken the first step towards providing basic sanitation to more than 80,000 people in one of Rio de Janeiro s biggest informal settlements or favelas by holding consultations with residents, a local government official Located 35km west of the city centre, the working-class community of Rio das Pedras has grown quickly since the 1970s, largely driven by migration from the country s poor northeast. Today the area is estimated by residents and officials to have between 80,000 and 170,000 inhabitants. Yet a lack of basic public services or city planning has drawn concerns from residents about stagnant pools of dirty water and piles of garbage. Similar problems affect many of the country s informal communities where tens of millions of Brazilians live. We want to turn Rio das Pedras into a (formal) neighbourhood, said Flavio Caland, a local government official, was quoted as saying in O Globo newspaper. But everything will be done in stages. Half of Brazil s population lack sewage services, according to the ministry of cities His comments follow a visit to Rio das Pedras last month by Rio de Janeiro s mayor Marcelo Carvella, who promised to improve infrastructure. Dona Mazinha, president of a local residents association in Rio das Pedras, said poor, hard-working people live with the sewer at their door, Brazilian news portal R7.com reported. Government officials in recession-hit Rio did not provide a timeline as to when public services would be available in the area or a budget for the cost of the works launched this week with initial community consultations. A lack of state presence in the informal community where residents do not have title deeds to their homes has allowed militia groups to fill the void. Half of Brazil s population lack sewage services, according to the ministry of cities. This places Latin America s largest country behind other large middle-income nations including China, Russia and Argentina when it comes to access to basic sanitation. Brazil s federal government aims to provide basic sewage services for the entire population of more than 200mn people by However, at its current pace, the goal will not be met by 2050, the National Confederation of Industry (CNI) said in a study in February, which showed that communities in informal settlements will be particularly impacted by the slow progress. Venezuela National Assembly president Julio Borges (left) stands outside the Congress building in Caracas yesterday. Most of the parliament yesterday asked the armed forces to stop repression in opposition demonstrations and be loyal to the constitution. LatAm warn against Venezuela violence Bogota Latin American powers warned against the risk of violence in Venezuela as it braced for big protests today in a deadly political and economic crisis. Colombia s President Juan Manuel Santos expressed serious concern about the Venezuelan army s role, after his and 10 other countries urged peaceful demonstrations. Venezuela s President Nicolas Maduro rallied the military and civilian militia on Monday as he vowed to resist the opposition s efforts to remove him from office. We view with serious concern the militarisation of Venezuelan society. We call for good sense, Santos wrote on Twitter. The centre-right opposition is protesting against moves by authorities to tighten Maduro s grip on power. Pressure on Maduro has risen in an economic crisis aggravated by a fall in prices for Venezuela s crucial oil exports, which has triggered severe shortages of food and medicine. Earlier 11 regional powers including Argentina, Brazil and Mexico bewailed the deaths of several protesters in recent clashes. They urged Venezuelan authorities to guarantee the right to peaceful protest as enshrined in the constitution and to prevent any violent action against the demonstrators. Maduro s Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez on Twitter called the statement from the 11 countries political selectivity, accusing the group of endorsing the violent vandalism of the opposition. At least five people have been killed and scores injured in clashes between protesters and police this month, according to Venezuelan authorities. Venezuela s defence minister has declared the army s loyalty to President Maduro, who ordered troops into the streets ahead of the protest today by opponents trying to oust him.

23 PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN 23 Pakistan denies using proxies from its soil SC verdict on Panamagate tomorrow DPA/Agencies Islamabad US National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster meets Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa on April 17. Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Jawed Bajwa yesterday rejected allegations that Pakistan has been employing proxies from its soil. Pakistan itself is victim of state sponsored terrorism, it strongly rejects allegations of employing proxies from its soil, the Army chief General Bajwa s statement came during his meeting with US National Security Adviser, Lt. Gen. HR McMaster. During his visit the US national security adviser pushed Islamabad to fight all terrorist groups equally and avoid using some of them as proxies in Afghanistan. During the meetings, McMaster stressed the need to confront terrorism in all its forms, the US Embassy said in a statement. The US hopes Pakistani leaders will understand that it is in their interest to go after terrorist groups less selectively than they have in the past, McMaster told Afghanistan s Tolonews before the visit. The best way to pursue their interest in the country and elsewhere is through diplomacy not through the use of proxies and engaging violence, McMaster During the meeting, McMaster was briefed about Pakistan s war on terror and its contributions to regional and global stability. He acknowledged the Pakistan Army s efforts in eliminating terrorists and their infrastructure, the Inter-Services Public Relation McMaster assured that the US will continue to support Pakistan in bringing peace and stability in the region, as well as the globe. McMaster arrived in Islamabad on Monday on an unannounced visit, a day after he hinted the US could take a tougher stance on Pakistan. During the meeting, Sharif welcomed President Trump s willingness to help India and Pakistan resolve their differences particularly in relation to the disputed Kashmir region. It was the first visit by a top member of President Donald Trump s administration to Pakistan, and came after a stop in neighbouring Afghanistan where he suggested Washington may take a stronger line on Islamabad, for years seen as an unreliable US ally. The Trump administration is reportedly considering new policies regarding afghanistan including a proposal to send additional troops to the country to end a stalemate with Taliban insurgents. IANS Islamabad The Supreme Court of Pakistan will announce its verdict in the Panamagate case tomorrow (April 20) after it added the matter in its cause list yesterday. Confirming the news, ARY News tweeted: PANAMA VERDICT has been finalised. Announcement will be in 60 hours. Last year, the Panama Papers scandal rocked governments, exposed high-profile personalities, triggered scores of investigations around the world and dealt a blow to Panama as an offshore financial hub. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif s alleged wrongdoing came to light as part of a massive leak of secret files from a Panamanian law firm that specialises in setting up offshore companies in tax havens. A trove of 11.5mn digital records from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca last year revealed how many of the world s wealthy used offshore companies to stash assets. According to the Panama Papers, three of Sharif s four children Maryam, Hasan and Hussain were owners of offshore companies and were owners or had the right to authorise transactions for several companies. But Sharif and his family have dismissed the allegations of money laundering and denied any wrongdoing. Since the Panama Papers in June 2016, opposition parties have been jumping at the opportunity to register their protests and mobilise supporters to rally against Nawaz Sharif. I can say with surety that... not a single penny went out of Pakistan, emphasised PM Sharif on the floor of parliament on May 16, The opposition staged a walkout as Sharif proposed a parliamentary commission to probe the allegations. In the immediate aftermath, Iceland s Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson was forced to resign after the leak showed his family sheltered assets offshore. The petitioners in Pakistan Advocate Tariq Asad, Jamaat-i- Islami (JI) chief Sirajul Haq, PTI chief Imran Khan and Awami Muslim League head Sheikh Rashid Ahmed sought disqualification of the Prime Minister and his close family members for their alleged investment in offshore companies. A Supreme Court s fivemember bench, led by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, took up petitions on 20 October, 2016 and concluded its hearing on 23 February, The Supreme Court s verdict will change the future of Pakistan, said the PTI chairman in January. Pak-India faith tourism continues despite tensions Internews Islamabad Despite simmering tensions between Pakistan and India over the death sentence to an Indian spy, violation of ceasefire at LoC and increasing brutality in held Kashmir, the two nucleararmed neighbours continue to facilitate each other s pilgrims intending to visit religious sites located on both sides of the border. While around 1,300 Sikhs arrived in Pakistan last week to attend the annual 319th Khalsa Janam Din and Baisakhi festival at Gurdwara Panja Sahib, Hassan Abdal, Pakistan s religious ministry has invited applications from pilgrims who plan to visit India for the annual Urs of Hazrat Mujaddid Alf Sani at Sirhind Sharif, India. The annual Urs will be held from November 16 to 23 this year. An official handout of Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony, Islamabad yesterday invited Ziarat applications from interested pilgrims till April 24. Ballot, if required, for 200 Pakistani pilgrims will be held on May 19, the statement added. Pakistan and India facilitate each other s citizens as part of efforts to promote people-topeople contact and religious tourism. Ministry of religious affairs official said both Pakistan and India had signed an agreement, according to which, they will send their nationals to each other s country to attend religious festivals. Every year, around six major Urs take place in India, said the official and added that about 1,000 pilgrims from Pakistan attend five Urs, while 500 participate in Ajmer Sharif s Urs. It is estimated that every year 1,500 pilgrims travel to India to attend these Urs where they are welcomed wholeheartedly and provided all required comfort and security, said the official. However, sometimes their visits get cancelled at the 11th hour, said the official. Teacher describes facing lynch mob Peshawar A teacher has described the moment he was accosted by a Pakistani mob which lynched a liberal student accused of blasphemy an attack which has triggered shock, outrage and fear across the country. Hundreds of men attacked journalism student Mashal Khan last Thursday, stripping, beating and shooting him before throwing him from the second floor of his hostel at the Abdul Wali Khan university in the northwestern town of Mardan. Khan had been known for his liberal views, especially on Facebook, sparking the blasphemy allegations against him. Twenty-two people have been arrested so far over the killing. Ziaullah Hamdard, one of Mashal Khan s teachers, told the private Geo TV channel yesterday that he saw students shouting slogans against Khan and another student, Abdullah. One university employee threatened to kill Khan and cut him into pieces, Hamdard Then the mob began kicking in the door to a washroom where Abdullah had taken refuge. All this happened in seconds. They broke the door, some of them had batons, they were furious suddenly they entered inside...they were not listening to anyone, Hamdard Police arrived and managed to yank a wounded Abdullah to safety, he told Geo. At the sight of blood and the crowd, he added, I lost my courage. Hamdard rushed to the staff hostel, but around 20 students were already there and accused him of hiding Khan. They said, You are a nonbeliever, you have hidden a blasphemer...they were crazy, they were not listening to me. Two of them kicked me and snatched my mobile and locked me in my room. Hamdard was rescued by another teacher and spirited away by police. By then Khan, who had been hiding in his own room at a nearby student hostel, was dead. Mashal was a Diya (lamp). They have turned off a lamp, Hamdard told Geo. He apologised to Khan s parents for failing to protect their son and said his guilt had driven him to resign. The brutality of the attack, partly recorded on mobile phone, provoked widespread condemnation, with protests in several cities over the weekend. Yesterday an opposition leader Imran Khan, whose party controls Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where Mardan is located, vowed the perpetrators would face justice. The killing came in the wake of a government drive against blasphemy, a hugely sensitive charge in Pakistan. Last month Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif swore that blasphemers on social media would be prosecuted. The interior ministry also threatened to block social media websites with blasphemous content. The state itself has said, there are blasphemers hiding among you, the people; find them! So now the people are finding them, wrote columnist Cyril Almeida in Dawn newspaper over the weekend in comments critical of the government. Social media users have become increasingly nervous in the wake of the attack, with posts Govt blocks 152 Facebook pages The Interior Ministry of Pakistan informed the National Assembly yesterday that 152 Facebook pages have been blocked for featuring blasphemous content. The written reply came to the question asked by MNA Sahibzada Tariq Ullah regarding action taken by the government against those involved in the posting of blasphemous content on social media. The ministry said two FIRs were also registered against individuals thought to have been uploading blasphemous content. One of these was registered last month by the Federal warning about the dangers of fake accounts that could be used for blasphemy allegations. Rights activists have long criticised the colonial-era blasphemy legislation, saying it can be abused for personal vendettas. Abdullah, who has been taken into protective custody, claimed the university had wanted him to brand Khan a blasphemer because he (Khan) had criticised the school, according to court documents released late Monday. A second student told a magistrate he had testified before a university congress on the day of the killing, accusing Khan of blasphemy, according to the documents seen by. Investigation Agency (FIA) Cyber Crime Circle Rawalpindi last month and the second was also registered last month at the Ramna police station. The ministry said relevant US authorities have been asked to help close down the social media sites which feature blasphemous content and track down those involved. Three suspects have been arrested by the FIA and eight were places on the Exit Control List, the minister s written reply The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sent letters to the Organisation of Islamic Conference and to the Arab League as well. Malala s mother focuses on education Anti-polio campaign A Pakistani policeman stands guard as a health worker administers the polio vaccine to a child during a vaccination campaign in Karachi yesterday. London The mother of Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai said she hopes to devote more time to helping others get an education in her first major interview since her daughter was shot by the Taliban for defying its ban on girls schooling in Pakistan. Toor Pekai Yousafzai has largely stayed out of the spotlight since the 2012 attack on a school bus, which resulted in Malala being airlifted to Britain for treatment. Her husband Ziauddin is seen more often accompanying the teenage activist, who became the world s youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2014 aged 17, on trips to promote girls education around the world. When Malala was being treated in hospital we were very busy looking after her, Toor Pekai told the BBC s Woman s Toor Pekai Yousafzai with her daughter Malala. Hour daily radio programme. Then she wrote a book and we were busy with that too, so that s why I wasn t in the public eye. But now I m trying to help other people get an education, so from now on I want to be more involved in these kinds of things. Malala s mother also described the shock of being forced to flee her home in Pakistan s Swat Valley, northwest of the country s capital Islamabad. When other people leave their country they accept everything that comes their way and they re ready for it, but we couldn t prepare, Toor Pekai We had to suddenly leave Pakistan. The attack changed everything. We had to focus on Malala s life. Now living in England s second city Birmingham, Toor Pekai, who did not receive an education in Pakistan herself, is learning English while caring for Malala, who is now 19, and her two brothers. Despite winning a host of accolades, including being named a UN Messenger of Peace last week, at home Malala is like any other teenager, Toor Pekai I sometimes get upset with her when she throws everything around in her room and I tell her to keep her room clean and tidy, she Nevertheless, Toor Pekai said she and Malala cried when the teenager received an offer to study philosophy, politics and economics at a British university next year. I ll miss her a lot and home will be empty without her. It s difficult but I have to accept it, Toor Pekai

24 24 PHILIPPINES 26 killed as bus falls into ravine Manila At least 26 people were killed and 21 injured when a passenger bus crashed into a deep ravine in the mountainous northern Philippines yesterday, authorities The bus plunged about 24 metres in the upland province of Nueva Ecija before noon after its brakes failed while travelling on a winding road, police and local officials The vehicle is totally wrecked, said senior inspector Robert De Guzman, police chief of the town of Carranglan where the accident occurred. The impact appeared to have ripped the top off the vehicle, he added. Almost all of the passengers, both dead and injured, were found outside the bus. Authorities were still investigating the cause of the accident but Carranglan Mayor Mary Abad told ABS-CBN television there were 60 passengers onboard although the bus had a capacity of only 45. Abad added the wounded, some of whom sustained critical injuries, were rushed to nearby hospitals. The road is really risky. There are many ravines along that road going to Abra, Abad said, referring to the northern province where the bus was headed. Dr Arlene Jara, chief of the nearby provincial hospital treating the wounded, said children were among those injured. President Rodrigo Duterte s spokesman Ernesto Abella expressed condolences to the families of the victims and said those responsible would be held accountable. Police and military personnel stand near the site where two bombs exploded on Monday, at a gasoline in Tacurong town, Sultan Kudarat province, in southern island of Mindanao yesterday. Supreme Court acquittal for Arroyo By Jomar Canlas Manila Times The Supreme Court (SC) yesterday stood pat on its majority ruling acquitting former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (pictured) of the crime of plunder. During their summer session in Baguio City, the magistrates junked the motion for reconsideration filed by the Office of the Ombudsman, citing the principle of double jeopardy. With the same vote of 11 against 4, the high court ruled to affirm the granting of demurrer to evidence to Arroyo for lack of sufficient evidence to prove the crime of plunder. Arroyo no longer presented evidence before the Sandiganbayan. The SC said that with Arroyo s acquittal, criminal proceedings can no longer be pursued. Arroyo was accused of embezzling P366mn in intelligence funds of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) from 2008 to Besides Arroyo, also charged with plunder by the ombudsman were PCSO General Manager and Vice Chairman Rosario Uriarte, members of the Board of Directors Manuel Morato, Jose Taruc, Raymundo Roquero, Ma. Fatima Valdes; Budget and Accounts Manager Benigno Aguas; Commission on Audit (COA) Chairman Reynaldo Villar; and former COA CIF Fraud Audit Unit head Nilda Plaras. Seven hurt after twin blasts in south Manila Seven people were injured when two bomb explosions rocked a petrol station in a southern Philippine city near rebel enclaves, police said yesterday. An improvised explosive was thrown on Monday night on the roof of the gasoline station in Tacurong city on Mindanao island, which has been plagued by a decades-old insurgency. Two soldiers, three policemen and two civilians were wounded when a second blast went off minutes later as security forces were about to cordon off the area, said regional police spokesman Superintendent Romeo Galgo. Two suspects have been arrested but their identities and the motive for the attack were still under investigation, Galgo added. We cannot conclude yet that this is an act of terrorism. We are looking at all angles as there are threat groups in surrounding areas, Galgo said, referring to rebels in the strife-torn province of Maguindanao. Nearby towns are also home to communist rebels waging one of Asia s longest insurgencies and the incident could have been linked to extortion, Galgo added. The blasts occurred in a section of Mindanao that had been troubled by the insurgency and high crime. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest rebel organisation, is in peace talks with the government but other extremist gangs that have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group routinely carry out bombings and kidnappings. A police forensic investigator points to the site where two bombs exploded, at a gasoline in Tacurong town, Sultan Kudarat province. Kill rewards, staged crime scenes in drug war Manila The Philippine police have received cash payments for executing drug suspects, planted evidence at crime scenes and carried out most of the killings they have long blamed on vigilantes, said two senior officers who are critical of President Rodrigo Duterte s war on drugs. In the most detailed insider accounts yet of the drug war s secret mechanics, the two senior officials challenged the government s explanations of the killings in interviews with. Almost 9,000 people, many small-time users and dealers, have been killed since Duterte took office on June 30. Police say about a third of the victims were shot by officers in self-defence during legitimate anti-drug operations. Human rights monitors believe many of the remaining two thirds were killed by paid assassins operating with police backing or by police disguised as vigilantes a charge the police deny. The two senior officers, one a retired police intelligence officer and the other an active-duty commander, claimed the killings are in fact orchestrated by the police, including most of those carried out by vigilantes. They spoke with on the condition of anonymity. It is the Philippine National Police doing it, said the retired intelligence officer. This killing machine must be buried six feet under the ground. He said he was angry about the impact of the killings on police discipline and wanted to put Duterte on the defensive. File photo shows the grandmother of five-year-old Francisco Manosca, son of Domingo Manosca, who according to relatives was a drug user, mourns over his body during his funeral in Pasay city, Metro Manila, on December 21, Unidentified gunmen killed both the father and child. was unable to independently verify if the police are behind vigilante killings. The president s office and the Philippine police did not respond to questions from. The intelligence officer has authored an unpublished 26- page report on the conduct of the drug war in an effort to organise opposition to Duterte s campaign. The report, titled The State- Sponsored Extra-judicial Killings in the Philippines, provides granular detail on the campaign s alleged methods, masterminds and perpetrators. The document has been shared with leaders of the Catholic Church in the Philippines and with the governmentfunded Commission on Human Rights. Some of the report s accusations against individuals could not be confirmed by ; the news agency is therefore not publishing the full document. Many of its findings, however, support and expand upon previous investigations of the drug war by and independent human rights monitors. The report claims that police are paid to kill not just drug suspects, but also for 10,000 pesos ($200) a head rapists, pickpockets, swindlers, gang members, alcoholics and other troublemakers. It also claims that civilian members of the so-called Davao Death Squad, which rights activists allege killed hundreds of people in Duterte s hometown of Davao, were drafted to augment and assist the police s current nationwide anti-drug operation. The report doesn t provide documentary evidence for its accusations, which the intelligence officer said were based on accounts from 17 serving or former policemen, including the commander interviewed. The police commander said he agreed to talk because he was upset that authorities are targeting only petty drug suspects. Why aren t they killing the suppliers? he asked. Only the poor are dying. The second half of the report is largely political in nature, asserting that Duterte has close ties to Communist forces in the Philippines. Many in the military and police are concerned by what they see as Duterte s leftist sympathies. Since taking office, the president has released Communist rebels from prison to restart peace talks. The report also calls the drug war a social cleansing campaign similar to that launched in Mao Zedong s China, with Duterte aiming to have drug addicts physically eliminated. The Commission on Human Rights has reviewed the report and the accounts could open up new leads in ongoing investigations, said chairman Chito Gascon. Church officials confirmed receiving the report as well. We should do all we can to follow any lead that could ultimately shed light on these killings with the view to ultimately holding the perpetrators to account, said Gascon. The fresh claims come amid growing criticism of the drug war. In February, the country s influential Catholic Church called it a reign of terror. The campaign has also sparked street protests and lawsuits. Duterte s police chief, Ronald Dela Rosa, halted police operations for most of February after it emerged that an anti-drug unit had kidnapped and murdered a South Korean businessman last year. The killings continued but at a slower pace. On March 6, Dela Rosa announced that the police were resuming their drug operations. In March, a former policeman, Arturo Lascanas, testified in the Philippine Senate about his role in vigilante-style killings in the southern city of Davao, where Duterte was once mayor. Lascanas was the second Senate witness to link Duterte to the Davao Death Squad. Duterte denies ordering any killings, either as president or mayor. In a subsequent interview, Lascanas told that for over a decade he was paid for carrying out the liquidation of drug suspects and criminals. In the early 1990s, he said, he was paid 3,000 to 5,000 pesos ($60-$100) for each of the jobs he performed. By the early 2000s he was earning tens of thousands of pesos for each operation, he Lascanas said he had no documentary proof of the payments. He has since left the country. In the past nine months, police acknowledge having shot dead more than 2,600 suspects during their operations. They say such shootings occur after suspects open fire on undercover officers trying to catch them dealing drugs. But these so-called buybusts are actually well-planned executions, said the commander interviewed by. The commander said targets are chosen from lists of suspects drawn up by police and local officials, who later co-ordinate to unplug security cameras in the neighbourhood where a killing is planned. According to the report, street lamps are also switched off. There is no such thing as a legitimate buy-bust, the commander The dealers know the cops and won t sell to them. Instead, he said, a team of police operatives will execute the target, who is almost always unarmed, then plant guns and drugs at the crime scene to justify the use of deadly force. We have to plant evidence for the legality of the operation, the commander We are ordered to do these operations, so we have to protect ourselves. Most drug suspects in his precinct are shot by rookie cops who are either eager for the experience or nominated by their superiors, the commander The superiors refer to this as a baptism by fire. Each member of the team is quickly paid according to two factors, said the commander: his role in the killing and the target s value. According to the report, the cash reward scales for drug killings range from 20,000 pesos ($400) for a street level pusher and user, to 50,000 pesos for a member of a neighbourhood council, 1mn pesos for distributors, retailers and wholesalers, and 5mn for drug lords. Police officers kill for money, said the commander, but also out of fear: Even the police are afraid of being included on a watch list of drug suspects drawn up by police and local officials. Officials have been killed for not co-operating, he added. He said he was aware of two cases but did not provide details on exactly what happened. reported last year that the watch lists were effectively hit lists, with many of those named ending up dead. Another investigation showed that police officers were killing 97% of the suspects they confront in violent buy-bust operations, the strongest evidence yet that the police were summarily executing suspects. Officers also co-operate because they know the police force s flawed disciplinary system, which fails to adequately investigate even a fraction of the killings, means there is little chance they will get caught, said the intelligence officer. One sign of the drug war s success, says the government, is that more than a million users and pushers have voluntarily registered with the police, a process known as surrendering. But the commander said police are given a quota of surrenderers, and fill it by using city ordinances to arrest men who are drunk or shirtless a misdemeanour known as half-naked then forcing them to register as drug suspects. learned of the intelligence officer s 26-page report from him and interviewed two Catholic priests in Manila who said they had encouraged him to compile it. One of the priests said he edited the report; the other said he helped distribute it among a small group of clerics and human rights activists. Both are helping organise opposition to Duterte s drug campaign. The intelligence officer said he hoped the report would be used as evidence at the International Criminal Court. In October, the Hague-based tribunal said it could prosecute suspects if the killings were committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population.

25 SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL 25 Garbage piles up in Lanka capital as toll climbs to 31 Colombo Hundreds of tonnes of rotting garbage piled up in Sri Lanka s capital yesterday after the main rubbish dump was shut following an accident that killed at least 31 people. Authorities sealed the massive 300ft (90m) rubbish mountain on the northeastern edge of Colombo after it collapsed on Friday, destroying 145 homes nearby and burying victims in a garbage landslide. Military spokesman Roshan Seneviratne said hundreds of troops were still searching for five people missing since the accident, but authorities were not hopeful of finding any survivors four days on. Soldiers dug out another body yesterday afternoon raising the toll to 31. The Colombo Municipal Council was scrambling for new locations to dump the roughly 800 tonnes of garbage produced every day in the capital, as crows and stray dogs picked through bags of reeking garbage left on city streets. The council sought permission yesterday from a local magistrate to access another tip outside the city limits, promising it would clear the four-day backlog of trash within 24 hours. In several areas of the capital, heaps of garbage spilled onto main roads. We are finding new locations. By noon Wednesday I am hopeful of restoring normality in clearing the garbage, Commissioner V K A Anura We will not dump it all in one location, but at several sites. He said deaths could have been avoided if people who lived near the garbage dump had taken his warnings two weeks ago and moved out with rent paid by the council for alternate housing. But activists have complained that ad hoc compensation and relocation was not the answer to a festering problem that politicians have been unable to resolve for years. Yetserday, the authorities declared a large area unsafe and ordered residents to vacate their homes. Officials said 1,700 people living near the tip had already been relocated to temporary shelters while the government searched for alternative accommodation for many more. A night of heavy rain, followed by an outbreak of fire, destabilised the 23mn-tonne garbage heap, causing its collapse as Sri Lankans celebrated the traditional new year. Parliament had been warned the vast tip posed a serious health hazard, and that a longterm solution was needed to dispose of Colombo s trash. A boy walks by piles of garbage on a street in Colombo yesterday. Bangladesh trains teenage girls to fight cyber crime Bangladesh yesterday began training thousands of teenage girls to fight cyber crime, citing an alarming rise in social media-related abuses mostly targeting adolescents, reports from Dhaka. Police said online harassment had grown alarmingly with the rise in smart phone use in Bangladesh, and teenage girls were the main targets. More than 10,000 school-age girls will take part in government workshops around the country in April and May to teach them what to look out for and how to respond. Every day, we have complaints of cyber crimes. Some 90% of these victims are pre-teen and teenage girls, Nazmul Islam, a deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Police said girls were being tricked into posing for intimate photographs and video footage that were later posted on social media or used for trolling. On some occasions, hidden cameras were used to secretly film young people having sex, with the footage later posted online. Sometimes these photos and videos are being used by boyfriends to emotionally blackmail the girls or their families, said Islam. Bangladesh in 2013 set up a special trial court to deal with social media-related crimes and since then more than 450 cases have been heard. (The) majority of the victims are young girls. In many cases, once they were married, they found that their former lovers posted their intimate photos to social media, prosecutor Nazrul Islam Shamim In one incident, a young woman committed suicide after her lover sent some of her intimate photos to her mobile phone, he Court issues arrest warrant against mayor By Mizan Rahman Dhaka A Dhaka court yesterday issued an arrest warrant against Monirul Haque Sakku, the newly elected mayor of Comilla City Corporation (CCC), in a graft case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge Kamrul Hossain Mollah passed the order taking cognizance of the charge-sheet. On May 7, 2008, the ACC filed a case against Sakku and his wife Afroza Jesmin for concealing information of wealth worth 125mn taka and amassing wealth of 45.7mn taka illegally. On February 4, the ACC submitted charge-sheet acquitting Jesmin. Sakku won the mayoral election after being nominated by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Earlier, mayors of five city corporations faced similar ordeal after their election. They were sued in a number of criminal cases for which they were suspended. Recently, the High Court declared their suspension illegal. The five pro-bnp mayors are of Rajshahi, Sylhet, Gazipur, Khulna and Habiganj city corporations who regained their posts through protracted legal battles after a two-year suspension. Cases against BNP activists being revived to gain political mileage By Mizan Rahman Dhaka Accusing the government of reviving political cases against its leaders and activists, opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) yesterday said the government is conspiring to hold a unilateral national election. Speaking at a conference at BNP s Nayapaltan central office, BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir called upon the government to create a ground for a credible election and giving democracy an institutional shape by withdrawing all the cases filed against BNP leaders and activists, including its chief Khaleda Zia. The Awami League withdrew all the (political) cases filed against its leaders and activists assuming office after the 2011 changeover. The government is now reviving all the cases filed against BNP leaders and activists. The government is trying to pressurise BNP with cases as it s got politically bankrupt, he The BNP leader further said, We re repeatedly urging the government to play with us on a level-playing and open field. They re not responding to it as they want to hold a unilateral election keeping all of us in jail. The country s people will never accept such a lopsided game. He called upon the government to ensure a congenial atmosphere conducive to holding a fair election by shunning its repressive acts. We want to join the next polls, but a proper environment will have to be ensured so that all parties can take part in it. Fakhrul, however, said their party will not participate in the general election if a levelplaying field for all parties is not ensured. There s no question of joining the election without a levelplaying field and unless the political cases of our leaders and activists are withdrawn. He demanded the government ensure a democratic space for political parties and take steps for arranging the next polls under a non-party administration and a neutral election commission. About the prime minister s Bhutan tour, Fakhrul hoped that Sheikh Hasina will not return home empty-handed from Bhutan as she did from India. He suggested the prime minister to sign deal with Bhutan to import electricity from the country. Prime Minister Hasina went to Bhutan yesterday on a three-day state visit. Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir alleged that the government is trying to have Hefajat-e-Islam in its fold convincing it in many ways ahead of the next polls. He, however, said their party has no interest to follow the same tactics to woo Hefajat. Our party s position (on Hefajat) is very clear as we don t follow a double-standard policy. The Awami League is doing it wonderfully. After beating and attacking them, now they (government) are saying let us make friendship and get close. But, we don t do that, Fakhrul Replying to a question, he said their party supports only justified demands, not all, of Hefajat. The BNP leader said their party thinks it is necessary to modernise madrasa education so that their students can turn into a workforce. We want to develop madrasa education system and update its curriculum. This is our party s stance. BNP leaders have been criticising the government since Allama Ahmad Shafi and Alem- Ulema of the Hefajat-e-Islamsupported Qawmi madrasa met Prime Minister Hasina last week. At the meeting, the prime minister announced the recognition of certificates of Dawrae-Hadith under Qawmi Madrasa Education Boards as equivalent to master s degree in Islamic Studies and Arabic. Fakhrul said the BNP-led government in 2006 gave the same recognition to Qawmi madrasa certificates, and a gazette notification was also issued in this regard subsequently. The government is now trying to convince them (Hefajat) to make a good relation with them presenting the same issue in a different manner. Economic transformation top priority now: Bhandari IANS New Delhi Inviting Indians investors to her country, Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari yesterday said that after political transformation, socio-economic transformation is Nepal s top priority and it is keen to benefit from India s tremendous progress. Nepal has undergone political transformation of historic proportion in recent years. Now socio-economic transformation is our topmost priority. If not backed by economic transformation, political transformation cannot be sustainable, Bhandari said at an event organised by industry chambers CII, Ficci and Assocham. She said achievements made by India in economic, social, scientific and other fields are remarkable and Nepal is keen to benefit from India s success. For Nepal, India remains the largest trading partner... We are closely engaged in Saarc, BIMSTEC and BBIN and these regional and sub-regional platforms could be made more effective in delivering results, she Emphasising that Nepal treats the private sector as a partner for development, Bhandari pointed out that Nepal has opened up almost every sector for foreign investment, including manufacturing, hydropower, tourism, services, mining and agro-based industries. The government is committed to creating a climate conducive to investment. No discrimination is made between Nepali and Indian investors. Numerous similarities make us natural partners. BIPPA (Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement) with India is under consideration for ratification while the double taxation avoidance agreement has already been signed, she She said that incentives for investment in Nepal are no less attractive than those in many other countries. Ours is a virgin land for investment and any area is profitable. Importantly, location of Nepal in the middle of two thriving economies of the world offers greater advantages to potential investors, she said, adding that the abundance of water resources in her country has tremendous potential of utilisation. We can put our efforts together to harness these resources for mutual benefit. Capitalising on this potential we can lead in the sector of cleaner technology and greener growth, Bhandari observed. Inviting the Indian businesses to invest in her country, Bhandari said a prosperous Nepal will also be in the interest of our neighbourhood and beyond. In his address earlier, Nepal Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat tried to allay apprehensions about political stability in Nepal, saying there was a complete consensus over economic issues across political spectrum and that Nepal s economy may achieve a growth rate of 8-10% in next few years. You may wonder Nepal has different parties - Communist Party, Maoist Centre etc. If you have some image, erase that. Left parties or right parties, we have a consensus. I am from Nepali Congress and my prime minister is from Maoist party, but we are together and there is a total consensus, he Indian Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh said that India s relations with Nepal are just not historical, they are deep and multi-layered and cannot be defined in words. He said bilateral economic cooperation is beneficial for both countries. Earlier in the day, the Nepal Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari being received by India s President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi yesterday. president was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan. Later, she paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat. Following this, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on her. Later in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on Bhandari at Rashtrapati Bhavan where she is staying. We are honoured to welcome President Bidya Devi Bhandari of Nepal. Had fruitful talks with her, Modi tweeted. This is Bhandari s maiden foreign tour after assuming office in October She is accompanied by a 33-member delegation that includes Foreign Minister Mahat and Peace and Reconstruction Minister Sita Devi Yadav, five women MPs and senior officials. She will also visit Gujarat and Odisha before returning to Kathmandu on Friday.

26 26 COMMENT Chairman: Abdullah bin Khalifa al-attiyah Deputy Managing Editor: K T Chacko P.O.Box 2888 Doha, Qatar editor@gulf-times.com Telephone (news), (sport), (home delivery) Fax GULF TIMES GST rollout augurs well for India s growth prospects India is finally set for the launch of the muchawaited national sales tax on July 1 to boost economic growth and state revenues with the federal and state governments ready to roll out the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Over a decade in the making, the one nation, one tax GST promises to subsume India s plethora of local and national levies into a single payment, thus unifying the country s 29 states and at least 17 state and federal levies into a common tax regime. To be sure, few countries are fiddlier than India when it comes to paying taxes; the World Bank ranks it 157th out of 189 for simplicity. Both the central government and powerful state legislatures impose a bewildering list of charges. For example, car sales are liable to six different levies at various rates. The rates differ between states, thus making stuff in one and selling it in another is often harder within India than it is in trade blocs such as Nafta (The North American Free Trade Agreement) or the European Union. That should change with the GST. The new tax would apply to goods at the point of consumption rather than production with a multi-tier regime. Most goods will be taxed at standard rates of 12% and 18%. Two more rates of 5% and 28% have been decided for implementation. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said a zero tax rate will apply to 50% of items in the retail inflation basket to protect consumers from price rises on essential goods such as food grains. Tobacco products will continue to be taxed at GST could transform a $2tn-plus economy and 1.3bn consumers into a single market 65% and luxury goods will also be taxed at a higher rate. Sure, there will be winners and losers determined by what exemptions are included in the GST fine print. But companies will have to overhaul their accounting systems, which may involve one-time investment. Revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia has warned that firms should not count on a postponement of the GST rollout. The GST could boost economic growth by as much as 2 percentage points, according to Jaitley. Greater tax compliance is likely to boost revenues for the government, helping narrow Asia s widest budget deficit and allowing more funds to be allocated to schools and highways. Countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand saw a one-time increase in inflation after GST implementation, which normalised in a year, say Citigroup economists. Queues of trucks now idle at India s state boundaries much in the same way they do at international borders. But with multiple tax checkpoints set to be dismantled soon, businesses are thrilled at the idea of being able to distribute their products from a single warehouse, rather than replicating supply chains in each state. India s most ambitious tax reform since independence is set to transform its $2tn-plus economy and a market of 1.3bn consumers (about four times the US population) into a single economic zone with common indirect taxes something that neither the EU nor the US can boast. To Advertise advr@gulf-times.com Display Telephone Fax Classified Telephone Fax Subscription circulation@gulf-times.com All rights reserved Snap elections: Odds are heavily in May s favour The odds have never been so favourable for a prime minister who needs a firm mandate to push through her hard-brexit vision By Jonathan Freedland London The standard way of describing a move such as the one Theresa May made yesterday morning is to call it a gamble. A prime minister with a Commons majority and three years left to run on her parliamentary term does not throw that away without risk. In that sense, May has gambled but as gambles go, it s about the surest bet any politician could ever place. The polls show May and the Conservatives stretching so far ahead of their opponents that their lead over Labour is about the same size as Labour s total vote. One survey on Monday showed Labour at 23%, with the Tories on 44%. At that rate, Labour could be on course for a performance worse than their trouncing in Some have been dusting off the record books to look at 1935, when Labour won just 154 seats. The polling guru John Curtice may well be right that that lead could narrow in the heat of a campaign The path to universal education By Jakaya Kikwete Dar-es-Salaam It may be true that every journey begins with a single step. But when it comes to education, especially in low- and middleincome countries, we have a long way to go. Fortunately, many efforts are now underway to help these countries cover the distance and reach the Sustainable Development Goal of ensuring quality education for all by As a special envoy for the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity, I have led high-level delegations to 14 countries across Africa. On those visits, I witnessed firsthand the commitment of the continent s leaders to undertake reforms and boost investment in education. But if the SDG on education is to be achieved, African leaders commitment must be matched by commensurate support from the international community, potentially through an International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd). As matters now stand, the international community is falling short in this area particularly when it comes to financing. Even as many countries in the developing world have stepped up their commitment to improving and expanding education opportunities, education has remained chronically underfinanced, with funding levels far below what is needed to achieve especially one that, at 50 days, is relatively long by British standards. There is also a risk that calling a snap vote will irritate an electorate weary of being summoned to the polling booths so often. But even if the Conservative lead shrinks by five or even 10 points May will still win, and win big. Given all that, the real gamble for May would have been to pass up this chance and sit it out until When asked who would make the best prime minister, 50% of Britons name May, compared with just 14% who pick Jeremy Corbyn. As May spent the Easter holiday hiking in Snowdonia with her husband, the temptation must have gnawed away at her. When again would the odds be so much in her favour? And bear in mind that until now the Tories have barely had to lay a glove on Corbyn: they ve left that job to the Labour leader s internal opponents. But Conservative strategists all but slaver at the juiciness of the prey they will now hunt. I ve heard Tories speak with delight at the prospect of reminding voters that, for example, Corbyn was prepared to see a marriage break up rather than sanction his child going to a selective school. They think such titbits mark Corbyn out as a weirdo, utterly out of step with mainstream, aspirational Britons. Think what the Tories and their press allies did to Ed Miliband, Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot. Then consider how they will feast on Corbyn. So this was a gamble for those education benchmarks. Since 2002, education s share of official development assistance (ODA) has actually fallen, from 13% to 10%. The Education Commission s groundbreaking Learning Generation report makes clear what is at stake, particularly for African countries that have long suffered from education shortfalls. By 2050, Africa will be home to a billion young people. By 2030, if current trends persist, only one in ten young people will be on track to gain basic secondary-level skills in low-income countries, the majority of which are in Africa. Simply put, we now risk compromising the future of an entire generation. But that outcome can be avoided. The Education Commission s report also shows that progress on education reform, coupled with more effective spending, could increase access to education, boost completion rates, and improve learning outcomes considerably. To advance these goals, the Education Commission proposes a financing compact whereby low- and middle-income countries would agree to increase domestic public expenditure on education from an average of about 4% of GDP today to 5.8% of GDP by 2030, while implementing reforms that ensure the efficient use of resources. In exchange, the international community would increase its financing over this period, from about $16bn per year to some $90bn, as well as provide coordination mechanisms to ensure the most efficient use of funds. ODA would have an important who like their wagers ultra-low-risk. The greatest downside for May is in undermining her brand as a political straight-shooter, one who eschews the playing of Westminster games. In her Downing Street statement she nodded to that, speaking of her reluctance in breaking her earlier pledge to call no snap election. But she will have calculated that the benefits heavily outweigh that cost. And what are those benefits? The most obvious relate to leaving the EU. Brexit will now have a double mandate. Not content with the referendum of 2016, May has decided to buttress that verdict with a general election victory. She will claim the anticipated win on 8 June as an endorsement of her Brexit strategy. Remainers will have to face the fact that quitting the EU will have been approved by the British people twice in a single year. As May put it: Britain is leaving the European Union and there can be no turning back. The advantages for her are obvious. That enhanced and personal mandate will give her extra muscle in negotiations with the remaining 27 EU states. True, it will also cut short the already absurdly brief time span for those talks. But it does mean she will have more leeway than she might otherwise have enjoyed. If she is forced to accept, say, a hefty divorce bill from the EU, she can do it without worrying about paying an imminent electoral price. On 8 June she expects role to play in delivering on the compact. And, indeed, the Education Commission calls for increasing education s share of ODA to 15%. But even with such an increase, more funding will be needed. That is where the IFFEd comes in. The IFFEd would bring together bilateral donors, the World Bank, and regional development banks in a co-ordinated manner, enabling them to pool their resources and leverage idle capital where appropriate. Once in operation, the IFFEd could, by 2020, mobilise $13bn annually in additional resources for education in countries determined to invest in and reform education. The IFFEd would not be a handout. It would support countries, many of which already invest a significant portion of their national budgets in education, in their efforts to achieve the SDG on education. It is the biggest, boldest, and most profound step we can take to ensure that the next generation is not lost, but learning. In partnership with Education Commission Chair and former British prime minister Gordon Brown, I have taken several steps to advance the creation of an IFFEd. The first step was to determine which countries, if any, saw the need for it and would be willing to do the work needed to benefit from it. So, when visiting an African leader, I would ask a simple question: In light of the Education Commission s report and action plan, would they be willing to commit to the levels of education investment and reform required to to receive a large chunk of political capital, which she can spend over the next two years. Better still for her, she will have broken the link between the Article 50 and UK electoral timetables. Previously, she faced a two-year talks deadline, which would expire in 2019, followed by a general election a year later. Now she has ensured that day of judgment from the electorate is postponed to She has bought herself crucial time. At home, too, this helps. All prime ministers yearn for their own mandate: it weakened Gordon Brown not to have one. Now May will have hers. If she wins a serious majority, she will reduce the leverage her backbench ultras currently hold over her (that too will give her more leeway in the Brexit talks). And she ll be free of the 2015 manifesto of David Cameron and George Osborne. Increasingly, May and her ministers were treating that document as if it were a historical artefact, one that no longer applied. But it was awkward as the chancellor, Philip Hammond, found when he had to drop his proposed change to national insurance on the self-employed because he had broken a promise in a manifesto he manifestly no longer believed in. Now May will be able to set out her own stall, knowing what most gamblers can never know that she is almost certain to win. Guardian News & Media British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks to the media outside 10 Downing Street in central London yesterday. May called for an early general election on June 8 in a surprise announcement as Britain prepares for delicate negotiations on leaving the European Union. qualify for IFFEd assistance? The leaders of all 14 countries I visited said yes. Indeed, they not only expressed their interest in becoming pioneer countries ; all of the leaders I met declared that such a breakthrough was both critical and long overdue. Now comes the hard part: turning rhetoric into reality and commitment into progress. With the demand for an IFFEd well established, we are ready to bring the call for a mass mobilisation of international finance for education to those who can make it happen. We will do so at the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings this week, at the G20 summit in July, and at the United Nations General Assembly in September. We will continue taking steps to advance education reform and development where it is needed most. We hope that, before long, the international community will join us, by participating in the IFFEd. Only if we all work in unison can we fulfil our promise to have all children in school within a generation. As we take further steps to achieve this vital goal, we should be inspired and guided by the words of Nelson Mandela: Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. We can achieve a worldchanging education revolution within a generation. But everyone needs to play their part. Project Syndicate Jakaya Kikwete, a former president of Tanzania, is a member of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity.

27 COMMENT 27 Befriending the European Court of Justice By Jasper A Bovenberg and Erik J Spaans Amsterdam On March 25, the European Union celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which gave birth to the European Economic Community and set the stage for the EU s creation. Like any birthday, it was an opportunity not just to celebrate, but also to consider what has been achieved and what must change. At a time when member countries are increasingly pulling away from the EU and the United Kingdom is actually leaving the need for reform is clear. Discussions about how to bring the European Council, Commission, and Parliament closer to EU citizens, thereby closing Europe s democratic deficit, are frequent and animated. But another institution that could benefit from more input from EU citizens is often left out of these discussions: the European Court of Justice. The ECJ is the EU s judicial authority. It gives preliminary rulings on the interpretation of the European treaties and the validity of actions taken by EU institutions. It has played a central role in the legal integration of the EU, adjudicating the limits of the EU s authority and shaping the definition and application of its core principles. And it acts de facto (if not de jure) as a constitutional court. Over the years, the ECJ s judicial activism has encountered both praise and criticism, with some claiming that its growing powers have eroded its popular legitimacy. Such claims have gained traction since the expansion of the court s jurisdiction to include areas like human rights, monetary policy, immigration, and citizenship. Many ECJ decisions have a political dimension and concern fundamental principles. Examples include the patentability of human embryos, the legality of monetary-policy decisions by the European Central Bank, and the privacy of European Facebook users. All ECJ decisions extend beyond the specific disputes at issue, to have binding effect erga omnes (toward everyone), as opposed to merely inter partes (between the parties). Given the far-reaching implications of ECJ decisions, there is a strong case for the issues at stake not only to be scrutinised ex post, but also to be assessed ex ante. And, to some extent, they are: EU member-states and the European Commission can submit their written observations on pending cases (though the ECJ doesn t publish them). But affected third parties, much less the general public, do not have any avenue to inform the court of their knowledge, perspectives, or interests, or to demonstrate how a decision would affect them or their communities and societies. This is a serious shortcoming. Without information and insights from those affected, a court cannot effectively balance all relevant interests and assess all potential implications. The ECJ s peers elsewhere in the world seem to recognise this. In the United States, for example, the Supreme Court invites third-party and public input, in the form of socalled amicus curiae ( friend of the court ) briefs. The goal of an amicus curiae, which dates back to Roman law, is to contribute to the quality and legitimacy of the administration of justice, and hence to the promotion and strengthening of the rule of law. An amicus can fulfil one of two roles: independent expert or interested advocate. Independent experts may submit scientific evidence, which could confirm or refute assumptions on General view of the buildings of the Court of Justice of the European Communities. which the Court is to base its verdict. Those experts may be from the legal field, but they don t have to be: there are plenty of areas where experts might have something to contribute to a pending decision. In the seminal school segregation case Brown v. Board of Education, the US Supreme Court cited a number of socialscience studies that challenged the assumption that separate but equal public education was possible at all. In the near future, it seems likely that the ECJ s decision-making may also be aided and informed by Big Data analysis and Artificial Intelligence applications, such as IBM s Watson and the ROSS AI research tool. But the ECJ would nonetheless put public intelligence first. An amicus curiae acting as an advocate of a public or private interest could enrich the ECJ s understanding of the implications of pending decisions. Such an advocate could highlight the decision s impact on an individual, a business or economic sector, a religious, social, or economic group, or even a foreign government. A court is typically not required to discuss the contents of an amicus brief, let alone be guided by it. But the ECJ is not bound to heed the written observations of EU member states or the European Commission, either. That does not negate the value of filing them. The ECJ can also technically disregard the opinions rendered by its advocategeneral, but it rarely does. Because the ECJ s current procedures do not allow for the submission of amicus briefs, we have taken it upon ourselves to create a platform by which the public can deliver them. Our platform the first of its kind collects, presents, and categorises references for a preliminary ruling pending before the ECJ, with the possibility to leave a brief. The timing for submitting briefs on our platform is the same as that for EU member states and the Commission to file their written observations. That way, amicus briefs received by the platform can inform not only the ECJ s decision-making, but also the written observations delivered by those bodies, and even the advocategeneral. As the EU continues to develop, the ECJ s role will only become more important, and its legitimacy will face more challenges. It is essential that the ECJ s decisions and the values it enforces reflect an understanding of all relevant interests and potential implications, and that the public feels that it is being heard. The only way to achieve that is to establish channels for EU citizens to share their knowledge and insights with the court. The ECJ is even older than the Treaty of Rome: it turns 65 in December. If its birthday is to be a happy one, it will have to invite its friends for a little help. Project Syndicate Jasper Adriaan Bovenberg and Erik Jan Spaans are the editors-in-chief of the Foundation Amicus Curiae. The best way to aid Africa By Dr Cesar Chelala New York Drought in Somalia threatens the lives of almost half the population, according to Somalia s5 Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire. Over a two-day span, at least 110 people died of hunger in just a single region in the country. This highlights the tremendous needs Somalia and other African countries have for immediate help. In the last few decades, enormous financial resources have been sent to the region. What has been accomplished, however, is subject to controversy since what has been achieved appears to have been counterproductive to Africa s actual needs. In spite of the considerable progress achieved in the fight against HIV/ Aids, other health problems remain. Although the Ebola epidemic has been largely controlled, the potential for a new epidemic still exists. Countries are now better prepared to deal with a new outbreak, but probably not to the extent that a serious new epidemic would demand. Tuberculosis is still rampant in South Africa, which has the highest tuberculosis death rate per capita worldwide, followed by Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Worse yet, the high number of cases of multidrugresistant tuberculosis in several countries make the disease much more difficult to treat. Five children under age five die every minute in the African region, two thirds of them from preventable causes. Diarrhoeal and respiratory infections, malaria, measles and malnutrition represent big threats to children s health. Pneumonia and malaria are the leading causes of death among children under five. The interaction of under nourishment and infection can lead to a vicious cycle of worsening illness and deteriorating nutritional status. Health problems in Africa cannot be considered in isolation from the countries sociopolitical and environmental realities, and require continued foreign technical and financial assistance. Increasing efforts are needed to be made to expand access to primary health care, especially in rural areas, accompanied by health promotion, disease prevention and improved health education activities. The relentless exodus of physicians and nurses to industrialised countries only compounds health problems. Despite some progress in the social sphere, some important difficulties remain. One of them is significant unemployment, particularly among the young. Around 70% of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa is under the age of 30, and 60% of the unemployed are also young people. New policies are indispensable to incorporate them into the labour force. A first step is to provide youth with basic skills so that they can achieve their earning potential. Unesco and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) have recommended that governments, international donors and the private sector develop integrated policies to create jobs for young people and ease the transition from school to work. Poverty in the continent is widespread and affects most of the population. In 2010, more than 400mn people were living in extreme poverty across Sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, a notable proportion of women lack any significant income. The expansion of micro credit together with rural development projects mainly aimed at women could significantly improve the situation. Education is another area of concern. Africa has the lowest rate of children in primary schools of any region. In addition to significant gender disparities, with girls far behind boys in educational attainment, geographical disparities between rural areas and urban areas, and economic disparities between low income and high income households are also significant. Many experts on Africa don t believe in the efficacy of aid. Money from rich countries has trapped many African nations in a cycle of corruption, slower economic growth and poverty. Cutting off the flow would be far more beneficial, wrote Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian-born international economist and author with extensive knowledge of Africa. Aid, however, can become effective in improving people s standard of living and education. It is critical to help African countries improve governance before providing financial assistance. In addition, effective aid must bypass corrupt governments and find ways of helping people in more direct ways, such as through community and religious organisations. Although considerable amount of money has been sent to Africa through bilateral and international aid, there are still no effective mechanisms in place to monitor and make recipients accountable for spending. This is a vital, since corruption is like a weed that saps the countries social fabric and energy. In addition, there are not enough ways to evaluate the quality of projects funded mainly by international lending institutions and UN agencies. Aid to Africa should be aimed at strengthening civil society and community-based organisations. African countries need better trade conditions for their products and technical assistance that is carefully and responsibly planned. Provided with a generous nature and energetic and hard working people, Africa is still a continent of hope. Dr Cesar Chelala is an international public health consultant. He has carried out health-related missions in more than 50 countries worldwide, many of them in Africa. Weather report Around the region Abu Dhabi Baghdad Dubai Kuwait City Manama Muscat Riyadh Tehran Weather today Cloudy P Cloudy Showers Max/min 33/27 28/16 36/28 34/21 32/25 37/29 35/22 22/11 Weather tomorrow Cloudy Cloudy Cloudy Three-day forecast TODAY High: 37 C Low : 27 C Inshore: Strong wind over most areas and expected poor visibility THURSDAY High: 33 C Low: 24 C Cloudy FRIDAY High: 33 C Low: 25 C Cloudy Fishermen s forecast OFFSHORE DOHA Wind: NW 15-25/32 KT Waves: 4-8/12 Feet INSHORE DOHA Wind: NW 15-22/28 KT Waves: 2-4/5 Feet Max/min 31/25 31/17 33/26 33/22 29/24 37/27 33/20 24/13 Live issues Using digital protection strategies By Cassandra Jaramillo Tribune News Service How vulnerable is simple, personal information from your computer or cellphone? The brutal reality: very vulnerable - potentially. Here s some ways to navigate online safely. Password Management It s no surprise that changing your password has always been a basic form of protection. But what we pick as passwords and how we manage them are important, said Murat Kantarcioglu, professor and director at the Data Security and Privacy Lab at the University of Texas at Dallas. First, passwords should never include your personal info. So stay away from names and birthdates. Ideally, passwords are a combination of lowercase and uppercase letters and random characters. You want a very strong, long password. It doesn t have any personal information, Kantarcioglu It can be harder to remember, but that s why password managers are good to use for some websites. Kantarcioglu does not recommend using password manager apps for sites that have sensitive information. So for healthcare and financial sites, it s best to work that memory to remember them without keeping them in a manager. View s with a sceptical eye Deceptive phishing is one of the most common types of scams. Kantarcioglu said it s best to view all s with care. Hackers can make s look like legitimate company s and can lure readers to click on dangerous links. You could end up introducing a virus to your computer or inadvertently giving sensitive information to the wrong people. It s best to search the original source of the information and try to find the direct link from the site instead of using the link provided in the , he Or look for the company phone number and call directly to ask about the . Embrace two-factor authentication Two-factor authentication adds a second level of security to an account. If there s an option for your , banking site or social media site to do two-factor authentication, go ahead and do it. It s a security option that requires a password as well as an additional piece of information only the user would have on them. Sometimes it s a code sent to your cellphone that has to be entered following a password. The additional feature can keep your information much safer. A hacker has to have your password and mobile device, so it becomes much harder, Kantarcioglu Updated apps and operating systems are a must Too often users are reluctant to update their mobile devices. But Kantarcioglu said that while these updates may appear to have only aesthetic changes, they often come with security improvements. There may be a bug that is exploited. Those bugs are discovered by cell providers or Apple, so it s a good idea to upgrade them, he Beware of public charging stations and Wi-Fi Charging stations and Wi-Fi are a convenience provided by public entities, such as festivals and airports. But they can bring risks. Sometimes those chargers may be hooked to another compromised device, Kantarcioglu If you go to a website Wi-Fi, and then it asks for you to download something, I wouldn t do that. Around the world Athens Beirut Bangkok Berlin Cairo Cape Town Colombo Dhaka Hong Kong Istanbul Jakarta Karachi London Manila Moscow New Delhi New York Paris Sao Paulo Seoul Singapore Sydney Tokyo Weather today P Cloudy P Cloudy P Cloudy T Storms M Cloudy T Storms P Cloudy S T Storms Cloudy M Cloudy P Cloudy M T Storms S Showers Clear Max/min 23/12 22/14 37/27 08/-2 31/17 31/17 32/26 30/24 28/24 21/12 32/25 34/27 14/06 34/27 03/-3 44/26 12/09 12/00 24/16 19/09 32/25 21/14 24/14 Weather tomorrow P Cloudy P Cloudy P Cloudy M T Storms S T Storms S T Storms T Storms Cloudy Cloudy S T Storms M Cloudy S Showers P Cloudy Cloudy T Storms P Cloudy Cloudy Max/min 23/09 23/18 37/27 10/03 33/19 31/14 32/26 28/25 27/24 19/07 32/25 34/26 16/08 35/27 04/-4 43/28 18/14 14/02 28/19 15/06 32/26 23/13 20/09

28 28 QATAR Umm Slal Mohammed Interchange opens for traffic after completion Umm Slal Mohammed Interchange has been completely opened to traffic as part of North Road Corridor Enhancement project, the Public Works Authority, Ashghal, announced yesterday. The new junction implemented by Ashghal serves as an access point for the local neighbourhoods of Jeryan Jenaihat, Umm Slal Mohammed and Umm Slal Ali, located east and west of Al Shamal Road. The interchange is made up of two graded levels, with a main bridge comprising two or three lanes in each direction to cater for 3,500 vehicles per hour. Out of the four on-and-off ramps, the southern ones were opened in November 2016 with the partial opening of the interchange and the northern slopes this month. The main bridge has two light signals to help organise traffic in all directions and at the four ramps in particular, boosting safety as one of the main goals adopted by Ashghal. Umm Slal Mohammed Interchange will serve the inhabitants of the crowded Umm Slal Mohammed area along with Umm Slal Ali, Jeryan Jenaihat and Al Kheesa as well. The new junction will bring in better access for commuters coming from and to Doha and northern areas through the service roads connecting Al Shamal Road. Also, it will create more connections for travellers heading from the North Road and western side areas towards Jeryan Jenaihat and Al Kheesa along with Community College in Qatar, Qatar University and Al Khor Coastal Road. The intersection will bring in An aerial view of the Umm Slal Mohammed Interchange. new routes for travellers heading from North Road and eastern side areas towards Umm Slal Mohammed and Umm Slal Ali along with Barzaan Market, Umm Slal Healthcare Centre, the new Umm Slal Wholesale Market and many other business and educational facilities around. Umm Slal Interchange is part of North Road Corridor Enhancement Project which has been completed by over 95%. Ashghal is finalising Al Kheesa Interchange and the 200km service roads and cycling and foot paths. Ashghal already opened the vital Al Kharaitiyat Interchange last March to serve areas of Al Kharaitiayt, Leabib, Al Ebb besides nearby highways and businesses as it creates several alternative routes for travellers from and to the North Road. Also, Ashghal opened in late 2016 the Izghawa Interchange to provide alternate routes from Lusail to Izaghawa and Al Shamal Road and businesses around and sharing more traffic with Duhail Interchange. Among the other milestones achieved were the bridge linking Al Huwaila Road and North Road, enhancing traffic to and from Ras Laffan and the road linking Al Khor and North Road, a 5km dual carriageway with three lanes in each direction instead of two lanes in each direction. Ashghal delivered Umm Birkah Road, as well as Al Sakhama and Umm Al Amad Braiding Bridges to usher in easier access to areas of Al Sakhama, Sanae Lehmaidi, Umm Al Amad and Umm Slal. The North Road Corridor Enhancement project incorporates new services roads for 200km along from Duhail to Al Shamal Town, constructing Izghawa and Umm Slal Mohammed Interchanges, upgrading Lehweilah, Al Kheesa and Al Kharaitiyat Interchanges. Also, the improvements include revamping Al Khor Link Road, Umm Birkah Road and creating new cycling and foot paths. A map of the completely opened Umm Slal Mohammed Interchange. Another view of the Umm Slal Mohammed Interchange.