QCB issues instructions for vehicle insurance Insurance companies cannot, on

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1 INDEX QATAR REGION ARAB WORLD INTERNATIONAL COMMENT BUSINESS CLASSIFIED SPORTS 26, , QATAR Page 9 Forbes Middle East honours top 40 firms SPORT Page 1 Vettel loving life with revived Ferrari GULF TIMES www. DOW JONES QE NYMEX 20, % Latest Figures 10, % TUESDAY Vol. XXXVIII No April 18, 2017 Rajab 21, 1438 AH gulf-times.com 2 Riyals % published in QATAR since 1978 In brief QATAR Visit Ugandan president to arrive in Doha today President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda will arrive in Doha today for an official visit to the State of Qatar. HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-thani will meet with the Ugandan president tomorrow at the Emiri Diwan to review bilateral relations and means of boosting and developing them. QATAR Phone call PM, US official review security relations HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-thani received a telephone call yesterday from US Secretary of Homeland Security John F Kelly. During the call, they reviewed relations of cooperation between the two countries and ways to develop and strengthen them, especially in the security field, and exchanged views on regional issues. QATAR Weather Strong winds and dusty conditions Strong winds are again expected in some places along with poor visibility (3km or lower) due to dust by this afternoon, the Qatar Met department has said. The weather office has also said offshore areas will experience windy conditions and high seas today. The wind speed may go up to 25 knots inshore and 28 knots offshore, with the sea level rising to 10ft in some places. The detailed forecast also says it will be hot during the daytime and dust will blow in some areas. A maximum temperature of 37C is expected today in Doha and Al Khor. HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-thani launching the National Autism Plan yesterday as other dignitaries look on. Prime Minister launches National Autism Plan The National Autism Plan was launched by HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-thani yesterday. The plan aims to improve the lives of people and families of people with autism, which has become widespread locally and globally. Autism is defined as a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterised by difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other people and in using language and abstract concepts. The growing number of autistic people and the increasing demand for available services in Qatar stresses the need for the national plan, which helps in developing adequate general and professional support for autistic people. The launch ceremony was attended by HE the Minister of Public Health Dr Hanan Mohamed al-kuwari, a number of other ministers, representatives of related entities, and some families with autistic children. The National Autism Plan has specified 44 recommendations to be implemented by 2021, including some short-term targets to be implemented within the first year of the launch of the plan. The plan recommendations focus on the programmes to increase public awareness on the issue and easing the early diagnosis process of potential cases. Besides, the plan aims at improving the quality of the offered services, continue the development of care, education and community participation. Dr al-kuwari stressed that the launch of this national plan indicates the great Health minister: Qatar keen on providing adequate care to autistic people The launch of the National Autism Plan demonstrates the great attention that Qatar, under the wise leadership of HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-thani, gives to people with special needs and those with autism, said HE the Minister of Public Health Dr Hanan Mohamed al-kuwari. Speaking at the inauguration of the National Autism Plan , the minister stressed Qatar s keenness on ensuring that autistic people receive adequate care and attention along with access to necessary services and the right opportunities for education, training and normal life. The plan builds on the goal of Qatar National Vision 2030 that aims at sustaining a high standard of living for all of its people for generations to come, she added. While pointing to the burden and challenges faced by the families of autistic individuals, she said that the most prominent feature of this national plan is that the families were involved in its preparation. The families are better able to express their needs and challenges and the interest of the country towards this category of the society. (See box) We know the burden and challenges faced by the families with autistic individuals, so one of the best components of this plan is these families that have been main participants in its preparation. They are more able to express their needs and challenges, and their expectations, she said thanking the participating families for their efforts with the Ministry of Public Health and other related entities teams that took part in preparing the plan. Dr Saleh Ali al-marri, from MoPH, gave an introductory presentation on the plan. He pointed out that work is currently going on to put in place the procedures for implementing the plan. Page 5 aspirations they seek, HE Dr al-kuwari said, praising the efforts they made along with the working team of the Ministry of Public Health and other relevant ministries and authorities in the preparation of a comprehensive and integrated national plan. She pointed out that the plan s vision reflects a part of the commitment to individuals with autism and their right to receive care and support now and in the future, and get access to the same opportunities as others in a society that accepts them as they are. QCB issues instructions for vehicle insurance Insurance companies cannot, on their own, refrain from providing vehicle insurance coverage on the grounds that an accident is fabricated or does not conform to the traffic report, according to an instruction issued by the Qatar Central Bank (QCB). If an insurance company wishes to re-investigate an accident, it must communicate with the director of the patrol and traffic investigation division of the Traffic Department while mentioning the justification of its request. Official Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported yesterday QCB Governor HE Sheikh Abdulla bin Saoud al-thani issued two new circulars on standard regulations for the criteria of issuing insurance documents, protecting clients as well as regulations of insurance coverage for vehicles. In a statement, the bank said the instructions, due to come into effect as of the date of their issue, are significant for being the first of their kind and were issued by QCB in line with its jurisdiction and powers of supervising and overseeing all insurance services in line with the provisions of Law No 13 of The instructions included obliging all employees of insurance companies and insurance brokers to show their business cards and write their employment data or employment number in the insurance document to make it easier for the customer to identify the employee and determine the responsibility of the source of the document. It shall be prohibited to collect any sums from clients for any reason. The insurance company must disclose to its customers information about the company in a clear fashion, and the insurance client has all the rights that guarantee him access to a high quality service. Regarding insurance coverage of mechanical vehicles, the statement said that after co-ordination with the Ministry of Interior s Traffic Department, the instructions came in 17 articles regulating the rights of customers of insurance companies in the event of accidents. In the case of accidents where there is no damage to the offending vehicle, the insurance company is obliged to cover insurance for the victim once the accident is treated as a traffic case by the patrol and traffic investigation division as the competent authority. If the offending party was driving a vehicle whose licence had expired less than six months ago, the insurance company is obliged to immediately cover the insurance for the victim without waiting for the accident to be registered as a traffic case. However, if the licence had expired more than six months, the accident is registered as a traffic case while covering the insurance for the victim without waiting for the court s ruling against the offender. If the offender has a learning driving licence, the insurance company is obliged to cover the insurance provided that the offender drives the vehicle registered in the licence and is accompanied by someone who has a Qatari driving licence that has been obtained for no less than three years. The accompanying party shall not necessarily be a holder of a driving teacher s licence. Insurance companies are obliged to cover insurance even if the traffic report states that the load is not insured. Insurance companies are also obliged to cover the insurance of the victim for accidents occurring at workshops. Additionally, insurance companies are obliged to cover insurance in accidents that happen due to driving in the wrong direction or at parking lots of commercial complexes, gas stations and inside residential complexes. In the event of a dispute between the insurance company and the insured party or the victim in the assessment of the damage to the vehicle, the insurance company is obliged to second a QCB-licensed expert to assess the damage in order to draft a report to decide the damages, review their causes and the extent of insurance coverage for them before giving final recommendations to settle the dispute. The insurance company shall bear the expenses and fees and fees for the procedure. If it fails to comply within five business days of the dispute, the insured party or the victim shall carry out the procedure at the company s expense, QNA added. Khalifa International Stadium turf laid in world record time Aspire Zone Foundation (AZF) and the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) have set a new world record for returfing Khalifa International Stadium, one of the landmark venues set to be used at the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar, by lay a staggering 7,800+ sq m of turf in just 13 and a half hours. The new world record smashed AZF s previous best which it set when it returfed Al Sadd Sports Club s stadium last in 14 hours and 40 minutes. The previous record of 18 hours was set in Europe and had stood for some time. Khalifa International Stadium, which is being delivered by AZF on behalf of the SC the organisation responsible for delivering the infrastructure required to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar is set to be launched next month when players will take to the new turf for the first time in the newly renovated 40,000-seater stadium. Director General of Aspire Logistics, Abdullah Nasser al-naimi, highlighted how the achievement reflected AZF s continued efforts to promote sporting performance in Qatar and drive innovation. The incredible effort further demonstrates AZF s vision to be the reference in sports excellence worldwide by This achievement should be attributed to the State of Qatar, not only AZF and the SC. It s further evidence of AZF s world-class expertise and demonstrates the innovative human and technological capabilities that we have developed across the organisation, and which are helping position Qatar at the forefront of the global sporting industry. Meanwhile, Youssif al-musleh, Deputy Executive Director, Technical Department Office at the SC, said: We would like to congratulate our partners at Aspire Zone Foundation in laying the pitch for Khalifa International Stadium in the record time of 13 and a half hours. The pitch was moved from the SC s Turf Nursery project and laid down inside Khalifa Stadium by a team of 40 specialists on site as the venue nears completion. Khalifa International Stadium is a historic venue in the eyes of the local community and region, and the fan and player experience in 2022 will ensure that it becomes a memorable venue for the world when Qatar hosts the tournament at the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In early 2016, AZF introduced an integrated programme that aims to improve the management and maintenance of turf at stadiums and sports facilities subjected to heavy use and varying weather conditions. It announced then the establishment of a Centre of Excellence for Natural Sports Turf Research & Development to help achieve the national dream of delivering the greatest FIFA World Cup the world has ever seen. Following months of research and continuous development, AZF now operates the first-of-a-kind natural sports turf farm in the Middle East. The harvest produced by the farm now sits on the newly laid surface of Khalifa International Stadium, a venue that will host games up to the quarter-finals in AZF managed to achieve this milestone by drawing on the wide range of expertise and experience within the organisation. This includes collaboration with stakeholders such as the SC and other renowned organisations, as well as large numbers of international experts from sports industry and performance backgrounds. AZF s Centre of Excellence for Natural Sports Turf Research & Development has selected a hybrid turf species that was originally developed at the Oklahoma State University and which is compatible with Qatar s environment. The turf was planted at the Aspire Turf Farm and took nine months to reach the optimum 14mm in length before it was harvested and transferred to the 7,848sq m Khalifa International Stadium pitch where the new record was set. With the assistance of dozens of turf experts and 80 pieces of specialised equipment, 8,250sq m of turf was harvested from the Aspire Turf Farm and loaded onto trucks before it began its 5km journey to the stadium, where more than 90 specialists were ready to play The newly-laid turf at the Khalifa Stadium which was completed in just 13-and-a-half hours. Inset: Turf-laying work in progress at the Khalifa International Stadium. their part in breaking the world record. Aspire s Turf Farm is located within the Aspire Zone in Doha and comprises three hectares of land where 12 different species of grass are being tested. The farm s facilities were specially constructed by AZF and the SC and include an irrigation trial area and an onsite lab to analyse samples, with testing being conducted in collaboration with UK-based specialists Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI).

2 2 QATAR QIB signs QR1bn financing deal with Daewoo E&C The agreement will facilitate Daewoo E&C s current projects in Qatar including the construction and upgrading of the E-Ring Road QIB has signed a QR1bn financing deal with Daewoo Engineering and Construction Company (Daewoo E&C) that will support the latter s current projects in Qatar including the construction and upgrading of the E-Ring Road. The agreement was signed at QIB s headquarters, by Tarek Youssef Fawzi, QIB general manager (Wholesale Banking Group) and In-Hwan Cho, Daewoo E&C s head (Finance). The E-Ring Road project will expand the number of lanes from 8 to 14, enlarge the highway by 4.5km and build a new 4km long section. The project value is estimated at QR2.25bn and was recently awarded to Daewoo E&C by the Public Work Authority (Ashghal). QIB s participation in the project comes as part of the bank s strategic vision to provide Islamic financing solutions to key stakeholders that are participating in the country s major development projects. Over the course of the Fawzi and Cho during the agreement signing. past few years, the bank has been involved in financing agreements for large projects in the sectors of energy, industry, infrastructure, construction, and trade. QIB is having an important role in Qatar s economic life for over three decades, Fawzi said. The bank s strategy is closely tied with Qatar National Vision As the leading Islamic bank in the country, we are making sure to participate and contribute to the development and diversification of Qatar s economy. In 2016, our contracting division continued in this trajectory, supporting and financing infrastructure projects for major government, semi-government and private sector initiatives. On the agreement Cho said, Qatar is one of the key countries we are operating in and this is the second financing deal signed with QIB following the QR365mn facility granted in Those agreements support our company to perform existing projects making QIB a key strategic partner to our success in Qatar. Daewoo E&C was established in It is one of the top-tier construction companies in South Korea actively involved in domestic and international projects. Daewoo E&C began its activities in Qatar in 2005 with Ras Laffan Refinery project, and so far the company has been awarded five projects, a total of QR8.75bn. The company said it expects to secure more infrastructure projects related to 2022 FIFA World Cup.

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4 4 QATAR Education Ministry offers e-services through app The Ministry of Education and Higher Education announced providing all its e-services through a smartphone application in order to develop its services and to work in line with the governments smart projects. HE the Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr Mohamed Abdul Wahed Ali al-hammadi had launched the Education application during the Education Conference, which the ministry held last month at Qatar National Convention Centre. The application includes information on students attendance, absence, homework, grades, conduct, in addition to notifications and announcements. The application also features communication with teachers, performance assessments of teachers, their financial advances, salaries and leave. HE the Minister of Energy and Industry Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-sada and senior officials from QU and QEWC at the MoU signing ceremony yesterday. QU and QEWC sign pact for tie-up on water treatment Qatar University (QU) and Qatar Electricity and Water Company (QEWC) signed a research memorandum of understanding yesterday to establish collaboration in the field of water treatment and related technologies. QU and QEWC will collaborate on building a knowledge base for seawater desalination and on developing a membrane based water purification such as Reverse Osmosis. Both institutions will also co-operate on building local capabilities in the field of water treatment and promoting research and innovation in the drinking water sector and related activities. Other areas of collaboration include the development of training programmes and the transfer and implementation of technology for water purification. The MoU was signed by QU vice-president for research and graduate studies professor Mariam al-maadeed and QEWC general manager and managing director Fahad bin Hamad al-mohannadi, in the presence of HE the Minister of Energy and Industry Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-sada, QU president Dr Hassan al- Derham, QU vice-president for academic affairs Dr Hassan Alfadala, QU Centre for Advanced Materials director Dr Nasser Abdullah Alnuaimi, QEWC chief executive officer-ras Abu Fontas Abdul Rahman M Nasrallah, QEWC business development director Abdul Sattar Mohamed R al-rasheed, QEWC finance manager Jimmy Chung, QEWC executive officer events and activities Mohamed Saad al-mohannadi, and QEWC public relations co-ordinator Mohamed El-Tayeb, as well as QU officials, faculty and staff. HE al-sada said the MoU has a special importance as it underlines the collaboration between Qatar University and Qatar Electricity and Water Company. Both are national and prestigious institutions that complement each other. Qatar Electricity and Water Company provides electricity and water which are the two essential components of life and social development, while Qatar University is a key partner in the field of education and research in Qatar. Dr al-derham said the MoU contributes to promoting sustainable development and water security in Qatar and to building national research capacities in the field of energy and water. In this context, Qatar University continues in its efforts to strengthen links with industry in line with the national research priorities.

5 QATAR 5 Qatar-Canada ties reviewed HE the Foreign Ministry Secretary General Dr Ahmed bin Hassan al-hammadi yesterday met Omar Alghabra, the parliamentary secretary to Canada s minister of foreign affairs, currently visiting Qatar. They discussed bilateral relations and ways to develop them, in addition to topics of common interest. HMC provides integrated care for children with autism About 200 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) receive treatment at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) each year, a senior official has said. Children aged five to 18 years, who have been diagnosed with an ASD are closely observed and followed up with a specialised medical rehabilitation programme, explained Dr Madeeha Kamal, senior paediatrics consultant at HMC. Globally one in 68 children has an ASD, with the prevalence among males being four times higher than females. The Child Development Center at Rumailah Hospital and the Paediatrics Department at Hamad General Hospital are providing co-ordinated, multi-disciplinary care for children, adolescents, and families affected by ASD. Dr Kamal stated that the number of children diagnosed with ASD is currently on the rise, which she attributes partly to increased awareness of the disorder. She added that children with ASD are referred to HMC from schools (upon their parents consent), from health centres and private hospitals. Early warning signs can include behavioural patterns such as violence, solitude, introversion and a lack of integration with other children; adding that teachers often identify behaviours that parents or other caregivers may not pick up on. She explained that ASD varies from one child to another and is diagnosed according to severity. Severe cases of ASD are normally diagnosed when a child is very young, whereas children with mild symptoms may go undetected for some time. If parents notice any usual signs or symptoms, such as speech difficulties, poor communication with others, violent behaviour, etc., they should immediately consult a specialist, said Dr Kamal. HMC, in collaboration with the Primary Health Care Corp, is working to promote early diagnosis and detection of ASD through focusing on training health centre physicians to recognise the condition, specifically during a child s vaccination appointments. Children diagnosed with ASD are referred to the Child Development Center at Rumailah Hospital. Dr Suna Fayed, consultant in Child Rehabilitation and director of the Autism Programme at the Child Development Center, describes autism as a life-long behavioural developmental disorder. ASD is the name for a group of developmental disorders that includes a wide range, a spectrum, of symptoms, skills, and levels of disability. Some children may experience mild signs and symptoms, which they can normally tolerate and live independently with, whereas others need life-long support. The first symptoms usually show up in the first three years of a child s life. Core symptoms of ASD include difficulty in communicating and interacting with others; repetitive behaviours and restricted interests and activities; all of which can contribute to ongoing social problems for the individual and the carers, Dr Fayed said. Dr Fayed stressed the importance of tolerance and sensitivity when caring for, and interacting with, children with autism and their families. She said it is important to create an enabling environment, respecting privacy and abilities and creating an environment that enhances self-confidence. It is important to provide relevant education and guidance that empowers children and their families and integrates them into the community, she added.

6 6 QATAR New study ponders school transport problems Responses to a newly-launched study will be used by the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) and other entities concerned to develop planning proposals for solutions related to school transport and its impact on the country s roads. This will be done to encourage the use of school buses, thereby helping reduce the effect of school trips on roads, the ministry has stressed. In a press statement, the MoTC said it has launched a planning study to develop proposals to reduce the effects of school transport on Doha s heavily congested roads. In collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, the Land Transport Department at the MoTC has developed a questionnaire on school transport that will be sent to the parents of all pupils at every level of education spread across different types of educational institutions, The Ministry of Education and Higher Education will use its social networks and distribute the questionnaire to kindergartens and schools, and also use SMSes to remind parents on providing their feedback. A questionnaire hyperlink will be available on the websites of the two ministries to encourage the widest possible contribution from the public, the statement notes. The questionnaire, which can be accessed at will play a vital role in updating the Qatar Strategic Transport Model and the feedback received will help better understand the dynamics of school transportation and its relation with the demographic, social and economic characteristics of the family, the MoTC said. The questionnaire answers will be used by the MoTC and bodies concerned to develop planning proposals for short- and long-term solutions and alternatives to encourage the use of school bus transport, thus helping reduce school trip effects on the road networks, it added. Traffic on Qatar s roads is already dense during peak hours, especially on school days, and it is hoped that the study will result in identifying ways in which school transport can be adapted to mitigate its impact on the network, while enhancing school bus services. Curtain to rise today on Qatar Motor Show 2017 The seventh edition of the Qatar Motor Show (QMS), themed Driving to Innovation, is all set to showcase 110 automotive vehicles at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre (DECC) from today. The five-day event, organised by Qatar Tourism Authority and Fira Qatar, will also see the regional debut of eight cars, in addition to 14 local car launches. Exhibitors including Dodge, Ford, Maxus, RAM, Jeep, Lincoln, QIC Insured, the personal insurance division of Qatar Insurance Company, is the official insurance partner for this year s Qatar Motor Show, which opens today at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre (DECC). During the event, QIC Insured will launch the all new Pay your full car insurance in easy instalments campaign. With the new pay-in-instalment scheme, customers can simply pay for their car insurance in four easy instalments without having to pay any interest. Ahmad Mohamed Zebeib, senior retail manager in-charge, said: QIC Insured always makes it easy for our customers. We understand our customers priorities and preferences, and we have launched this scheme to offer better financial flexibility when it comes to purchasing full car insurance. With the new scheme, customers effectively pay for their third party liability cover for Hyundai, Nissan, Toyota, Lexus, Chevrolet, Genesis, Jaguar Land Rover, Maserati, Mini, BMW, Mercedes- Benz, Mitsubishi, BAIC and Harley Davidson, will be offering visitors the chance to interact with their favourite brands and to discover their latest models. The interactive fan zones are putting the final touches on what promises to be highly unforgettable performances that will wow audiences. Skateboarding, BMX best runs Ahmad Mohamed Zebeib, senior retail manager in-charge. QIC Insured is official partner of Qatar Motor Show 2017 and longboard sprint race competitions will be running from tomorrow until the end of the event. Visitors are invited to register online in advance for these activities to eliminate waiting time. Additionally, the park will host fun games such as parkour, MTB and Aggressive Inline Skate. On the side-lines of the exhibition and partnership with the Mawater Centre, the strategic partner of QMS organising committee, daily rallies will be organised for sports the first instalment but can enjoy the benefits of a comprehensive cover right from the start of the policy. To avail the new offer, customers can simply visit the QIC Insured booth at the Qatar Motor Show. Alternatively, customers can log on to qic-insured.com and select the Installments option in the payment page. To make it even simpler, the same pay-ininstalment scheme is also available in all QIC branches where customers can either pay for the instalment in cash or by using credit card. Adding an element of fun to keep customers entertained at the Qatar Motor Show, QIC Insured is now offering one month free membership to its loyalty club QIC Advantage Club. Customers can visit QIC Insured s booth at the Qatar Motor Show and get more than 200 Super Saver Buy-One-Get-One deals on dining and entertainment. To know more, customers can call or visit i-insured.com/qms. and classic cars starting from 3pm. The assembly point will be the Sheraton Doha Hotel, passing through the Corniche to reach the end point by 4.30pm for the DECC. Mawater Centre director Salem al-muhannadi welcomed their fruitful participation which aims to benefit the youth. He added that the Centre also aims to involve young people in the exhibition and inform them of the latest developments of the car companies in the world. Five social media competitions will be running throughout the show, giving visitors the chance to win valuable prizes, including gadgets, branded merchandising and weekend test drives. Visitors are encouraged to register online on and to follow the show s social media channels on Twitter and instagram and on facebook on facebook/qatarmotorshow for the latest updates and more information. Regional debut of Fittipaldi EF7 Vision Gran Turismo The Fittipaldi EF7 Vision Gran Turismo by Pininfarina will make its Middle Eastern debut at the 2017 Qatar Motor Show (QMS), which opens today at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre. The ultra-light and all carbon fibre racing supercar, built for the world F1 champion Emerson Fittipaldi, will be on display under the NBK Group. The supercar fuses the vision of F1 and Indy Car racing champion Fittipaldi, iconic Italian design company Pininfarina and racebred German engineering firm HWA AG. It fulfils Fittipaldi s dream to produce a car with fierce track-racing capabilities for drivers of all skill levels. The EF7 is an exciting car that embodies Pininfarina s DNA in terms of style and innovation, Emerson s championship race experience and HWA AG s flawless engineering skills. Our collective team was able to turn a dream into a driving machine, said Pininfarina chairman Paolo Pininfarina. The EF7 Vision Gran Turismo by Pininfarina will have a limited production with every EF7 owner, having the opportunity to benefit from personal coaching by Fittipaldi himself and move up a driver-training ladder designed by the racing champion. In addition, owners 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. Owners will also have bespoke customisation options to personalise their EF7, complete with car interior and exterior options, multiple wheel options and personal Pantone colour and racing numbers, along with Emerson Fittipaldi signature branding placement selections. Dignitaries at the opening of the festival. Foodies invited to discover true taste of Turkish cuisine Turkish Airlines has partnered with Sheraton Grand Doha Resort & Convention Hotel to offer Doha s diners a special gastronomic experience a Turkish Food Festival with live cooking stations and entertainment. Travelling from one the world s top culinary destinations, the seven-day festival is bringing two Turkish chefs from Istanbul to host the celebration until April 22. The event is taking place at the Al Hubara Restaurant. Famed for its cuisine, Turkey takes its influence from all over the world and dates to the Ottomans, with rich and savoury dishes, complementing the chef s desire to master traditional dishes with finesse and excellence. Diners can expect a lavish spread of tasty dishes and will have the chance to win daily prizes from Turkish Airlines, including flights to Europe, according to a press statement. Hichem Ben Amor, executive assistant manager food and beverage, Sheraton Grand Doha Resort & Convention Hotel, said: We are delighted to bring to Doha s diners a flavour of Turkey s cultural legacy. The Turkish Food Festival is the fourth culinary festival Al Hubara Restaurant has brought to Doha foodies since January. Mehmed Zingal, general manager of Turkish Airlines, said: It is a pleasure to introduce our cultural heritage to residents of Qatar and guests of the hotel. The festival is open for lunch daily from noon to 3pm (QR195) and for dinner from 7pm to 11pm (QR235). The Friday and Saturday brunch (April 21 and 22) will be available from noon to 3pm for QR315 and QR240, respectively. Turkish Airlines woos Qatar passengers going to Balkans Turkish Airlines has announced that it is providing special offers from Doha to countries in the Balkans. The offers, which cover all the countries in the Balkans region, are available until May 7 and valid for travel between April 23 and June 15, the airline has said in a press statement. Under this, passengers will be able to book from a wide variety of discounted tickets to travel from Doha to their European destination of choice. For instance, they will be able to benefit from a 40% discount and book their tickets to Baku, Azerbaijan, for QR1,911. The Balkans comprises Azerbaijan, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and Greece. A publicity montage for Montenegro.

7 QATAR 7 QA to showcase Qsuite at Arabian Travel Market Qatar Airways has announced that it will showcase its new premium travel experience, Qsuite, for the first time in the Middle East at next week s Arabian Travel Market (ATM). Following the hugely successful global reveal in Berlin last month, this will be the first time industry experts in the Gulf will get to experience the new design and interchangeable suites, the Doha-based carrier said in a statement yesterday. ATM is the region s leading travel trade fair, taking place from April 24 to 27 in Dubai. Known for introducing world-firsts to the airline industry, Qatar Airways Group chief executive Akbar al-baker is also set to introduce another ground-breaking experience for passengers at the airline s annual press conference on the exhibition s opening day, the statement noted. We are looking forward to another successful ATM this year and to introducing the new revolutionary new Business Class seat to the travel industry and media partners within the Middle East, a product that will revolutionise global premium travel. Qatar Airways is known the world over for setting the highest possible standard in customer experience, and it is with much anticipation that I look forward to sharing with visitors at the show our latest developments, al-baker said. Featuring the airline industry s first-ever double bed available in Business Class, the new Qsuite design features privacy panels that stow away, allowing passengers in adjoining seats to create their own private spaces. Adjustable panels and movable TV monitors on the centre four seats allow those travelling together to transform their space into a private suite, giving them the opportunity to work, dine and socialise together. These new features provide the ultimate customisable travel experience that enables passengers to create an environment that suits their needs. Qatar Airways also recently launched a new next-generation user interface for Oryx One, its award-winning inflight entertainment system that features up to 3,000 movie, television and The new Qsuite design features privacy panels that stow away. game options. The platform will make it even easier to navigate the wide selection of movies, music and TV box sets, ensuring that passengers get the best entertainment experience from the moment they step on board, the statement adds. Guests and visitors to the Qatar Airways stand will be invited to experience the new Qsuite first hand at the airline s exhibition stand in Hall Two, ME1445. The stand will give visitors the opportunity to be among the first to experience the comfort, entertainment and hospitality offered on board a Qatar Airways flight. LuLu cookery contest winners honoured CRA: Demand for spectrum licences increases by 145% Prizes and certificates were recently distributed among the winners of the LuLu Cookery Contest at the LuLu Group regional office on D-Ring Road, Doha. The regional director of LuLu Group, Shaijan, and regional manager Shanavas P M distributed the prizes to the winners in the presence of other LuLu officials. Shaguftha Zahir Panwala, Sanjeeda Naheed and Arifa Bibi won the first, second and third prizes, respectively, in the hot food category. In the cold food category, the first, second and third prizes were won by Arshia Zafer, Merfath Abdulla and Sehba Naqeeb, respectively. Besides, consolation prizes and certificates of appreciation were given to all shortlisted participants. The winners were chosen by a panel of judges comprising chef Noushad and Michel, manager of Gerry s Grill. Out of 200 applications received, 35 were shortlisted for the contest. Honda Civic adjudged Best Compact Sedan of the year The Honda Civic was adjudged the Best Compact Sedan of the year at the Middle East Car of the Year (MECOTY) 2017 awards held in Abu Dhabi, the UAE, recently. In addition to MECOTY, the Civic won the Best Small Car award at the MotorWeek Drivers Choice Awards, Saudi Auto Car of the Year award as well as North American Car of the Year award, according to a statement. The 10th generation Honda Civic was introduced in April 2016 with a 1.5L turbo and a 2.0L engine. Due to the success of the new model and to provide customers with a wider variety, a 1.6L engine grade was introduced in December 2016 as an entry-level grade option, the statement noted. The Civic offers a 5-grade line-up with three engine sizes and a whole host of new and The 10th generation Honda Civic was introduced in April standard features depicting it as a more modern, functional as well as an efficient sedan. Following the launch, regional sales of the Honda Civic rose by 93% this year, it was observed. MECOTY, in its fourth year, is adjudged by 15 renowned automotive journalists from across the Middle East. Hiroaki Shibata, director, Honda Motor Company (Africa and Middle East office), said: We are pleased to know that the Civic won the Car of the Year in the Compact Sedan segment. The new Civic was introduced last year to meet the demands of a sporty yet advanced car and we truly believe we have created joy for the customer in the segment. We hope to continue to meet customer expectations and create joy in the future as well. Faisal Sharif, managing director at Doha Marketing Services Company, said: We are absolutely thrilled that the Civic has been chosen as the best compact sedan of the year. The 10th generation Civic excels in comfort, safety and fuel efficiency. The record sales numbers year after year appear to confirm it. We are encouraged by all the prestigious awards and motivated to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction. Mohamed Ali al-mannai, president, CRA. The Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) met full and diverse range radio communication spectrum needs for Qatar as it issued a total of 4,059 spectrum licences in 2016, up by 145% from 1,654 licences in The number of frequencies assigned also increased significantly to 2,538 (up by 117% from 1,167 in 2015). Type approval certificates issued for radio and telecommunications terminal equipment remained relatively unchanged at 1,114 (from 1,212 in 2015). In 2016, CRA also finalised the National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP) with appropriate consideration to planning of projects in sectors that are critical to Qatar s economy. NFAP is a comprehensive frequency allocation document that provides a transparent, non-discriminatory and predictable approach to spectrum management and to reserve appropriate spectrum for future innovative technologies. It also integrates planning of new mobile broadband technologies, public protection and disaster relief measures, unmanned aircraft systems, global flight tracking, maritime safety, amateur radio. CRA also played a significant role in supporting spectrum requirements of 14 major events during the year including Commercial Bank Qatar Masters Golf Tournament, Qatar Ladies Open, HH The Emir Cup - Bowling, Cycling Tour of QATAR, Qumra Festival, Ajyal Youth Film Festival, Motocross Championship, Qatar MotoGP, SBK Superbike FIM World Championship, World Touring Car Championship, UCI Road World Championships Doha, Qatar Total Open 2016, Qatar ExxonMobil Open 2016 and Qatar National Day event. There is rapidly growing demand for spectrum across the nation. Radio spectrum a fundamental, finite and valuable national resource and its careful management is critical to the smooth running not only of major global events taking place in Qatar but everything from information and communications technology and other nationally important sectors, as the effective management of this scarce resource ultimately impacts the country s GDP, said Mohamed Ali al-mannai, president, CRA. CRA received 84 spectrum interference cases and conducted 11 investigations of quality of service relating to the complaints received during Furthermore CRA conducted two routine inspections of shops selling radio and telecommunication equipment and a total of 79 violation notices were issued for using or selling equipment without valid licenses. CRA s inspection team visited a total of 195 stores during the year, targeting popular locations for sale of communication equipment including malls, souks, commercial areas, as well as neighbourhood grocery stores. In 2016, CRA proposal to reduce the annual licence fees for VHF Radio for small ships, and dual-band radio for hunting was approved by the Cabinet, thereby reducing the fee for the above from QR500 to QR100 per year. CRA regulates import and dealings of radio and telecommunications equipment including but not limited to the sale of cellular phones and private mobile radio devices as such, CRA issued 363 import authorisation licenses and received 24,670 custom clearance applications last year. As of the beginning of the 2016 the CRA started providing authorisations for import of telecommunications and radio equipment to businesses through the Qatar government portal Hukoomi. Volvo S90 named Best Midsize Premium Sedan Al-Futtaim s Domasco, distributor for Volvo cars in Qatar, announced that its luxury sedan Volvo S90 was named Best Midsize Premium Sedan at the recent Middle East Car of the Year (MECOTY) awards held alongside the second International Motor Show in Abu Dhabi. The Volvo S90 win at the MECO- TY awards comes after the XC90 s success at several leading global motoring awards last year. The XC90 was named the Best Medium Premium SUV at MECOTY and winner of the jury prize in Other regional awards received by the S90 so far include those from Arab Wheels, Automobile Magazine and Future TV, according to a statement. Emre Karaer, general manager, Volvo Car Mena & CIS, said: Volvo is proud that the S90 has been named Best Midsize Premium Sedan by the MECOTY jury. We are better known for our SUVs and estates but the S90 has redefined what a luxury sedan is capable of as it combines cutting-edge technology with effortless Scandinavian design. The award is recognition of the Swedish brand s continuing transformation and I believe the S90 will become a strong player in its segment. The Volvo S90 was unveiled to critical acclaim since its launch and the new 90 series cars globally accounted for a fifth of total sales volume in In the Middle East, Volvo also improved its position in the premium segment in 2016, reporting sales growth of 14.4% as compared to 2015, the statement noted. Faisal Sharif, managing director, Domasco, said: We re encouraged by the recognition of the awe-inspiring S90 by our region s most prestigious awards. S90 is redefining the premium sedan segment standards and delivering confident style, high-end luxury and elegance blended with technology. We are delighted to offer this Scandinavian wonder to our customers here in Qatar. We have recently revamped our showroom to reflect Volvo s continuing transformation. By incorporating the Scandinavian brand experience, we reinforce Volvo s proud heritage. We are inviting all our customers to visit our refurbished showroom and take a test drive with the award-winning S90. The Volvo S90.

8 8 QATAR Qatari Air Forces hold stricken plane drill QNA Doha Qatar Emiri Air Forces have carried out military exercise stricken plane, aimed at assessing the readiness levels of emergency units. The exercise also aims to help the participating units gain experience on the procedures they need to follow in different situations. It also aims to provide training for dealing with potential accidents. Commenting on the exercise was the Commander of the Qatar Emiri Air Force Major General (Pilot) Mubarak bin Mohamed al-kumait al-khayarin. He said that the exercise was a vital component of training. It focuses on dealing with accidents related to the air force or other state institutions. It is one of many exercises that the air force holds to improve the alert level of its individuals and units, the commander added. He added that there were a large number of local, regional, and international exercises that focus on dealing with bigger crises such as oil leaks, forest fires. Those exercises focus also on how to manage such events, the commander said. Al-Khayarain gave an example of The Eagle Resolve (Hasm Al Oqban) exercise that took place in Kuwait in which Qatar participated alongside other GCC forces. The Commander of the Qatar Emiri Air Force said that all those exercises are then evaluated by the armed forces to develop future training exercises. Stricken plane exercise simulates a scenario where a C17 military transport aircraft, as a result of an over-heated engine, catches fire while emptying a highly flammable shipment. The units participating in the exercise must then follow the procedures that include informing the Civil Aviation Authority, the medical services department at the armed forces, the Ministry of Public Health and the Hamad International Airport s emergency planning and crisis management department. The commander stressed that the equipment used in the exercise is state of the art and can deal with different buildings, whether factories or towers, as well as the largest and most modern planes depending on the accident. He added that the personnel who took part received high level training. Meanwhile Major-General (Pilot) Mohamed Hassan al-qahtani said that the exercise is an annual one focused on improving the level of co-operation and harmony between the units when dealing with such accidents. The emergency drill underway Minister of Justice opens Qatari legal portal project QNA Doha HE the Minister of Justice Dr Hassan Lahdan Saqr al- Mohannadi has inaugurated the second edition of the Qatari Legal Portal Project (Al Mezan 2), which was prepared in co-operation with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology Company. This step comes within the framework of updating the Qatari Legal Portal as a comprehensive site for all legislation in force, amended and abolished since 1961, as well as the judicial decisions issued by the Court of Cassation, which were compiled and indexed by the Technical Office of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary and extracted legal principles and legal opinions issued by the Legislative Department of the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, besides the specialised jurisprudence references. HE the Minister Dr al- Mohannadi stressed the importance of launching the new version of the Qatari Legal Portal to enrich the legislative environment of the country with national legislations that meet the legal and legislative needs of government institutions and the private sector. National anti-money laundering panel launches website QNA Doha HE Sheikh Fahad bin Faisal al-thani, deputy governor of Qatar Central Bank (QCB) and chairman of the National Anti Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Committee, launched yesterday the website of the committee ( Commenting on the launch, HE Sheikh Fahad said the world is facing many challenges in the field of anti-money laundering and terrorism financing, hence an efficient way to combat it helps to stop operations that jeopardise economic stability of countries. Qatar, represented by the committee, has given priority to combating such crimes by strengthening the national law and regulations, he added. Qatar has also eagerly worked on strengthening co-operation and co-ordination with regional and international organisations and institutions, since exchanging information from different entities is vital. The QCB deputy governor added that due to its wise leadership, Qatar has been able to set efficient regulatory systems to combat money laundering and terrorism financing as per international standards supported by Law No. 4 of 2010 on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing. The committee set a national programme in place on assessing national risks in addition to giving priority to build certified national expertise in Qatar. Since the issuance of the law, the committee has set a national strategy and work plan to fight money laundering and terrorism financing. HE Sheikh Fahad said the committee liaised recently with national and international institutions to set a clear vision of the risks, treat them and prevent them. It was effectively able to monitor the useful advances in the work plan and the resources required to achieve the goals under the law. In addition the committee focused on the required expertise and training as well as raising awareness of the risks nationally, and co-operating and co-ordinating regionally and internationally.

9 QATAR 9 Forbes Middle East honours Qatar s top 40 companies Forbes Middle East editor-in-chief Khuloud al-omian said under the wise leadership of HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-thani, Qatar is witnessing a comprehensive economic renaissance. The awardees gather on stage for a group photo. By Peter Alagos Business Reporter Forbes Middle East recognised Qatar s top 40 listed companies in a ceremony titled Celebrating Qatar s Success held yesterday at St Regis Doha. The event lauded the efforts of these companies and government initiatives on a path of diversification. In Forbes Middle East s first Qatar special edition, QNB, the largest listed company in the Arab world in terms of assets, topped the list. The 40 companies, nine of which are from the banking and financial services sector, have total sales of $40.8bn, net income of $12.2bn, total assets of $411.4bn, and $147bn market value. According to Forbes Middle East, the companies in the list are achieving success and strengthening the status of the country s economy, making it one of the strongest economies in the world. The ceremony was held in partnership and under the patronage of the Ministry of Economy and Commerce and was represented by Business Development and Investment Promotion director Abdulbaset al-ajji. Forbes Middle East editor-inchief Khuloud al-omian said: Under the wise leadership of HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-thani, Qatar is witnessing a comprehensive St Regis Doha deputy general manager Saleh Bataineh welcomes guests and awardees. 360 Nautica chief mentor Dr Tejinder Singh conducts an interactive discussion during the event. economic renaissance. We are proud to announce the very first list of the top companies in Qatar, which is part of our continuous efforts to promote economic growth across the Arab world. The 40 Qatari listed companies were ranked on four metrics: sales, net profits, assets, and market value. Each company received four separate scores based on where it ranked in each metric. Loss-making companies got zero score in the net profits metric. All the scores were equally weighted to reach a composite score and thus rankings were structured. The companies were from 13 different sectors, with banks and financial services sector dominating the list with nine companies, followed by diversified and insurance with five companies each. Aside from QNB, Ooredoo, Industries Qatar, Qatar Islamic Bank, and Commercial Bank are included in the top five spots. Market value and currency conversions were as of April 6, 2016 and excerpts from audited financial statements of the year 2015 were incorporated. The exclusive event hosted leaders from various sectors, business heads in the public and private sector, and diplomats from across the Arab region. Forbes Middle East was supported by valued partners, including the Ministry of Economy & Commerce as the main partner, St Regis Doha as hospitality partner, UAE-based property development company Danube Properties as support partner, venture and growth capital platform 360 Nautica as industry partner, as English print partner, and Arabic daily newspaper Al Raya as the media partner. The event was managed by Tarteeb Media. QDB underpins SME role in economic diversification By Peter Alagos Business Reporter Ongoing initiatives to further develop Qatar s small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector have played a significant role in economic diversification, said Qatar Development Bank CEO Abdul Aziz bin Nasser al- Khalifa, who graced Forbes Middle East s front cover in a special edition for Qatar. Citing government support and initiatives from organisations like Bedaya Centre for Entrepreneurship and Career Development, Qatar Business Incubation Centre, and Qatar Science and Technology Park, al- Khalifa said SMEs are able to meet the economic diversification objectives of the Qatar National Vision The success of our SMEs is very important for QDB, as well as their participation in meeting the objectives of Qatar s national vision. These are not efforts by QDB alone or of a few individuals but a full team effort, al- Khalifa said during Forbes Middle East s Celebrating Qatar s Success event held yesterday at St Regis Doha. Rather than individual success, I believe that today we are celebrating the success of the ecosystem of Qatar, which, in terms of supporting entrepreneurs, is one of the best systems, and we re becoming a benchmark for systems around the region. Al-Khalifa noted that QDB is focused on the economic diversification pillar of Qatar National Vision 2030, where SMEs and entrepreneurs play a major role. At Qatar Development Bank, we support ideas of innovative entrepreneurs and startups from the planning up to the incubation Doha Bank CEO Dr R Seetharaman receiving the award. stage, as well as provide access to advisory services, information and training, and funds, whether direct funding or investment. We also provide them access to local procurement or export to international markets. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the event, Doha Bank CEO Dr R Seetharaman said, Qatar s economy has been productive and progressive. Doha Bank was among the top 40 private listed companies in Qatar recognised by Forbes Middle East during the event. In the first three months Forbes Middle East senior editor Claudine Coletti delivers a speech during the event. of the year, the country has seen an overall loan growth of 2.4%. Market liquidity is improving compared to last year. Loan to deposit ratio is also becoming more affordable for the banking system. The overall non-hydrocarbon growth is likely around 6.5%... consumer QDB CEO Abdul Aziz bin Nasser al-khalifa, who graced Forbes Middle East s front cover, being awarded from editor-in-chief Khuloud al-omian. PICTURES: Nasar T K lending has grown by almost 2.1%. I foresee between 3.6% and 3.7% growth this year and bank s credit expansion should be at around 8% to 9%, he said. He added that banks are now focusing on promising sectors like the services, transportation, hotel and hospitality, education, construction, and healthcare. In a speech, Forbes Middle East senior editor Claudine Coletti said Qatar s vision is built on innovation, diversity, strengthening industry, and improving life for its citizens. Far from being downhearted over falling oil prices, Qatar is focused on the opportunities that change brings; almost every sector is evolving and encouraging growth, she said. Coletti added: At Forbes, that vision is something that we hold dear and keep it at the core of everything that we do. We don t just tell stories. We champion business and celebrate success in its many different forms. GWC bags Qatar Success Award from Forbes Middle East GWC director of Public Relations Abdulaziz Mohamed al-sahlawi receives the award on behalf of the company. Logistics provider GWC was recognised as one of the top business leaders in Qatar during Forbes Middle East s inaugural Celebrating Qatar s Success event held at St Regis Doha yesterday. The event recognised the top companies and individuals bringing continued success to Qatar, GWC said. The list of awardees was based on assets, revenues, profits, and market capitalisation. GWC is among the top listed companies in Qatar, and its achievements in developing the nation s leading logistics infrastructure and providing fully-integrated supply chain solutions was highlighted at the event. During the award ceremony, director of Public Relations Abdulaziz Mohamed al-sahlawi received the award on behalf of the company. Qatar s road to success, though challenging, lies in constantly reinvesting in our own people and infrastructure, while remaining constant and true to the values and aims stated in the Qatar National Vision 2030, said GWC chairman Sheikh Abdullah bin Fahad bin Jassem bin Jabor al-thani. Partnering with Qatar in its drive to become a sustainable and diverse economy is GWC s reason for existence, with every aspect of our varied solutions, operations, and infrastructure conceived to make it a future-ready logistics powerhouse and give our nation a vital edge. Among its achievements in 2016, GWC posted an 11% increase in net profits. The company has maintained its growth by increasing its operational efficiencies, improving its profit margins, and actively seeking new revenue streams, drawing in gross revenues of QR849.5mn last year, representing an 8% increase from QR787.9mn in The company s assets continued to develop, with the GWC Bu Sulba Warehousing Park, the first of the nation s public-private partnerships to bear fruit, completing construction on schedule and with handover procedures in process. GWC is proud that through the combination of our people s efforts, our commitment to safety and our development and implementation of the latest technology and industry standards, we, as a collective group, have been recognised as a contributor to Qatar s success, al-sahlawi said.

10 10 QATAR, Al-Raya readers receive Mini Cooper, BMW cars By Joey Aguilar Staff Reporter readers Beena George and Anil K Eldhose, Indian expatriates from the southern state of Kerala who won the Al- Raya subscription raffle draw last month, received their new BMW 318i and Mini Cooper cars yesterday at the Alfardan Automobiles showroom. Gulf Publishing & Printing Company deputy general manager Yousef al-darwish and Alfardan Automobiles general manager Ihab Allam handed over the car keys to the winners. I did not expect to win a BMW car, I just put my coupon in the box and I won. It s probably God s gift, George said. I am very happy. I read every day that is the reason I subscribed because I want a newspaper along with my tea, she said. In her seven years in Qatar, George said she had never won any raffle draw. This is my first win and when it is the first, it is a big thing, she remarked. Eldhose echoed her sentiment, saying that he was surprised to win a Mini Cooper in a raffle draw. gave me a nice gift, a very nice car it s a good experience, I was so lucky, he said. Eldhose plans to drive the car around Doha and other parts of the country with his family. He said he used to buy a copy of from newsstands. That is why I subscribed for a year so I can read it as often as possible, he added. This is also my first time to drive a Mini Cooper. I am very excited. Allam said Alfardan Automobiles, which sponsored the prize George poses with a mock-up of the key to the BMW 318i after receiving it from al-darwish and Allam. PICTURE: Joey Aguilar Right: Al-Darwish and Allam during the handing over of the key to the Mini Cooper to Eldhose. PICTURE: Nasar TK cars, and Al-Raya have always been in close partnership in such undertakings. It is very strategic for us. We always look forward to the yearly contest they do with BMW and now, Mini. We hope to have future partnerships, he said. The Alfardan Automobiles general manager noted that both the Mini and BMW have their own DNA, being high performance cars bearing sporty characteristics. He said that the three-cylinder Mini Cooper won by Eldhose is very environment-friendly and fancy, and is very popular among the younger age group. Customers of Mini are looking for something exciting, and at the same time economical, to run. With our BMW service, we are able to give them peace of mind where they don t have to worry about high running expenses, Allam noted. The Al-Raya subscription offer saw overwhelming participation from across all communities and nationalities, testimony to the dailies credibility and popularity, having brought the world s news to the people of the country for close to four decades now. Ooredoo s new Nojoom Mania is launched Ooredoo has launched a new Nojoom Mania promotion, which will reward Nojoom Members for topping up their Hala credit. The promotion, designed to reward Nojoom Members who use Ooredoo s Hala services more during the month, will be valid until May 15, Nojoom will offer five times the Nojoom Points as a bonus reward when members recharge with QR100 top-ups. Members will be able to earn up to 5,000 bonus points on every Hala line they own. Ooredoo Qatar community and public relations director Manar Khalifa al-muraikhi said: Nojoom is here to give back to our customers for using the Ooredoo Supernet. Communication needs are evolving, and topping-up is now part of daily life, which is why we are rewarding our members with bonus points for doing so during the next 30 days. The Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC), in collaboration with Almana & Partners, has announced the recall of the Siemens Cooker and built-in hob FS Gas Cooker models of and The recall announcement explains that the gas connection, fitted to the affected appliances, can develop cracks or breaks in certain circumstances, which can lead to a gas leakage. The recalled products include those with the following serial numbers: HG342500U, HG322210P, and EC11053NE. Customers could check the comprehensiveness of the serial numbers by visiting the link com or by communicating with the authorised dealer. The ministry said that the All bonus points are earned on top of the regular Nojoom Points that members receive for monthly usage. Bonus points acquired during this promotion will be added to member s Nojoom account one week after the end of offer and are valid for three months. Ooredoo customers who are not currently a member of Nojoom are urged to enrol in the programme before the last day of the offer to receive the extra points in their Nojoom Accounts. Earned Nojoom Points can be redeemed at a wide partner network in Qatar, including Landmark Mall, the Pearl-Qatar, Al Meera, Geant, Starlink, Center Point, Regency Travels, Jumbo Electronics, Joyalukkas, and Malabar Gold. For more details and to enrol to Nojoom, customers can visit the Nojoom pages on Ooredoo s website at qa/nojoom Recall of Siemens cookers announced recall campaign comes within the framework of its ongoing efforts to protect consumers and ensure that dealers follow up on their products that are affected by defects and repair them. The MEC said it will co-ordinate with the dealer to follow up on the maintenance and repair works and will communicate with customers to ensure that the necessary repairs are carried out. The ministry has urged all customers to report any violations to its Consumer Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud Department. Consumers can do so through the following channels: Hotline: 16001, info@mec.gov.qa, MEC_Qatar, Instagram: MEC_ Qatar, MEC mobile app for Android and IOS: MEC_Qatar

11 REGION/ARAB WORLD 11 Wartime economic crisis threatens education of Yemeni children Sanaa Two years of war may deprive a generation of Yemeni children of an education, the UN warned this month, putting them at greater risk of being married off or recruited as child soldiers for a conflict which has killed at least 10,000 people. Months of unpaid salaries have affected over three-quarters of the impoverished country s teachers, meaning up to 4.5mn children may not finish the school year, Unicef Representative in Yemen Mertixell Relano told a press conference in the capital Sanaa. At the moment we have more than 166,000 teachers in the country that have not received a salary since October last year. This is more or less 73% of the total number of teachers in the country, Relano said. Those children that are not in school, they are at risk of being recruited (for military service), or the girls might be at risk of being married earlier, she added. The crisis largely began last year when the internationallyrecognised government shifted Yemen s central bank out of Sanaa, which is controlled by the armed Houthi movement with which it is at war. The government says the Houthis looted the bank and that it is trying to make all payments despite what it calls Houthi obstruction of the transfers charges the group denies. Seven months of salaries remain in arrears, public sector employees in Houthicontrolled northern lands say, making travel to work and paying for basic necessities more difficult. Money is the backbone of life, lamented Hoda al-khoulani, a teacher at a children s school in Sanaa. Without it, I don t think anyone can live and there will be suffering. We re almost begging. Students listen to a teacher in class at a school in Sanaa, yesterday. Envoy slams US airfield attack message to North Korea Syria s ambassador to North Korea denounced what he called US aggression and its history of interventions yesterday and said that it sending a message to North Korea with an attack on a Syrian airfield was irresponsible. North Korea has conducted several missile and nuclear tests in defiance of UN sanctions and has said it has developed a missile that can strike the US mainland. Its latest missile test on Sunday failed a few seconds after launch. US Vice President Mike Pence warned North Korea yesterday that recent US strikes in Syria, one of North Korea s few close allies, and Afghanistan showed that the resolve of President Donald Trump should not be tested. The US Navy this month struck a Syrian airfield with 59 Tomahawk missiles after a chemical weapons attack. On Thursday, the US military said it had dropped the largest non-nuclear device it had unleashed in combat on a network of caves and tunnels used by Islamic State in Afghanistan. Syrian ambassador to North Korea Tammam Sulaiman said the United States was wrong to send messages with attacks on other countries. Whatever they do, this is clear aggression. If they want to mention this they ought to do this as a message or whatever, it has no sense to talk about this, he told, in English. Because what is sense is to see whether the US is really serious in finding solutions, whether in Syria or Korea. If they want to keep sending messages, then you are not talking with a responsible state or a responsible administration. It is not about giving messages, it is about taking a position. A high-level government official at North Korea s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told in a separate interview yesterday that North Korea would have been attacked a long time ago like other countries if it did not have strong military capabilities. The Syrian incident proves that our policy to bolster our national defence capabilities by tightening our belts is the correct policy, said Kim Son Gyong, Director General of the European Department at North Korea s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Hundreds of Palestinians in jails launch hunger strike AFP Ramallah Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails launched a hunger strike yesterday following a call from leader and prominent prisoner Marwan Barghouti, a movement that could mark a serious challenge to Israeli authorities if sustained. The hunger strike was called in connection with Palestinian Prisoners Day, observed annually, but also ahead of commemorations this summer marking 50 years since the 1967 Six-Day War and the start of Israel s occupation. Israel Prisons Service spokesman Assaf Librati said that hunger strikers would be disciplined and later added that Barghouti had been transferred from Hadarim prison to Jalami prison, near Haifa, 48 kilometres to the north. Qaddura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club which tracks the well-being of Palestinians in Israeli jails, said Barghouti had been placed in solitary confinement, but Librati did not confirm that. Hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners occur regularly, but rarely on such a large scale. Protests were also held in Palestinian cities in connection with Prisoners Day, including one in Bethlehem that led to clashes with Israeli forces. Barghouti s call for the strike has given it added credibility, with the 57-year-old serving five life sentences over his role in the violent second Palestinian uprising. He 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 while being led away by Israeli authorities can be seen Palestinian protesters wave their national flag during a demonstration in the West Bank town of Bethlehem to show their support for those imprisoned in Israeli jails after hundreds of detainees launched a hunger strike yesterday. in the 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 op-ed. In spite of such treatment, we will not surrender to it. Issa Qaraqe, head of prisoner affairs for the Palestinian Authority, said that around 1,300 Palestinian prisoners were on hunger strike and the number could rise. The Palestinian Prisoners Club NGO put the number at 1,500. Librati said that some 1,100 detainees in several prisons had announced their intention to go on hunger strike. The prisons service has started taking disciplinary measures against the strikers and in addition a number of prisoners have been transferred to separate wings, he said. It is to be emphasised that the (prison service) does not negotiate with prisoners. Some 6,500 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel for a range of offences and alleged crimes. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a statement carried by official news agency Wafa, called on the international community to save the life of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Barghouti s wife Fadwa said at a demonstration in Ramallah that prisoners demands were in line with international law and recognised as part of human rights. The last large-scale hunger strike was in February 2013, when 3,000 Palestinians refused to eat for one day in protest at the death of a fellow detainee. Israel says it must be vigilant to prevent fresh violence, particularly following a wave of knife, gun and car-ramming attacks that erupted in October Such incidents have greatly subsided in recent months. While many Palestinians view Barghouti as a hero, Israelis point to the bloody suicide attacks and his role in the uprising. For Palestinians, the prisons have become a stark symbol of Israel s occupation. Those on hunger strike have issued a list of demands, including access to phones, extended visiting rights and better medical care. Israeli public radio reported that Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan has ordered intervention units to be put on standby and a field hospital to be set up outside one prison to avoid having to take sick prisoners to civilian hospitals. It quoted Erdan as saying that the demands regarding prisoners conditions were unreasonable. Some Israeli analysts have sought to highlight the rivalry between Barghouti and Abbas within their Fatah party, suggesting his call for a hunger strike was also related to internal politics. Abbas made no mention of Barghouti in his statement on Wafa. Talk of who will succeed Abbas has intensified, but the 82-year-old has shown no sign of stepping down and a recent Fatah congress saw him shore up his support base and sideline rivals. He has not publicly designated a successor. Of the 6,500 Palestinian detainees, 62 are women and 300 are minors. Some 500 are held under administrative detention, which allows for imprisonment without charges or trial. Thirteen Palestinian lawmakers are also among the detainees. Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed three years ago. Iraqi forces fight door-to-door in Mosul Mosul, Iraq Iraqi forces gained ground in door-to-door fighting in the Old City of Mosul, a military spokesman said yesterday, as the US-backed offensive to capture Islamic State s de facto capital in Iraq entered its seventh month. A correspondent saw thick smoke billowing over the Old City, near the Grand al- Nuri Mosque, from where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria. Heavy exchanges of gunfire and mortar rounds could be heard from the neighbourhoods facing the old city across the Tigris river that bisects Mosul into a western and eastern sides. The war between Islamic State militants and Iraqi forces is taking a heavy toll on several hundred thousand civilians trapped inside the city, with severely malnourished babies reaching hospitals in government-held areas. Iraqi Federal Police forces are engaged in difficult, houseto-house clashes with Daesh fighters inside the Old City, a A member of the Iraqi forces sits in a turret over a humvee in the Old City of Mosul yesterday. media officer from these units told. Drones are being used to locate and direct air strikes on the militants who are dug in the middle of civilians, he said. Troops have had the famous centuries-old Al-Nuri Mosque leaning minaret in their sights since last month, as capturing it would mark a symbolic victory over the insurgents. A police spokesman said the troops were closing in on the mosque without indicating the remaining distance. Their progress has been slow as about 400,000 civilians, or a quarter of Mosul s pre-war population, are trapped in the Old City, according to the United Nations. As many as half a million are estimated to remain overall in neighbourhoods still under control of the militants in western Mosul, the organisation said in a statement yesterday. Civilians in Mosul face incredible, terrifying risks, said the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande. They are being shot at, there are artillery barrages, families are running out of supplies, medicines are scarce and water is cut-off. More than 327,000 have fled fighting since the offensive operation started on Oct 17, with strong air and ground support from a US-led coalition. Mosul has pushed us to our operational limits, Grande said. Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, was captured by the ultra-hardline fighters in mid Government forces, including army, police and elite counter terrorism units have taken back most of it, including the half that lies east of the Tigris river. The militants are now surrounded in the northwestern quarter including the historic Old City, using booby traps, sniper and mortar fire against the assailants. Police on Sunday reported a toxic gas attack on its troops that caused no deaths. It also said the militants were increasingly using suicide motorbikes attacks. The narrow alleyways restricts the use of suicide cars by the militants and tanks, armoured personnel carriers and Humvees by the government forces. The United Nations said last month that 12 people, including women and children, had been treated for possible exposure to chemical weapons agents in Mosul. But Iraq s UN ambassador, Mohamed Ali Alhakim, said later there was no evidence for that. The fighting has killed several thousands among civilians and fighters on both sides, according to aid organisations. 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. Digital transformation plan at Abu Dhabi daily AFP Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi s English-language newspaper, The National, has been undergoing a new digital transformation, its new owners said yesterday, as sources close to the transition say some layoffs are expected. The paper was founded in 2008 and owned by the government-owned Abu Dhabi Media (ADM) which sold it last November to International Media Investments (IMI). Sources close to the transition said that some journalists and other staff will lose their jobs, although it was not immediately clear how many could be laid off. A spokesman for IMI said the transition which will include a digital transformation and retain the print edition will be completed in mid As part of this transition, over the past few months, IMI has finalised its new vision for The National, supported by a robust editorial strategy to ensure that The National fulfils its potential as a premier English language source of news about and for the Middle East, the spokesman said. It is embarking on a digital transformation, while retaining its print product. As part of this transformation, The National is putting together its team, made of existing and new talent. IMI prioritised The National s existing staff as it seeks to hire for additional newsroom needs. Sources close to the process said the post of chief editor could go to Mina al-oraibi, the former assistant editor of Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat. IMI is a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation (ADMIC), a private company owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-nahyan, half-brother of Abu Dhabi s ruler and UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-nahyan. Sheikh Mansour also owns the Abu Dhabi group that bought English Premier League club Manchester City in ADMIC partnered in 2010 with British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) to form Sky News Arabia, which launched in 2012.

12 12 AFRICA Zimbabweans gold fever leaves trail of destruction By Andrew Mambondiyani, Tarka Forest, Zimbabwe Thousands of unemployed Zimbabweans have turned to illegal gold panning in a bid to survive the country s deteriorating economy, leaving a trail of destruction that has alarmed farmers, timber plantation owners and the country s environmental authorities. Peasant miners have set up makeshift mines on farmland and timber plantations in the country s eastern provinces, which border Mozambique where gold fetches a higher price. Deep tunnels have been dug beneath roads, railways and buildings in the Kwekwe area of the Midlands province. In some parts of Manicaland province, waterways have been diverted and roads destroyed. With more illegal miners likely to exploit the area as the economy continues to slump, and the state placing responsibility to act on landowners, farmers are fearful of irreversible damage to their land, and the risk of losing their livelihoods. Kwekwe is under siege from illegal miners and some of these miners are very violent. We don t know what to do, resident Jonas Dube told the Thomson Foundation. Simon Simango, an illegal gold miner in Chimanimani, Manicaland province, acknowledged that the excavations were having a negative impact on the environment. But many workers had run out of options, he said. This (illegal mining) is our only source of livelihood. Look, there are no jobs in the country, Simango told the Thomson Foundation. We sell most of our gold to illegal buyers from Mozambique who are offering us very good prices. Miners report that buyers in Zimbabwe paid around $30 per gram of gold while buyers in Mozambique were paying, double at around $60 per gram. Zimbabwe has never fully recovered from an economic slump that began in 2000 with the violent seizure of thousands of white-owned farms. Unemployment runs at 80%, and even those with jobs face unpaid wages and an acute shortage of cash. There is no official data on the number of illegal miners in Zimbabwe. However, a report by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization estimated that between 2007 and 2012, some 500,000 illegal, artisanal gold miners were operating in the country. Experts believe these numbers could grow as the economy continues to falter. In Tarka Forest, a timber estate owned by Allied Timbers in Chimanimani district, more than 600 hectares of prime timber have been damaged to make way for the illegal digs, according to company executives. Manicaland s minister of provincial affairs, Mandi Chimene, said in February that illegal gold mining in Tarka Forest had reached alarming levels, and resulted in the pollution of streams and rivers, and destruction of standing timber. What is happening in Tarka (forest) is shocking, Chimene said. We wonder who is benefiting from the illegal gold because as a country, we are not. Such gold is not going to the legal market. The government says it is the responsibility of landowners or affected businesses to evict the illegal miners. If it s a forest plantation, it is the responsibility of the timber companies to remove the illegal miners, Minister for Mines and Mining Development Walter Chidhakwa told the Thomson Foundation. If an area belongs to the timber plantations, the government cannot legalise gold mining in the area. The companies must put measures in to stop illegal mining in their plantations. The same rule applies to illegal miners on privately-owned farmland, he said. Darlington Duwa, CEO of the Timber Producers Federation, warned of lasting damage as a result of the disappearing forests and water pollution caused by illegal mining. It (illegal mining) reduces the timber resource, thus affecting direct and indirect employment, economic development, foreign currency earnings and leads to environmental degradation and reduced resilience to climate change effects, Duwa told the Thomson Foundation. In some areas illegal miners (settlers) uproot young trees that have been planted, Duwa said. At this rate, the industry is bound to suffer irreversible damage. Kenya probes deaths of two terror suspects Kenyan authorities yesterday launched an investigation into the mysterious death of two wanted terror suspects. The two were killed and dumped in Naivasha County, 90 km northwest of Nairobi. One of the suspects, Fatuma Mohamed Masou, had a $20,000 bounty on her head. She escaped a police dragnet in Mombasa in Masou, the wife of terrorist Kassim Omondi, who was killed in a police raid in 2013, was accused of hiding yet another terrorist, Ishmael Shosi. Shosi was killed by police in September 2016 in Mombasa. The other wanted terror suspect was Farid Omar Awadh, who had been on the run for almost two years. Awadh and Masou are suspected of recruiting and funding terror activities in Kenya. The two were killed on Friday. Police spokesman George Kinoti said yesterday that detectives will probe circumstances leading to the killing. He denied claims that security forces were involved in the alleged extrajudicial killing of the two. Family members of the two did not attend their burial in Naivasha. Awadh s family denied that he had terrorism links. There have been accusations that anti-terror police units were involved in forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings of terror suspects. Protesters hold placards as they marched to protest against President Jacob Zuma in Pretoria last week. SA leaders must listen to protesters: Ramaphosa Johannesburg South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa has said that leaders should listen to protesters who have taken to the streets demanding that President Jacob Zuma resign or be removed after a cabinet reshuffle triggered damaging credit downgrades. Zuma is to step down as head of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in December but his second term as president only expires after a general election in Ramaphosa and Zuma s ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma are the leading candidates vying to replace him. Zuma is widely believed to support his ex-wife s candidacy, while Ramaphosa, a wealthy businessman and former trade unionist, has the backing of the ANC s labour allies. People of our country are taking to the streets. They re raising their concerns, and I think what we should be doing as leaders is to listen to some of the concerns that are being raised, Ramaphosa told the enca news network late on Sunday after attending an Easter church service in northern Limpopo province. Ramaphosa s remarks are a marked contrast to Zuma s, who has accused the marchers of having racist motives. The protests have had mixed racial profiles, and drew tens of thousands to Pretoria last Wednesday and nationwide on April 7. Zuma, who turned 75 on Wednesday, has survived previous protests. But the main opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) and other parties believe they can drum up support to force Zuma from office following his dismissal of respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan in a cabinet reshuffle. Fitch and S&P Global Ratings have downgraded South Africa s debt to junk, citing Gordhan s dismissal as one reason. South Africa s top court, based in Bloemfontein, is considering whether a parliamentary motion of no confidence against Zuma should be taken by secret ballot. Opposition parties have said the motion would be more likely to succeed if held by secret ballot. Lake Malawi boat capsize drowns 5 At least five churchgoers died after an overloaded wooden boat carrying more than 60 passengers back from Easter celebrations capsized on Lake Malawi, police said yesterday. Police spokesman Victor Khamisi told AFP in Blantyre that five people died in the incident, which took place at around 4pm on Easter Sunday in the northern district of Rumphi. A total of 54 people had been rescued by yesterday in a search assisted by military personnel and local fishermen, police said. Khamisi said the passengers, members of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) were coming back from Easter celebrations when the boat met heavy winds and capsized. We don t know the exact number of people missing but with the help of local and army divers, we have intensified the search, Khamisi added. Congo returns Kasai leader s body to sooth tensions Diplomacy at work Dakar Congo s government has said it had returned the body of a tribal leader whose death last year triggered a conflict in Kasai Central province that has killed more than 400 people. The return of the body of Kamuina Nsapu the leader of a tribal militia by the same name has been one of its key demands during a brutal conflict that started last July and worsened when Congolese forces killed Nsapu the following month. In a statement over the weekend, interior ministry spokesman Louis d Or Balekalayi also said the government would recognise his successor Jacques Kabeya Ntumba as a customary chief. Failure to do this for Ntumba s predecessor was one cause of the uprising. The fighting in Kasai has become South Africa gives asylum to Congolese pastor: lawyer the most serious threat to President Joseph Kabila, whose decision to stay in power even though his mandate ran out in December has stoked rebellion and lawlessness in different parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo. His body was left with the family who buried him in his village on the same day, the statement said. The family solemnly declared the end of the war, specifying that anyone who Congolese pastor Joseph Mukungubila Mutombo, wanted in his homeland for alleged involvement in violence more than three years ago, has obtained asylum in South Africa, his spokesman said yesterday. He has obtained political asylum following a March 30 decision to that effect, Charlie Mingiedi said. It is a relief. He can now once again involve himself in political life, Mingiedi said of the controversial Mukungubila, who claims to be a prophet. South African officials, who had previously rejected the pastor s asylum requests, made no immediate comment on the said approval. According to Mingiedi, the pastor will not return home but keep up the pressure on Kabila from abroad. There is no return, but he will continue to mobilise the Congolese people against the dictatorship ruling the country, his spokesman said. continues to do criminal or terrorist acts does not represent them. It was not immediately possible to reach the family or any of the militia s leaders for a reaction. However, it was unclear whether this gesture by the government would sooth tensions. Initially contained in one area, the rebellion has since spread to five of Congo s 26 provinces. The fighters operating under the name Kamuina Nsapu appear to do so independently and without a clear leadership structure, and some recent violence appears to have degenerated into ethnic score-settling. Many of the dead have been dumped in mass graves, a violation of local customs. Analysts fear growing violence in Congo could spark a repeat of the conflicts between , mostly in the east, in which millions died, mainly from hunger and disease. Dozens of armed groups continue to fight over natural resources and prey on the civilian population. Two UN officials, one a US citizen and one Swedish, were kidnapped and killed by unknown assailants in Kasai-Central last month. Four Congolese accompanying them were also kidnapped, but their bodies have not been found. Congolese authorities said on Friday they had arrested two people suspected of involvement, but one of the prisoners has escaped. Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed shakes hands with new Chinese ambassador Qin Jian in Mogadishu over the weekend.

13 AMERICAS 13 Trump to North Korean leader: Got to behave President Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr watch children roll Easter Eggs at 139th annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House. AFP Washington US President Donald Trump took a moment at the White House Easter egg roll yesterday to deliver a terse message to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un: Got to behave. Trump made the off-the-cuff comment to a CNN reporter after kicking off the 139th annual Easter egg roll with First Lady Melania Trump. Any message for North Korea, sir, Kim Jong-un? Got to behave, said Trump. The warning came after a tense weekend during which North Korea celebrated the birthdate of the regime s founder Kim Il-sung with a massive military parade highlighting its growing missile capabilities. But a missile test-launched on Sunday exploded shortly after takeoff, and a widely anticipated sixth nuclear test never materialised. US concerns have mounted amid signs of progress in Pyongyang s efforts to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of landing a nuclear warhead on the US mainland. US President Donald Trump was back in Washington late Sunday, after attending Easter church services near his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the culmination to his latest weekend away from the White House. The US leader and a retinue of family and aides, including First Lady Melania Trump and youngest son Barron, 11, arrived at Andrews Air Force Base a little after 6pm (2226 GMT). Earlier Sunday, the first family attended Easter services at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea. Trump took a seat near the front of the sanctuary with his wife and her parents, along with his daughter Tiffany and Barron, as a choir sang hymns and the rector and other clergy made introductions and quoted gospel. Afterward Trump returned to Mar-a- Lago where, according to a White House aide, he joined sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric for brunch and an Easter celebration, which includes an Easter egg hunt for children. Earlier Trump sent out a celebratory message on Twitter: Happy Easter to everyone! The president s weekend included several hours at his Trump International Golf Club on Friday and Saturday his 17th and 18th trip to a golf course since becoming president on January 20, according to NBC News. Despite a profusion of tweets during his Mar-a-Lago stay, Trump has remained largely silent over the latest actions by North Korea, which included the rogue state s display of what looked like new missiles or prototypes during a parade and the failed launch of a missile on Sunday. But Vice President Mike Pence, visiting South Korea, described the failed launch as a provocation and said he spoke by telephone with Trump, and declared that Washington s resolve has never been stronger with regard to its alliance with South Korea. Gorsuch energetic in first court arguments Washington President Donald Trump s appointee Neil Gorsuch yesterday showed himself to be a frequent and energetic questioner during US Supreme Court arguments in his first day hearing cases as a justice, at one point even apologising for talking too much. Gorsuch, whose confirmation to the lifetime job restored the court s conservative majority, exhibited composure and confidence, sitting on the far right of the bench in the ornate courtroom, alongside Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The first of the three onehour arguments before the justices yesterday involved an employment dispute. Gorsuch grilled lawyer Christopher Landau, who represented a man claiming he was discriminated against by the US Census Bureau, over the fine points of a law governing civil service employees. The justices, with the exception of the usually silent Clarence Thomas, are known for their aggressive questioning, and Gorsuch showed no qualms about jumping right in. I apologise for taking up so much time, the black-robed Gorsuch said, sitting back in his high-backed chair and smiling. Chief Justice John Roberts welcomed Gorsuch to the court before oral arguments began. Justice Gorsuch, we wish you a long and happy career in our common calling, Roberts said. Gorsuch responded by thanking his new colleagues for their warm welcome. In total, Gorsuch stepped in three times during the first one-hour argument, on each occasion asking a string of questions about the complicated federal law at issue. As he indicated during his Senate confirmation hearing last month, his line of inquiry focused on the text of the statute, an approach also embraced by the man he replaced on the court, Antonin Scalia, and other conservative jurists. Citing a section of the Civil Service Reform Act, Gorsuch asked Landau where in the statute does it say federal district courts may hear cases involving both discrimination and civil service claims. Looking at the plain language of the statute, just help me with that, Gorsuch said. The court had its full complement of nine justices, five conservatives and four liberals, for arguments for the first time since Scalia s death in February The second case he heard involved a property dispute. One of the lawyers in the case, Neal Katyal, was a familiar face to Gorsuch, having heartily endorsed his nomination to the high court, even testifying at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. The third case, to be argued later in the day, involved a dispute over whether certain securities class-action lawsuits can be barred because they were filed too late. Gorsuch formally joined the Supreme Court on April 10 after being confirmed three days earlier by the Republican-led Senate over broad Democratic opposition. Gorsuch, at 49 the youngest new justice in a quarter century, served for a decade on the Denver-based 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals before Trump nominated him in January. Trump was able to fill Scalia s vacancy only because Senate Republicans last year refused to consider Democratic former president Barack Obama s nominee Merrick Garland. The second case involved whether a developer can intervene in a lawsuit brought by a property owner against the town of Chester, New York over its refusal to give him permission to build on his land. Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general in Obama s Justice Department, represented the town. Republicans backing Gorsuch s confirmation often cited liberal Katyal s endorsement as evidence that the judge enjoyed support across the political spectrum. Katyal, who regularly argues cases in the court, is also scheduled to argue before the justices on April 25 on behalf of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co in a case over out-of-state injury claims. United removes couple on way to get married New York An engaged couple were removed from a United Airlines flight to Costa Rica on Saturday, as the airline remained under scrutiny following outrage caused by a video last week of a passenger being forcibly removed from a flight. According to the couple, who said they were en route to get married, a federal marshal had escorted them from the plane before take-off from Houston, Texas, but United denied this on Sunday, saying in a statement that neither a marshal nor other authorities was involved. The couple repeatedly attempted to sit in upgraded seating which they did not purchase and they would not follow crew instructions to return to their assigned seats, United said in a statement, adding They were asked to leave the plane by our staff and complied. The statement from a United spokeswoman said the airline offered the couple a discounted hotel rate for the night, and rebooked them on a Sunday morning flight. But Michael Hohl and his fiancée, Amber Maxwell, told KHOU they tried to pay for upgraded seating and were denied, after finding another passenger sleeping across their seats when they were the last to board. After moving within the economy cabin a few rows up, flight crew denied their request to pay a supplement for the seats, which United sells as economy plus, and told them to move back to their original seats, Hohl said. We thought not a big deal, it s not like we are trying to jump up into a first-class seat, Hohl told KHOU. We were simply in an economy row a few rows above our economy seat. The airline suffered a public relations disaster after a video emerged a week ago showing security officers dragging a bloodied passenger off an overbooked United Express flight in Chicago. Shares in United s owner, United Continental Holdings Inc, were hammered, dropping 4% last week to close at $69 on Thursday, reducing the company s market cap by $770mn to $21.5bn Markets were closed on Friday. Dr David Dao, the 69-yearold Vietnamese-American doctor who was seen in video being dragged off a United flight a week ago, will likely sue the airline. Hunt for suspect in murder on FB The suspect reportedly said he had killed 13 people AFP Chicago US police widened a manhunt yesterday for a gunman who shot and killed an elderly man on Facebook Live in a seemingly random Easter Sunday attack, and then vowed to continue killing. Police in Cleveland, Ohio said they believe the suspect, 37-year-old Steve Stephens, is armed and dangerous, and have alerted authorities in four neighbouring states to be on the lookout for him. Robert Godwin Sr, 74, was shot and killed on Sunday, apparently picked out at random as he walked home after an Easter dinner, police and local media reported. We know that Steve is still out there someplace, said Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams. We don t know his condition and, of course, right now we don t know his location. We re asking the public to remain vigilant. Police issued an arrest warrant for aggravated homicide against Stephens, described as a 6-ft 1-in, 244-lb black man with a full beard who was last seen in a white Ford Fusion with temporary license plates. In a video uploaded to Stephens s Facebook page, a man resembling him is seen exiting a vehicle and approaching his victim, who is shown with a gun to his head and then falling to the ground after a shot is fired. I killed 13, so I m working on 14 as we speak, the suspect says in a second video clip. The videos were subsequently taken down by Facebook. Washington The US Supreme Court sidestepped a turbulent debate over illegal immigration yesterday, turning away an appeal by a group of asylum-seeking Central American women and their children who aimed to clarify the constitutional rights of people who the government has prioritised for deportation. The families, 28 women and 33 children ages 2 to 17 from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, had hoped the justices would overturn a lower court s ruling preventing them from having their expedited removal orders reviewed by a federal judge. That Philadelphia-based court said the status of the families, all apprehended in Texas Steve Stephens. Police said Stephens broadcast the killing on Facebook Live but said they have not verified his claim to have committed other murders. Stephens mother told CNN she called him on Sunday after learning about the video and he told her he was shooting people because he was mad with his girlfriend. Police said the woman he alluded to was in a safe place. Cleveland detectives also made contact with Stephens by phone early in the investigation, Williams said. and later held in Pennsylvania, was akin to non-citizens who are denied entry at the border and they were not entitled to a court hearing to challenge that decision. Immigration has become an even hotter topic than usual in the United States since President Donald Trump took office in January. His administration has ordered construction of a border wall with Mexico intended to curb illegal immigration, and plans to expand the number of people targeted for expedited removal, a process that applies to non-citizens lacking valid entry documents. The families have said they were escaping threats, violence and police authorities unable or unwilling to help in their home countries. Lead plaintiff Rosa Castro fled El Salvador to escape years of rape, beatings and emotional abuse by the father of her son, who was 6 years old when they arrived in the United States in 2015, according to court papers. Lesly Cruz, who also arrived in 2015, fled Honduras to protect her daughter from sexual assault by members of the Mara Salvatrucha armed gang, the court papers said. The families were apprehended in Texas within hours of illegally crossing the US-Mexican border. After claiming asylum, they were determined by immigration judges to lack credible fear of persecution, and placed in expedited removal proceedings. The families were detained at Berks County Residential Center in Leesport, Pennsylvania, where 12 women and their children remain. The others have been released They tried to, of course, convince him to turn himself in and, of course, that hasn t happened to date so again, we re asking the public s help in finding this guy.we know he s out there someplace, he said. The last ping from Stephens s cellphone was from Eerie, Pennsylvania, about 160km east of Cleveland. Cleveland police have asked the states of Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana and Michigan to be on alert. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Marshals Service have joined the hunt. This man is dangerous and he could be nearby, he could be far away, anywhere in between, said Stephen Anthony, the FBI special agent in charge. We re going to make this individual s world very, very, very small, so I m very optimistic, said Peter Elliot, the marshal on the case. I think things are going to happen, and I believe things are going to happen pretty quickly. But Williams said police had searched dozens of locations overnight to no avail. If there s somebody who is helping Steve or think you re helping Steve, you re really not. You re going to get yourself in trouble, along with him, he warned. Stephens worked for Beech Brook, a behavioural health agency serving children through mental health services, foster care and adoption, at-risk youth and other programmes. In his video, Stephens displayed his Beech Brook badge. We are shocked and horrified like everyone else, Nancy Kortemeyer, a spokeswoman for the facility told CNN. To think that one of our employees could do this is awful. Court leaves intact ruling on asylum seekers under orders of supervision, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing them. The women challenged in federal court the rejection of their asylum claims, alleging a violation of their right to due process under the US Constitution. In August, the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia said they may be treated the same way as non-citizens seeking initial admission to the United States, who do not have any constitutional rights of review if denied entry. The women appealed to the Supreme Court. There has been a 93% drop since December of parents and children caught trying to cross the Mexican border illegally into the United States, which US officials attribute to the Trump administration s tough policies.

14 14 ASEAN Indonesia hardliners plan to guard poll stations thwarted Vietnamese cops held hostage in land dispute Jakarta DPA Hanoi Indonesian police yesterday blocked plans by hardline Islamist groups to guard polling booths during tomorrow s vote for Jakarta governor, citing the potential for clashes in an election that has stoked religious tensions. A coalition of hardline Islamic groups said late last week it would deploy at least 100 monitors at each polling station in the Indonesian capital city of 10mn people. Any mobilisation of masses that is aimed at physical or psychological intimidation, especially at polling stations, is prohibited, the city police said in a joint statement with the elections commission. Around 66,000 police and military personnel will be deployed on voting day, police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar said. We are increasing our presence at polling stations as well, so please trust that the state apparatus will remain neutral and safeguard the election, he added. Surveys have shown the race tightening to a statistical dead heat, with incumbent Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, an ethnic Chinese Christian, closing in on rival Anies Baswedan, a former education minister. Jakarta has towering influence on national politics as both the capital and financial centre, contributing nearly 15% of Indonesia s gross domestic product. The greater Jakarta population of around 25mn people makes it one of the world s biggest mega-cities. Purnama is standing trial on blasphemy charges stemming from the divisive campaign that also featured mass rallies led by Islamist hardliners and alleged plots to overthrow President Joko Widodo, who is popularly known as Jokowi. The charges stem from an edited video circulated last September suggesting Purnama had mocked a verse in the Qur an used by his opponents to argue that Muslims should not vote for a person holding different religious beliefs. It brought hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the streets in several mass demonstrations before Purnama Members of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) shout slogans during a protest against Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama in Jakarta. was put on trial for blasphemy. He faces up to four years in prison and possible disqualification if he does win the election. Prosecutors are expected to recommend a sentence at a hearing the day after the election. A verdict is due next month. Hardline Islamist groups have established a stronger foothold in recent years. Purnama, Jakarta s first ethnic Chinese and Christian leader, took over the Jakarta governorship from Widodo after he became president in the 2014 general election. His rival, Baswedan, has appeared publicly twice with the leadership of one of the main organisers of the anti-purnama protests, the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI). We believe that because Jakarta and Indonesia is majority-muslim, it should be led by a Muslim, said Novel Bamukmin, head of the Jakarta chapter of the FPI. While our ultimate call is for full Shariah, our hope is that the winner will at least introduce policies that are aligned with Islam. Baswedan s running mate, Sandiaga Uno, denies the pair intends to implement Shariah law in Jakarta and said their appearances at the FPI rallies were a way to start a dialogue. But they do encourage a more conservative culture for the city with religious entertainment venues that are Shariah-compliant, Uno said. That would be the type of policy that I want to attract investors to put money into, to create tourist destinations for Shariah-compliant or religious-related tourism, he said. Vietnamese villagers have been holding at least a dozen police officers hostage on Hanoi s outskirts since Saturday, state-controlled media and witnesses reported yesterday. A land dispute between locals and a military-owned developer in Hanoi s rural My Duc district escalated violently on Saturday after police detained four people for disrupting public order, the VN Express news website reported. There was a backlash from other residents shortly after, leading to the detentions. In videos published on social media Saturday, at least a dozen police officers could be seen being held captive. A spokesman of the Hanoi People s Committee declined to comment, but a witness at the scene who asked not to be named told DPA in Hanoi that 32 officials, including many riot policemen, were still being held prisoner yesterday morning, as police surrounded the neighbourhood. Villagers don t work with local authorities because they don t trust them, the witness said. They want the central government to come to resolve the case. In a statement issued late Sunday, the Hanoi city government called for the hostage-takers to surrender immediately. All unlawful actions must be stopped, the statement added. Disputes over land are common in Vietnam, where the ruling single party communist state considers all land the property of the state. While people may pay for usage rights, activists complain that the government favours wealthy developers over smallscale farmers. Revolution plaque s removal raises concerns in Thailand New Year fare! Bangkok Opponents of Thailand s military government yesterday expressed fears for the future of democracy after the mysterious removal of a plaque marking a 1932 revolution that ended absolute monarchy. No group has claimed responsibility, but the disappearance of the hubcap-sized brass symbol has stirred anger in Thailand, where elections are promised but power is firmly in the hands of the ruling generals and King Maha Vajiralongkorn. The junta said it had no idea who had removed the plaque, which had been embedded in concrete at a square in Bangkok s leafy historic quarter. It is close to parliament, to a royal throne hall and to an army barracks. The area is also surveyed by several police posts. The plaque went missing on Friday, police said, and was replaced by one celebrating the monarchy. Why should we take responsibility? If that is the case should we take responsibility for everything that disappears in this country? Veerachon Sukhonthapatipark, a deputy government spokesman, told. Police said they were investigating. The removal of the plaque comes nearly three years after the army overthrew an elected government in the name of ending violent political turmoil it blamed on civilian politicians in the Southeast Asian country. Although the junta has promised elections now expected by the end of next year critics say a new constitution is designed to ensure the military s influence over civilian politics for years to come. The plaque was a symbol of equality in Thailand, Thanawut Wichaidit, spokesman for the opposition United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship group, told. Past governments never thought about taking the plaque out but this government, with its extraordinary powers that are above the law, has allowed this to happen which begs the question of when and whether Thailand will truly return to democracy. A Change.org petition demanding an investigation into the missing plaque had attracted more than 2,400 signatures. The plaque marked a spot where a crucial stage in the events of 1932 unfolded. The coup was staged by Western-influenced young civilian bureaucrats and army officers to end absolute monarchy and establish a parliamentary system. Over subsequent decades, the army gained a central role and Thailand has experienced a repeated cycle of elections, coups and protests. The new constitution is the 20th since then. Though a constitutional monarchy, the Thai crown is a powerful political force and late King Bhumibol Adulyadej sometimes intervened during times of crisis. His son, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who ascended the throne last year, has shown himself increasingly assertive requesting changes to the new constitution that underlined his powers before signing it into law this month. Rights groups say freedom of expression has sunk to new lows under royalist Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. Several government critics have been jailed under strict laws against insulting the monarchy that carry a sentence of up to 15 years for each offence. At least 74 people have been charged with lese majeste crimes since the military took power in 2014 according to ilaw, a Bangkok-based legal monitoring group. Half of them have been jailed. For more than a decade, Thailand has seen colour-coded protests mostly by conservative, royalist yellow shirts and their opponents, the red-shirted supporters of new populist political forces. They see attempts by the military-led establishment to exert control over politics as a threat to Thailand s democracy, that can trace its roots back to Not everyone was unhappy with the removal of the plaque. It was a reminder for Thailand to follow Western democracy...which might not be suited to Thailand anyway, Nathadej Meksawat, a retired Thai army officer and political observer, wrote on his Facebook page. For Sunai Phasuk, Thailand researcher for US-based group Human Rights Watch, the removal of the plaque and the start of a fourth year under military rule marked a bleak chapter. The reaction to the disappearance of the plaque is very telling of the challenges and the tension between supporters of a return to pre-1932 Thailand and, on the other hand people who strive for democracy, said Sunai. Boats ferry Buddhists to and from the Kyauktan Ye Le Pagoda, a Buddhist temple built in the middle of a river in Yangon State in Myanmar yesterday as Buddhists celebrated New Year. Malaysia s Anwar seeks to overturn his conviction DPA Kuala Lumpur Malaysia s jailed former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim yesterday mounted a fresh legal bid to overturn his 2014 sodomy conviction, saying it was obtained by fraud. Anwar is serving a five-year sentence for sodomising his former aide, Mohamed Saiful. Anwar s lawyer N Surendran said yesterday that his client s conviction was obtained through perjured testimony and evidence. Surendran said the prosecution s main witness the aide gave false information during the trial, but the defence lawyer did not specify what information he was referring to. Surendran said the conviction should be null and void and he requested that Anwar be freed from prison immediately. In December, Malaysia s federal court dismissed the former opposition leader s application for a review and rejected the final appeal of his sodomy conviction on grounds of injustice. In June 2008, Saiful filed a police report claiming Anwar had violated him. Anwar denied the charges and provided medical reports that he said proved his innocence. The high court found him not guilty in June Two years later the court of appeal changed the decision and in March 2014 Anwar was sentenced to five years in jail. In February 2015, the federal court upheld the five-year prison sentence. Critics say the conviction was politically motivated. If his conviction is overturned, the 70-year-old Anwar is expected to contest the country s next general election, which is due to be held sometime before August 2018.

15 AUSTRALASIA/EAST ASIA 15 STRANDED SCANDAL CALAMITY THEFT PROBE S. Korea s Lotte chairman charged for corruption 5.7-magnitude earthquake hits island off Vanuatu Baby crocodile returned to zoo in Australia China says graft suspect on run in Canada gives self up Travellers wait at Pyongyang airport yesterday. Tourists and foreign journalists, who attended the huge military parade on April 15 during which North Korea showcased apparent intercontinental ballistic missiles, were left waiting at Pyongyang airport as flights were delayed. South Korean prosecutors yesterday charged the chairman of retail giant Lotte in connection with the corruption scandal that brought down former president Park Geun-hye. Shin Dong-bin is accused of using more than $6mn to bribe Park and her secret confidante Choi Soon-sil, the prosecutors said. Shin, 62, allegedly offered 7bn won ($6.15mn) to a sports foundation linked to Choi in exchange for a policy favour from Park over Lotte s duty-free business. Choi is on trial for coercion and abuse of power. She allegedly used her presidential ties to force local firms to donate nearly $70mn to non-profit foundations which she allegedly used for personal gain. A 5.7-magnitude earthquake hit northwest of the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu yesterday, the US Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage. The quake, which struck at a depth of 20km and about 250km northwest of Vanuatu s Santo island, was first reported as a 6.0 magnitude before being downgraded by the USGS. No tsunami warning was issued. Vanuatu is part of the Ring of Fire, a zone of tectonic activity around the Pacific frequently subject to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Last year the island nation was rocked by a series of quakes, including some that prompted tsunami warnings. A young freshwater crocodile found sunbathing on a riverbank in suburban Sydney by a family on their Sunday stroll has been returned to the zoo from where it was stolen. The weary-looking crocodile, measuring 80cm in length, was a surprising discovering on the banks of a river southwest of Sydney for local resident Aaron Hughes while out enjoying a walk with his family Easter Sunday. The baby reptile put up little resistance, Hughes said, when he grabbed it from behind the neck and carried it home. (I) didn t need to sit on it or anything like that, just picked it up and walked it up to the house, Hughes told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. A man on China s list of 100 most wanted corruption suspects abroad has given himself up and returned to China after almost a decade on the run in Canada, China s graft-busting watchdog said. In 2015, authorities published a list of 100 of the most wanted corruption suspects who had been targeted with an Interpol red notice, many living in the United States, Canada and Australia. In a brief notice, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said that Li Shiqiao had been persuaded to return and surrender. Li, who had been a manager at a real estate company in the city of Ningbo, fled to Canada in April 2009 and is suspected of corruption, the watchdog said. Pyongyang should not test Trump s resolve: VP Pence Seoul US Vice President Mike Pence put North Korea on notice yesterday saying neither the United States nor South Korea would tolerate further missile and nuclear tests, with US attacks in Syria and Afghanistan showing its resolve. Pence and South Korean acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn, speaking a day after a failed missile test by the North and two days after a huge display of missiles in Pyongyang, also said they would strengthen anti-north Korea defences by moving ahead with the early deployment of the THAAD missile defence system. Pence is on the first stop of a four-nation Asia tour intended to show America s allies, and remind its adversaries, that the administration of President Donald Trump was not turning its back on the increasingly volatile region. In a joint appearance, Pence said North Korea should mind the actions and intent of the president. Just in the past two weeks, the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and 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. The US Navy this month struck a Syrian airfield with 59 Tomahawk missiles. On Thursday, the US military said it had dropped the mother of all bombs, the largest non-nuclear device it has ever unleashed in combat, on a network of caves and tunnels used by Islamic State in eastern Afghanistan. North Korea s KCNA news agency yesterday carried a letter from leader Kim Jong-un to Syrian President Bashar al-assad marking the 70th anniversary of Syria s independence. I express again a strong support and alliance to the Syrian government and its people for its work of justice, condemning the United States recent violent invasive act against your country, Kim said. On a visit to the border between North and South Korea earlier in the day, Pence reiterated that the US era of strategic patience with Pyongyang was over. Pence, whose father served in the Korean War, said the United States would stand by its iron-clad alliance with South Korea and was seeking peace through strength. All options are on the table to achieve the objectives and ensure the stability of the people of this country, Korea situation highly dangerous, says China The situation on the Korean peninsula was already highly sensitive and dangerous, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a regular press briefing yesterday. We always assert that all parties should avoid taking any mutually provocative moves and making the situation worse, he told reporters. All parties should devote themselves to ameliorating the currently tense situation thus creating the necessary conditions to bring all parties back to negotiations and properly solving the (Korean) peninsula issue in a peaceful way. Asked if tensions had risen recently between China and North Korea, Lu said the two countries were friendly states who continue regular contacts with each other. he told reporters as tinny propaganda music floated across from the North Korean side of the socalled demilitarised zone (DMZ). There was a period of strategic patience but the era of strategic patience is over. The United States, its allies and China are working together on a range of responses to North Korea s latest failed ballistic missile test, Trump s national security adviser said on Sunday, citing what he called an international consensus to act. China has spoken out against the North s weapons tests and has supported UN sanctions. It has repeatedly called for talks while appearing increasingly frustrated with the North. But Pence and Hwang said they were troubled by retaliatory economic moves by China against the deployment in South Korea of a US anti-missile system known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD). South Korea, which accuses China or discriminating against some South Korean companies working in China, and the United States say the sole purpose of THAAD is to guard against North Korean missiles. China says its powerful radar can penetrate its territory and undermine its security and spoke out against it again yesterday. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing the situation on the Korean peninsula was highly sensitive, complicated and high risk. All sides should avoid taking provocative actions that pour oil US Vice President Mike Pence (centre) visits the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) on the border between North and South Korea yesterday. on the fire, he said. Trump s national security adviser, H R Mc- Master, indicated on Sunday that Trump was not considering military action against North Korea for now, even as a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier strike group was heading for the region. It s time for us to undertake all actions we can, short of a military option, to try to resolve this peacefully, he said on ABC s This Week programme. We are working together with our allies and partners and with the Chinese leadership to develop a range of options. The Trump administration is focusing its strategy on tougher economic sanctions, possibly including an oil embargo, a global ban on its airline, intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang, reported last week, citing US officials. While Trump has employed tough rhetoric in response to North Korea s recent missile tests, the president s options appear limited in dealing with a challenge that has vexed his Oval Office predecessors. Most options fall into four categories: economic sanctions, covert action, diplomatic negotiations and military force. Pence landed in South Korea hours after the North s failed missile launch. His visit came a day after North Korea held a military parade in its capital, Pyongyang, marking the 105th anniversary of the birth of founding father Kim Il-sung. What appeared to be new long-range ballistic missiles were on display in the parade. Tensions have risen as Trump takes a hard rhetorical line with Kim Jong-un, who has rebuffed admonitions from China and proceeded with nuclear and missile programmes seen by Washington as a direct threat. Trump acknowledged on Sunday that the softer line he had taken on China s management of its currency was linked to its help on North Korea. Pence said Trump was hopeful China will take actions needed to bring about change in policy in North Korea. But as the president has made very clear, either China will deal with this problem or the United States and our allies will, he said. China says the crisis is between the United States and North Korea. Lu said China efforts to help achieve denuclearisation were clear, adding: China is not the initiator of the Korean peninsula nuclear issue. China banned imports of North Korean coal on February 26, cutting off its most important export and Chinese media has raised the possibility of restricting oil shipments to the North if it unleashed more provocations. Pyongyang has conducted several missile and nuclear tests in defiance of UN sanctions, and has said it has developed and would launch a missile that can strike the US mainland. US officials and experts believe it is some time away from mastering the necessary technology, including miniaturising a nuclear warhead. Japan volcanic island may hold key to coral survival AFP Tokyo South Korea s Park indicted for bribery The key to the survival of the world s threatened coral reefs may lie in the waters surrounding a small volcanic island off the coast of Japan, scientists say. The seabed of Shikine island is a living laboratory for researchers aboard the schooner Tara, a French-led scientific expedition, who are looking for clues to help protect coral from the damaging effects of climate change. While coral reefs cover less than 0.2% of the ocean surface globally, they host some 30% of marine animal and plant species, serving as a source of food and offering protection from predators. Losing these reefs would be horrifying, said Sylvain Agostini, an expedition co-ordinator and professor at Japan s University of Tsukuba. Shikine s unique conditions created by underwater volcanoes that flood some of its coves with CO2 and make it less alkaline mimic what scientists say will be the impact of unchecked carbon emissions on the world s oceans by The build-up of CO2 due to greenhouse gas emissions or underwater volcanic activity raises the temperature and transforms the chemistry of ocean waters, in a process known as acidification. Researchers say the waters in parts of Shikine, located 160km south of Tokyo, offer a glimpse of how marine life including corals can fare in less alkaline water. Japan s corals, the northernmost in the world, could offer important data to bolster knowledge about marine life, as Australia s Great Barrier Reef faces a threat to its survival. The 120-tonne French schooner Tara anchored off Shikinejima island, 150km south of central Tokyo. Left: A scientist trying to collect microbes from the sea beside the 120-tonne French schooner Tara at anchor off Shikinejima island, 150km south of central Tokyo. Last week, scientists said the famous reef was at serious risk from bleaching a process in which stressed corals expel the algae that live in their tissue and provide them with food due to warming sea temperatures. They warned that coral bleached for two consecutive years at the World Heritage-listed site had zero prospect of recovery after researchers detected another round of mass bleaching after an earlier event in I ve been studying corals for 20 years and what I m seeing is a large-scale decline, Maggy Nugues, a senior lecturer at the prestigious French research institute Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, told AFP aboard the ship, which departed France in May There is a 50% to 80% reduction in coral cover in the Caribbean and the Pacific this is very troubling. Half a dozen researchers on the vessel want to see how an underwater ecosystem, including corals, plankton, seaweed and fish, fares in Shikine s seemingly inhospitable environment. Early comparisons with another bay on Shikine that boasts vastly different conditions suggest corals do much better in more alkaline water. We re hoping that these higher latitude zones can serve as a refuge, Agostini said. But the question remains about the acidification of the oceans and it s here, in Shikine, in these natural laboratories that we hope to find the answer, he added. Built in 1989, the 36m (120ft) long ship has gained fame for previous scientific expeditions, including a 500-day trip in the Arctic, and in 2001 when its former owner, New Zealand skipper Peter Blake, was shot dead on board by pirates in the Amazon. The current two-year expedition will head to Australia and New Zealand before hitting Indonesia and the Philippines. Nugues warned that the speed of climate change, fuelled by human activity, was making it tough for animals to adapt. The planet has evolved under relatively stable conditions, letting organisms and animals adapt, she said. But here we re speeding things up, maybe faster than nature s clock. AFP Seoul Ousted South Korean president Park Geun-hye was yesterday charged with bribery involving millions of dollars over the massive corruption and influence-peddling scandal that brought her down. Park, whose impeachment was confirmed by Seoul s top court last month, is at the centre of a sprawling graft investigation, which has also implicated top businessmen and brought millions of people onto the streets. The former leader, already detained at a centre near Seoul, also faces charges of abusing her powers and leaking state secrets, Seoul prosecutors probing the scandal said in a statement. We have formally charged Park... with multiple offences including abuse of power, coercion, bribery and leaking state secrets, they said after wrapping up the months-long investigation. Park is accused of colluding with her confidante at the heart of the scandal, Choi Soon-sil, who is already on trial for coercing local conglomerates into donating a total of 77.4bn won ($68mn) to two non-profit foundations. Choi allegedly used some of the donations for personal gain. Park is also accused of offering policy favours to top businessmen who enriched Choi, including Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong who was arrested earlier and is also on trial for bribery. Prosecutors yesterday also charged Shin Dong-bin, the chairman of the retail giant Lotte Group, with bribing Choi and Park. Shin allegedly offered 7bn won ($6.15mn) to a sports foundation linked with Choi in exchange for a policy favour from Park over Lotte s duty-free business. Park, 65-year-old daughter of the late former dictator Park Chunghee, spent nearly two decades living in Seoul s sprawling presidential palace, before the allegations of corruption engulfed her presidency late last year. The scandal sent her once-bulletproof approval ratings to record lows with millions taking to the streets for months calling for her ouster, though she also had a loyal following from groups of mainly older rival protesters. Her father is widely revered by aged, conservative South Koreans who benefited from the rapid economic growth under his iron-fisted rule from 1961 to Parliament impeached Park last December and she lost her executive privilege including protection from criminal indictment last month when the Constitutional Court confirmed her impeachment, sending her into detention. The scandal also shed light on her questionable, decades-long ties to Choi and Choi s father, a shady religious figure who wielded huge influence on Park from the 1970s until his death in Park is accused of leaking state secrets to Choi, a high school graduate with no title or security clearance, and letting her handle a wide range of state affairs including senior nomination. A number of former presidential aides are on trial for leaking confidential state documents to Choi or helping her handle state affairs allegedly on Park s order.

16 16 BRITAIN CRIME Suspected acid attack in London club injures 12 INVESTIGATION LAW AND ORDER SCHEME ANGER Man held on suspicion of murdering 18-year-old Prison drone flyers to be tracked down Work starts on prefab homeless housing Pub owners slam online foie gras mob attacks Twelve people were injured when a corrosive substance was sprayed inside a packed London nightclub, police and fire services said, amid a sharp rise in acid attacks in the capital. Two of the victims, both men in their twenties, are in a serious but stable condition and 10 others suffered minor injuries, police said in a statement. A London Fire Brigade spokesman said an unknown corrosive substance was thrown in Mangle, a club in east London, in the early hours of yesterday. It was identified as an acidic substance from testing, he said, adding that there were around 600 people in the club at the time. A man has been arrested on suspicion of murdering an 18-year-old who was stabbed to death in Nottingham. Matthew Rothery, whose identity was confirmed by Nottinghamshire police on Sunday, was found stabbed at a property on Woodborough Road in the city s Mapperley Park area just before 1am on Friday. He was treated at the scene and taken to Nottingham s Queen s medical centre, but died shortly after. A 20-year-old man was arrested on Sunday night and taken into custody. Police told the Press Association they believed the attack was an isolated incident and the victim and his killer knew each other. The Prison Service and police are to pool intelligence to stop drones flying drugs and mobile phones to prison inmates in England and Wales. They will forensically examine captured drones to try to find out who was flying them. The invention of easy-to-fly, remote-controlled aircraft has caused a huge security headache for prisons. The national initiative will see police and prison officers share information about the quadcopters and methods used. Prisons Minister Sam Gyimah said: The threat posed by drones is clear but our staff are committed to winning the fight against those who are attempting to thwart progress by wreaking havoc in establishments all over the country. Work is to begin on a temporary housing scheme for homeless families in Reading. The 28 prefabricated homes will provide emergency housing for people who would otherwise be forced to stay in bed and breakfast accommodation. Reading Borough Council said it had about 120 families staying in guest houses at the end of Work begins in Lowfield Road today with the first residents due to arrive in the autumn. The development, on the site of a former mobile home park, will consist of seven timber-clad blocks of four units, two storeys high, a children s play area, car parking and bike sheds. Owners of a pub have attacked activists who they claim were behind online mob attacks and abusive phone calls over their decision to sell foie gras. David and Samantha McHattie, who run The Bridge Inn in Derbyshire, said they have been bombarded with fake reviews and hateful messages. They said they will continue to serve the dish, produced from livers of ducks or geese which are often forcefed. They said they have also been targeted online. The McHatties said they were forced to remove their Facebook page after it was filled with hundreds of negative reviews from users who, they claim, had never visited the pub. Toddler mistaken for terrorist after visa form error Guardian News and Media London A three-month-old baby was summoned to the US embassy in London for an interview after his grandfather mistakenly identified him as a terrorist. Harvey Kenyon-Cairns had been due to fly to Orlando in Florida for his first overseas holiday, until his grandfather Paul Kenyon made the error on a visa waiver form. On the part of the Esta form which reads Do you seek to engage in or have you ever engaged in terrorist activities, espionage, sabotage, or genocide? Kenyon ticked yes instead of no. He only learned of his error when his grandson s travel was refused. I couldn t believe that they couldn t see it was a genuine mistake and that a three-monthold baby would be no harm to anyone, said the 62-year-old. The baby was taken from his home in Poynton, Cheshire, to the embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, to be questioned by officials. The round trip took about 10 hours, longer than the nineand-a-half-hour flight time from Manchester to Orlando. Baby Harvey was good as gold for the interview and never cried once. I thought about taking him along in an orange jumpsuit, but thought better of it, said Kenyon. They didn t appear to have a sense of humour over it at all and couldn t see the funny side. He s obviously never engaged in genocide, or espionage, but he has sabotaged quite a few nappies in his time, though I didn t tell them that at the US embassy. The mess-up cost Kenyon an extra 3,000, as the new visa didn t arrive in time for the family s flights. He flew out to his holiday villa with his wife, Cathy, 57, and his granddaughter Ava on the scheduled date, but Harvey and his parents, Faye Kenyon- Cairns, 27, and her partner John Cairns, 31, had to fly out separately a few days later. London Fog installation People interact with the installation London Fog (2017) by Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya at the Tate Modern in London yesterday. Govt tries to block Iraq war case against Blair Guardian News and Media London The government s top law officer is going to court to demand the rejection of an attempt to prosecute Tony Blair over the Iraq war, the Guardian has learned. The planned intervention by the attorney general comes after a judge ruled the former Labour prime minister had immunity from the attempt to bring a criminal charge against him and that pursuing a prosecution could involve details being disclosed under the Official Secrets Act. The private prosecution relates to the 2003 Iraq war and seeks the trial in a British court of then prime minister Tony Blair, the foreign secretary Jack Straw, and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general at the time. It seeks their conviction for the crime of aggression and is based on the damning findings of last year s Chilcot report into the British decision to join the invasion of Iraq, under the false pretext that the Saddam Hussein regime had weapons of mass destruction. Legal documents seen by the Guardian show the attorney general, Jeremy Wright QC, who is the Tory MP for Kenilworth and Southam, has formally asked to join future hearings and for the attempt to prosecute Blair and his top aides to be rejected. In November 2016, a court ruled the prosecution could not go ahead. But lawyers behind the private prosecution are seeking a fresh hearing to challenge that refusal and access to legal aid funding. The attorney general s intervention is supported by the three Labour former senior ministers. The attorney general claims the case is hopeless, in part because the crime of aggression does not exist in English law, even though it does exist in international law. But that argument appears to be undermined in a document written by Goldsmith himself. In his 2003 memo on the legality of the Iraq war, Goldsmith, then attorney general, appeared to concede the key point of those now seeking his prosecution. Aggression is a crime under customary international law which automatically forms part of domestic law, he wrote. After the Chilcot report publication, some families of British service personnel who died in the war called for Blair to face criminal charges. The latest attempt at a private prosecution comes in the name of Gen Abdul-Wahid Shannan ar-ribat, former chief of staff of the Iraqi army and now living in exile, according to legal papers. An application was made to Westminster magistrates court late last year for a summons to be issued against Blair but it was refused. The district judge, Michael Snow, said: Implied immunity as former head of state and government ministers, therefore offence not made out Allegations involve potential details being disclosed under the Official Secrets Act for which attorney general and director of public prosecutions consent are required. The lawyers behind the private prosecution attempt include Michael Mansfield QC and Imran Khan, who both battled for decades for justice on behalf of the family of Stephen Lawrence. In their pleadings, the lawyers say: If ever there was a case which required the actions of public officials to account for their alleged criminality, we cannot conceive of any better one than this. There is no doubt that there is significant public interest in these present proceedings and there should have been the concomitant application of the law to all decisions relating to it by the district judge. It would appear that there was not. They claim the judge was wrong to say because Blair was prime minister he and the former senior ministers cannot face prosecution: It should be noted that, in any event, Blair et al do not enjoy immunity from prosecution in the UK whether implied or not. The lawyers add: There are overwhelming grounds to challenge the decision of district judge Snow in refusing to issue the summons and it is highly likely that the administrative court will quash the decision We would assess a greater than 80% chance of success as district judge Snow has made glaring errors of law. A spokesperson for Wright said: It s not unusual for the attorney general to intervene in cases in order to represent the public interest. He has sought to intervene in this case because it raises important issues about the scope of the criminal law. No decision on location of EU bodies post-brexit London The future location of the two European Union agencies based in London will be a matter for Brexit negotiations, the government s Brexit department said yesterday, but EU officials said there was no doubt they would be moved. London is home to both the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Banking Authority (EBA), and last month the EU s draft plan for negotiations said arrangements should be made to transfer them to a state staying in the EU. EU officials said European Council president Donald Tusk, who chairs summits of the 27 other EU leaders who will decide where to put the agencies, aimed to set out some procedures for making the choices by the time they meet next on April 29. A spokeswoman for the British Brexit department said in a statement: No decisions have been taken about the location of the European Banking Authority or the European Medicines Agency, these will be subject to the exit negotiations. As part of these negotiations the government will discuss with the EU and member states how best to continue cooperation in the fields of banking and medicines regulation in the best interests of both the UK and the EU. It would not be appropriate to prejudge the outcome of the negotiations. Yet EU officials say there is no question of Britain keeping the EMA and EBA, whatever ties it may keep with the agencies; only member states could accommodate them, one said, adding: The agencies are lost. You cannot have your cake and eat it. In draft negotiating guidelines, issued on March 31 and broadly endorsed by the other 27 national governments last week, Tusk made clear Britain has no say: The future location of the seats of EU agencies and facilities located in the United Kingdom is a matter for the 27 member states. He added: Arrangements should be found to facilitate their transfer. To that end, an EU official said yesterday, Tusk would propose procedures and criteria for making the decision on location this month. Leaders of the 27 meet in Brussels a week on Saturday to finalise their opening negotiating positions. Securing the headquarters of EU agencies is a traditional blood sport at summits, where fierce national arguments have been the rule before decisions are taken. Most of the 27 have expressed an interest in hosting both the EMA and EBA. EU officials doubt final decisions can be made in the coming months but say leaders do want to ease uncertainty for existing staff and allow time for recruitment and new infrastructure in other cities before Britain leaves the Union in March Time out A man flies his kite from Salisbury Crags, in Holyrood Park at dusk, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Archbishops tombs found under church Guardian News and Media London The remains of five archbishops of Canterbury have been found beneath a medieval church next to the current archbishop s official London residence, it has been revealed. The discovery at the deconsecrated church of St Mary-at- Lambeth was made during the refurbishment of Lambeth Palace s Garden Museum last year, and has been kept secret for months while work was finished. The redevelopment team, led by site managers Karl Patten and Craig Dick of building contractors Rooff, accidentally came across the dark entrance to the tomb when they began stripping back the flagstones from the church. After uncovering a set of stairs under a slab, they fashioned a long torch out of a mobile phone attached to a stick and were able to have the first glimpse of what lay beneath: a hidden crypt that contained 30 lead coffins. Patten told the BBC: We discovered numerous coffins and one of them had a gold crown on top of it. Archbishops were often buried with gold-painted mitres ceremonial headpieces placed on their coffins. While the identity of some of the remains are a mystery, three of the coffins have nameplates. These belong to Richard Bancroft (the archbishop from 1604 to 1610, John Moore (archbishop from ) and his wife, Catherine Moore. Frederick Cornwallis (in office ), Matthew Hutton ( ) and Thomas Tenison ( ) have also been identified as being laid to rest at the church, alongside John Bettesworth, the dean of the arches (an ecclesiastical judge) between 1710 and Considering Lambeth Palace has been the residence of the archbishop of Canterbury, the Church of England s most senior cleric, for nearly 800 years, it is little surprise the remains date back as far as the 17th century. Burials were known to have taken place in the churchyard, but it had been assumed that the vaults under the church had since been filled with earth.

17 BRITAIN 17 Care homes found charging for rooms after residents die Guardian News and Media London Care homes across the country could face sanctions after an investigation into the industry found that residents families are being charged for extended periods after their elderly relatives die. The Competition and Markets Authority, the state watchdog, has received complaints about relatives paying for rooms after the death of a resident as part of its inquiry into the care home sector. The watchdog has also received complaints about a lack of transparency around fees, difficulties moving homes after a fee increase, and self-funders paying more than state-funded residents for the same services. In response care homes have defended their contracts and claimed that local authorities are not paying enough toward the cost of care. Many care homes charge the relatives of a deceased resident for a week so there is time to clear their belongings, but the CMA was told in submissions that families were being charged fees for extended periods after their relative s room had been cleared. Some families were also forced to cover a shortfall in state funding for the room, which stops as soon as the resident dies. Care homes charge hundreds of pounds a week for a room, meaning families are left with bills running into thousands of pounds after their relative has died. The CMA launched its investigation into care homes before Christmas. It is conducting a study into how the market works, but also whether there are grounds for consumer enforcement action. It has the power to make recommendations to government and the industry about changes that need to be made and can also threaten businesses with legal action if they are deemed to have breached consumer laws or engaged in unfair commercial practices. The organisation s investigation has received dozens of submissions from the families of care home residents, care home operators, local authorities and charities. One submission from the wife of a resident said: The emotion in moving a close relative from home to a care home is complex guilt, feelings of failure, tragedy at the loss of the person you once knew and their transition into a person who can no longer understand anything or help themselves. People are very much at the mercy of availability, location and affordability. The demands on relatives are substantial. They have not got rid of their responsibilities, but developed other, different ones. I firmly believe that this dishonesty in charging must be dealt with. Poorer kids half as likely to get into best schools: study Coal Carrying Championships Guardian News and Media London Children from poor families are only half as likely to get places in outstanding schools compared with their wealthier peers, according to new research published on the eve of national primary school offer day in England. As 600,000 families in England wait to see if their children have gained a place at a school of their choice, the charity Teach- First says those from disadvantaged families have fewer opportunities of being admitted to the top tier of state schools. Only 15% of children from the poorest 30% of families currently attend a primary school rated as outstanding by Ofsted inspectors, compared with 27% of children from the richest 30% of families. Eleven percent of children from the poorest families attend a primary school rated as inadequate or requiring improvement, Ofsted s two lowest tiers, compared with 6% of children from the richest households. These figures show that social mobility remains a serious issue in our country, said Brett Wigdortz, the chief executive of TeachFirst. We know that all families care about giving their children the best possible start in life but, as outstanding schools are unfairly concentrated in richer communities, poorer families are finding themselves priced out. The researchers found that the difference in access worsened at secondary school level, where 24% of the poorest children go on to secondary schools rated as requiring improvement or inadequate, compared with 10% of children from wealthy families. The figures come as government ministers argue that a postcode lottery is hampering social mobility, restricting access to the best schools to those who can afford house prices and rents in the most expensive areas. Most primary schools in England use proximity as their main admissions criteria, meaning that access to the most popular can be restricted to a few hundred metres from the school gate in densely-populated areas. The national offer day today will reveal how many families have been able to gain their first preference for their child when local authorities announce the results of application for September 2017 entry. About one in nine families did not receive a place at their first preference last year, with the issue more pronounced in London, where the figure was one in six. The shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, said the statistics showed the government s rhetoric on social mobility did not match reality. Ministers failure to provide good schools in disadvantaged areas where they are needed is simply indefensible, she said. Theresa May s only answer to the social mobility crisis is her discredited policy of new grammar schools, which ignores the crucial early years of a child s life and does nothing to ensure all children go to a good primary school. A department for education spokesperson said the government was committed to creating more places at successful schools, with more than 90% of new primary school places in being in good or outstanding schools. This has meant that last year 96.3% of parents in England received an offer at one of their top three preferred primary schools. But we know there is more to do to ensure every parent has access to a good schools place for their child, the DfE said. Competitors take part in the men s race at the annual World Coal Carrying Championships in the village of Gawthorpe, near Wakefield, yesterday. The World Coal Carrying Championships, which began in 1963, takes place on Easter Monday and challenges participants to race with a sack of coal for just over 1km to secure the best time. The event features men s, women and children s races with men carrying 50kg of coal and women 20kg in weight. To finish the sack of coal must be dropped on the Village Green where the traditional Maypole is situated in the heart of Gawthorpe. Health experts praise Harry grief revelations Guardian News and Media London Mental health experts have praised Prince Harry for revealing that he sought counselling after 20 years of bottling up his grief over his mother s death. The prince said he had suppressed his emotions after losing his mother, Princess Diana, when he was 12. He took up boxing to help cope with feelings of aggression before finally seeking counselling. I have probably been very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions when all sorts of grief and all sorts of lies and misconceptions and everything are coming to you from every angle, he said in an interview with the Telegraph. Sir Simon Wessely, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said the prince had achieved more in terms of communicating mental health issues in a 25-minute interview than he had in a 25-year career. He has a reach across the world that people like me can only dream he will have communicated in a way that I have been working all my life to achieve, he said. Wessely said grief though raw, painful and uncomfortable should not be viewed as a mental health problem and, for some, coping with it in silence could be the right approach. It s not rocket science, and we should be wary of applying an orthodox approach to the individual experience of grief, he said. However there are times when prolonged grief can become a barrier, preventing us from moving on in life, and then it can become a problem which may perhaps need help. Marjorie Wallace, founder of the mental health charity Sane, said: It s done more good than many many campaigns. It s given a message of hope that feelings left for too long can become malignant but that it is never too late to seek help. Paul Farmer, chief executive of the Mind, said the interview would have a huge impact. It s inspiring to see Prince Harry speaking out about his experiences. It shows how far we have come in changing public attitudes to mental health that someone so high-profile can open up about something so difficult and personal, he said. We know that this will have a huge impact on people who are still struggling in silence with their mental health every time someone in the public eye speaks up we know that it encourages ordinary members of the public to do the same. Prince Harry speaking so candidly is a true turning point that shows that as a society we must no longer adopt a stiff upper lip attitude and that we need to talk openly about mental health, something that affects us all directly. Urban fox numbers on the rise, say researchers Guardian News and Media London The number of urban foxes in England has quadrupled in the past 20 years, according to a study that estimates there are nearly 150,000 in England, or about one for every 300 urban residents. While the number of foxes is declining overall in the UK, the study by Brighton and Reading universities has found that Bournemouth tops the charts with the highest concentration of urban foxes in the UK at 23 per square kilometre. London was not far behind with 18, followed by Bristol with 16 and Newcastle with 10. The researchers, headed by the mammalian biologist Dawn Scott and the behavioural zoologist Phil Baker, tagged foxes with transmitters to track their interactions and territories, and asked residents from eight cities to report sightings during July and August from 2013 to Scott said the abundance of suburban greenery may have led to the higher density in Bournemouth. Housing types and the suburban structure in Bournemouth might be slightly more suitable than the areas in London we surveyed to support higher fox numbers, she said. Through combining the sightings with models constructed from the tagging, they were able to make calculations of the density of foxes in towns and cities across the country. It is thought there were only 33,000 foxes living in towns and cities during the 1990s, and a 2014 study found that 91% of urban areas previously predicted to support few or no foxes in the early 2000s now have them. Trevor Williams, one of the founders of The Fox Project, which has operated a fox rescue service and wildlife hospital since 1993 and advises councils on humane fox deterrents, disputed the idea that numbers are increasing. His team rescues foxes in urban, suburban and rural areas. I think what s happening is that we re taking over more rural areas and therefore the foxes that live there become urban foxes, but the other thing that comes to mind is that possibly the previous studies underestimated because of poorer research and samplings. I just don t see that the population has increased at all in terms of enquiries, or in terms of casualties. We get around 700 to 750 coming in to our hospital and we raise about 220 and 250 cubs each year, and that hasn t changed in many years either, he said. Whether urban foxes are dangerous has been a point of contention for many years. There have been widely reported cases of foxes killing young children and maiming babies in cities, but according to the RSPCA, such incidents are rare. Ian Tokelove, a spokesman for the London Wildlife Trust, said he was not surprised by the findings. It s what we see in the streets around us. They are much more common. They have a pretty hard time out in the countryside and in places like London they can find a lot of the food they require and the habitats they need. Tall ships festival Participants in the Royal Greenwich Tall Ships Festival embark on a journey to Portugal as they sail down the river Thames, in London. Four teens held in stabbing probe Agencies London The father of Syed Jamanoor Islam, the 20-year-old stabbed to death in east London last Tuesday, has spoken of how he lost his first-born son in his mother s arms, following the arrest of four teenagers on suspicion of his murder. Suspects aged 15, 17 and 18, were arrested in the early hours of Sunday in south Yorkshire and are being held at a south London police station. Another 18-year-old was arrested and bailed last Wednesday. Police were called on April 11 to Wager Street, Mile End, following reports of a stabbing. Syed, an aspiring artist and business student, was pronounced dead shortly after being taken to hospital. Detectives believe he was involved in an altercation after being approached by a group of males while standing with his friends, but the motive of the stabbing has not yet been established. A video posted on social media shows members of the public attempting to give the victim CPR before emergency services arrived. Detective chief inspector Tony Lynes said: We are still keen to speak to anyone who was in the area at that time and might have seen what happened or who has any information about the circumstances. During a week in which two other young men died in similar incidents, Syed s father, Syed Abdul Mukit, called for an end to knife violence. We would like to see full justice and those guilty to be punished to the maximum extent of the law, he said. It is about time we as community members stand up against violence, injustice and hate in the community. I am requesting each and every family in the country to address this important issue of the rise in crime, in particular knife crime, in our society. My family, friends and our community and political leaders are making efforts to build awareness so that no other father or mother loses a child to such violence.

18 18 EUROPE Turkish vote shows deep divisions, say EU leaders Merkel (above) says the German government respects the right of Turkish citizens to decide on their own constitutional order. Gabriel: wants to find new formats for talks instead because Turkey is still our neighbour. Hollande: It s up to the Turks and them alone to decide on how they organise their political institutions. Albanian officials arrested for aiding drug traffickers Tirana Two dozen Albanian police officers and customs officials have been arrested on suspicion of colluding to help smuggle some 10 tonnes of cannabis to Italy, prosecutors said yesterday. The police chief of the main port of Durres, four anti-drug specialists there and customs and police officials at Durres and a border crossing with Macedonia are charged with helping with the trafficking of two lorries loaded with cannabis in February and March. The prosecutor s office believes... they set up a network to stage the passage of lorry vehicles filled with narcotics from Albania to Italy, the General Prosecutor s office said. Sophisticated scanning equipment at Durres has often found cannabis and other drugs hidden in the most improbable parts of lorries that were headed for Italy, but it failed to detect eight metric tonnes of barely hidden weed in a truck on February 5. Bound for Belgium, the truck was stopped by Italian police soon after it had landed at the port of Ancona. Albanian police denied any foul play at Durres, but a second truck with 2.2 metric tonnes of cannabis was seized in Italy in March 24. Albania is believed to be the biggest open-air grower of cannabis in Europe. The government of Prime Minister Edi Rama eradicated large-scale, open-air cultivation in the southern village of Lazarat in 2014, but in the two years since, open cannabis-growing has spread to an area several times as large. Italian, Albanian and at times Greek coastguards engage in open sea chases of speedboats laden with cannabis. The bodies of four of their operators have washed ashore lately. Five people died when a Swiss-registered light aircraft crashed into a supermarket warehouse in the Lisbon suburbs yesterday, rescue services said. The fatalities comprised the Berlin pilot and all three passengers one Swiss and three French nationals who were aboard the aircraft, plus a man who was at the warehouse at the time, they said in a statement. Three people were injured. The warehouse is located about a kilometre (half a mile) from an aerodrome at Tires, in the district of Cascais. Germany and France said yesterday that the close result in Turkey s referendum on expanding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan s powers showed the division in Turkish society, while others questioned Europe s relations with the country. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it was a big responsibility to bear for Erdogan, who declared a narrow victory in the vote that marked the biggest overhaul of modern Turkish politics. The result prompted renewed calls by Austria for Turkey s EU stalled accession talks to be halted. Germany s Gabriel called for a new format for talks with our neighbour, comments echoed by the conservative bloc in the European Parliament. Erdogan s opponents said the vote was marred by irregularities and they would challenge the result. The Council of Europe rights organisation said it did not live up to its standards, citing an inadequate legal framework and late changes in ballot counting. Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) observers made similar comments, which were dismissed by Turkey. The German government... respects the right of Turkish citizens to decide on their own constitutional order, Merkel and Gabriel, whose country has about 3mn residents of a Turkish background, said in a statement. The tight referendum result shows how deeply divided Turkish society is and that means a big responsibility for the Turkish leadership and for President Erdogan personally. They expected Ankara to have a respectful dialogue with all parts of Turkish society. The US also called for all citizens rights to be respected. France s President Francois Hollande said: It s up to the Turks and them alone to decide on how they organise their political institutions, but the published results show that Turkish society is divided about the planned deep reforms. On Sunday, the European Commission said Turkey should seek a national consensus on the constitutional amendments, given the narrow majority and the extent of their impact. In March, the Venice Commission, a panel of legal experts at the Council of Europe, said the proposed changes to the constitution represented a dangerous step backwards for democracy. Merkel and Gabriel pointed to Firefighters work to extinguish a fire after a plane crashed into a supermarket warehouse in Tires. Five die in light aircraft crash AFP Lisbon In a key moment for the Ukrainian crisis, the UN s highest court will rule tomorrow on a bid by Kiev to stop Russia allegedly pumping money, arms and troops into the country s war-torn east. Three years into a bloody conflict that has claimed more than 10,000 lives, Ukraine is urging the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to help bring stability to its volatile east. Kiev is also calling on The Hague-based court to order Moscow to halt what it calls racial discrimination against minority groups in the Russianoccupied Crimea peninsula, particularly against its Tatar population. The ICJ was set up in 1945 to settle disputes between countries in line with international law. Ukraine lodged its case in January, accusing Russia of violating the Terrorism Financing Convention and an international treaty against racial discrimination. Moscow rejects the charges. In its filing, Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, charged Russia with sponsoring terrorism by financing pro-russian separatists and failing to stop military aid from seeping across the border into eastern Ukraine s Donbas region. The twin-engine Piper PA- 31 plane had just taken off on a flight to the southern French city of Marseille when it crashed, hitting a truck parked at the warehouse. About 90 firefighters mobilised to fight a blaze, which was quickly put out. A neighbouring house was also damaged. It called on the court s 15 judges to rule that the Russian Federation bears international responsibility for acts of terrorism committed by its proxies in Ukraine. These acts include the shelling and bombing of civilians and the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, shot down by a Russian-made Bukmissile over eastern Ukraine on July 17, Ukraine wants Russia to pay compensation to all civilians caught up in the conflict one of Europe s bloodiest since the 1990s Balkans wars as well as to the families of the 298 victims of MH17. As it can take months for the ICJ to even decide to hear a case, the Commission s reservations and said that, as a member of the Council of Europe and the OSCE security and human rights watchdog and an EU accession candidate, Turkey should quickly address those concerns. Political discussions about that need to take place as quickly as possible, both at the bilateral level and between the European institutions and Turkey, Merkel and Gabriel said. France also called on Turkey to respect the European Convention on Human Rights and its ban on the death penalty. Erdogan told supporters on Sunday that Turkey could hold another referendum on reinstating the death penalty. Such a move would end Turkey s EU accession talks. Austria, which has repeatedly called for halting membership talks, called once more for them to stop. We can t just go back to the daily routine after the Turkey referendum. We finally need some honesty in the relationship between the EU and Turkey, said Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, adding the bloc should instead work on a partnership agreement. Gabriel said during a visit to Albania that too many people in Europe, some for reasons related to domestic policy, would now urge a rigorous attitude towards Ankara and call for an end Ukraine also filed an application seeking interim protection measures. In the interim application, Ukraine is seeking a court order calling on the tribunal to order Russia to refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute or make it more difficult to resolve, including a halt to the funnelling of money, weapons, equipment and personnel into the east. It also urges the tribunal to order Moscow to control its borders in eastern Ukraine and halt racial discrimination in the Crimea, particularly against the Tatars. After hearings in March, the ICJ will rule on the interim application tomorrow. to talks but he said he wanted to find new formats for talks instead because Turkey is still our neighbour. Turkey has been on a decades-long quest to join the EU. Turkey and the bloc last year reached a deal to help stem the flow of migrants to Europe s shores. The head of the European People s Party in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, called for a new approach to a partnership between friendly neighbours. We should offer Turkey a thematic partnership, for example on the fight against terrorism, migration and economic policy, as well as student and cultural exchange. However, this also means that Turkey s EU membership is off the table, he said. During the campaign, Erdogan repeatedly criticised European countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, accusing them of Nazi-like tactics for banning his ministers from speaking to rallies of Turkish voters abroad. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek told yesterday that he expected the noise between Ankara and Europe should die down after the European elections cycle. The French vote for a new president begins on Sunday. Germany votes in September. Top UN court to rule on Ukraine s case against Russia By Jan Hennop, AFP The Hague Malta appeals for migrant support Malta s president has appealed for support from the international community on managing an ongoing refugee influx, amid reports that humanitarian organisations struggled to conduct migrant rescues in the Mediterranean over the Easter weekend. I urgently appeal to all countries of Europe and the Mediterranean, and to all people of goodwill, to act in solidarity, supporting the humanitarian initiatives currently underway to save lives, President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca said. At least eight migrants died in the Mediterranean off the coast of Libya while trying to reach Europe over the weekend, officials said. Since Saturday, the Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) said that it has been involved in the unprecedented rescue and assistance of nine boats containing as many as 1,800 people. Migrants rest on the Malta-based NGO Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) ship Phoenix after being rescued in the central Mediterranean off the Libyan coast. Moscow has strongly denied Kiev s terrorism claims, saying that they are neither factual nor legal and argued that the ICJ does not have jurisdiction over the case. The Russian Federation complies fully with its obligations under (the) treaties that are now relied upon by Ukraine, Moscow representative Roman Kolodkin told the court last month. The drawn-out conflict, in which Russia also annexed Ukraine s southern peninsula of Crimea in March 2014, has pushed ties between Moscow and the West to their lowest point since the Cold War. Although the ICJ s rulings are binding, the court has no power Russian police detain bomb attack suspect DPA/AFP Moscow A man suspected of organising the deadly underground train bombing in central Saint Petersburg has been detained in a suburb of Moscow, Russian authorities said yesterday. The suspect, identified as 27-year-old Abror Azimov, an ethnic Central Asian, was found in possession of a handgun in the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region, the Federal Security Service (FSB), a successor agency of the Soviet KGB, said in a statement carried by state media. Authorities believe Azimov helped train the alleged suicide bomber, Akbarzhon Jalilov, 22, a Russian citizen born in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan. Authorities believe Jalilov was radicalised by Islamic extremists. Several other ethnic Central Asians have been detained in Saint Petersburg and Moscow on allegations of being complicit in the bombing, which killed more than a dozen people. The bombing, considered the deadliest terrorist attack in Russia s second-largest city, occurred earlier this month as the train was travelling between stations. Djalilov is suspected of triggering the homemade explosive device. Security forces said they safely defused another device left on a platform. Saint Petersburg and Moscow have sizeable populations of migrant workers from former Soviet republics in Central Asia who come seeking economic opportunities. The attack has posed tough security questions as Russia gears up to host the opening game and final of the Confederations Cup football tournament in June, ahead of the World Cup in After the bombing, President Vladimir Putin held talks with world leaders including US President Donald Trump to push for greater cooperation in the fight against terrorism. The Kremlin has called the bomb attack a challenge to every Russian, including the head of state. Russia checking threats against newspaper Russian investigators said yesterday that they were checking information that threats had been made against a Russian newspaper which reported that gay men were being tortured and killed in Chechnya, the TASS news agency reported. Russia s most famous campaigning newspaper said on Friday that it had appealed to the Kremlin to protect its staff after Chechen clerics said the paper faced retribution for alleging that gay men in the majority Muslim southern Russian republic were being persecuted. of its own to enforce them. That would fall onto the UN Security Council, in which Russia as a permanent member wields a veto power. International relations expert Ko Colijn, a research fellow at the Clingedael Institute think tank in The Hague, said Moscow was unlikely to be affected by the ruling. I expect them to ignore the verdict, whether it s positive or negative, Colijn told AFP. Ukrainian Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko has said in a statement that immediately after the ruling, Kiev would unveil new, very interesting evidence that would refute what he called many of Russia s lies and Russia s propaganda.

19 EUROPE 19 Triumphant Erdogan defiant after criticism /AFP Ankara/Istanbul A defiant Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denounced the West s crusader mentality after European monitors criticised a referendum to grant him sweeping new powers, which he won with a narrow victory laying bare the nation s divisions. Supporters thronged the streets honking horns and waving flags, while opponents banged pots and pans in protest in their homes into the early morning. The main opposition party rejected the result and called for the vote to be annulled. Election authorities said preliminary results showed 51.4% of voters had backed the biggest overhaul of Turkish politics since the founding of the modern republic. Erdogan says that concentrating power in the hands of the president is vital to prevent instability. However, the narrowness of his victory could have the opposite effect: adding to volatility in a country that has lately survived an attempted coup, attacks by Islamists, a Kurdish insurgency, civil unrest and war across its Syrian border. The result laid bare the deep divide between the urban middle classes who see their future as part of a European mainstream, and the pious rural poor who favour Erdogan s strong hand. Erdogan made clear his intention to steer the country away from Europe, announcing plans to seek to restore the death penalty, which would effectively end Turkey s decades-long quest to join the EU. The crusader mentality in the West and its servants at home have attacked us, he told flagwaving supporters on arrival in the capital Ankara where he was due to chair a cabinet meeting, in response to the monitors assessment. In the bluntest criticism of a Turkish election by European monitors in memory, a mission of observers from the 47-member Council of Europe, the continent s leading human rights body, said that the referendum was an uneven contest. Support for a yes vote dominated campaign coverage, and the arrests of journalists and closure of media outlets prevented other views from being heard, the monitors said. In general, the referendum did not live up to Council of Europe standards. The legal framework was inadequate for the holding of a genuinely democratic process, said Cezar Florin Preda, head of the delegation. While the monitors had no information of actual fraud, a Supporters of the no vote gather in Istanbul to protest on Sunday night after the results of the nationwide referendum were revealed. Right: A woman shows her hand, on which is written RTE (Recep Tayyip Erdogan) and Tayyip Erdogan, as she waits for his arrival yesterday at Esenboga Airport in Ankara. Below: This picture taken in Istanbul yesterday shows the front pages of Turkish newspapers. Cumhuriyet (top left) bears the headline which translates as Shadow on the ballot, Sabah (top right) bears the headline which translates as People s revolution, Sozcu (centre) s headline translates as Is your conscience clear?, and the Hurriyet (bottom right) has a headline which translates as New System. last-minute decision by electoral authorities to allow unstamped ballots to be counted undermined an important safeguard and contradicted electoral law, they said. Erdogan told the mission to know your place, saying that Turkey had no intention of paying any attention to the report. He added: This country held the most democratic polls that have never been seen in any other country in the West. The bitter campaigning and narrow yes vote exposed deep divisions in Turkey, with the country s three main cities and mainly Kurdish southeast likely to have voted no. Official results are due to be announced in the next 12 days. Erdogan, a populist with a background in once-banned Islamist parties, has ruled since 2003 with no real rival, while his country emerged as one of the fastest-growing industrial powers in both Europe and the Middle East. He has also been at the centre of global affairs, commanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) s second-biggest military on the border of Middle East war zones, taking in millions of Syrian refugees and controlling their further flow into Europe. Critics accuse him of steering Turkey towards one-man rule. The two largest opposition parties both challenged Sunday s referendum, saying it was deeply flawed. The pro-kurdish opposition Peoples Democratic Party said it presented complaints about unstamped ballots affecting 3mn voters, more than twice the margin of Erdogan s victory. The main secularist opposition People s Republican Party said it was still unclear how many votes were affected. This is why the only decision that will end debate about the legitimacy (of the vote) and ease the people s legal concerns is the annulment of this election, deputy party chairman Bulent Tezcan said. Tezcan said he would if necessary go to Turkey s constitutional court one of the institutions that Erdogan would gain firm control over under the constitutional changes, through the appointment of its members. The president survived a coup attempt last year and responded with a crackdown, jailing 47,000 people and sacking or suspending more than 120,000 from government jobs such as schoolteachers, soldiers, police, judges or other professionals. The changes could keep him in power until 2029 or beyond, making him easily the most important figure in Turkish history since state founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk built a modern nation from the ashes of the Ottoman empire after World War I. Germany, host to some 4mn Turks, said it was up to Erdogan himself to heal the rifts that the vote had exposed. The tight referendum result shows how deeply divided Turkish society is, and that means a big responsibility for the Turkish leadership and for President Erdogan personally, said Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel in a joint statement. Relations with Europe were Erdogan: The crusader mentality in the West and its servants at home have attacked us. strained during the referendum campaign when Germany and the Netherlands barred Turkish ministers from holding rallies. Erdogan provoked a stern German response by comparing those limits to those of the Nazis. Thousands of Erdogan supporters waved flags and blasted horns into the early hours yesterday in celebration of a man who they say has transformed the quality of life for millions of pious Turks marginalised for decades by the secular elite. There were scattered protests against the result, but these were more sporadic. In some affluent, secular neighbourhoods, opponents stayed indoors, banging pots and pans, a sign of dissent that became widespread during anti- Erdogan protests in 2013, when the police crushed demonstrations against him. The result triggered a 2% rally in the Turkish lira from its close last week. Under the changes, most of which will only come into effect after the next elections due in 2019, the president will appoint the cabinet and an undefined number of vice-presidents, and be able to select and remove senior civil servants without parliamentary approval. There has been some speculation that Erdogan could call new elections so that his new powers could take effect right away. However, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek told that there was no such plan, and the elections would still be held in Erdogan served as prime minister from 2003 until 2014, when rules were changed to hold direct elections for the office of president, previously a ceremonial role elected by parliament. Since becoming the first directly elected president, he has set about making the post more important, along the lines of the executive presidencies of France, Russia or the United States. Election frontrunners Le Pen and Macron hold rival Paris rallies AFP Paris The two frontrunners in the French presidential election, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron, were staging rival rallies in Paris yesterday, seeking to stay ahead of a fastchasing pack just days before the vote. After weeks of twists and turns, the unpredictable race has narrowed dramatically, with surveys suggesting four candidates are in contention to win one of the top two spots in the April 23 vote and progress to the run-off election a fortnight later. Scandal-hit conservative Francois Fillon and radical leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon are steaming up behind the two frontrunners, and with around one in three of the French electorate still undecided, candidates are scrapping for every vote. Le Pen and Macron, who have both scored as high as 25% in voter surveys, stood at 22% in the latest IPSOS poll, while Melenchon has surged to 20% and Fillon stands at 19%. Melenchon s late surge and the possibility he could square off against Le Pen in the May 7 decider has sparked alarm over the future of the EU, as both candidates advocate withdrawing from the bloc for different reasons. Outgoing President Francois Hollande weighed in on Saturday, saying that Europe has protected us against war in the decades since World War II. Let us preserve it instead of scapegoating it, the president said at a World War I centenary Macron: has scored as high as 25% in voter surveys. event in northern France. Macron plans his biggest rally yet at the Bercy sports and concert hall, a venue with a capacity of 20,000. The location near the economy ministry serves as a reminder that the relatively inexperienced Macron held the key economy portfolio for two years under his mentor Hollande. The 39-year-old former Rothschild banker quit the Socialist government last year to form his En Marche ( On the Move ) party and launch his bid for power as a candidate neither of the left nor of the right. En Marche says it has planned 1,000 events a day, including 163 public rallies until the official end of campaigning at midnight on Friday. An aide to Macron said he would use yesterday s event to hit back at Le Pen s accusation that he is soft on Islamists. With Mr Macron, it would be Islamism on the move, Le Pen, 48, said on Saturday in response to revelations that one of Macron s top campaigners had criticised the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Le Pen s own rally will be at the 6,000-capacity Zenith concert hall in northeast Paris, with activists saying that they plan protests outside the venue. A protest is also expected in the southern port of Marseille tomorrow where Le Pen plans another large rally. Melenchon, 65, plans a quirky event that will see him board a barge in a northeast suburb of the French capital and float down a canal, making five stops along the way to meet supporters. The voyage lasting more than five hours will end up at the Francois Mitterrand Library, a nod to the Socialist leader of the 1980s and early 1990s whom Melenchon references frequently in his stump speech as an icon of the left. The founder of La France Insoumise ( Unbowed France ) plans another form of multiple Centrist Macron rejects suggestions of impropriety French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron said yesterday that he did not have offshore accounts or a hidden inheritance, less than a week from the first round of voting in an election marked by allegations of impropriety. Polls see Macron running neck-and-neck with far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting on Sunday although conservative Francois Fillon and hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon have been catching up. Macron, a centrist former economy minister, has consistently swatted aside suggestions that he had something to hide while Fillon and Le Pen have fought allegations of misusing public funds. French anti-corruption campaigners Anticor flagged concerns last month about discrepancies in Macron s disclosure of assets, but the public transparency watchdog said in response it had found no inconsistencies. Macron said that unnamed political rivals would try to appearances today, where he will hold a rally in central Dijon while his hologram will speak for him in six other cities. For his part Fillon, dogged by a fake jobs scandal that has seen him charged with abuse of public funds, is vowing to pull off a victory that will surprise the microcosm arrayed against him. He believes a small coterie of detractors mounted a campaign to smear him with the revelations that he put his wife Penelope on the public payroll with jobs that earned her hundreds of thousands of euros. Fillon, who led the race for weeks before the scandal broke in late January, spent Easter weekend wooing the Catholic and conservative vote. Conspicuous by his absence at the height of the scandal, the 63-year-old former prime minister has revved up his campaign appearances in the past week. spread false news about him this week that suggested that he had money stashed in offshore accounts, which he flatly denied. I ve always paid all my tax in France and I ve always had all my accounts in France, Macron said in an interview with BFM TV. Asked about rumours that Macron had inherited a large sum of money from a wealthy businessman friend who died in November, Macron answered: It s false, totally false. I ve heard it all, that I have a hidden inheritance, that I ve got offshore accounts. All sorts of things. Why? Because in this campaign there are two candidates with their own real legal problems, Macron said. Fillon is under investigation over allegations that he paid state money to family members for work they did not really do while Le Pen is being probed for the alleged misuse of EU funds. Both deny any wrongdoing though Fillon acknowledges he made mistakes. Kyrgyzstan jails three opposition members AFP Bishkek Three members of Kyrgyzstan s opposition were jailed for between 12 and 20 years yesterday over an alleged coup plot captured on a disputed audio recording aired on the Internet. The sentences are likely to add to fears of a crackdown ahead of November elections, following anti-government protests. A Bishkek court jailed activist Ernest Karybekov for 20 years, and former MP Kubanychbek Kadyrov and ex-regional governor Bektur Asanov for 12 years each for their roles in the purported plot. A fourth defendant, former foreign minister Dastan Sarygulov, was given a suspended four-year sentence at the closed-doors hearing. The four men were arrested last year shortly after the recording appeared to show Asanov and Kadyrov plotting to seize power in the fragile republic of 6mn. The opposition figures claimed the recording was heavily edited. While the former Soviet Kyrgyzstan is the most democratic country in a region dominated by long-ruling strongmen, it has also been the most politically volatile in recent times. Protests have grown in frequency as the country prepares for November s presidential elections in which current leader Almazbek Atambayev is constitutionally barred from standing. In February and March security services arrested two opposition leaders who had announced plans to run for office. They were detained on separate charges of corruption and organising the kidnapping of a state official. The Central Asian country s state prosecutor has also launched lawsuits against media outlets including the US government-funded Kyrgyz service of Radio Free Europe that it accuses of defaming Atambayev. Mainly Muslim Kyrgyzstan experienced two revolutions that unseated presidents in 2005 and 2010, followed by ethnic violence that left more than 400 dead. Wedding party slows autobahn traffic A high-spirited German wedding party stopped three lanes of traffic on the autobahn near Hanover to dance and take photos and videos, police said yesterday. The party blocked the road with 13 cars, eliciting a number of emergency calls from concerned motorists on Sunday. Drivers had to brake and take evasive action to avoid literally crashing the party, though no one was injured. Police officers later stopped all the cars in the wedding party after it had left the autobahn, to the displeasure of the party participants, some of whom reacted aggressively, causing the police to call for back-up. A police investigation is now under way against the 13 drivers on charges of dangerous driving and coercion.

20 20 INDIA TRIAL AVIATION REAL ESTATE OPPOSITION JUDICIARY Sanjay Dutt goes to court, arrest warrant cancelled AI proposes hefty fines for unruly passengers Kingfisher villa in Goa may be renamed Congress leaders detained over protest SC wants Sahara s Aamby Valley property auctioned Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt yesterday appeared before a Mumbai court in response to an arrest warrant issued two days ago. The warrant was later cancelled by the court. Dutt appeared briefly before the Andheri Court Magistrate C V Patil along with a team of lawyers to file his application on why he failed to attend the hearing previously. The case concerns a cheque bouncing case filed against Dutt by producer Shakeel Noorani in The court accepted Dutt s application and cancelled the arrest warrant. Noorani has alleged that he had been threatened by gangsters to settle a financial dispute pertaining to the film Jaan Ki Baazi for which Dutt had taken the signing amount but failed to honour further commitments of playing the lead role. National carrier Air India has proposed new guidelines to deal with unruly passengers with hefty fines up to Rs1.5mn. According to AI sources, the new set of guidelines and fines is awaiting approval from Air India s chairman and managing director Ashwani Lohani. The draft guidelines envisage arming Air India s airport managers with more powers to deal directly with unruly passengers, while hefty fines of up to Rs1.5mn have also been proposed to be levied on passengers who delay flights. Recent incidents of unruly behaviour and assault on AI employees by passengers (whether VIP or otherwise) have caused severe damage to the morale of the employees besides negative publicity to Air India, an airlines source said. Formerly owned by disgraced liquor baron Vijay Mallya, the iconic Kingfisher villa in North Goa s upscale Candolim beach village may undergo a name change. Its new owner, actor-businessman Sachiin Joshi, who is the promoter of Viiking Ventures Pvt Ltd, said that a change of name was an eventuality, but he also hinted that no name has been finalised for the palatial villa and its adjoining grounds yet. Eventually it should, but there is no plan as such as of now. I have not yet finalised any name as such, Joshi said. The villa, when owned by Mallya, hosted some of the most extravagant parties, before the flamboyant baron who owes banks millions of rupees fled the country. Police detained leaders of the Telangana unit of Congress Party yesterday as the opposition intensified its protest over shifting of Dharna Chowk, a popular venue of protests in Hyderabad. Tension prevailed at Tank Bund in the heart of the city as several leaders staged protest at the state of B R Ambedkar but police evicted them. Telangana state Congress chief Uttam Kumar Reddy, former ministers Bhatti Vikramarka, Mohamed Ali Shabbir, D Nagender and former MPs V Hanumantha Rao and Anjan Kumar Yadav were among those detained and shifted to different police stations. The Congress had called for the protest to demand that the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government revive Dharna Chowk at Indira Park. The Supreme Court yesterday asked the official liquidator of the Bombay High Court to auction the Aamby Valley property of the Sahara group to recover money it has to pay to market regulator Sebi to be returned to investors. Directing Subrata Roy Sahara to be personally present in the court on April 27, Justices Dipak Misra, Ranjan Gogoi and A K Sikri demanded to know why the money had not been paid so far. The top court had in 2012 asked Sahara to return the investors money that Sahara India Real Estate Corp Ltd and Sahara Housing Investment Corp Ltd had raised in 2008 and Asking Roy to be present in the court on April 27, the bench said: Now we are tired. We have heard a lot. NRI tycoon to make costliest Indian film By Ashraf Padanna Thiruvananthapuram A UAE-based Indian businessman yesterday announced that he would invest Rs10bn ($150mn) to produce the costliest-ever Indian film. The Mahabharata, starring Mohanlal, is based on Jnanpith laureate M T Vasudevan Nair s Malayalam novel Randamoozham which portrays the Hindu epic s mightiest character Bhima as a humane warrior. In a statement here yesterday, billionaire B R Shetty said film will be produced in two parts. Shooting is likely to begin by September next year and the film will be released early The second part will be released within 90 days of the first. The film will be made in English, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu and dubbed into major Indian and foreign languages. Adman V A Shrikumar Menon is the director of the film and Nair, an award-winning scriptwriter, is already ready with the script. This movie will be a true Make in India made for the world. I am confident that this film would be adapted in 100 languages and reach 3bn people, said Shetty. I feel honoured that my name has been heard for the role of Bhima ever since the news of a cinematic adaptation of Nair s Randamoozham started doing rounds. I feel humbled and honoured at the same time that the author himself has envisioned me for enacting Bhima, said Mohanlal. The film will be coming together of the crème de la crème of Indian and global cinema, in terms of its cast and crew, Shetty said in a statement, without naming them. The cast will have the best of talents from Indian cinema as well as some of the big names from Hollywood. It said the technical crew would include some of the great names in world cinema, including some Academy winners. This film will have an identity across continents, with their representatives donning the myriad characters in The Mahabharata, said the statement. Forest fire An Indian Air Force helicopter towing a water container as it attempts to extinguish a major fire in the forests in the vicinity of Mount Abu. The fire near the hill station in Rajasthan has been raging for four days with the IAF, army, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Rajasthan Fire Department personnel attempting to control it. Dinakaran is accused of trying to buy party symbol Police arrest AIADMK leader s close aide in Delhi, seize Rs10mn from him IANS New Delhi/Chennai Police yesterday accused All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader T T V Dinakaran, a nephew of jailed party chief V K Sasikala, of trying to bribe the Election Commission with hundreds of thousands of rupees to reclaim the party s disputed and now frozen two leaves symbol. A Delhi police officer said they arrested Dinakaran s close aide Sukesh Chandrasekar from a south Delhi hotel on Sunday with Rs10.3mn that was meant for bribing officials of the election watchdog. The suspect reportedly told the police that he was Dinakaran s middleman and was asked to pay the money to the EC officials in exchange for the symbol. Dinakaran has been booked for criminal conspiracy and corruption after Chandrasekar disclosed his name during the late night police raid at Hyatt hotel where he was staying, the police officer said. The officer said the 27-year-old suspect, who is said to own a fleet of luxury cars, confessed he was playing the middleman. The police raided the hotel following a tip, the officer said. A police team is expected to travel to Chennai to summon Dinakaran, who denied the allegation. Sources said the police are also investigating whether a former Karnataka bureaucrat, Pawan Raina, who is currently an adviser in the Tamil Nadu government, is an associate of Chandrasekar. Dinakaran: faces more trouble Dinakaran told reporters in Chennai that he didn t know anybody by the name Sukesh Chandrasekar and called it a conspiracy to destroy the AIADMK - divided between two factions after its leader J Jayalalithaa died on December 5 while she was the chief minister. Somebody is scheming to destroy the AIADMK. I will meet the allegation legally. If I am summoned by the Delhi police, I will meet it legally, he said. Dinakaran is the candidate of the ruling AIADMK faction in the R K Nagar assembly constituency in Chennai. The April 12 by-election was postponed following allegations of cash distribution to voters on a massive scale by the ruling AI- ADMK. Sasikala made Dinakaran the party in charge before she went to prison. The other faction is led by O Panneerselvam, who was also close to Jayalalithaa and used to stand in for her as chief minister. The two factions have been fighting over ownership of the AIADMK. The battle reached the Election Commission that gave the two factions new symbols and ordered a freeze over two leaves on March 23. Dinakaran also said he would meet Sasikala in the Bengaluru prison. Meanwhile, the alleged attempt to bribe the Election Commission by Dinakaran may hasten the process of uniting the two AI- ADMK factions, said former MP K C Palaniswamy, a Panneerselvam supporter. If the election panel decided that Sasikala s election (as AI- ADMK general secretary) was not legal, then every other thing in the party will automatically settle down, Palaniswamy said. The Delhi police s case against Dinakaran comes as a major crisis looms in the state government with a section of ministers revolting against him and seeking his resignation as party deputy general secretary. Should there be an attempt to dethrone him from the key party deputy general secretary s post, Dinakaran is banking on a few legislators to not only bail him out, but also bring down the Edappadi Palaniswami government. Let the ministers revolt against Dinakaran, he enjoys the support of 38 MLAs. The government will not survive, said a confidante of Dinakaran. Hectic lobbying has begun in Sasikala s family - primarily Dinakaran, husband M Natarajan and brother V Divakaran - to poach as many legislators as possible from the ruling party. It is estimated that about 40 legislators are loyal to Natarajan and Dinakaran as they were responsible for rewarding them with party tickets in the last election. The Delhi police case also comes soon after IT raids on 50 locations in Tamil Nadu, during which officials seized Rs50mn from the Tamil Nadu Health Minister Vijayabaskar s associates. The minister is a supporter of Dinakaran. ED issues notice to Karti over foreign currency laws IANS Chennai The Enforcement Directorate (ED) yesterday said it has issued notice to Vasan Health Care Pvt Ltd, its promoter Karti P Chidambaram, the son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, and Advantage Strategic Consulting for violating foreign currency laws to the tune of more than Rs20bn. The ED said it had served notice to Vasan Health Care Pvt Ltd, its promoters and their relatives for violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) to the tune of Rs22.62bn. Advantage Strategic Consulting was served notice for Rs450mn for sale of Vasan Health Care s shares to overseas investors. The agency added that further investigations under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) are going on in respect of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval given to Aircel-Maxis by the then finance minister wherein foreign inflow was Rs35bn. As per the government policy and FIPB guidelines, the competent authority for any inflow above Rs6bn was the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs. According to ED, preliminary investigations into the foreign investments received by Vasan Health Care, both in the primary market as well as secondary, revealed that the company had received investments from the Mauritius-based Sequoia and WestBridge and also through the investment arm of GIC, Singapore. The overseas investors acquired shares of Vasan Health Care by acquiring Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares (CCPS) directly from the company by investing a total amount of Rs4.32bn in different rounds of investments from February 2009 to November The shares were acquired by the overseas investors on the face value of Rs100 each. In addition, investors acquired equity shares of Vasan Health Care from its promoter A M Arun of MA Associates - a partnership firm belonging to Arun and his father-in-law Dwarakanathan and Advantage Strategic Consulting, which, the ED said, was found to be in the control of Karti Chidambaram. The first tranche of sale took place in the end of 2010, when the shares were sold at Rs7,500 per share. The second tranche of sale took place in March and May 2012, when the shares were sold Rs5,242 per share, the ED said. The total amount invested by the overseas investors, which ultimately benefited them existing shareholders, is Rs3.57bn. Freedom fighters honoured President Pranab Mukherjee felicitates a freedom fighter during centenary celebrations marking Mahatma Gandhi s Champaran Satyagraha in Patna yesterday. Maharashtra roasts as mercury hits 46 degrees IANS Mumbai Heat wave conditions gripped large parts of Maharashtra with the mercury soaring to 46 degrees Celsius in Chandrapur and its Brahmapuri sub-district in Vidarbha region and hovering between degrees in many other parts, the India Meteorological Department said yesterday. Mumbai was relatively comfortable at average 35 degrees, but people were greatly inconvenienced with humidity levels averaging at 82%. Mahabaleshwar, the famous hill station known for its year-long salubrious climate, was nearly as hot as Mumbai at 34 degrees, virtually driving away the tourists. At the other end, the coastal regions of Palghar, Thane, Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg, the temperatures averaged between 32 and 34 degrees. Other cities also sizzled - Nagpur, Wardha, Jalgaon, and Nanded recorded 45 degrees, Parbhani, Amravati, and Akola 44, Ahmednagar, Malegaon, Solapur, Osmanabad, and Yavatmal 43, while Aurangabad, Buldhana, Pune, and Satara were a little lower at 41 degrees. The IMD has warned that similar weather conditions are expected to prevail over the state in the next three days with little or no respite from the sizzling heat. In a specific warning, the IMD has said heat wave conditions are likely to prevail from today in parts of Nashik, Jalgaon, Ahmednagar, Satara, Sangli, Solapur, Beed and Nanded, continuing till tomorrow. It has attributed the soaring temperatures to a trough from North Telangana to East-Central Arabian Sea across north interior Karnataka, which is now running from North Telangana to Konkan with an embedded upper air cyclonic circulation above North Telangana and neighbourhood, extending upto 0.9kms above the mean sea level.

21 INDIA 21 IUML retains Lok Sabha seat, calls it secular win By Ashraf Padanna Thiruvananthapuram Kerala s opposition United Democratic Front coalition scripted an impressive win in Malappuram Lok Sabha by-election with a huge margin of 171,038 votes. UDF candidate P K Kunhalikutty, a leader of the Indian Union Muslim League, however, could not break the record of his predecessor E Ahamed, who won the seat by a Kunhalikutty: big victory mammoth 194,739 votes in Kunhalikutty called it a victory for secular politics. Both Kunhalikutty and his immediate rival M B Faisal, the young candidate fielded by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which leads the ruling Left Democratic Front, improved their vote share in a big way. The improved vote share and the narrowed down winning margin are attributed to the absence of the IUML s traditional rivals, the Welfare Party of India (WPI), promoted by the Jama ate-islami, and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), in the election race. Another radical group, the People s Democratic Front (PDP) of jailed cleric Abdul Nasir Ma dani, had backed the Marxists. Prime Minister Narendra Modi s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which fielded N Sreeprakash, ended up a distant third, in spite of a high-voltage campaign. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan blamed his party s defeat on the ganging up of communal forces like WPI and SDPI in support of Kunhalikutty, an allegation the IUML denied. Such a huge victory, that too in a by-election, itself is a record, said a beaming Kunhalikutty, who has set a new record as the highest vote catcher in Kerala. It is a victory of secular forces. In the present political climate, this victory assumes much significance. He polled 515,330 votes (55%) against Faisal s 344,307 (36.81%) and Sreeprakash s 65,657 votes (7.02%). Kunhalikutty s is also the second highest victory margin in Kerala elections ever, after Ahamed, who died on February 1. Congress leader M I Shanavas (Wayanad) holds the record for the third-highest winning margin (153,439 votes in 2009) followed by S Sivaraman (132,652 votes from Ottappalam in 1993) of the CPM who later joined the Congress Party. League played a dirty game to polarise votes on communal lines, said defeated candidate Faizal, adding that it was not a political victory. In Malappuram, Muslims comprise an estimated 60% followed by Hindus (30%) and Christians (5%). Kunhalikutty, 66, became a state legislator for the first time in 1982 and was inducted into K Karunakaran cabinet at a young age in Later, the four-time industries minister joined the A K Antony and Oommen Chandy cabinets. The Communist Party of India (CPI), the second largest ruling coalition partner, also blamed communal polarisation for the opposition s victory. CBI files case against top TMC leaders in Narada sting Protests erupt against police raid on college Violence spikes in Kashmir after videos inflame tension IANS Kolkata The Central Bureau of Investigation yesterday filed a case against several senior leaders of West Bengal s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and a police officer in the Narada sting footage case, raising the political temperature in the eastern state. The opposition launched an all-out attack against the Trinamool, with the Left Front staging a large number of rallies demanding the resignation of the government. However, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said mere filing of an FIR (first information report) does not mean the accused are guilty. It is a political game, and has to be tackled politically, she said. A CBI spokesperson said the agency has filed the case against 12 Trinamool leaders who were purportedly seen receiving money in the Narada sting operation footage. Trinamool Congress MP Aparupa Poddar s name is also included in the list of FIR, the spokesperson said. Among others are Trinamool vice president and Rajya Sabha member Mukul Roy, the party s Lok Sabha members Sougata Roy, Sultan Ahmed, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Prasun Banerjee. Also in the list are state ministers Subrata Mukherjee, Firhad Hakim, Suvendu Adhikari, Kolkata Mayor and Minister Sovan Chatterjee, legislator Iqbal Ahmed and former minister Madan Mitra. Indian Police Service (IPS) officer S M H Mirza was the other person named in the list. He was seen in the sting footage and the Narada website claimed he described himself as a key person who collects funds for the Trinamool Congress. The accused have been charged with criminal conspiracy and under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The CBI conducted the preliminary inquiry into the said allegations expeditiously. The inquiry revealed prima facie material for registration of a regular case (FIR) under the charges of criminal conspiracy to commit a crime (IPC 120B) and Section 7 and 13(2), 13(1) (a) and (d) of Prevention of Corruption Act, Further investigation is continuing, a CBI press release said. The Calcutta High Court ordered a CBI preliminary inquiry into the case on March 17 and asked the federal investigation agency to submit the report within 72 hours. The Trinamool appealed to the Supreme Court on March 21, challenging the high court order. The apex court refused to interfere with the high court order, but extended the deadline for the preliminary probe to one month. Yesterday, Narada News CEO Mathew Samuel welcomed the CBI move, saying the agency s action proved that the visuals in the sting footage were not doctored and there was no conspiracy behind the sting operation. For these reasons they have come to the conclusion to file an FIR, said Samuel, who had carried out the sting operation on behalf of the news portal. The opposition tore into the ruling party. State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury targeted the chief minister for having earlier claimed that no such scandal had taken place. She needs to be asked whether she still feels false cases have been lodged against the Narada accused, he asked. Senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader and noted lawyer Bikash Bhattacharya said the latest development was inevitable. This shows the big role that money plays in politics of Bengal, or entire India. We hope there will be no political interference impeding the CBI probe, added Bhattacharya, who had fought the case for the petitioners seeking a CBI probe. State Bharatiya Janata Party president Dilip Ghosh said the filing of FIR was expected. Agencies Srinagar Hundreds of students clashed with government forces in Jammu and Kashmir during protests yesterday against a police raid on a college, as tensions ran high in the state. Around 100 students were injured as police used batons and tear gas to try to quell the protests, which broke out in the main city of Srinagar before spreading to other parts of the Kashmir Valley. Teenagers in school uniform and women students wearing white headscarves were among the protesters, who chanted anti-india slogans and threw stones at government forces. A student union had called for protests after police on Saturday tried to raid a college in the southern district of Pulwama to round up suspects in recent violent demonstrations, sparking clashes in which at least 60 students were injured. Students are protesting in a few colleges. We are dealing with a situation, a senior police office said. Kashmir has been tense since April 9, when eight people were killed by police and paramilitary troops during election day violence. On Saturday a street vendor was shot dead by the Border Security Force and on Sunday three people were killed by suspected rebels, one a former counter-insurgent. The Kashmir University Students Union, a banned student body, had called for protests in all colleges and universities following Saturday s incident. Government forces are not supposed to enter college or university premises without special permission, and on Saturday, the union said the police action was designed to help the state rule by repression and fear. Footage apparently showing a civilian tied to the front of an army jeep to deter protesters from throwing stones at the vehicle has also caused outrage after it was circulated on social media last week. App-based taxi drivers to strike Delhi commuters will need to brace up for a no-show of taxis and autorickshaws today as 13 associations of app-based taxi and auto-drivers will observe a day-long strike against their partners Ola and Uber. The strikers will gather at Mata Sundari Gurudwara off the Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg and will march to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal s house. We had a similar protest in February but that time we were only one association, this time as many as Kashmiri college students shout pro-freedom slogans during a protest inside a college in central Srinagar s Lal Chowk yesterday. 13 unions will be agitating with us. This is going to be a very big demonstration, Sarvodaya Drivers Association of Delhi president Kamaljeet Gill said. The drivers demand 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). The army has launched an investigation into the incident and police have registered a case although no arrests have yet been made. Army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Rajesh Kalia said the video s authenticity was being ascertained, adding, action will be taken against those found guilty of misconduct. Soldiers picked up the shawl weaver, Farooq Ahmad Dar, near the home of a relative after he voted, he told media. Look at the fate of the stonepelter, a soldier is heard saying over a loudspeaker in the video while Dar is tied to the vehicle. This is a phenomenon that has been going on for the last 27 years, Khurram Parvez, a leading Kashmiri human rights activist jailed last year, said. This is not the first human shield case. What is different now is that this case has been documented, thanks to social media. Dar s treatment was unlawful and unacceptable rights group Amnesty International said in a statement. Over the weekend two more videos circulated on social media showing workers of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party renouncing mainstream politics, one of them beside a man wielding a gun. Another video, allegedly showing the killing of a 17-year old by paramilitary officers during the April 9 by-election, has also stirred anger. The come ahead of the hot summer months, when protests surge. Kashmir witnessed deadly protests after militant leader Burhan Wani was killed last year. Violence has declined since the early 2000s, when thousands died each year, but disillusionment and anger against Indian rule is widespread, and the separatist revolt is now largely homegrown. Congress manifesto focuses on urban poor IANS New Delhi The Delhi Congress yesterday released the first of its threepart election manifesto for the upcoming civic polls, announcing a slew of measures for the uplift of the urban poor, including setting up of a Department of Urban Poverty Alleviation. The party will also introduce health and accident insurance for daily-wage labourers in Delhi if it comes to power in the civic polls, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken told reporters here. Maken said it was only the first phase of the party s election manifesto and that it would announce the rest of its plans and roadmap for Delhi s development in two more phases today and tomorrow. Tomorrow we will release our manifesto on urban infrastructure, which would talk about house tax, parking issues and other matters Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken releases manifesto for the Delhi municipal polls in New Delhi yesterday. of developed areas of Delhi, he said. It will be followed by our youth manifesto, which will be launched day after tomorrow near the Delhi University, Maken said. Municipal polls for 272 wards will be held on April 23 and the results will be declared on April 26. Dismissing the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as a minor player, Maken said it would be a straight contest between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Talking about his party s proposed schemes for urban poor, especially daily-wage labourers, Maken said the municipal corporations under the Congress rule would ensure three months salaries for them in case they did not find work. For domestic workers, which are one of the most neglected sections, we will create a helpline number. We will also establish a comprehensive system for their formal registration, their verification and ensure their welfare, he said. Maken also promised to issue 500,000 licences for street vendors, so they don t have to pay bribes every day to set up their stalls. For unauthorised colonies, we will set up a separate development fund worth Rs2,000 crore, he said. The Congress leader said all this will be accomplished by boosting the revenue inflow of the three East, North and South Delhi municipal corporations.

22 22 LATIN AMERICA Sunset in Fortaleza Venezuela s President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a meeting with ministers at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela. Military declares loyalty to Maduro AFP Caracas Venezuela s defence minister yesterday declared the army s loyalty to President Nicolas Maduro, who ordered troops into the streets ahead of a major protest by opponents trying to oust him. Venezuela is bracing for what Maduro s opponents vow will be the mother of all protests tomorrow, after two weeks of violent demos against moves by the leftist leader and his allies to tighten their grip on power. The centre-right opposition has called on the military a pillar of Maduro s power to turn on the president amid an economic and political crisis that has triggered severe food shortages, riots and looting. But Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said the army confirms its unconditional loyalty to the president. He made the comment before thousands of pro-maduro militia members at a rally outside the presidential palace, where the president thanked the army and the civilian militia for their support. Loyalty is repaid with loyalty, the president said. The rally came hours after Maduro ordered the military into the streets to defend the leftist Bolivarian revolution launched by his late mentor Hugo Chavez in From the first reveille (on Monday morning), from the first rooster crow, the Bolivarian National Armed Forces will be in the streets...saying, Long live the Bolivarian revolution, he said Sunday night in a televised address. He denounced his opponents as traitors and praised the military s unity and revolutionary commitment. Despite his announcement, there was no sign of soldiers on patrol yesterday morning in Caracas, though state TV showed images of army units marching in formation in the streets of the capital as the defence minister watched. Venezuela has been rocked by unrest since March 30, when Maduro s camp moved to consolidate its control with a supreme court decision quashing the power of the oppositionmajority legislature. The court partly backtracked after an international outcry, but tension only rose further when authorities slapped a political ban on opposition leader Henrique Capriles. Five people have been killed and hundreds wounded in the ensuing protests as riot police clashed with demonstrators. Maduro s opponents have called for a massive protest tomorrow, a national holiday that marks the start of Venezuela s independence struggle in The president s supporters have called a counter-demonstration the same day. It is a touchy date in Venezuela, where Chavez and Maduro have built a politics of populist, left-wing nationalism around the fight for independence from colonial Spain and around the hero of the struggle, Simon Bolivar. Maduro is fighting efforts to force him from power as Venezuela flounders through a crippling three-year recession and the world s highest inflation rate. Venezuela has the world s largest oil reserves, but the fall in global crude prices since 2014 has laid bare its overwhelming dependence on its chief export. Lacking the oil dollars it once used to import nearly everything else, the country has been hit by severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods like deodorant and toilet paper. Dummies of the president of Venezuela s National Assembly, Julio Borges and other personalities being burned during an Easter celebration at El Silencio shantytown in Caracas. A general view of Meireles beach during the sunset in Fortaleza, Brazil. Some Brazil ministers expected to step down The Odebrecht scandal looks set to engulf the cabinet Agencies Rio De Janeiro Brazilian President Michel Temer said yesterday he expects some of his ministers to resign after they were implicated in a massive corruption investigation, but said this would not stop his government from approving landmark economic reforms. Eight of Temer s ministers were mentioned by executives of engineering group Odebrecht SA in plea bargain testimonies made public last week. Temer reiterated that he would not fire any of his ministers before they are formally accused by prosecutors, which could take months or even years. However, he said that the scandal is embarrassing and may lead some ministers to step down. It is very likely that some ministers will feel uncomfortable and believe that they cannot continue, Temer said in a radio interview. The Odebrecht testimonies escalated a crisis that started three years ago with an investigation into kickbacks at the state-run oil company Petrobras and that already contributed to the impeachment of leftist President Dilma Rousseff last year. The president has sought to keep the scandal from thwarting his efforts to pass pension and labour reforms needed to keep public finances under control in the years ahead. The reforms are also considered crucial by investors to pull Brazil out of recession. The government was expected to present its final pension reform draft on Tuesday to Congress, where a third of the senators and Brazil s President Michel Temer (R) and Finance Minister Henrique Meireles attend a meeting of the Pension Reform Commission at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia. dozens of representatives are under investigation. With many lawmakers fearing their chances of re-election, the government was expected to ease some of the more stringent elements of the proposal, including a new retirement age. As such, Temer said another pension reform may be needed in 10 or 15 years. Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles, who has reiterated the need for a tough reform, on Monday said many points of the draft bill were still being discussed. The government expects to approve the pension reform by July, according to lawmakers that attended a meeting with Temer on Sunday. The reform plan, submitted last year to Congress, sets a minimum retirement age at 65 for both men and women and requires more years on the job for workers to gain full pension benefits. Temer has also sought to overhaul the labour code in an attempt to reduce costs to companies. The lawmaker in charge of drafting that bill presented his suggestions last week to an empty Congress. Brazilian prosecutors are demanding answers after the names of 17 employers profiting from human trafficking disappeared from the country s dirty list which names and shames companies engaged in modern slavery. Launched in 2003, the publicly available dirty list is one of the government s most effective tools for fighting human trafficking, said Tiago Muniz Cavalcanti, National Coordinator for the Eradication of Slave Labour with Brazil s Public Prosecutor s Office (MPT). Companies or individuals who appear on the list are barred from accessing credit from state banks or other public financial support in a bid to undermine the economic rationale for trafficking workers into modern slavery. There are entrenched economic interests that are against the publication of the list, Cavalcanti told the Thomson Foundation. The MPT has requested information on the reasons for the removal of the 17 names. Prosecutors still aren t sure if the removals were due to administrative errors or an attempt to suppress information in order to protect businesses benefiting from modern slavery, Cavalcanti said. This list is maintained by the Ministry of Labour. Officials from the ministry did not respond to interview requests. Cavalcanti said it was not clear when prosecutors will find out what happened to the missing names as inter-agency disputes within the Brazilian state are often drawn-out affairs. Concealment of information is only of interest to those on the list, Cavalcanti said. To all others, especially good employers, the dirty list is a very important tool, so they can avoid doing business with companies involved in the modern slave trade, the prosecutor said. The call for information from prosecutors is part of an ongoing dispute over the dirty list within Brazil s government. Publication of names onto the list was suspended in 2014 after Brazil s Federal Supreme Court granted an injunction at the request of the Brazilian Association of Real Estate Developers. The Labour Ministry began publishing names again last month, following a 2016 decision by the Supreme Court to suspend the previous injunction. As of April 1, more than 65 employers had been caught by labour inspectors for subjecting workers to conditions akin to slavery, according to the Labour Ministry s website. Most of the exploitation happened on farms, with the construction and timber industries also flagged as hot spots for abuse. More than 50,000 people have been freed from slavery type conditions in Brazil since 1995, according to the UN s International Labour Organization, that estimates 21mn people globally are trapped in forced labour. The dirty list is still under heavy pressure from large employers who appear on the list, the prosecutor said. More than 161,000 people in Brazil are living in modern slavery, according to the Global Slavery Index produced by the Australia-based Walk Free Foundation. Since it directly affects the image of the exploiter, the list is currently the most feared punishments of employers, Cavalcanti said. A US judge yesterday sentenced Brazilian engineering company Odebrecht SA to pay $2.6bn in fines in a massive criminal corruption case, signing off on a plea deal between the company and US, Brazilian and Swiss authorities. US District Judge Raymond Dearie said at a hearing in Brooklyn federal court that about $93mn will go to the United States, $2.39bn to Brazil and $116mn to Switzerland. Chile stocks soar on hopes of political change Santiago Chile s stock market had its best quarter of growth since the 1990s in the first three months of 2017, with traders and analysts citing expectations of a return to a conservative, business-friendly government as the key factor. The IPSA has risen around 17% year to date. Although the curve has flattened a little in April, the firstquarter performance was its best since Emerging markets equities in general had a strong quarter, boosted by hopes about Chinese economic stabilisation and possible future US infrastructure spending. But Chile also benefited from significant tail winds related to expectations of political change, analysts and traders said. The trigger (for the rise) is an improvement in long-term expectations, as a result of eventual political change likely after November s elections, said Matias Repetto, manager of trading firm BTG Pactual Chile. Billionaire businessman Sebastian Pinera, a former conservative president, is the frontrunner in polls to win November s presidential election, with the incumbent centre-left government deeply divided. A fall in the price of copper has coincided with the administration of President Michelle Bachelet, dragging on investment and growth in the world s No.1 copper exporter. Opposition leaders have criticised Bachelet s tax and labour reforms for exacerbating the situation, and Pinera has pledged to modify her reforms and do more to spur flagging investment. Expectations of a change of the policy cycle in Chile toward the centre could revive investment and diminish regulatory risk in some sectors, analysts at BICE said. Chile s powerful local pension funds known as AFPs increased their exposure to domestic stocks to 8.7% of overall investment in March, the highest level since September 2014, according to the pensions regulator. Mutual funds are also showing signs of returning to the local equities market, reversing a recent trend toward fixed income and external investment. In March they were net buyers of some $130mn worth of local shares, the highest amount in six years, industry figures showed. A recovery in copper in 2017 and low interest rates that make fixed income investment less attractive have also contributed to the stock market boom. Cost-cutting programmes and increasing geographical diversification among Chile s larger listed companies have also made their shares more appealing, especially as Brazil s and Argentina s economies recover, analysts said. The stocks most named by analysts as expected to benefit in the medium-term include energy group Enel Americas, retailers Cencosud and Falabella, IT firm Sonda and bottler Embotelladora Andina.

23 PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN 23 DIPLOMACY Very little scope to better India-Pakistan ties: Daily SECURITY SECURITY MILITANCY UTILITY Taliban ex-spokesperson surrenders in Pakistan Blast, firings claim eight lives in Pakistan Army general and civilians killed by Afghan Taliban Islamabad facing water shortage Praying for better sense, a Pakistani newspaper yesterday moaned there was very little scope for an immediate improvement in India-Pakistan relations. Commenting on New Delhi s reaction after a Pakistan military court sentenced an alleged Indian spy to death, The News International said in an editorial: Good intentions aside, there seems to be very little scope for an immediate improvement. Ever since Narendra Modi has come to power, he has torn to shreds whatever scraps of a peace process were left. The plain truth is that we do not have a partner in peace right now. Pakistani military yesterday announced that Ehsanullah Ehsan, former spokesperson of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and senior member of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, had turned himself in to Pakistan s security agencies. The Director General of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor announced that Ehsanullah Ehsan had turned himself over to the security forces. He did not say when and where, however. I want to take this opportunity to announce that Ehsanullah Ehsan, the former spokesperson of the TTP and a leader of the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, has turned himself. At least eight people were killed and five others injured in three separate incidents of bomb explosions and firing in Pakistan yesterday, local Urdu media reported. Dawn News said a fouryear-old boy was killed while his two playmates were injured when a bomb exploded near them in Quetta in southwest Balochistan province. Police said the kids were playing outside their home when the incident happened. Police officer Izzat Ali was quoted by Xinhua as saying that they were investigating the motive. In a separate incident, in Karak district three people, including a woman, were killed in a militant attack. An army general and four civilians have been killed by the Taliban in northern and northeastern Afghanistan in two separate incidents, officials said yesterday. General Attaullah Attaye was killed in an insurgent ambush in Kunduz early yesterday, a military spokesman said, adding that another officer had been wounded in the incident. Attaye had been travelling from Takhar to Baghlan when his vehicle came under attack from insurgents in the Chaartoot area of Kunduz province, the spokesman said. Separately, Taliban insurgents shot dead three women and a child in Sayaad district. Acute water shortage looms over Pakistani capital of Islamabad as level in both Simly and Khanpur reservoirs is decreasing almost three inches every day. Besides, the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) has failed to fix 46 out-of-order tube wells, though it is in the process of floating tenders. Like last session, the opposition Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) may again give tough time on the water issue to the ruling party in the coming session slated to be held on April 20. This is alarming, May is approaching but so far, the MCI could not fix the faulty tube wells, said Ali Awan, opposition leader in the MCI. Top Trump aide meets Pakistani PM, officials Police arrest 22 in blasphemy mob killing Islamabad US President Donald Trump s national security adviser met Pakistan s prime minister and army chief on Monday and emphasised the need to confront terrorism in all its forms, while praising democratic and economic development. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed hope that the new US administration might mediate between Pakistan and longtime foe India over the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir. HR McMaster was on his first South Asian trip since the new US administration took office in January, earlier stopping in Afghanistan, Pakistan s war-ravaged neighbour to the west. Official statements yesterday gave little indication of whether the Trump administration would adopt a new, tougher policy on Pakistan, as some Afghan officials and Islamabad s arch-foe India would like. Afghan officials have long accused Pakistan of providing Taliban insurgents shelter, and perhaps support, on its side of the countries porous border. Pakistan denies it shelters the Afghan Taliban and says it fights against all the region s jihadist groups with equal vigour. McMaster a US Army general who served in the American-led international force in Afghanistan indicated frustration with Pakistan in an interview with an Afghan news channel on Sunday. As all of us have hoped for many, many years, we have hoped that Pakistani leaders will understand that it is in their interest to go after these groups less selectively than they have in the past, he told TOLO News in Kabul. And the best way to pursue their interest in Afghanistan and In this handout photograph released by the Press Information Department (PID) yesterday, Pakistan s National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz shakes hands with US National Security Adviser Lieutenant-General HR McMaster at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad. elsewhere is through diplomacy not through the use of proxies that engage in violence. In Pakistan, McMaster s gave no interviews and the official statement on his visit was more diplomatically couched. General McMaster expressed appreciation for Pakistan s democratic and economic development, and stressed the need to confront terrorism in all its forms, the US embassy said in a statement. McMaster met Prime Minister Sharif and Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa as well as top foreign policy and national security officials. The prime minister conveyed Pakistan s readiness to work with the international community to explore ways in which the Afghan crisis can be resolved, Sharif s office said in a statement. It also said Sharif would welcome US mediation in Pakistan s disputes with India. (Sharif) welcomed President Trump s willingness to help India and Pakistan resolve their difference particularly on Kashmir and noted that this could go a long way in bringing sustainable peace, security and prosperity to the region. The Indian-administered side of Kashmir has seen a recent spike in separatist violence amid accusations of brutality against supporters of the 28-year-old insurgency that India accuses Pakistan of fomenting. Pakistan denies the accusation. The nuclear-armed rivals have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in AFP Peshawar Pakistan police announced yesterday they had arrested 22 people after the lynching of a university student accused of blasphemy, but observers said there was little hope authorities would secure convictions. A large mob attacked journalism student Mashal Khan last Thursday, stripping, beating and shooting him before throwing from the second floor of his hostel at the Abdul Wali Khan university in the conservative northwestern town of Mardan. The brutality of the attack, recorded on a mobile phone camera, shocked the public and led to widespread condemnation, including from prominent clerics. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed to prosecute the perpetrators as protests broke out in several cities. Salahuddin Khan Mehsud, police chief of the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told a press conference the number of people arrested in connection with the case had risen to 22, from 12 at the weekend. They were mainly students but also included some university clerical workers. He said police had so far found no evidence to support the blasphemy allegations against Khan, and condemned the university for investigating the case without police involvement. A second senior police officer, who requested anonymity, said many members of the police, prosecution service and judiciary sympathised with the attackers and he did not expect any guilty verdicts. There are hundreds of sympathisers in my force and if I take too much interest in the case I might be killed too, the police officer said. He added that although arrests had been made on the basis of CCTV footage and video clips, a court would require witnesses. People accusing others need education: Imam People who are illiterate and falsely accuse others of blasphemy should be educated and strictly dealt with, the Imam of Makkah s Grand Mosque, Shaikh Saleh bin Mohamed Ibrahim, has said. The visiting Imam-e-Kaaba told Geo News in an interview aired on Sunday that Islam is a religion of peace, forgiveness and tolerance and that people should be educated about the religion in a peaceful way. The Grand Mosque prayer leader s statement came days after a mob on April 13 lynched and killed Mashal Khan, a journalism student, in Pakistan s Mardan city for alleged committing blasphemy. According to the Imam, terrorism and extremism have nothing to do with Islam and it is the Muslim world that is bearing the brunt of extremism. He said that when it comes to accusing someone of blasphemy, there are two types of people those who are illiterate and those who misuse Islam for personal gains. He said those whose hearts are plagued with disease misuse Islam intentionally and that there was no reprieve for such people. Female Pak suicide bomber planned foiled Easter attack Jumbos make a splash Islamabad Pakistan s military captured a would-be Islamic State (IS) female suicide bomber in the cultural capital of Lahore before she could carry out an attack on the Christian community during Easter celebrations, the army s chief spokesman said yesterday. The military identified the woman as Noreen Leghari, a medical student who grew up in the southern city of Hyderabad. Part of a video confession by the woman was shown at a news briefing. In it, she says she was part of a planned attack on an unnamed church on Easter, and had travelled from Hyderabad to Lahore and was working with two other men. They had two (explosivesfilled) jackets and four hand grenades, and the jackets were to be used for an attack on some church during Easter, and I was to be the suicide bomber, she says. But before that, on the night of April 14, the security forces raided our hideout. The director general of the army s public relations Pakistan s army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor speaks with media representatives as he gives details of a captured would-be female suicide bomber Noreen Leghari during a press conference in Rawalpindi yesterday. wing, Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, showed the video as part of an update on a military operation against jihadist militants, launched after a series of attacks in February including the bombing of a Sufi shrine that was claimed by Islamic State. These kids are our kids. The youth bulge is our strength. When terrorists begin targeting our youth then you can estimate what kind of effect this will have on our society, Ghafoor said. Addressing rumours that Noreen had travelled to Syria to join Islamic State, Ghafoor said she was recovered from Lahore, which means she never went to Syria. He added that 4,510 suspected militants have been arrested across the country in the latest army operation, which began in February. One of the biggest successes announced so far was the surrender of Pakistani Taliban offshoot Jamaat ur Ahrar spokesman and leader Ehsanullah Ehsan. Jamaat ur Ahrar had carried out numerous big attacks since rising to prominence in 2015, including a bombing last Easter in Lahore that killed 70 people. Zoo keeper Samiullah, 45, gives a bath to 11-year-old elephant Madhubala (top) and 10-year-old Malka, in their enclosure in Zoological Garden in Karachi, Pakistan, yesterday.

24 24 PHILIPPINES Marcos Jr takes step towards VP vote recount Manila The son of former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos yesterday took a step towards securing a recount of votes in an election for vice president last year in which he says he was unfairly robbed of victory. The son, also called Ferdinand Marcos but popularly known as Bongbong, lost the election for vice president last May to social activist and lawyer Leni Robredo by about 260,000 votes. He has objected to the result ever since and the Supreme Court ruled in February that his protest was valid, but he has to pay for a recount of the votes. Yesterday, he deposited about 36mn pesos ($728,500) as payment for a recount of votes in 42% of polling precincts. It s good I have kind-hearted friends. They believe in my election protest because it is right, just and fair, Marcos told reporters after signing a check. He did not elaborate on his friends. Robredo s relationship with President Rodrigo Duterte is far from close and he has frequently made jokes in public at her expense. She has been critical of some of his policies, including his deadly war on drugs, and delivered a video message to a UN human rights conference in Geneva last month. She also opposed the burial of the late dictator Marcos at a heroes cemetery. Last year, Duterte instructed aides to tell Robredo to cease attending his Cabinet meetings, prompting her to resign as housing minister, though she remained vice president. Rumours have swirled that Duterte favours Marcos but Former senator Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr and son of late former dictator Ferdinand Marcos is greeted by his supporters upon his arrival at the Supreme Court in Metro Manila yesterday. Duterte has denied he is trying to oust Robredo. Presidents and vice presidents are elected separately in the Philippines. Marcos has until July 14 to pay another 30mn pesos to complete recounting votes in more than 39,000 polling precincts nationwide. He said vote-counting machines were manipulated to favour of Robredo. She has challenged his protest in the high court saying he had not specifically said where the supposed irregularities took place. Duterte s father, a former governor in Mindanao province, served under the elder Marcos when he was first elected president in Marcos was ousted in protests in 1986 and died in Hawaii in Call to halt attacks on building equipment by rebels The local Catholic Church and the provincial government leadership here appealed to rebel groups to stop burning construction equipment and harassing businessmen while at the same time calling on government officials and private firms to stop their corrupt practices. Tuguegarao Archbishop Sergio Utleg and Gov. Manuel Mamba, issued a joint statement after the recent burning of a private contractor s equipment being used for a government road project in Alcala and Baggao towns, Manila Times reported. On March 26, at least four road building equipment were burned by about 15 gunmen who attacked a motor pool owned by Pulsar Construction Company (PCC) in Barangay Calantac, Alcala. The gunmen who claimed to be members of the New People s Army also took with them communication equipment. As a result, the PCC pulled out several of its equipment and personnel from the project, delaying its completion. The joint statement was read over the local radio station by Father Garry Agcaoili, vicar general of Tuguegarao Archdiocese. We ask the Henry Abraham Command under the Fortunato Camus Command of the CPP- NPA (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People s Army)- Cagayan Valley to refrain from harassing construction personnel and burning construction equipment, it said. Duterte tops Time reader poll of world s 100 most influential people DPA Manila Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, a toughtalking, crime-fighting former mayor, has topped Time magazine s online reader poll for its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. The official Time 100 list will be released on Thursday, the magazine said. Duterte, who took office on June 30, took 5% of the online votes cast, followed by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Pope Francis, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, Time said. Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said Duterte is so admired by Filipinos and international leaders alike (because of) his national agenda he has prioritised public interest first and foremost. With or without the distinction, the president continues to be a hard-working government worker and faithful servant of the Filipino people, Abella said in a statement yesterday. Indeed Filipinos find in Rodrigo Duterte: recognition the president a kindred spirit, a leader who acts for the common good, he added. Duterte has become notorious for a string of foulmouthed and sexist remarks, a deadly campaign against illegal drugs that has killed thousands and threats to break ties with the country s oldest ally, the United States. Last month, the 72-yearold leader lashed out at European Union lawmakers, for calling on the Philippines not to reimpose the death penalty and expressing support for a detained opposition senator. Duterte also told former US president Barack Obama to go to hell and called the United Nations stupid just three months into his six-year term. Group slams killing of MILF official s kin By Julmunir I Jannaral Shariff Aguak/Manila Times A civil society organisation has condemned the killing of the brother of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) vice chairperson Gadzali Jaafar, labelling it as a move aimed at sabotaging talks between the government and the rebel group. Philippine National Police (PNP) operatives on Tuesday last week shot dead Jaafar s brother, Mohaimen Abo, in what the former claimed to be a legitimate police operation. However, Alan Balangi-Amer, president of 1-Bangsamoro Movement (1-Bangsa), said the operation against Abo violated a security agreement between the MILF and the government where the latter conceded to the former the authority to arrest MILF members facing criminal charges. Abo was also known in MILF circles as Commander Falcon or Ustadz Mohaimen. Senior Superintendent Agustin Tello, director of the Maguindanao provincial police, claimed that Abo was facing arrest for criminal charges including kidnapping with homicide, kidnapping for ransom, murder, and frustrated murder. He was facing criminal cases in courts in Midsayap, North Cotabato and in Surallah, South Cotabato, Tello said. Citing a report from the municipal police office of Sultan Kudarat, Tello related that when PNP operatives sought to arrest Abo, the latter pulled out a pistol, triggering a shootout that resulted in his death. Jaafar, for his part, clarified that under the 1997 Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities (AGCH) between the MILF and the government, the arrest of MILF members may only be carried out in co-ordination with the ceasefire committee and Ad-Hoc Joint Action Group formed by both panels. Balangi-Amer said the PNP operatives should have respected the provisions of the 1997 AGCH. He likened the PNP operation against Abo to the Mamasapano incident during the administration of former president Benigno Aquino, that resulted in the killing of 44 police commandos.he said that like the Mamasapano incident, no proper co-ordination with the government-milf ceasefire committee and Ad-Hoc Joint Action Group was made by the PNP when it sought to arrest Abo. Kris Aquino reveals new Hollywood project By Arlo Custodio Manila Times Kris Aquino on Easter Sunday posted on her Instagram account a lengthy narration on how she was able to clinch a Hollywood project through her agent, three weeks after submitting her audition. Complete with a Bible verse from 2 Corinthians 12:9, Aquino opened with an emotional treatise on losing projects on TV, and then went on to talk about the circumstances surrounding the Hollywood deal, and finally announcing she was leaving that very night for Los Angeles. For a year, I experienced rejections. A part of my spirit broke. There were two shows I lost because hiring an Aquino for TV was a political risk not worth taking. But something happened on March 23 a Tony and Grammy award-winning producer, Jhett Tolentino, contacted me through Congresswoman Len Alonte and Manang Nene Chan. He was helping a Filipino-Chinese-American agent friend of his reach me to ask if I d want to audition for a big Hollywood studio movie about to start filming, Aquino wrote. The pressure was I had to submit my reel in 72 hours. I felt I had nothing to lose, so we went for it. Forty-eight hours after Jhett s call, on March 25, we mounted an audition shoot in Manila Peninsula. Thank you Armada, Direk Ricky Villabona, Jules Dacanay, DOP Shayne Sarte and her team, Nante Alingasa, Kimi Yap, my finance guru Nicko Falcis, Alvin and the entire Kris Online team, plus Atty. Joji s Quantum Post Production for the unwavering faith. We shot, they immediately edited and colour-graded, both my audition scenes and video bio. Sunday we sent the high definition material. And we waited. And prayed, she continued. Then her big reveal, Tonight I fly to Los Angeles to meet Chris Lee, my agent, to sign my contract. I passed five levels of intense scrutiny and was offered a role. It is surreal to be reading the script from a major Hollywood studio watermarked on every page with my name. I signed a non-disclosure agreement so until they reveal my participation I can t share any details about the movie and my role. Before the Holy Week, Aquino was at loggerheads with the producer of her TV special, Trip Ni Kris, over her interview on Yes! Magazine, which may have been too candid for comfort. The block-timer show was to take over the time slot of GMA s Sunday Night Box Office (SNBO). However, after the premiere episode and the supposed re-airing on Facebook through her website RealKrisAquino on Easter Sunday, the rights were revoked by Rhodora Morales. Aquino had said in the magazine interview that she had not been paid in full and felt that she was being used to advance the political career of Morales son, Renan, who is currently a councillor with plans of running as vice governor in the 2019 elections. The daughter of the late former president Corazon Aquino and sister of immediate past president Noynoy Aquino denied there was anything going on between her and the producer s son, who had previously been linked to several showbiz personalities Aquino ended her post by saying, I am proof that in life doors will shut and there will be heartbreaking setbacks, but faith in God s plan will open new, unexpected doors. We just need to trust in His love, provision, restoration and perfect timing. Grace is unmerited; it s God s gift we humbly receive with a heart overflowing with gratitude. To my siblings and sons, I share this blessing with you. Thank you for being my strength. Kris Aquino: new Hollywood project

25 SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL 25 Nepal convicts soldiers of killing girl during civil war Fifteen-year-old Maina Sunuwar was tortured and killed after she was detained by the army in 2004 for alleged links to Maoist rebels. AFP Kathmandu Three former Nepalese soldiers have each been sentenced in absentia to 20 years in jail for killing a teenage girl, only the second conviction for crimes committed during a decade-long civil war which ended in Fifteen-year-old Maina Sunuwar was tortured and killed after she was detained by the army in 2004 for alleged links to Maoist rebels. But a military tribunal the following year ruled that her death was accidental and charged the three soldiers involved in the case with only minor offences. Maina s mother brought a case in a civilian court which delivered its verdict on Sunday, a court official said. But none of the three convicted are currently in custody, and rights groups have raised concerns they may never serve their sentences. A fourth soldier, the most senior of all those accused, was acquitted. We have fought for justice for so many years, I m glad the court has understood our plight, Sunuwar s mother Devi said. But our fight is not over. I m worried the decision might be limited to paper. The state must implement the court s decision. Devi campaigned for years for justice for her daughter, who was arrested when soldiers came to their home looking for her mother. Devi had days earlier publicly accused government forces of raping and murdering her niece. We believed that Maina had been taken, and perhaps killed, only to punish her mother, said Advocacy Forum Nepal, a legal rights group, in a report about the long-running case. A military tribunal in 2005 found that Sunuwar had been repeatedly held under water and given electric shocks to her feet and wrists during interrogation. But it ruled that her death was accidental and the three soldiers named in the case were only charged with minor offences, including using improper interrogation techniques and failing to follow procedure. They were sentenced to six months in detention but released immediately because the Bhandari begins five-day India visit IANS New Delhi Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari arrived in New Delhi yesterday on a five-day visit to India at the invitation of her Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee. This is Bhandari s first foreign tour after assuming office in October She is accompanied by a 33-member delegation that includes Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat and Peace and Reconstruction Minister Sita Devi Yadav, five women MPs and senior officials. Bhandari will be given a ceremonial reception and accorded a guard of honour at the Rashtrapati Bhavan today. Also today, she will pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat and visit the Yamuna Biodiversity Park. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister Susham Swaraj, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will call on the visiting dignitary. Vice President Hamid Ansari will also call on Bhandari at the Rashtrapati Bhavan where she will stay. She will call on President Mukherjee and attend a banquet hosted by him. Neighbourhood first, external affairs ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted, announcing the Nepal president s arrival. On Sunday, Sudhakar Dalela, joint secretary (India and Bhutan) in the ministry of external affairs, said India s ties with Nepal were people-centric and focused on improving connectivity between the neighbours besides improving energy infrastructure. The visit reflects the priority India attaches to further strengthening the age-old unique partnership with Nepal and our shared historical and cultural linkages and strong people-to-people connection, he said. Though wide-ranging discussions are expected to be held on bilateral issues, no agreement is expected to be signed. Bhandari will visit Gujarat and Odisha on Wednesday and Thursday before leaving for Kathmandu on Friday. tribunal ruled they had already served their time while confined to barracks. In 2007, the case was taken to the Supreme Court and an arrest warrant was issued the following year for the three soldiers and a major. The major, Niranjan Basnet, who was found innocent on Sunday, is the only one of the accused still serving in the army, which has been repeatedly accused by activists of sheltering its men from prosecution. There is a worry, despite winning the case after so many years, the convicted might still not go behind bars, said Mandira Sharma, a human rights lawyer and activist who worked on the case. But we are hopeful that it won t happen... if the army as a public institution helps in arresting them and allowing them to serve their sentences, it will help increase confidence of the (other) victims. More than 17,000 people were killed during the civil war, which ended with a peace deal between Maoist insurgents and government forces. Both sides stand accused of committing rights abuses during the conflict, but rights groups say little has been done to hold the perpetrators many of whom still hold senior positions in the military and government to account. In December 2014 five former Maoist rebels were jailed for two years for torturing and killing a journalist, a sentence many criticised for being too lenient. Nepal set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the Disappeared in 2015, but investigations have made little progress due to a lack of funds and political inertia. Indian Minister of State for Women and Child Development Krishna Raj, right, welcomes Nepal President Bidya Devi Bhandari on her arrival at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi yesterday. Dhaka sets migration cost for workers By Mizan Rahman Dhaka Bangladesh has fixed migration cost up to 165,000 taka ($2,063) for Middle East-bound workers to check arbitrary charges by manpower recruiters. The ministry of expatriates welfare and overseas employment finalised the amount after consultations with the stakeholders, officials said yesterday. The proposed migration cost will be applicable to workers for all job destination countries of the Middle East, said an official at the ministry. We have finalised the cost and hope within a week a government order (GO) will be issued after getting approval of the expatriates welfare minister, he added. He said the authority has taken the initiative to ensure a reasonable migration cost and make manpower recruiters accountable. Hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis are working in Middle Eastern countries. The cost of migration, however, remains fixed for Saudi Arabia and Malaysia-bound workers at 165,000 taka and 37,000 taka respectively. The migration cost will be fixed for all other job destination countries gradually, officials also said. They have already taken a move to fix the cost for Singapore-bound workers. The Bangladesh embassy in Singapore has already proposed the maximum migration cost at 260,000 taka including all necessary charges for each Singapore-bound worker. As per the proposal of the Bangladesh mission, the cost will include 55,000 taka for training and accommodation, 25,000 taka to 30,000 taka for air fare and 25,000 taka to 30,000 taka for agent fees. Other costs which have to be borne by the workers are 24,500 taka to 27,000 taka as test fees to be given to the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) in Singapore and company fee 8,000 taka to 15,000 taka. The cost will be fixed for building construction, ship building and repairing sector jobs, he said. However, sector insiders said, it will not be enough to fix a migration cost. The government should introduce a strong monitoring system to check malpractices. Earlier, securing jobs in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia cost the job-seekers heavily, they mentioned. Workers are mostly unable to recover their cost of migration during their job period as it is significantly high, they observed. They also urged the government to work for reducing visa trading and middleman interferences as those are mostly responsible for hiking the cost of migration. Unofficial migration costs are, however, now varying from 200,000 taka to 800,000 taka for Middle Eastbound workers whereas it is 200,000 taka to 600,000 taka for workers for Malaysia. Singapore-bound workers spend 300,000 taka to 850,000 taka each to secure jobs, according to a report of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (Brac). More than 10mn Bangladeshis went abroad with job from 1976 to till February 2017, Bureau of Manpower, and Employment and Training (BMET) data showed. Bangladeshi workers are employed in 162 countries. Nepal cancels holiday on Friday IANS Kathmandu Amid wide criticism, the Nepal government has decided to roll back its decision to declare a public holiday on Friday, the day when President Bidya Devi Bhandari is scheduled to return home at the end of a five-day state visit to India. Earlier, the government had announced public holidays on April 17 and April 21 days when the president was slated to leave for her foreign tour and return home, the Kathmandu Post reported yesterday. Yesterday morning, Bhandari, leading a 33-member delegation, left Kathmandu for India on a five-day state visit at the invitation of her Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee. A public holiday was observed yesterday. In monarchical Nepal, public holidays were customarily announced whenever the king embarked on an official visit to any nation or returned home after the visit. The announcement on Sunday by Law Minister Ajay Shankar Nayak about the public holidays on April 17 and 21 appeared a continuation of the previous practice but strident criticism from almost all quarters forced the government to have a rethink on the decision. This is Bhandari s first foreign tour after assuming office in October Her delegation includes Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat and Peace and Reconstruction Minister Sita Devi Yadav, five women lawmakers and senior officials. Hundreds evacuated after Lanka dump collapse AFP Colombo Sri Lanka has moved over 400 families to temporary shelters after tonnes of rotting garbage collapsed onto a slum on Friday, killing at least 29 people. Some 145 homes were destroyed when the 300ft (90m) rubbish mountain came crashing down on Friday afternoon at Kolonnawa on the northeastern edge of Colombo. Police say many more buildings were damaged and could collapse at any time. Guard of honour for Lanka PM The search for survivors was stopped at nightfall on Monday but will resume at first light on Tuesday, military spokesman Roshan Seneviratne said. Seven people reported missing by their families since Friday s landslide have still not been located, he added. The collapse came as the country celebrated the traditional New Year and followed a warning to parliament that the 23mn tonnes of rotting garbage posed a serious health hazard. We are keeping up the search tomorrow as well, but we are not very hopeful of finding anyone alive in these conditions, Seneviratne said yesterday. The death toll rose to 29 after a man injured in the landslide died in hospital Monday, Seneviratne added. Disaster management officials said 1,700 people had been moved to temporary shelters in state schools while the government looked for alternative accommodation. Disaster Management Minister Anura Yapa said the loss of life could have been avoided had local residents acted on warnings to move issued as recently as a fortnight ago. Some had even been offered Sri Lanka s Prime Minister Naril Wickremesinghe, right, and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc review an honour guard during a welcoming ceremony at the presidential palace in Hanoi yesterday. Wickremesinghe is on a three-day official visit. money to rent homes and move out. Some took it, but most didn t, Yapa told reporters. These deaths could have been avoided if they had moved out, but this is not the time to blame anyone. He said the government would launch a military-type operation to dispose of garbage in the capital and neighbouring areas. However, activist group Decent Lanka 2015 said ad hoc compensation and relocation was not the answer to a festering problem. The waste dump exposes all political parties and alliances in both provincial and central government as clueless, politically illiterate and insensitive to sensitive issues effecting the people, the group said. It called for more talks with residents before rushing any relocation. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was visiting Japan at the time of the collapse, said arrangements had been made to clear away the garbage dump, but it came crashing down before work could begin. About 800 tonnes of solid waste from the capital is added to the open dump every day. Efforts are under way to generate electricity using the waste. Police have stepped up security in the area following reports of looting and said they arrested 23 men suspected of stealing victims belongings. Wickremesinghe said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had offered help with the recovery effort and a technical team would be sent to Sri Lanka to evaluate the situation. The Japanese embassy in Colombo said Tokyo was sending emergency supplies, including tents and sleeping bags, water purifiers and portable electricity generators to help with the relief operations. Nepal alliance announces strike against local polls IANS Kathmandu The Federal Alliance (Sanghiya Gathabandhan) has announced a series of protest programmes, beginning from today, against the local level elections scheduled for next month. At a time when Nepal is on the verge of holding local elections on May 14, the step taken by the Federal Alliance an alliance of Madhesi and Janjati parties added further complications in holding the three-tier elections local, provincial and central within another 10 months. Political voices are divided in Nepal whether to include the Madhesi parties in the polls or not. The main opposition Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxists-Leninists) (CPN-UML) is vehemently opposing bringing the Morcha on board if it does not agree to join. The two major ruling parties, Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre), are opting for the middle path, saying that Madhesi participation in the polls is a must and they should be included. The ruling parties added that they will not take part in the elections without amending the constitution, towards which end the government has registered an amending bill in parliament in order to address the grievances of the agitating parties. The alliance and Madhes-based parties have been demanding amendment to various provisions in the constitution like citizenship, language, proportional representation of various marginalised communities in various state entities, and change in federal boundaries, among others. But the government has been insisting that it lacks a two-thirds majority in parliament required for approving a constitutional amendment and has urged the alliance and Morcha to join the polls unconditionally. In a conference on Sunday, the alliance said that it will begin its protest programmes from April 18 and continue up to May 14. To foil the planned elections, the alliance has called for an indefinite general strike across the country from May 10 while it will organise torch rallies, mass assemblies, and demonstrations in the days leading up to the general strike.

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 Team orders may see Bottas playing second fiddle Formula One world champions Mercedes may have to increasingly favour Lewis Hamilton over new teammate Valtteri Bottas to counter the threat posed by Ferrari s Sebastian Vettel this season. This was clear during Sunday s Bahrain Grand Prix where team orders were issued in Hamilton s favour at Bottas expense so that the Briton could stay in the hunt for the title. Twice Bottas let triple champion teammate Lewis Hamilton through to try and take on Vettel, an attempt that ultimately proved in vain as the Briton ended up second and Bottas third. The Finn had started on pole position, a career first, but tyre pressure problems at the start and a general lack of pace left the Finn struggling to challenge Vettel after the German had taken the lead. Bottas was disappointed but said the team directives made sense. As a racing driver it s maybe the worst thing you want to hear. That s how it is, Bottas, who joined Mercedes in January as the replacement for retired world champion Nico Rosberg, told reporters. When I heard the call initially, for me it made sense. He seemed to have a bit more pace and the gap between me and Sebastian was getting bigger and Lewis was putting pressure on me behind. I completely understand the decision from the team to request that, and of course I did it. I did it for the team even though it didn t feel good for me personally. Mercedes have never had a designated number one driver, and team boss Tito Wolff said the desire was to give both equal opportunity at the start of the race. The team won all but two races last season but are no longer dominant in a championship that has for the past three years been an internal battle. Vettel has now won two of three races and is seven Mercedes have never had a designated number one driver points clear of Hamilton. Finland s Kimi Raikkonen, Vettel s 2007 champion teammate who has yet to stand on the podium this season and not been on pole since 2008, slipped 34 points behind half as many as the German. Bottas, who joined Mercedes in January as replacement for now-retired world champion Nico Rosberg, is 23 adrift of his teammate. The disparity between the current Mercedes pairing is more marked than before, with Bottas yet to win a race and Hamilton surpassed only by Michael Schumacher in the all-time lists with 54 victories. Bahrain was Bottas s first career pole position, whereas Hamilton has 63 and could sail past Schumacher s record of 68 later in the year. The Finn is also still settling into his new surroundings, whereas Hamilton has been there since 2013 and is the sport s biggest personality. Hamilton had been on pole for six races in a row until Bottas broke the sequence in Bahrain and Wolff said Mercedes appeared to be still slightly ahead of Ferrari on single lap pace. In the race it s pretty evenly matched I would say. So I think that s going to be a close one for the next couple of races. Formula One fans would be hoping for exactly that. To Advertise advr@gulf-times.com Display Telephone Fax Classified Telephone Fax Subscription circulation@gulf-times.com All rights reserved The rough ride ahead for Made in America Ruston, Louisiana Mini motorcycle and gokart maker Monster Moto made a big bet on US manufacturing by moving assembly to this Louisiana town in 2016 from China. But it will be a long ride before it can stamp its products Made in USA. The loss of nearly one out four US factories in the last two decades means parts for its bike frames and engines must be purchased in China, where the manufacturing supply chain moved years ago. There s just no way to source parts in America right now, said Monster Moto Chief Executive Alex Keechle during a tour of the company s assembly plant. But by planting the flag here, we believe suppliers will follow. Monster Moto s experience is an example of the obstacles American companies face as they, along with President Donald Trump, try to rebuild American manufacturing. US automakers and their suppliers, for example, have already invested billions in plants abroad and would face an expensive and time-consuming transition to buy thousands of American-made parts if President Trump s proposed border tax on imported goods were to become law. When companies reshore assembly to US soil in Monster Moto s case that took two years to find a location and negotiate support from local and state officials they are betting their demand will create a local supply chain that currently does not exist. For now, finding US-based suppliers remains one of the top challenges across our supplier base, said Cindi Marsiglio, Wal-Mart Stores Inc s vicepresident for US manufacturing and sourcing. Wal-Mart partnered with Monster Spain becomes world leader in organ transplants By Adrien Vicente AFP Juan Benito Druet has just learned that his life may be about to change. In the next few hours he will receive a healthy kidney thanks to a pioneering system that has made Spain the world leader in organ transplants for the past 25 years. We don t know what will happen. but you have to take a chance, said Druet, 63, a reserved and moustachioed boilermaker, as he lays in his bed at Madrid s La Paz hospital. Hospital staff try to reassure him by telling him organ transplants are carried out every day in Spain. Doctors performed 4,818 transplants last year, including 2,994 kidney transplants, according to the health ministry s National Transplant Organisation (ONT). That means there were 43.4 organ donors per million inhabitants last year, a world record, up from 40.2 donors in By comparison in the United States there were just 28.2 donors per million inhabitants in 2015, 28.1 in France and 10.9 in Germany, according to the Council of Europe. Moto and several other US companies in a drive to increase spending on American-made goods by $250bn by 2023 in response to consumer demand for American-made goods. Their experience has shown Americans patriotic shopping habits have limits, namely when it comes to price. Take Monster Moto s bikes, which sell for between $249 to $749. Keechle, the CEO, says he can t raise those prices for fear his price sensitive prospective customers will turn to less expensive rivals made in China. Consumers won t give you a free pass just because you put Made in USA on the box, Keechle says. You have to remain price competitive. Keeping a sharp eye on labour costs in their factory is one thing these US manufactures can control. They see replacing primarily lowerskilled workers on the assembly line with robots on American factory floors as the only way to produce here in a financially viable, cost-competitive way. It s a trend that runs against the narrative candidate Donald Trump used to win the US Presidency. Since taking office, Trump has continued promises to resurrect US manufacturing s bygone glory days and bring back millions of jobs. On March 31, Trump directed his administration to clamp down on countries that abuse trade rules in a bid to end to the theft of American prosperity. But it s more complicated on the ground for companies like Monster Moto. It s almost as if people think you can just unplug manufacturing in one part of the world and plug it in to the US and everything s going to be fine, said David Abney, Chief Executive Officer of package delivery company United Parcel Service Inc, which helped Monster Moto reconfigure its supply chain to bring its Chinesemade parts to Ruston. It is even better than if we had won the jackpot in the lottery, says Druet s wife Jeronima, 60, as she sits close to him along with the couple s two adult children. Now she dreams of going on a cruise with her husband, something impossible as long as he needed to be hooked to a 15-kilo kidney dialysis machine every night to filter his blood. The transplant operation lasts four and half hours. Surgeons make a 15-centimetre (six-inch) incision in Druet s abdomen to transplant a healthy kidney extracted the night before from a woman who died. After a transplant patients start to regain weight, their health improves. It is as if we transplant lives, the founder of the ONT, Rafael Matesanz, tells AFP. Matesanz oversaw the implementation of a centralised and well-oiled organ donation and transplant system which has been replicated in Portugal and Croatia and inspired others across Europe. Each hospital has a transplant coordinator, usually a doctor or nurse who specialises in intensive care, charged with identifying patients at risk of a heart attack or brain death. In both situations kidneys, livers, It s not something that happens overnight, he said. A White House official said that the Trump administration s efforts to encourage manufacturers to reshore production will be focused on cutting regulations and programmes to provide new skills to manufacturing workers. We recognise that the manufacturing jobs that come back to America might not all look like the ones that left, a White House official said, and we are taking steps to ensure that the American workforce is ready for that. In Monster Moto s cavernous warehouse in Ruston, boxes of imported parts that are delivered at one end then become bikes on a short but industrious assembly line of a few dozen workers. A solitary, long-bearded worker by the name of Billy Mahaffey fires up the bikes to test their engine and brakes before a small group of workers puts them in boxes declaring: Assembled in the USA. Helped by that label, Monster Moto has experienced a recent boom in demand from major customers that include Wal-Mart. The company expects to double production to 80,000 units and increase its assembly workers who make $13 to $15 an hour to 100 from around 40 in The most likely components Monster Moto could produce in America first are black, welded-metal frames for bikes and go-karts, but they would have to automate production because human welders would be too expensive. We can t just blow up our cost structure, said Monster Moto President Rick Sukkar. The only way to make it work in America is with robotics. The same principle applies for much larger manufacturers, such as automotive supplier Delphi Automotive PLC s. lungs, pancreas and sometimes even the heart can still work and can be transplanted. Organ donations are quickly reported to the ONT which searches for the best match from its organ waiting list. If the patient is far away, a cooler with the organ is sent by plane inside the cockpit with the pilot. The operation is free under Spain s public health system, anonymous and available only to residents of the country to avoid organ trafficking. What makes the difference is the organisation of the system. This network, this centralisation, is the key, says Marie-Charlotte Bouesseau of the World Health Organisation s department of ethics. Worldwide only about 10% of all patients who need a transplant receive a donated organ, she adds. That means that 90% will die while they are on a waiting list, she explains. In Spain only 4 to 6% of patients died in 2016 while they were on a waiting list for a vital organ a liver, heart or lung. Ramon Garcia Castillo, 85, a former TV technician, spent 13 months on dialysis before he received a kidney transplant in Chief Financial Officer Joe Massaro told analysts in February that 90% of the company s hourly workforce is in best-cost countries. When asked about shifting production to the United States from Mexico, Massaro said depending on what happens to trade rules it would have to be much more of the sort of the automated type manufacturing operations just given the labour differential there. That trend is already showing up in data compiled by Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based thinktank. According to senior economist Rob Scott, not only did America lose 85,000 factories, or 23.5% of the total, from 1997 to 2014, but the average number of workers in a US factory declined 14% to 44 in 2014 from According to Scott, much of the decline in workers was due to automation. We re going to see more automation in this country because it makes good sense economically for every company, said Hal Sirkin, a managing director at the Boston Consulting Group. You can spend a lot of time bemoaning it, but that s not going to change. Manufacturers say automated production requires fewer, but more skilled workers such as robot programmers and operators. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) estimates because of the skills gap there are 350,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs today in a sector that employs over 12mn people. In Ruston, Mayor Ronny Walker bet on Monster Moto by guaranteeing the company s lease because he wants to diversify the city s economy, and envisions suppliers setting up alongside Monster Moto s assembly plant. Could it take a long time to bring manufacturing back here? Sure, he says. But you have to start somewhere. He would previously trek to a hospital three times a week to be hooked up to a machine for threeand-a-half hours. The kidney transplant gave me my life back, says Castillo, who now just needs to take pills to ensure his body does not reject the donated kidney. The other secret to the success of the Spanish system is training and communication, explains Matesanz. Since it was set up in 1989, the ONT has trained over 18,000 transplant co-ordinators who break the news of a person s death and then gently convince their loved ones to agree to donate their organs. Spanish law presumes consent for organs to be removed on their death unless they had previously made clear that they were against donation. But loved ones are systematically consulted. You have to have a lot of empathy, sensitivity, respect, says Belen Estebanez, the transplant coordinator at Madrid s La Paz hospital. The work of a transport coordinator was depicted in Spanish director Pedro Almodovar s 1999 Oscar-winning movie All About My Mother. The director consulted with the ONT to prepare the movie.

27 COMMENT The coming French revolution 27 France has not endured such political turmoil since 1958, when, in the midst of the Algerian War, General Charles de Gaulle came to power and crafted the Constitution of the Fifth Republic By Zaki Laidi Paris In a few weeks, France will elect its next president. Given the French executive s considerable powers, including the authority to dissolve the National Assembly, the presidential election, held every five years, is France s most important. But the stakes are higher than ever this time. The two frontrunners are the farright National Front s Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, who served as economy minister under Socialist President Francois Hollande, but is running as an independent. If, as expected, Le Pen and Macron face off in the election s second round on May 7, it will be a political watershed for France: the first time in 60 years that the main parties of the left and the right are not represented in the second round. France has not endured such political turmoil since 1958, when, in the midst of the Algerian War, General Charles de Gaulle came to power and crafted the Constitution of the Fifth Republic. That shift, like any great political rupture, was driven by a combination of deep underlying dynamics and the particular circumstances of the moment. Today is no different. First, the underlying dynamic: the rise, as in most developed countries nowadays, of popular mistrust of elites, feelings of disempowerment, fear of economic globalisation and immigration, and anxiety over downward social mobility and growing inequality. These sentiments together with the French state s historical role in fostering national identity and economic growth have contributed to a surge in support for the National Front. Le Pen s nationalist, xenophobic message and populist economic policies resemble those of the far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon. Although support for the National Front has been growing for more than a decade, the party has so far been kept out of power by France s tworound electoral system, which enables voters to unite against it in the second round. And, given the National Front s inability to make alliances, power has remained in the hands of the main parties of the left and the right, even as France has moved toward a tripartite political system. Now, Macron is taking advantage of current circumstances to blow up the tripartite system. Macron s great insight, which few initially recognised, was that the right-left divide was blocking progress, and that the presidential election amounted to a golden opportunity to move beyond it, without the help of an organised political movement. At a time when the French people are increasingly rejecting the traditional party system, Macron s initial weakness quickly became his strength. It helped that, as Macron himself recognised, both the right and the left have fragmented in recent years. This is particularly true on the left, where a clear division has emerged between a reformist current, led by former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Supporters of the presidential election candidate for the En Marche! movement Emmanuel Macron wave flags during a campaign meeting yesterday at the Bercy Arena in Paris. Macron planned his biggest rally yet at the Bercy sports and concert hall, a venue with a capacity of 20,000. and traditionalists, represented by the Socialist Party candidate, Benoit Hamon. The Socialists problems are compounded by the existence of a radical left working actively to eliminate them, much as Spain s left-wing Podemos party has sought to replace the Socialist Workers Party there. The source of the mainstream right s travails is less clear. Its forces remain generally united on economic and social issues. In fact, until a few months ago, its presidential candidate, the Republicans Francois Fillon, was expected to lead the pack in the first round by a wide margin. But a scandal over his personal conduct (he allegedly paid his wife and children for nonexistent jobs while he was a member of parliament) damaged his candidacy probably fatally. Whatever the reason for the right s decline, Macron has benefited substantially from it, as well as from the rifts afflicting the left. Now, there is a real chance the young independent could be elected president on May 7, upending the Fifth Republic s political system. But an electoral victory is just a first step. To govern in France s hybrid presidential-parliamentary system, Macron would need to secure a majority in the National Assembly. This opens the possibility of two scenarios. In the first scenario, Macron quickly gains a parliamentary majority, as French voters seek to reinforce his mandate in June s National Assembly election. This is conceivable, but not certain: it is here where the lack of an organised political movement on the ground remains a weakness for Macron. That is why the June election could give rise to the second scenario: cohabitation with a parliamentary coalition comprising a small rightwing faction, a large centrist faction, and a hopelessly divided left-wing faction. Such a development would be familiar in many European countries. But in France, where republicanism gave rise to the left-right ideological spectrum that shapes politics throughout the West today, it would be a genuine revolution one that could spell the end of the Socialist Party. Given the symbolic power of the left-right divide, France s voters and political leaders alike have long tended to frame virtually all of the country s problems in ideological terms. The public and its politicians have little experience with government based on broad coalition agreements. This partly explains why the political system becomes gridlocked, sometimes making reforms difficult to implement, and why Macron s message, which includes clear reform plans, is so unusual for France. If Le Pen somehow comes out on top, French politics not to mention the European Union will be turned upside. But even the ostensibly moderate Macron represents, in his own way, a truly radical stance. With both candidates likely to make it to the second round, France is on the verge of a political revolution, regardless of who wins. Project Syndicate Zaki Laidi, a professor at Sciences Po, Paris, was a political adviser to French Prime Minister Manuel Valls. Why scientists are marching By Stephen Matlin, Goverdhan Mehta, Henning Hopf, and Alain Krief London On April 22, scientists from around the world will mark Earth Day by participating in an unprecedented March for Science. The aim of the march will be to celebrate and defend science at all levels from local schools to federal agencies. For the rest of the world, it is important to understand why the usually sedate community of scientists will be leaving their labs and offices to take to the streets in a global demonstration of concern. The answer was signaled in November 2016, when Oxford Dictionaries named post-truth its Word of the Year. In an era in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief, scientists like us cannot afford to stay silent any longer. So we will be marching to return scientific certainty to its rightful place in public debate. Post-truth describes well a year in which disregard for facts became a pervasive feature in world politics. As a candidate, US President Donald Trump denied the overwhelming evidence for climate change, endorsed the discredited claim that vaccinations caused autism, and asserted that compact fluorescent light bulbs can cause cancer. Live issues But Trump does not have a monopoly on post-truth politicking. Policymakers in the US and Europe have trafficked in equally outrageous expert views on the consequences of their opponents positions on topics ranging from genetically modified foods to nuclear energy to Brexit. Recent social media attacks on a measles-rubella vaccination campaign even surfaced in India, fuelling a mix of conspiracy theories, safety concerns, and questions of motivation and demonstrating the extent to which lives can be imperilled when facts are ignored. Earlier warnings, such as Ralph Keyes 2004 book The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life, attracted little attention from the science community. That s because we d heard it all before; post-truth responses to objective facts are as old as science itself. An early example was the persistent belief in a flat earth, a view maintained for centuries after the ancient Greeks had accumulated clear evidence to the contrary. In some places, the denial and invective hurled at Darwin and his theory of evolution in the nineteenth century continue to this day. Don t confuse me with the facts, goes an old joke capturing the post-truth sensibility: my mind is made up. But now we have arrived at a watershed moment, when this sensibility has entered the political mainstream, influencing policies that will profoundly affect the health and well-being of the planet and its inhabitants. Those who regard the scientific method the systematic observation, measurement, and hypothesis testing that has underpinned humans apprehension of ourselves and the world for centuries as a core value of society must step forward to defend its central role in guiding public debate and decision-making. To be persuasive, however, we scientists must put our own house in order, by avoiding behaviour that can fuel post-truth rhetoric. Lapses in ethical standards give ammunition to the enemies of science. When published findings are based on falsified data or deliberately misleading conclusions, the credibility of every scientist suffers. Peer review must be rigorous and always strive to detect and snuff out shoddy or deceptive work. Equally important, researchers must do a better job explaining what scientific certainty means, helping the public and policymakers to distinguish between proven hypotheses and unverified theories. They must show how alternate models are tested against all available evidence under controlled conditions, yielding observations that can be repeated and measurements that can be reproduced by other researchers. Conclusions that are not derived from such carefully controlled observations must remain conjecture. Those engaged in science urgently need to develop and implement more effective strategies to communicate scientific advances and discoveries that affect society and the environment. A central focus of this effort should be to explain and defend the methods and rigour of the underlying process of evidence collection and validation. Simply put, a higher level of science literacy among the public, the media, and especially among policymakers is essential to recognising and rejecting unreasoned attempts to discredit science and scientists. In his 1946 book The Discovery of India, India s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, advocated the development of a scientific temper the adoption of the scientific method as a way of life. To defeat the post-truth threat, that temper is needed now more than ever. On April 22, let s defend it with passion. Project Syndicate Stephen Matlin is an adjunct professor at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London. Goverdhan Mehta is University Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Hyderabad. Henning Hopf is a professor in the Institute of Organic Chemistry at the Technische Universität Braunschweig. Alain Krief, Executive Director of the International Organisation for Chemical Sciences in Development, is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Namur University and an adjunct professor in the HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry at the University of Karachi. Looking down at phone may cause text neck Weather report Around the region Abu Dhabi Baghdad Dubai Kuwait City Manama Muscat Riyadh Tehran Weather today P Cloudy Cloudy Max/min 36/25 31/16 36/25 29/24 32/26 36/28 36/22 26/16 Weather tomorrow P Cloudy Cloudy P Cloudy S Showers Three-day forecast TODAY High: 37 C Low : 26 C Inshore: Strong wind at places and expected poor visibility at places by afternoon. WEDNESDAY High: 37 C Low: 26 C Cloudy THURSDAY High: 34 C Low: 25 C Cloudy Fishermen s forecast OFFSHORE DOHA Wind: NW 15-25/28 KT Waves: 6-8/10 Feet INSHORE DOHA Wind: NW-NE 08-18/25 KT Waves: 2-4/5 Feet Max/min 36/27 28/16 36/28 34/21 32/25 38/29 35/22 23/11 By Carolyn Crist Health Spine surgeons are noticing an increase in patients with neck and upper back pain, likely related to poor posture during prolonged smartphone use, according to a recent report. Some patients, particularly young patients who shouldn t yet have back and neck issues, are reporting disk hernias and alignment problems, the study authors write in The Spine Journal. In an X-ray, the neck typically curves backward, and what we re seeing is that the curve is being reversed as people look down at their phones for hours each day, said study co-author Dr Todd Lanman, a spinal neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. By the time patients get to me, they re already in bad pain and have disc issues, he told Health. The real concern is that we don t know what this means down the road for kids today who use phones all day. Lanman and co-author Dr Jason Cuellar, an orthopaedic spine surgeon at Cedars-Sinai, write that people often look down when using their smartphones, particularly when texting as compared to browsing online or watching videos. Previous studies have also found that people hold their necks at around 45 degrees, and it becomes even worse as they sit, versus standing, the study team writes. The impact on the spine increases at higher flexed postures, they add. While in a neutral position looking forward, the head weighs about 10 to 12 pounds. At a 15-degree flex, it feels like 27 pounds. The stress on the spine increases by degree, and at 60 degrees, it s 60 pounds. For today s users, will an 8-yearold need surgery at age 28? Lanman said. In kids who have spines that are still growing and not developed, we re not sure what to expect or if this could change normal anatomies, he told Health. Lanman and Cuellar suggest simple lifestyle changes to relieve the stress from the text neck posture. They recommend holding cell phones in front of the face, or near eye level, while texting. They also suggest using two hands and two thumbs to create a more symmetrical and comfortable position for the spine. Beyond smartphone use, the spinal surgeons recommend that people who work at computers or on tablets use an elevated monitor stand so it sits at a natural horizontal eye level. With laptops, they recommend a similar adaptation by using a separate keyboard and mouse so the laptop can be at eye level and still create a good ergonomic position while typing. It is difficult to recommend a proper posture for smartphone users. If we raise the phone at eye level to avoid the look-down posture, it will add new concerns for the shoulder due to the elevated arm posture, said Gwanseob Shin of the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology Ergonomics Lab in South Korea, who wasn t involved with the study. A more practical recommendation would be frequent rest breaks or some physical exercise that can strengthen the neck and shoulder muscles, Shin told Health by . Some apps can give alarming signals to users to avoid prolonged looking-down posture. Lanman recommends stretches and basic exercises that focus on posture as well. He tells patients to lie on their beds and hang their heads over the edge, extending the neck backward to restore the normal arc in the neck. While sitting, he recommends aligning the neck and spine by checking that the ears are over the shoulders and the shoulders are over the hips. Ask your friend to take a photo of your upper body when you re texting, then use the picture as the background image on your phone, Shin said. That will remind you to take breaks frequently. Even a short break of a few seconds - called a micro-break - can help our tissues recover. 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