BUSINESS Sunday, January 7, 201810

COUNTRY/CURRENCIES SELLBUY

Rates are for indication purpose only. For firm rates or for currencies not listed above please call Bahrain Financing Company. Telephone: 17228888, Website: www.bfc.com.bh

COUNTRY 1 US DLR 1 UK STG 1 SFR 100 YEN

BAHRAIN 0.3770 0.5738 0.3799 0.3354

KUWAIT 0.2855 32.0873 0.2877 0.2540

OMAN 0.3849 0.3820 0.3878 0.3425

QATAR 3.6420 3.6143 3.6699 3.2405

UAE 3.6730 3.6451 3.7011 3.2681

SAUDI 3.7500 3.7215 3.7787 3.3366

AUSTRALIA 0.2920 0.2896BANGLADESH 0.00483 0.00458CANADA 0.3018 0.2985DENMARK 0.0627 EGYPT 0.0241 0.0218EURO 0.4501 0.4476HONGKONG 0.04970 0.04930INDIA 0.00582 0.00585INDONESIA 0.00003017 0.00002855IRAN TUMAN 0.00010964 IRAQI DINAR 0.000300 JAPAN 0.00352 0.003450JORDAN 0.5362 0.5354KOREA 0.00039646 KUWAIT 1.254 1.254MALAYSIA 0.0938 0.0936NEW ZEALAND 0.2616 0.2616NORWAY 0.0481 NEPAL 0.00395 0.00365OMAN 0.98220 0.98340PAKISTAN 0.00366 0.00358PHILIPPINES 0.00758 0.00747QATAR 0.10386 0.10381SAUDI ARABIA 0.10065 0.10071SINGAPORE 0.2834 0.2814SOUTH AFRICA 0.02850 0.02840SRI LANKA 0.00283 0.00246SWEDISH 0.0479 SWITZERLAND 0.3891 0.3861SYRIA 0.001740 0.0018TAIWAN 0.013100 THAILAND 0.011730 0.011710TURKEY 0.1024 UNITED KINGDOM 0.5076 0.5047UNITED ARAB EMIRATES 0.102850 0.102870UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 0.37790 0.37800YUAN 0.056800 0.056800

Caracas

President Nicolas Maduro said on Friday that

Venezuela would issue 100 million units of its new oil-backed cryptocurrency in coming days, although it is unclear whether any investors will want to purchase the “petro” at a time when the OPEC member is going through a deep economic crisis and its leftist government has little credibility.

Socialist Maduro surprised many last month when he announced the launch of the cryptocurrency, to be backed by Venezuela’s oil, gas, gold and diamond reserves, as a way to circumvent U.S. sanctions that have hurt Venezuela’s access to international banks.

Maduro specified on

Friday that each unit of the currency would be pegged to Venezuela’s oil basket, which this week averaged $59.07 per barrel, according to the oil ministry. That implies the total cryptocurrency issued would be worth just over $5.9 billion.

There is much confusion, however, over how the mechanism will work. Opposition politicians have already panned the project as a fanciful idea doomed to fail and useless at getting food to the millions who are suffering from product shortages and the world’s highest inflation.

Maduro says the cryptocurrency will usher in the “21st century” and boost Venezuela’s access to hard currency.

“I have ordered the emission of 100 million petros

with the legal sustenance of Venezuela’s certified and legalized oil wealth,” said Maduro in a state television address.

“Every petro will be equal in value to Venezuela’s oil barrel.”

Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, according to OPEC, and makes some 95 percent of its export revenue from oil. Critics say the government has squandered wealth from a decade-long oil boom and that without reforms any influx of resources will also be burned through.

Strict currency controls have forced people onto the black market, on which a dollar can buy 137,000 bolivars. The country’s strongest official rate, meanwhile, is 10 bolivars per

dollar.That fall in value combined

with money printing by the central bank is behind what many analysts are measuring as hyperinflation.

Local economic consultancy Ecoanalitica said prices rose more than 80 percent in December alone. Money supply, according to the central bank, was up more than 1,000 percent last year.

Maduro said the cryptocurrency issuance would take place through virtual exchanges in the coming day, but did not give further details.

C r y p t o c u r r e n c i e s are decentralized and their success relies on transparency, clear rules and equal treatment of all involved. (Reuters)

San Francisco

Twitter Inc on Friday reiterated its stance that

accounts belonging to world leaders have special status on the social media network, pushing back against users who have called on the company to banish U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate,” Twitter said in a post on a corporate blog.

Twitter had already said in September that “newsworthiness” and whether a tweet is “of public interest” are among the factors it considers before removing an account or a tweet.

The debate over Trump’s tweeting, though, raged anew after Trump said from his @realDonaldTrump account on Tuesday that he had a “much bigger” and “more powerful” nuclear button than North

Korean leader Kim Jong Un.Critics said that tweet and

Trump’s continued presence on the network endanger the world and violate Twitter’s ban on threats of violence. Some users protested at

Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday.

Twitter responded in its blog post that even if it did block a world leader, doing so would not silence that leader. (Reuters)

World leaders like Trump have special status: Twitter

Venezuelato issueoil-backed cryptocurrency

The masthead of US President Donald Trump’s @realDonaldTrump Twitter account (Reuters)

President Nicolas Maduro

Balkh, Afghanistan

In the white dusty plains of northern Afghanistan,

archaeologists are seeking to unravel the secrets of one of the oldest mosques in the world, whose structure is still standing after a thousand years of solitude.

The Nine Domes Mosque, named for the cupolas that once crowned its intricately decorated columns, glimmers with remnants of the blue lapis lazuli stones that encrusted it.

Carbon dating in early 2017 suggests the ancient structure in Balkh province was built in the eighth century, soon after Islam swept into Central Asia -- but exactly when, and who by, remains a mystery.

The very survival of this modest square of just 20 by 20 metres (65 foot by 65 feet) has beguiled experts.

“It’s a miracle it’s still standing despite time and erosion,” said Italian architect Ugo Tonietti, from the University of Florence, who specialises in heritage conservation.

The mosque, which has weathered the centuries partly due to the arid climate of the region, is one of the best preserved Islamic buildings of its age in the world and is “highly valuable and highly vulnerable”, he said.

Time has washed most of the colour from its columns, but the mosque was once a

dazzling spectacle.“This is a masterpiece.

You have to imagine how it looked like, fully decorated with lapis, some parts in red, it was all covered and painted: it was like a garden of paradise inside, with a sky above, the domes with white and blue decoration,” he said.

The delicate vine leaves etched onto the pillars resemble those seen at Samarra, Tonietti said, referring to the powerful ninth century Islamic capital city that ruled the Abbasid Empire extending from present day Tunisia to Pakistan.

But the mosque at Balkh could be even older, with the carbon dating and historical sources suggesting it could have been built as early as the year 794.

“This means that the mosque of the Abassid Empire has been influenced by Afghanistan, not the other way around,” said Julio

Sarmiento-Bendezu, director of the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan, who is leading excavations at the site.

On the trail of Genghis Khan “This mosque is exceptional in its beauty, conservation, decoration and the knowledge it holds,” he said.

But Noh Gonbad, its Persian name, was only rediscovered by chance.

In the late 1960s, an American archaeologist travelling in the region asked local people to take her to a mosque destroyed by Genghis Khan, the Mongol emperor who rampaged across the region in the early 13th century.

Villagers led her to this lonely, half-buried temple some 20 kilometres (12 miles) west of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Once found, however, the building languished once

again as war was unleashed

on Afghanistan, enveloping the country in decades of bloodshed, and it was not until 2006 that excavations began on the site.

“We thought at first that it was an isolated monument, but as we went on we saw that it was stuck to other older structures,” said Sarmiento-Bendezu.

“At the end of the 8th century, the Buddhist world was in torment in the region. No doubt it was built on the remains of a monastery.”

In July archaeologists unearthed the base of the pillars, at a depth of 1.5 metres (five feet), but surveys suggest even deeper remnants.

“This is a window open to the ancient period, here we can find the base of the next culture to come,” said Arash Boostani, an Iranian architect and engineer from the University of Tehran, who was commissioned by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) to work on the site.

A specialist in conserving historical monuments, he said that some of the flower designs on the mosque are pre-Islamic and have been absorbed from local culture.

The building, which has been protected from the elements by a metal roof, remains vulnerable because its brick and patchwork structure is susceptible to erosion.

Noh Gonbad’s domes were

toppled soon after the mosque was built and have lain at the site during the centuries since.

“With the earthquake in 819 most of the mosque collapsed,” Boostani said.

Another earthquake a hundred years later hit the outer walls and most of the 15 arches.

The experts stretched fibreglass nets to support the two main, deeply cracked arches, and injected cement -- without altering the gypsum decorations.

“The place has always been occupied,” Sarmiento-Bendezu said. “Monastery and then mosque, abandoned and squatted in -- we found

fireplaces.“Pieces of the domes,

however heavy, were transported and used to cover nearby tombs: why give yourself this burden if the building did not have strong symbolic value?”

Noh Gonbad remains a place of pilgrimage: the women come to gather on Friday and weep over the tomb of an obscure saint, Hadji Pyada, the walking pilgrim, buried there in the 15th century.

“Like all excavations, those of the Nine Domes Mosque pose more questions than they answer,” says the archaeologist. (AFP)

11Sunday, January 7, 2018

Carbon dating in early 2017 suggests the ancient structure in Balkh province was built in the eighth century, soon after Islam swept into Central Asia -- but exactly when, and who by, remains a mystery

The gate of the ninth-century mosque Masjid-e Haji Piyada

Scaffolding for the ongoing conservation work at the ninth-century mosque Masjid-e Haji Piyada

Haji Piyada Mosque in Balkh, northern Afghanistan