THE PENINSULA DOHA

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani will patronise today the opening ceremony of the Umm Al Houl power plant, in Umm Al Houl area, south of Al Wakrah.

The QR11bn Umm Al Houl Power project is one of the largest desalination and power generation plants in the region.

The project will generate a daily production capacity of 136m gallons of water and 2,520MW of electricity. Its full production capacity will supply Qatar’s 30 percent of electricity needs and 40 percent of water requirements.

The plant applies state-of-the-art technologies that conserve the envi-ronment and ensure highest standards in water production and electricity generation.

Prime Minister and Interior Min-ister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani had laid the foun-dation stone for the Umm Al Houl Power Plant of Qatar Electricity and Water Company (QEWC) in March 2016.

Umm Al Houl Power (UHP) is an independent water and power pro-ducer, established in 2015, and is designed for a capacity of generating 2,520MW of power and 136.5m gallons

of drinking water per day. UHP is a Joint Venture company

with Qatar Electricity and Water Company holding 60 percent, K1 Energy (Mitsubishi Corporation and JERA J/V) holding 30 percent, and Qatar Petroleum and Qatar Foundation holding five percent each. UHP is a key part of Qatar National Vision 2030.

The project was implemented by Kahramaa, Qatar Petroleum and Jap-anese firms Mitsubishi and TEPCO. The project is part of Qatar’s strategic goals of creating infrastructure to support economic development. It aims to develop the electricity and water utility sectors and increase foreign and local investments in both. The project is part of Qatar National Vision 2030 which continues to overcome challenges.

As Qatar is focusing on completion of strategic projects to meet goals set under Qatar National Vision 2030, H H the Amir in December last year also inaugurated the Water Security Mega Reservoirs Project, which is the largest of its kind in the world in Umm Salal Ali. The QR14.5bn project has a total water storage capacity of about 1,500m gallons, and was implemented by Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa).

The project is the largest in the world and contains a huge strategic reservoir that raises the country’s water storage by about 1,500m gallons, which is an increase of 155 percent. This phase of the project will ensure water security for the State until 2026, followed by future stages that will meet water demand even after the year 2036 by adding additional reservoirs.

The project is located in five stra-tegic sites: Umm Birka, Umm Salal, Rawdat Rashed, Abu Nakhla, and Al Thumama and each site covers roughly 1sqkm. The project consists of 15 of the world’s largest concrete reservoirs. Each reservoir is 300M long, 150M wide, and 12M high, at a capacity of around 100 million gallons to earn Guinness World Record for world largest drinking water storage tank and largest drinking water storage tanks network.

Volume 24 | Number 7841 | 2 RiyalsMonday 25 March 2019 | 18 Rajab 1440 www.thepeninsula.qa

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BUSINESS | 01 SPORT | 10

Doha events have become a benchmark for other venues to rival: QGF President

QIIB optimistic on growth, expansion

in 2019

BU

Q

Patient Experience Forum to be held on November 16 and 17THE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar’s first Patient Experience Forum, which is set to be one of the largest healthcare confer-ences in the region was officially announced yesterday by Minister of Public Health H E Dr. Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, during the Middle East Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare.

The Patient Experience Forum, taking place on November 16 and 17 in Doha, is expected to draw over 1,000 delegates from Qatar and across the region.

Delivered by Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) in partnership with internationally renowned US-based healthcare consultants Planetree Inc, the conference will highlight the importance of involving patients, and their families and caregivers, in every decision that impacts the care they receive.

“Great care is not just about having highly qualified care teams, the latest technology, or the best services and facilities – it is also about treating patients in the way they want to be treated. This means respecting their values, preferences, and needs,” said Dr Al Kuwari.

“Ensuring that patients and their families are central to decision making related to their care is now recognised as a key component of high-quality healthcare. The launch of the Patient Experience Forum rep-resents one of the many initia-tives that will help to propel us

forward in our journey towards a more patient-centred approach to care and a real part-nership with patients,” she added.

Nasser Al Naimi, Deputy Chief of Quality at HMC, Center for Patient Experience and Staff Experience (CPESE) and Director, Hamad Healthcare Quality Institute (HHQI), said the decision to hold the Forum not only highlighted HMC’s con-tinued commitment to providing its patients with the most effective and compassionate care but also underlined the growing importance of the role of patients, family members, and caregivers across the continuum of care.

“Patient-centred care is about doing things for the patient with the patient. Collab-orating with patients, family members, and caregivers while addressing the patient’s medical needs helps us identify their expectations based on the patient’s individual values and preferences. This combined effort benefits both the patient and the healthcare system,” said Al Naimi. �P3

7.9 million people visited Katara last yearRAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

A total of 7,901,250 people visited Cultural Village Foun-dation - Katara - last year based

on the 2018 cultural index released yesterday reaffirming its strong position as one of the country’s most preferred desti-nations.

The index published by Katara

highlighting its major achieve-ments during year 2018 reflects the prestigious stature that the Cultural Village occupies locally and glo-bally through its myriad cultural and artistic contributions.

Underlining Katara’s many achievements in the field of culture and the arts, Katara General Manager Dr. Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti said these important and distinguished

a c h i e v e m e n t s Katara has accom-plished in the past year reflect the pio-neering position that it has reached, making Doha a beacon of thought and a forum for arts, culture and creativity.

The index also revealed that 2, 807,989 vehicles entered Katara last year. Katara Beach witnessed 135,777, while 5,734 students from various schools visited Katara within the “Our Culture is School” campaign which Katara launched last year to enhance education and raise awareness among students wi th cu l t u r a l knowledge. �P3

Brazil's endangered Spix's Macaw gets a new life in QatarSIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA

The Embassy of Brazil in Doha yesterday celebrated the important contribution of Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation (a Qatari private wildlife refuge) in saving endangered bird species Spix’s Macaw, known in Brazil as Ararinha-Azul.

“These incredible birds have been con-sidered extinct in the wild since 2000, and now only 130 of them find refuge in private institutions in Qatar, Germany and Brazil, where they have been able to breed and mul-tiply in safety,” said Ambassador of Brazil Roberto Abdalla. He also said that the Al

Wabra Wildlife Preservation carried out an important work to save the Brazilian Blue Macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii), by helping to reintroduce the species to its natural caatinga (type of desert vegetation) habitat in the northeast region of Brazil.

The Ambassador pointed out that in 2016, a memorandum of understanding was signed between Al Wabra Wildlife Preser-vation and the Brazilian Ministry of the Envi-ronment, which enabled stronger technical cooperation in this effort through the Bra-zilian National Action for the Blue Macaw.

“The honour being bestowed today is a recognition not only for the valuable work Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation has done for

saving the Brazilian blue macaw from extinction but also for its continued and unwa-vering effort in raising public awareness of wildlife preservation and the importance of reintroducing endangered species to the wild,” he noted.

Sheikh Hamad bin Saoud Al Thani, owner of Al Wabra said, “The project was initiated by my father and we are proud to succeed in doing so. When we started the project there were only about 15 birds of this species and our Pres-ervation was the only ones which succeeded to save it and today there are 130 birds.”

“In 2020, about 90 birds of Spix’s Macaw will be released in Brazil and the project will be completed." �P3

Minister of Public Health H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari announced Qatar’s first Patient Experience Forum, which is set to be one of the largest healthcare conferences held in the region, during the Middle east Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare.

Amir to patronise opening of Umm Al Houl Power Plant todayThe project will generate a daily production capacity of 136m gallons of water and 2,520MW of electricity. Its full production capacity will supply Qatar’s 30 percent of electricity needs and 40 percent of water requirements.

02 MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019AHOME

Amir condoles with

President of Somalia

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim

bin Hamad Al Thani and Dep-

uty Amir H H Sheikh Abdullah

bin Hamad Al Thani sent cables

of condolences to the Presi-

dent of the Federal Republic

of Somalia, Mohamed Abdul-

lahi Farmajo, on the victims

of the terrorist attack on the

headquarters of the Ministry

of Labor and Social Affairs in

the capital Mogadishu, wishing

the injured a speedy recovery.

Prime Minister and Interior Min-

ister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin

Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani also

sent a cable of condolences to

the Prime Minister of Somalia,

Hassan Ali Khaire, on the vic-

tims of the terrorist attack. QNA

OFFICIAL NEWS

Amir sends condolences

to Malian President

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh

Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and

Deputy Amir H H Sheikh Abdul-

lah bin Hamad Al Thani sent

cables of condolences to the

President of the Republic of

Mali, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita,

on the victims of a militant

attack that targeted Malian cit-

izens who worked as herders,

and on the victims of an attack

that targeted an army camp in

Mopti last Sunday, wishing the

injured a speedy recovery, and

stressing Qatar’s firm position

in rejecting violence and terror-

ism regardless of the motives

and reasons. Prime Minister

and Interior Minister H E Sheikh

Abdullah bin Nasser bin Kha-

lifa Al Thani also sent a cable

of condolences to the Prime

Minister of Mali, Soumeylou

Boubeye Maiga, on the victims

of a militant attack. QNA

Amir condoles with

President of China

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim

bin Hamad Al Thani, Deputy

Amir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin

Hamad Al Thani and Prime Min-

ister and Interior Minister H E

Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin

Khalifa Al Thani sent yester-

day cables of condolences to

the President of the People’s

Republic of China, Xi Jinping, on

the victims of the explosion of

a chemical plant in east China’s

Jiangsu Province, wishing the

injured a speedy recovery. QNA

Qatar condemns attack

in Central Mali

DOHA The State of Qatar

expressed its strong condem-

nation and denunciation of

the attack that targeted Ogos-

sogou village in central Mali,

killing and injuring dozens. In

a statement issued yesterday,

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

expressed Qatar’s shock at this

heinous crime and affirmed its

full solidarity with the Govern-

ment of Mali in all measures

taken to maintain security and

stability. It also reiterated the

State of Qatar’s firm stance on

rejecting violence and terror-

ism regardless of the motives

and causes. The statement

expressed the State of Qatar’s

condolences to the families

of the victims and the Gov-

ernment and people of Mali,

wishing the injured a speedy

recovery. QNA

Amir receives written

message from

President of Tunisia

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim

bin Hamad Al Thani received

yesterday a written mes-

sage from the President of the

Republic of Tunisia, Beji Caid

Essebsi, pertaining to bilat-

eral relations between both

countries and the ways to

boost and develop them. The

Secretary-General of the Min-

istry of Foreign Affairs, H E Dr

Ahmed bin Hassan Al Hammadi,

received the message during

his meeting with the Ambassa-

dor of the Republic of Tunisia to

Qatar, Salah Al Salhi. QNA

Qatar and Oman review bilateral relations

Minister of Public Health H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari yesterday met with the Sultanate of Oman’s Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health for Health Affairs, Dr Mohammed bin Saif Al Hosni, who is currently visiting the country to attend the Middle East Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare. The meeting reviewed bilateral relations and means to enhance them, particularly in health sector. It also discussed a number of subjects that are on the agenda of the Middle East Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare.

Jumbo Electronics, Starlink & Al Anees join Ooredoo Mobile Money networkTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Ooredoo said yesterday Jumbo Electronics, Starlink and Al Anees have joined the Ooredoo Mobile Money network of Premium Dealers, meaning Ooredoo Money customers can now use selected branches of the three new dealers to carry out their Ooredoo Mobile Money transactions.

Selected branches of Jumbo Electronics, Starlink and Al Anees will be set up to provide customers with the services they need, including loading cash into their mWallets or registering recipient details. Once registered and with

a balance in their mWallets, cus-tomers can send money to more than 200 countries instantly.

Ooredoo Money is the most convenient way for customers to easily access everyday financial transactions such as sending money home, topping up Ooredoo prepaid mobile accounts and depositing cash to their mWallets, topping up prepaid mobile numbers in over 140 countries, purchasing data bundles or even paying their DTH bills. The service is simple, secure and offers some of the lowest fees and best exchange rates in Qatar, and partners include the world’s most renowned money transfer

companies, such as MoneyGram, and local Exchange House partners such as Al Dar Exchange.

Speaking about the latest addition to the Mobile Money network, Manar Khalifa Al-Muraikhi, Director PR and Cor-porate Communications, said: “We know our customers find the Ooredoo Money service one of our most useful offerings, and we’re delighted to expand the service provider network with the addition of Jumbo Electronics, Starlink and Al Anees. This will make it even easier for our cus-tomers to access our services wherever and whenever they need.”

QF’s Academic Bridge Program to benefit QA cadet pilotsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar Airways’ Al Darb Qatari-sation programme and Qatar Foundation (QF) have launched a partnership that enables students from the airline’s Al Darb Cadet Pilot programme to benefit from studies at QF’s Academic Bridge Program (ABP), prior to their cadet pilot training.

Part of QF’s Pre-University Education (PUE), the ABP pro-vides secondary school grad-uates academic and personal skills to help prepare them for university. Upon gaining these skills, cadet pilots are then eli-gible to begin Commercial Pilot Training in accordance with Qatar Airways’ requirements.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, Akbar Al Baker, said: “We are delighted to be part-nering with Qatar Foundation and the Academic Bridge Program, which will equip Qatari nationals with essential academic and critical thinking skills before they begin their cadet pilot training at Qatar Airways.

“Qatar Airways is committed to training Qatari youth by inte-grating them into the aviation industry through a wide range of career opportunities at Qatar Airways. One of our funda-mental goals is to continuously develop and invest in Qatari youth through our Al Darb Qatarisation Programme. Our Al Darb Programme has already provided opportunities to many Qataris who continue to make a valuable contribution to the airline.”

President of PUE, QF, Buthaina Ali Al Nuaimi, said: “At Qatar Foundation, we believe

that moving towards progress and prosperity, and establishing a diverse and sustainable economy, requires empowering and supporting our youth throughout their educational and professional journeys.

“Through our initiatives, projects, and partnerships, we have contributed to serving the needs of Qatar by providing our youth with the necessary skills to realise their aspirations, and become the change-makers and leaders of tomorrow across various fields. We are therefore delighted to sign this agreement with Qatar Airways, which aligns with our efforts to foster a culture of lifelong learning in Qatar, and are confident that it will produce positive outcomes that represent an investment in the future of Qatar.”

Upon completion of the cadet pilot training programme, candidates obtain a Qatar Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA) Multi-Crew Pilot License and are entitled to become professional pilots at the world-renowned award-winning airline, Qatar Airways.

Launched in 2012, the highly-successful Al Darb initi-ative offers eight tailored pro-grammes that cater to each applicant, enabling them to choose their career path and development opportunity in the aviation industry that best suits them. These include the National Scholarships Programme, Cadet Pilot Programme, Aircraft Main-tenance Engineering Pro-gramme, Summer Internship Programme, Graduate Developee Programme, Airport Operations Programme, Avi-ation Management Programme and Jossor Programme.

Opera, classical music awards on March 31THE PENINSULA DOHA

Katara General Manager Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti has announced during a press conference at the Odeon stage in Milan, Italy, that Katara will offi-cially host the seventh edition of the renowned International Opera and Classical Music awards ceremony “Oscar Della Lirica”on March 31.

Speaking at the event, Al Sulaiti stressed Katara’s read-iness to host the international event showcasing all the facil-ities and attractions that Katara boasts of as well as highlighted the other international events Katara had successfully hosted before.

He undersocred Katara’s keenness in making the seventh edition of the event a cultural spectacle that will contribute in strengthening cultural co-

existence worldwide.The International Opera

Award “Opera Star”, promoted by the Foundation “Verona per l’Arena”, the Italian Confeder-ation of Associations, Opera and Symphony Foundations and many public and private institu-tions, designed and organised by Alfredo Troisi, has as its aim for the promotion, enhancement, revitalisation and re-launch of the cultural and artistic value of Opera performance.

Katara General Manager Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti (left) with Alfredo Troisi in Milan.

Katara will officially host the seventh edition of the renowned International Opera and Classical Music awards ceremony “Oscar Della Lirica”on March 31.

03MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019A HOME

A-G discusses issues of common concern with UN official

Attorney-General H E Dr Ali bin Fetais Al Marri met yesterday with the Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations for the Secretariat of Policy-Making Organs of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). During the meeting, views were exchanged on a number of issues of common concern.

Exhibition showcases health care quality & safety improvementsFAZEENA SALEEM THE PENINSULA

Efforts and initiatives being taken by different health care providers in Qatar to enhance quality and safety was show-cased at an exhibition held on the sidelines of the Middle East Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare.

It included over 15 exhibitors and a ‘Knowledge Zone’ which boasted more than 100 scien-tific posters on quality and safety.

The exhibitors included Min-istry of Public Health, Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Hamad Healthcare Quality Institute (HHQI), Primary Health Care Corporation, Qatar Armed Forces, Qatar Red Crescent, Sidra Medicine, Qatar University, and the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), who showcased improvement efforts and initiatives within their respective organisations.

“This is an annual event. Running under the theme ‘Patient Safety First’. The focus has changed from creating awareness about patients safety to preventing any harm that may happen to patients,” said Dr

Abdulla Al Ansari, Deputy Chief of Medical, Academic & Research Affairs for Surgical Services, Hamad General Hospital, HMC speaking to media persons on the sidelines of the Forum.

“The Legatum Prosperity Index ranks Qatar as the fifth best for health in the world. This is as a result of the efforts we have taken to enhance patient safety. The posters here are on ‘quality research’ which shows how we have improved in quality and safety,” he added.

According to Dr Al Ansari HMC has around 500 profes-sionals who do research on how to research on how to improve reality of services.

One of the research posters were on ‘Improving venous thromboelism (VTE) risk assessment and prescribing

practices in acute medical assessment unit of Hamad General Hospital (HGH)’. It examined about VTE a common and potentially preventable disease in hospitalised patients. The research poster also shows that a pilot multidisciplinary team afford has been able to reduce the risk of hospitalised patients getting VTE in the acute medical assessment unit of HGH.

The seventh Middle East Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare was held over three days, including pre-conference sessions held on Friday, at the Qatar National Convention Center. It was organised by HMC in collaboration with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).

Arguably the largest Forum on patient safety and quality improvement saw the partici-pation of 3,000 health care pro-fessionals, 126 local and inter-national speakers. The pro-gramme of the seventh Middle East Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare included many new and innovative topics in the field of quality and safety and it provided an opportunity for participants to network with leaders in this field.

The participants at the exhibition held on the sidelines of the seventh Middle East Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare at the QNCC. PIC: QASSIM RAHMATULLAH / THE PENINSULA

Truxtun Capital, AZF partner for ‘Qatar eSports Aspire Wega World Cup’THE PENINSULA DOHA

Aspire Zone Foundation (AZF) yesterday announced a long-term partnership with Wega, the leading global payment solution developed by Truxtun Capital, to a multi-game eSports World Cup in Doha – the first such tour-nament ever.

This alliance between two major companies from sports and technology will offer 2.3 billion eSports players across the globe the chance to compete for financial prizes.

With online qualifying rounds running all over the

world, the first edition of the eSports World Cup will take place starting November 2019. Every year for the next four years, Wega and Aspire Zone will also organise a 40-day eSports Fes-tival in Qatar’s sports at the state-of-the-art facilities of Aspire Zone.

Commenting on the agreement, Abdullah Nasser Al Naemi, Director-General of Aspire Logistics, said: “We are thrilled to sign this agreement with ‘WEGA’, the world’s leading e-sports organisation, and to announce the first eSports World Cup in the Middle East: The Aspire WEGA World Cup.

“At AZF, we are constantly innovating to become the ref-erence in sports excellence worldwide by 2020. The elec-tronic gaming industry is cur-rently one of the fastest-growing industries in the world, with an annual growth rate of 40 percent. Building on the success of Qatar’s national team during the AFC Asian Cup earlier this year, we are now expanding into this exciting new sports enter-tainment field.”

“In addition to exciting par-ticipants and spectators alike, we are confident the Aspire WEGA World Cup will become another demonstration of Qatar’s ability

to host exceptional international events.”

Patrick Moynier, President of Truxtun Capital said: “We are so proud to launch this outstanding eSports tournament in part-nership with Aspire Zone. As a Fintech company providing an innovative digital financial platform, it was a strategic decision to invest in a market expecting 6 billion players in the next 10 years. Looking ahead to the next FIFA World Cup, when all eyes will be on Doha, our technology and services will sig-nificantly enhance the entire player experience and increase the industry’s revenues.”

Abdullah Nasser Al Naemi, the Director-General of Aspire Logistics, with Patrick Moynier, President of Truxtun Capital.

The exhibition included over 15 exhibitors and a ‘Knowledge Zone’ which boasted more than 100 scientific posters on quality and safety.

Patient Experience Forum to be held on November 16 and 17FROM PAGE 1

“The Forum will provide a platform for discussion around a more empathic and collabo-rative approach to care. Deliv-ering high-quality care is at the heart of HMC and this con-ference. I encourage everyone who is working in healthcare, in

whatever capacity, to join us at this Forum,” he added.

The Minister was updated on two other important patient experience initiatives — a mobile library for patients and a sto-rybook describing the healthcare experience of patients from their own personal perspective. Both

initiatives have been spear-headed by the CPESE team to improve the experience of patients at HMC.

For more information about the Forum and to register inter-ested participants may access to information on visit http://pef2019.hamad.qa.

Brazil’s endangered Spix’s Macaw gets a new life in QatarFROM PAGE 1

We have to keep only 40 birds in the Preserve. Our aim is to preserve the nature and animals as well as to raise awareness about the importance of preserving the environment,” Sheikh Hamad bin Saoud Al Thani added.

Al Wabra Wildlife Preser-vation is located on a 2.5 square km area close to the town of Al Shahaniyah. Al Wabra sanctuary is an oasis of green areas, palm trees and many rare wild animals from all over the world. Al Wabra comprises an international team of expert veterinarians, biologists and keepers that are dedicated to the care and conservation of some of the most rare and endan-gered animals.

7.9 million people visited Katara last yearFROM PAGE 1

Besides, Katara witnessed hundreds of visits organised by destination management com-panies with the number of tourists from all over the world reaching 76, 058. Katara further strengthened cultural ties with dif-ferent countries around the world with 294 visits of diplomats, VIPs and international delegations.

With regard to events, Katara hosted and organised 34 festivals, 14 National Day celebrations of various missions and 183 art exhi-bitions that showcased 5, 490

artworks by 875 artists. It screened 112 movies, hosted 76 concerts and 95 ceremonies and gatherings. It also hosted 77 lectures and 63 Islamic activities, organised 55 competitions, played host and organiser to 16 sports activities, presented 263 workshops with 711 sessions, and conducted 12 auc-tions and 18 bazaars.

Year 2018 was a fecund and successful year for Katara receiving five accolades and giving out 26 awards. The year also saw 71 publications and 11 agreements signed.

Katara has also created a lot of buzz online with 834,038 vis-itors to its website during the year. Social media platforms also gen-erated a lot of activity; its Facebook followers has a stag-gering 1, 170, 612 followers with 9, 879 posts, 30,220 comments and 116, 214 likes. Katara’s Instagram account generated 146, 817 followers, liked 527, 828, com-mented 6, 520 times and wit-nessed 7, 560 posts. Its followers via Twitter reached 390, 726 and saw 12, 906 tweets, 22, 775 re-tweets and 68, 237 likes last year.

MoI urges CMC candidates to stick to campaign regulationsQNA DOHA

The Ministry of Interior (MoI) urged the candidates of the Central Municipal Council (CMC) to abide by the regulations governing the election campaign, and not to begin campaigning until relevant permits are obtained from the elections media committee.

This came during a seminar organised yesterday by MoI, in which a number of members of the election supervisory com-mittee spoke to shed light on the electoral campaign regulations and the voting process, in presence of the candidates of the Municipal Council.

The Director of Public Rela-tions in the Ministry of Interior, Brigadier Abdullah Khalifa Al Muftah, who is also the head of the elections media committee, said that the seminar comes

within the framework of com-pleting the stages of the electoral process, which came to an end after announcing the final lists of candidates of the Central Municipal Council, in preparation for the beginning of electoral campaigns.

Al Muftah reviewed the efforts made by the supervising com-mittee during the last period in cooperation with various bodies, which in turn contributed to the timely completion of the stages of the electoral process according.

Al Muftah added that the election campaign can begin only after obtaining relevant permits from the election media com-mittee, pointing that the rules of the campaign stipulate slogans, phrases, mottos and images used in electoral campaign should not contradict the religious and social values of the Qatari society, nor should they carry any tribal or sectarian bias.

These rules also stipulate that the official logo of the State should not be used in meetings, adver-tisements, leaflets, posters and other types of writings used in electoral campaigns. The rules also prohibit offending as well as questioning the credibility of other candidates directly of indirectly; stirring up sectarian or tribal strife among citizens or prejudice to personal matters.

Regarding places where cam-paigning is prohibited, Brigadier Al Muftah said that carrying out campaigns is strictly prohibited in places of worship, educational institutions, government and public buildings, light poles and polling centres, in accordance with the decision of the Minister of Interior in this regard.

Al Muftah urged candidates to keep their electoral programmes within the jurisdiction of the Central Municipal Council pro-vided for by law.

Sheikh Hamad bin Saoud Al Thani (left), the owner of Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation, receiving a token of appreciation from Roberto Abdalla, the Ambassador of Brazil to Qatar, during an event held at the Brazilian Embassy yesterday. PIC: BAHER AMIN / THE PENINSULA

QNA Director-General meets Romanian Ambassador

The Director-General of Qatar News Agency (QNA), Youssef Ibrahim Al Malki (right), met yesterday with Romanian Ambassador to Qatar Dr Cristian Tudor. Talks during the meeting dealt with media relations between the two countries.

04 MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019AHOME

QMED starts today; over 40 local, international firms to participateTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Minister of Public Health, H E Dr Hanan Mohammed Al Kuwari, will open Qatar International Medical and Health Exhibition (QMED) at the Qatar National Convention Center (QNCC) today, with the participation of more than 40 local and interna-tional companies in the medical sector.

The opening ceremony will be attended by several Ambas-sadors to Qatar, including Ajay Sharma, UK Ambassador, Eva Bolano, Ambassador of Sweden, and Fikret Ozer, Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey.

Held under the patronage of the Ministry of Public Health, QMED will provide a unique platform for knowledge-transfer and discussions around the healthcare industry, latest tech-nical innovations and the latest

developments in Qatar’s healthcare sector, for leading local, regional and international healthcare professionals.

The event, which will be held on a total area of 5,000 square meters, will host three confer-ences and workshops organised by Alfardan Medical and North-western Medicine (AMNM), Naufar Hospital, and Reviva for Medical Services. Local and international speakers will lead the discussions, with the partic-ipation of more than 500 doctors covering al l medical specialties.

The exhibition aims at pro-moting knowledge exchange, identifying latest developments in the health care sector, pro-viding better services, as well as supporting initiatives that lay the foundation for a healthy com-munity, and encourage inno-vation in line with the Qatar National Vision 2030.

Ali Abdullah Al Khater, Chair of the Healthcare Communica-tions Committee said, “The 2019 QMED is an important part of our endeavors to develop the healthcare sector in Qatar.

It is also a very important platform for healthcare pro-viders to introduce them to the latest innovations in medical services.”

Khalifa Al Mohannadi, Manager of Sogha Exhibitions and Conferences, said, “QMED represents an investment opportunity for the leaders of the healthcare sector in Qatar to share knowledge and coop-erate with executives from around 12 participating coun-tries. The exhibition aims to shed light on the latest medical devices adopted by European countries, as well as medical supplies, and the latest labo-ratory and radiat ion equipment.”

Panda Hypermarket’s inauguration todayTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The Panda Hypermarket, located on Alkhaleej Street, near Jaidah Flyover in Musheireb, will open at 4.30pm today for customers, the management announced at a press conference.. Leaders of social and cultural life as well as leading people from the industrial and economic sectors will attend the inaugural ceremony. Managing Partners Bekal Mohammed Shali and Kurumberi Moosa and other management members

addressed the press conference. The hypermarket, which is starting in the city center, will be a new shopping experience to all customers.

The management represent-atives said that the parking facility is available at the hyper-market and it will facilitate community and foreigners to have a unique shopping experience.

The hypermarket, having two floors of 3000sqm area, has pro-vided a wide range of interna-tional brand products. The ground floor is supermarket offering fresh

food, groceries, health and beauty products while the second floor will be available for furniture, appliances, gift, stationery, sports products, watch shops, mobile phone sales centers, fashion jew-ellery shops, electronics, IT, garment, fashion, footwear and luggage.

Pharmacy, money exchange, restaurant and men’s beauty salon will also be equipped with a hypermarket facility. Special promotions and price reductions have been announced for con-sumers in connection with the inauguration.

Faris Ahmed, General Manager; Kurumberi Moosa and Bekal Muhammad Shali (Managing Partners), and Bekal Ismail, Finance Manager, during a press conference, yesterday.

Bangladesh Forum Qatar organises three art workshops

THE PENINSULA DOHA

Bangladesh Forum Qatar (BFQ) organised three Art workshops on the theme ‘Nature and Environment’ as part of week-long Bangladesh Festival 2019. The art workshops were held at Katara Art Studio. Art workshop generated huge enthusiasm among the participants.

Around 50 art enthusiasts from different background and different nationalities took part in the work-shops. The workshops were arranged with different group of people.

The workshop was for the adults leaving in Qatar and were selected based on first come first served basis. The winners of Children art compe-tition took part second Art workshop. The wives of ambassadors of different countries took part in one workshop.

Two prominent artists Kalidas

Karmakar and Mustafa Arshad Taru who came from United States for the Bangladesh Festival conducted the art workshops.

BFQ is a Qatar Financial Center Registered business forum formed by Bangladeshi professionals and business people of diversified back-ground working in Qatar. The forum was launched in 2018 and so far has arranged foreign direct investment related workshop, social responsi-bility initiatives like beach cleaning and other community activities.

On the occasion of 48th inde-pendence day of Bangladesh, BFQ is organising a week-long Bangladesh Festival Qatar 2019, which includes movie screening, art competition, photo contest, art workshop, photo exhibition, art exhibition and food fes-tival at Katara with the cooperation of the Embassy of Bangladesh and Katara.

Artists with their works at the workshop.

Ooredoo is strategic sponsor of QMEDTHE PENINSULA/DOHA

Ooredoo announced yesterday it will be the strategic sponsor of the upcoming Qatar International Medical Devices & Healthcare Exhibition & Conferences (QMED), set to be held from March 25 to 27 at QNCC. The Exhi-bition & Conferences will bring together leading international experts, manufacturers and companies from around the world to share advances in technology and innovation.

Given the scale of the Exhibition & Con-ferences, to facilitate a more structured event it will be divided into ten areas: QBlue Zone, focused on diabetes; pharmaceuticals; medical education; medical devices; health insurance; dental; medical tourism; laboratories; health; and wellness. Ooredoo will be hosting a booth at the event, showcasing the complete ICT port-folio of its innovative solutions that would add value to organisations within the healthcare sector; the Internet of Things Indoor Asset Tracking service and the Data Centre back-up service as examples, both of which contribute to asset management, data security, disaster recovery and secure data management.

Speaking about the sponsorship, Manar Khalifa Al Muraikhi – Director PR and Cor-porate Communications at Ooredoo – said: “Supporting vital events such as this one is a key pillar of our corporate social respon-sibility strategy, and we’re delighted to be associating with industry leaders to bring such a worthwhile event to Qatar. This event is the ideal opportunity for us to show our support for Qatar and its primary medical institutions. We’re excited to be sponsoring, and looking forward to it being a valuable contribution to the healthcare industry in Qatar and the region.”

NMoQ will have gift shops & food outletsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

The National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ) has announced plans for its gift shops and food sites, which will open over the course of several weeks after the public opening on March 28.

Similar to the carefully chosen aesthetic of the museum itself, each outfit was created by an artist whose vision was inspired by the grand design of the desert rose.

Japanese-born, Sydney-based designer Koichi Takada won the competition to create the stunning indoor spaces. The firm designed both museum shops (a gift shop and a children’s gift shop), the Desert Rose Café, Cafe 875 and Jiwan Restaurant.

The Dahl Al Misfir (Cave of Light), located in the heart of Qatar, is a beautiful underground sanctuary formed largely from fibrous gypsum crystals that give off a faint, moon-like, phospho-rescent glow. This natural for-mation inspired the design of the two museum shops that will be open at the NMoQ. Their organic architecture echoes Koichi Takada’s vision of bringing nature back into architecture, estab-lishing relationships that connect people and nature through design.

The interiors are constructed from 40,000 wooden pieces,

assembled by hand in Doha by Italian master carpenter, Claudio Devoto and his team of artisans.

The main gift shop will stock a large collection of well-designed, exclusive gifts, many of which draw their inspiration from the history, heritage and culture of Qatar. IN-Q Enterprises, which operate the gift shops, have worked in collabo-ration with local artists and designers to develop authentic and original merchandise. The gift shops will operate from 9am-7pm Saturday – Thursday and 1.30pm-7pm on Fridays and is located on the first floor of NMoQ.

The children’s gift shop will offer a diverse range of locally designed souvenirs and gift items, including educational toys, books, puzzles and games. The children’s gift shop will operate from 9am-7pm Saturday – Thursday and 1:30pm-7pm on Fridays and is located on the first floor of NMoQ. The Desert Rose Café is located on the ground floor and opens to both the lagoon (at the Corniche side) and to the Baraha courtyard. The café is an oasis of desert rose formations, offering a perfect mid-way resting spot for visitors to break the journey through the galleries.

Desert Rose Café will be operated by Chef Nouf Al Marri, founder of Kashta restaurant and Chef Nouf Company for restaurant

management, and one of Qatar’s most recognised culinary stars specialising in local cuisine. It will be open to the public between 8am-7pm Saturday through Thursday, and 1pm-7pm on Fridays from March 28.

Café 875 was inspired by tra-ditional Qatari gold jewellery, with the concept of‘875’ representing the grade of the gold’s purity. This 875 gold theme carries through in the café’s design, offering patrons a chance to dine in a traditional Qatari setting inspired by Bedouin nomadic lifestyle and enduring hospitality.

Café 875 is located on the mezzanine floor over the main lobby and was designed to ‘hide’ from the visitors’ sightline so that it does not physically overwhelm the arrival experience. Café 875 will operate during museum opening hours and will open to the public in the coming months.

Jiwan Restaurant, located on the fourth floor at the top of the museum, has a terrace with stunning panoramic views over the Doha Bay. Jiwan is named after the Qatari word for the “perfect pearl,” rose-tinted white, completely round with a lustre so pure that it comes alive with radiance. Jiwan will operate during museum opening hours and will open to the public in the coming weeks.

05MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019A HOME

QF’s iSTEMed Camp to find how educators can empower pupils THE PENINSULA DOHA

The Education Development Institute (EDI), part of Qatar Foundation’s (QF) Pre-University Education (PUE), recently hosted its annual iSTEMed Camp at Awsaj Academy in Education City. The 2019 edition of the event, was held under the theme, ‘STEM in Action,’ and was spon-sored by ExxonMobil Qatar.

The aim of iSTEMed is to explore how educators can empower students to solve real-world problems through the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). It was at-tended by educators, school leaders, and students from across academic institutes in Qatar and beyond.

Mehdi Benchaabane, Director of EDI, PUE, QF, said, “This event brought together individuals from within the field of education to discuss and exchange ideas about innovative approaches to teaching, with the ultimate aim of enabling inter-disciplinary and transdisci-plinary learning. “The iSTEMed Camp has once again proven to be a unique initiative that bridges professional learning and stu-dents’ learning through an inter-active and authentic platform.”

The keynote speech, pre-sented during the opening cer-emony, was delivered by Maryam Alhajri, Director of Academyati, PUE’s newest school and focused on why it is important to offer a STEM edu-cation to all learners and build

equitable systems that promote it in all schools. As a computer scientist and a master learner who has taken on the task of being the first leader of a pro-gressive school in Qatar, Alhajri draws on her personal expe-rience as a learner and as a mother to understand how authentic learning occurs.

EDI also welcomed pro-gressive educator, maker, and founder of Genesis Learning, Trevor Shaw, who engaged par-ticipants in a deep-dive into the engineering design process and ex-plored strategies for man-aging student-centered engi-neering challenges, while Kantis Sim-mons, a former NASA sci-entist, shared his insights about nurturing students to become effective problem-solvers

through STEM education.The three-day event

included more than 60

presenters and over 50 sessions for Early Years-Grade 12 edu-cators in both Arabic and English.

Participants connected through workshops, presentations, Ignite Talks, and campfire chats.

A bustling corner at the iSTEMed Camp 2019, which was hosted by the Education Development Institute, which is a part of Qatar Foundation’s Pre-University Education, at Awsaj Academy in Education City.

QU event highlights research, innovation expertise in Qatar THE PENINSULA DOHA

Qatar University (QU) College of Engi-neering (CENG) launched the “Engi-neering Education Week” this month, for the first time at QU, to highlight the expertise of research and innovation in Qatar.

The week-long activities expose professionals and researchers to the latest findings in engineering to relevant parties. It also involves a number of stakeholders with the concept of Engi-neering Education, which teaches knowledge and principles to the pro-fessional practice of engineering.

CENG Dean, Prof Abdelmagid Hamouda, said, “With reference to the main themes of Engineering Education Week, I think that we need to re-frame the main concepts of studying and working in engineering, science, and technology fields within a broader context in coordination with

stakeholders and partners. This event conference is considered as one of the methods that CENG is pursuing to

support the educational learning systems and mechanism, in line with Qatar National Vision 2030.”

The Professor of Unesco Learning Technologies, Prof Piet Kommers, said, “Universities need a higher didactic quality awareness nowadays. Industry and societies have an ever growing need for workers and citizens who can cope not only with domain and communi-cative skills, the need for conceptual skills for creative problem solving is greater than ever.” “As students need to

manifest acquired expertise in teams, it is needed to let them study in teams and benefit from sharing expertise rather than solo actions. Assessment practices need to value students who showed to make team members learn as well. For this sake PBL (Problem-Based Learning) and Learners’ Intrinsic Motivation rather than the drive for obtaining a certain certificate has appeared on the agenda of higher education.”

The Professor and Director of the Centre for Engineering Education (CEE), Prof Khairiyah Mohd Yusof, said, “Efforts by the College of Engineering to hold the Engineering Education Week is com-mendable. The whole week of events, starting with the collaboration between the College of Engineering and the College of Education to jointly host the “Education and Instruction Technology Conference” sets a good example on the kind of multidisciplinary requirements to nurture quality future leaders and talents in engineering.”

The officials of Qatar University at CENG’s Engineering Education Week.

The week-long activities expose professionals and researchers to the latest findings in engineering to relevant parties. It also involves a number of stakeholders with the concept of Engineering Education, which teaches knowledge and principles to the professional practice of engineering.

Advances in childhood cancer care discussed at WCM-Q Grand RoundsTHE PENINSULA DOHA

An expert on Pediatric Oncology explained developments in childhood cancer care over the past several decades at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar’s (WCM-Q) Grand Rounds.

Dr Roger L Berkow (pictured), Professor and Vice-Chair of Pedi-atrics at the University of South Alabama (USA), explained how treatment of childhood cancer had been dramatically improved by advances in drug therapies over the years, as well as discussing challenges to further progress.

Dr Berkow, who gave the lecture during a visit to WCM-Q as part of the college’s Visiting Professorship Program (VPP), said, “The cure rate over the last 50 years has improved to approx-imately 80 percent overall from 10 to 20% back in the old days, so there has been a dramatic improvement.

But 20 percent of kids with

cancer still die of their disease so progress has to continue.”

Dr Berkow pointed out that survival rates for childhood cancers increased rapidly from 1975 to 1995, but that progress then slowed.

He said that barriers to progress include funding for childhood cancer research lagging far behind that for adult cancer in the United States, poor understanding in medical science of the causes of

childhood cancer, and the diffi-culty and time needed to develop new drugs, which often takes 15 years from inception to approval by the Food and Drug Adminis-tration (FDA).

The Visiting Professorship Program is a WCM-Q initiative that brings leading figures in medical education and healthcare to the college to view its state-of-the-art facilities and affiliate teaching hospitals, offer advice on career development to students and establish strong links between WCM-Q and other elite medical institutions.

During his visit Dr Berkow, who is the Pediatric Residency Program Director in University of South Alabama, met with students to share his insights into applying to residency programs and answer their questions about the process. He also met with the clinical faculty in Hamad Medical Corpo-ration and Sidra Medicine and had medical education and clinical discussions.

Qatar participates in Annual Media Conference in TunisiaQNA TUNIS

The Second Annual Media Conference to promote the achievements and activities of Arab joint labor organizations and institutions kicked off here yesterday with the participation of representatives from Arab countries and Arab organisations and councils, including the Qatar Media Corporation and Arab media and intellectuals.

The conference aims to find mechanisms to increase the interaction of the media with these insti-tutions and provide success stories about their activ-ities and projects, accompanied by an exhibition of the Arab League besides the Arab joint organisa-tions and institutions to reflect part of the achieve-ments and activities of these participating institutions.

In a statement to Qatar News Agency (QNA), Abdulrahman Nasser Al Obaidan, Media Advisor at Qatar Media Corporation, said that the three-day conference will discuss six topics such as education, small and medium enterprises, the economy, digital

media, security stability and comprehensive devel-opment in the Arab region as well as the role of the Arab labor institutions involved in achieving the objectives of sustainable development in the Arab region.

“Many Arab organisations and institutions are working with the Arab League on a number of eco-nomic, social, security and cultural projects and con-tribute to tackling many crises and challenges,” said Mohamed Abdelkader, Director of Arab Organisa-tions and Unions at the Arab League. But these efforts, he added, are not highlighted in the media adequately and is focused only on the political aspects that often depict the Arab League in the circle of obstacles and failures, calling to highlight the bright aspects of joint Arab action.

He called on the participants on the first day of the conference to develop a valuable media strategy and focus on the successes of the joint Arab labor institutions. The League of Arab States comprises 35 organizations and federations, and performs various tasks and activities, ranging from media and cultural activities.

06 MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019HOME

Four global experts to speak on Artificial Intelligence in Doha Debates’ next session THE PENINSULA DOHA

In Doha Debates’ next live debate, four of the world’s top experts on Artificial Intelligence (AI) will debate its pros and cons, and try to reach common ground on how the world should proceed with it.

The Qatar Foundation (QF) production’s April 3 debate comes as AI increasingly reshapes day-to-day life for bil-lions of people, revolutionising communications, transportation, workplaces, housing, and healthcare. However, with AI also being blamed for job losses, data breaches, and even dis-asters, critics ask whether its benefits outweigh what they see as its negative consequences.

Debate participants will examine the merits and chal-lenges of AI and, in the pro-gramme’s unique consensus-building majlis segment, discuss ways in which everyone can address these risks, despite their different perspectives.

Among those participating in the debate will be Joy Buolamwini, a Ghanaian American computer scientist and digital activist at the MIT Media Lab of Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Nick Bostrom, a Swedish philosopher, best-selling author, and director of the

University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute.

They will be joined by Muthoni Wanyoike, a Kenyan data scientist and organiser at Code for Africa and Nairobi Women in Machine Learning & Data Science and Dex Torricke-Barton, a former communications executive at Facebook, Google and SpaceX, and a British best-selling author. Govinda Clayton, a conflict-resolution expert and researcher at Swiss science and technology university ETH Zurich, will be the debate’s bridge-building ‘connector’.

The debate at QF partner university Northwestern Uni-versity in Qatar will be lives-treamed on Facebook and Twitter. The majority of the debate’s in-person attendees will be students from universities at QF’s Education City, with the audience — including people participating digitally from around the world — playing an active role in shaping the debate and solutions.

Doha Debates’ moderator will be Ghida Fakhry, and Nelufar Hedayat will be the digital host for the debate livestream. Amjad

Atallah, Managing Director of Doha Debates, said, “This debate on AI is timely and critical. Our hope is that the debate will lead AI advocates and critics to agree, in at least a few ways, on AI’s path forward, while providing people everywhere with sugges-tions for how to maximise AI’s rewards and overcome its challenges.”

Doha Debates’ February 2019 debut debate at Education City, which examined the world’s worsening refugee crisis, gar-nered over four million views around the world.

This file picture shows the participants during the Doha Debates’ February 2019 debut debate, which examined the world’s worsening refugee crisis.

Natalie Massenet to speak about world of online retail at QF event THE PENINSULA DOHA

Dame Natalie Massenet (pictured), a fashion entre-preneur and former journalist, is set to speak at Qatar Foun-dation (QF) tomorrow, as part of Qatar Foundation’s (QF) Education City Speaker Series.

The talk, open to the public, will be held from 12.30pm to 1.30pm at the Assembly Area in Biznest (Carnegie Mellon Uni-versity in Qatar building) at Edu-cation City. The Education City Speaker Series is a platform for Qatar’s youth and wider com-munity to learn from, and engage with, experts and thought-leaders from a range of fields.

Dame Natalie founded the luxury online fashion retailer Net-A-Porter in 2000, and, over the next 10 years, went on to build one of the world’s most influential fashion businesses operating across retail, media, and publishing platforms.

At the Education City Speaker Series, she will speak about the world of online retail, sharing her experiences as an entrepreneur in the fashion industry.

Mayan Zebeib, Chief Com-munications Officer, QF, said, “We’re delighted to be wel-coming Dame Natalie Massenet to Qatar Foundation as part of the Education City Speaker Series initiative.

“The goal of this series of interactive public talks is to inform, inspire, and foster meaningful dialogue and cul-tural exchanges across a variety of topics, from sport and female empowerment to technology in healthcare. We look forward to welcoming members of Qatar’s community to this event.”

NBK Heavy Equipment displays latest agricultural and landscaping equipment at AgriteQTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Nasser Bin Khaled (NBK) Heavy Equipment - Agriculture and Land-scaping division, participated at Qatar’s 7th International Agricultural Exhi-bition (AgriteQ) held from March 19 to 22 at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Center (DECC).

AgriteQ displayed the latest and most modern equipment of international brands specialised in Agriculture and landscaping to meet the rapid growing demand on agriculture needs in Qatar.

In its dedicated pavilion, NBK Heavy Equipment displayed a wide range of Case IH tractors including PUMA 225 CVT (Constant Variable Transmission), PUMA 155 and FARMALL 100JX. Case IH has a wide model range with from 35hp JXT Series tractors to 600 hp STEIGER Series as well as Axial Flow Combines,

Self-Propelled Sprayers and Balers. Besides, NBK pavilion includes grass cutting machines, landscaping and trees decoration machines and others.

Eyad Rashid, General Manager of NBK Heavy Equipment said: “NBK Heavy equipment continues to effec-tively take part in Qatar’s International Agricultural Exhibition (AgriteQ).

This year we were proud to display some of our products to meet the increasing demand on agricultural equipment. As Qatar moves forward in its plans to accomplish self-satis-faction, we endeavor to provide the market with best solutions and con-tribute to the national economy.

The agriculture division has a great record and history, and will continue to work in line with the government directions to accomplish Qatar vision goals.”

The agriculture and landscaping division of NBK Heavy Equipment has

the biggest market share in Qatar. NBK Heavy equipment was founded in 1975 and played an integral role in supporting the construction sector through providing the market with the most reliable machines and equipment.

The company has four divisions: construction and earth moving equipment , renta l department, Agriculture and landscaping, and mater ia l han d l in g equipment.

Qatar’s International Agricultural Exhibition (AgriteQ) discovers trends and developments, and seize business opportu-nities in this vital sector.

The officials of Nasser Bin Khaled (NBK) Heavy Equipment at the 7th International Agricultural Exhibition.

IIS organises graduation ceremony

THE PENINSULA/DOHA

The Ideal Indian School (IIS) made a colourful evening recently for the tiny tots of kinder-garten to mark their graduation to the primary section of the school. The students of KG II donned convocation outfits to receive certif-icates of promotion.

Vijay Kumar, Third Secretary of the Embassy of India to Qatar, graced the occasion as chief guest while the School President, Dr Hassan Kunhi MP, presided over the function.

Principal Syed Shoukath Ali, Headmis-tress of KG section, Shirley D’ Sales, the heads of other sections and heads of departments, also attended the ceremony.

In his keynote address chief guest Vijay Kumar praised the school management and teachers for their effort in shaping the young toddlers for the better future. Dr. Hassan Kunhi MP congratulated the students, parents and teachers on crossing the first milestone in the world of education.

Vijay Kumar, Third Secretary of the Embassy of India to Qatar, and School President, Dr Hassan Kunhi MP, present graduation certificate to a student during the event.

07MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019 HOME

Forum on gender gap & feminism lauds

Qatar’s women empowerment effortsFAZEENA SALEEM THE PENINSULA

Efforts taken by Qatar for women empowerment and gender equality were lauded at a forum held on Saturday.

Prominent speakers at ‘The Forum 2019: Gender Gap and Feminism’ made a special mention of the initiatives taken by Qatar Foundation (QF) and its leadership to empower women.

In celebration of Women’s month, Turkish Airlines and Future 318 (Faisal Al Suwaidi for Events) in partnership with Shangri-la Hotel Doha, held the Forum. It brought together both men and women in a discussion to get the insights and thoughts of both genders on certain issues faced by women across the world.

Belén Alfaro, the Ambassador

of Spain to the State of Qatar, speaking at a panel discussion on gender gap, stressed the need for women participation in peace process and conflict resolution. “Only a very few women lead peace negotiations and act as negotiators. This should be changed. Also education is very important for women, as it will lead to empowerment,” she said.

She also appreciated the recent pledge by H E Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al Thani, Vice-Chair-person and CEO of QF, that women will make up at least half the panel speakers at all QF con-ferences and events, locally and internationally from 2020.

The Ambassador of Argentina to the State of Qatar, Carlos Her-nandez, also appreciated the pledge by H E Sheikha Hind and said that QF has taken

considerable steps to empower women. He also insisted that work place norms should be restruc-tured to accommodate more women in every country.

Making an example Hernan-dez’s spouse, Noeila Paola Romero, a human rights lawyer, also participated in the Forum. “The world is a mix of men and women. It is important to involve men in the discussion about women rights and their problems. You cannot expect men to change their behaviour and mindset if they are not involved. We cannot expect men to understand what we are talking if we talk among women. So the participation of men is important in every dis-cussion about gender gap, fem-inism and empowering women,” Romero told The Peninsula.

Lolwa Al Marri, the President

of Qatar Women’s Sport Com-mittee; Rochelle Zonnerberg, an entrepreneur; Shefa Obaid, a psy-chologist; and Jeffrey Asselstine,

Co-Founder of Nelson Park Group; also shared their thoughts and views on gender gap.

Speakers of a another session

shared their opinion on different aspects of feminism at ‘The Forum 2019: Gender Gap and Feminism’.

The Ambassador of Argentina, Carlos Hernandez; the Ambassador of Spain, Belén Alfaro (right); and the President of the Qatar Women’s Sport Committee, Lolwa Al Marri (centre) at the ‘The Forum 2019 - Gender Gap and Feminism’. PIC: QASSIM RAHMATULLAH / THE PENINSULA

A Tajik scholar bringing nations closer through translationsMOHAMMED OSMAN THE PENINSULA

A number of translators and scholars from different countries of Asia, Africa, Europe and America have been honoured during the 4th edition of Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Under-standing (SHATIU). Among three cate-gories of the awards also include awards for scientific works directly related to translation, such as dictionaries and trans-lation of Islamic heritage books.

The outcome of 15-year effort of Dr Syed Rahman Sulaimanov from the National University of Tajikistan was among the scholars honoured at the SHATIU for his Tajik-Arabic dictionary. In an exclusive interview with The Peninsula, Professor Sulaimanov said: “I have won the SHATIU for the compre-hensive Tajik-Arabic-Russian lexicon.” The dictionary contains over 100,000 words or entries. “I have published many studies on translation including five volumes of translated materials from Arabic into Russian and Tajik and from Tajik and Russian into Arabic Language.”

He said that each of these volumes contain more than 700 pages, prepared with aim of transferring Islamic knowledge, thought and interpretation of Holy Quran from Arabic into

these languages in order to help readers understand the content. “The effort also aims at facilitating learning of Arabic lan-guage through the provision of trilingual dictionaries.”

On reason behind his selection of this field of knowledge, he said what prompted him was his love to science following what Allah said, “Of all His servants, only those possessed of true knowledge stand in awe of God”, and secondly most of the Islamic scientific and philosophical heritages were in Arabic because Arabic was the language of science, knowledge and philosophy in the Middle Ages; even Tajik scientists like Ibn Sina, Al-Biruni and Al Khwarizmi wrote their books in Arabic. “So, the Tajik community needs the translations of these old books — in other words, it is an urgent

need for our people.”On lexicons, Prof Sulaimanov said no

language could be taught or learnt without contemporary and comprehensive dic-tionaries. “In Tajik society, we need to establish different relations: politically, economically, culturally and scientifically with Arab countries, so we should not lose sight of the Arabic language and literature.”

“Tajikistan wants to establish relations with Arab countries on the basis of modern science and technology, and therefore, we need modern and compre-hensive dictionaries as well as teaching Arabic in high and middle schools,” he stressed. He thinks that the philosophical-and scientific legacy in Arabic needs Arabic-Tajik dictionaries and the

comprehensive Russian dictionaries to benefit from these rich heritage.

Prof Sulaimanov added that the old texts were the old treasure that contained the precious works of Islamic civilisation. “I think that there are only a few people who have such a precious repository full of precious jewels of science, philosophy, art and language, with this valuable legacy.”

When asked how he managed to rec-oncile teaching, translation and the prep-aration of dictionaries, he answered, “For many years, I have worked at the Institute of Philosophy and Rights at the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan. Throughout these years I was translating the books of Islamic authors, especially Ibn Sina.

The Institute which was named after him focuses on translation of his works on philosophy and medicine and trans-lated 15 volumes into Tajik and Russian.” He said that seven volumes of Ibn Sina’s philosophical works and three volumes of his medical books have been printed so far. “Among these activities, I have translated the works of Ibn Sina and the works of other Islamic thinkers.”

In addition to these translations and work at the Institute of Philosophy and Rights, he relied on the materials he col-lected from various sources in preparing the comprehensive Arabic dictionary in

three languages: Arabic, Tajik and Russian. “It is my aim to respond to the urgent needs of the public, researchers, readers and students.” He also said that after many years he returned to teach Arabic at the Faculty of Asian and European Languages at the National University of Tajikistan.

“Now I am preparing to print Arabic-Tajik-Russian dictionary on philosophy and logic using materials I have translated over years from Islamic heritages,” he said, adding that he is still looking for a fin-ancier to print it.

“Finally I can say my love to the phil-osophical and scientific works of Muslims philosophers in Arabic prompted me to reconcile teaching and translation and the preparation of Arabic dictionaries.”

In response to another question about whether the Arab library needed such old works, Prof Sulaimanov said: “I think the Arab library needs such content because the basic duty of translators is to translate materials related to Islamic civilisation into local languages and international lan-guages. Translator’s role as ambassadors of enlightenment is to enhance commu-nication between cultures,” he said.

“I did some literature translations such as The Prophet, Broken Wings of Gibran Khalil Gibran and stories from the Mikhail Naima but my prime focus is on philo-sophical and scientific translations,” Prof Sulaimanov added.

Dr Syed Rahman Sulaimanov

QU to host 7th CSR Report & 3rd ExhibitionTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Under the patronage of Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, Qatar University (QU) will host the 7th CSR Report and 3rd Exhibition under the theme of ‘Volunteering’ in partnership with QatarCSR Network on Wednesday.

The ceremony will honour H E Sheikha Al Mahmoud, the former Minister of Education, as CSR Person of the Year 2018 in rec-ognition of her inspiring lifetime

achievements toward generations of students throughout over 20 years of her educational career. The ceremony will also recognise Sheikha Noor Al Thani and Dr Adnan Steitieh with the CSR inno-vation awards, in addition to a number of CSR leaders in Qatar.

The annual event represents the largest academic/business forum and a leading academic platform showcasing CSR initia-tives, in addition to developing the skills and discovering the capabil-ities of QU students. The CSR report is an academic research book with rich content highlighting major

corporations’ achievements in the field of CSR and supporting their position locally and abroad through a digital archiving system according to the highest profes-sional standards. Its outputs con-tribute to the consolidation of social responsibility in the Qatari culture and heritage. The exhi-bition is a high-level platform that allows organisations to participate in an academic forum hosted by QU in order to enhance students’ awareness of CSR by creating an actual interaction with the public and private sectors and multina-tional institutions.

Over 250 PHCC clinicians and staff participate in Middle East Forum 2019THE PENINSULA DOHA

More than 250 clinicians and staff of Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) participated in the seventh Middle East Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare. The annual conference brings together healthcare professionals on an international platform to share knowledge with the collective aim of improving the quality and safety care for the patients and communities.

Dr Mariam Abdul Malik, Managing Director of PHCC, said: “Participating in this annual event is an important partnership for us. Patient safety is a funda-mental cornerstone of our health services, we are continuously working towards embedding the latest concepts in safety through innovative approaches.”

PHCC’s participation included presentation focused on patient engagement, unlocking the resilience potential in health care organisations, joy at the

workplace and patient centred care. PHCC panellist also took part on sessions focused on the quality of services delivered for diabetics, patients suffering from chronic disease, dentistry services and the benefits of early screening.

The forum objective is in line with PHCC’s commitment to pro-viding safe, compassionate, quality care across all primary care services and facilities whilst remaining abreast of the latest regional and international developments.

PHCC has arranged engaging activities for visitors to enhance and check their knowledge in patients safety and quality.

This year, in the exhibition space, PHCC displayed quality in various parts of its service, including the opening of four new state of the art health centres in the past 12 months, bringing care closer to the com-munity. The partnership with more than 100 patients and members of our communities to create the Patient Consultative Council, giving patients a voice to help us excel in providing great services, training of 2,378 PHCC clinical and non-clinical staff on Basic Quality Improvement and Patient Safety concepts and tools.

Also 2,994 learning hours were dedicated by PHCC staff in 2018 to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s E-Learning modules and 318 Quality Improvement projects have been completed since the start of the organisation wide Quality Improvement training program in 2015.

The visitors attend the forum.

The annual conference brings together healthcare professionals on an international platform to share knowledge with the collective aim of improving the quality and safety care for the patients and communities.

If the Golan statement is meant to send the Palestinians a message, there’s no particular reason to think the Palestinians will respond by negotiating. After the embassy move, the Palestinians didn’t react by recognizing their weakness and choosing to negotiate.

08 MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019AVIEWS

Theology can’t explain Trump’s Golan Heights announcement

Critics upset at Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for saying that God might have put Donald Trump in office to

protect Israel from Iran should take a step back and look at the big picture.

Pompeo was responding to a leading question on the Christian Broadcast Network, and his response was actually pretty diplomatic: “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible.”

When it comes to questions of applied theology, answers are a matter of taste and of faith. Maybe God has raised up President Trump to save the Jews like Queen Esther, in the Old Tes-tament story. Or maybe Trump is a snare to the Israelites, a misleader of the people who will tempt the modern state of Israel into a dangerous course of self-destructive, sinful action - like annexing parts of the West Bank.

Rather than debating God’s plan for the world, it’s far more pragmati-cally valuable to ask whether there are defensible non-theological reasons for Trump’s policy toward Israel.

Specifically, what does the US gain from Trump’s announcement Thursday that he wants the US to treat Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights as an accomplished fact, not a matter to be resolved in ultimate

peace negoti-ations in the region?

Notice that the key question here is not whether Trump’s rec-ognizing Israel’s de facto annex-ation of Golan is good for Israel. For Americans, the relevant question should be whether the policy is good for the US

I can think of two plausible reasons Trump might have made the statement now that

Golan is permanently part of Israel.The first is that Trump is trying to

help embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu get re-elected in fast-approaching Israeli elections. In principle, it can sometimes be in US

interests for a certain politician to win an election in a foreign country.

But there is no reason to think that Netanyahu’s closest competitor, cen-trist retired general Benny Gantz, would be any less pro-American than Netanyahu, or any less willing to do business with the Trump administration.

If anything, Gantz would certainly be more inclined than Netanyahu to cooperate in the Trump administra-tion’s efforts to find a new solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Netanyahu would be hemmed in by right-wing coalition partners. Gantz, if he were to form the government, would have a broader coalition stretching to the left.

There is also some chance that Netanyahu will lose, or that he will win and then have to resign if he is not only indicted on corruption charges but actually convicted and sent to prison. Then Trump will have to deal with Gantz or another politician Trump has taken steps to defeat. It follows that pushing for Netanyahu’s re-election really isn’t in the US’ interest.

The other plausible reason for Trump’s Golan statement is that his administration is still trying to send the message to the Palestinians that if they don’t come to the table and nego-tiate, he will implicitly allow Israel’s right wing to annex parts of the densely populated West Bank.

If that’s Trump’s aim, the Golan announcement makes some sort of sense. Thus far, the silence from many Arab states in response to Trump’s statement is deafening. Those states are in parallel signaling to the Pales-tinians that they are utterly alone and cannot rely on their one-time Arab allies to stand up for their rights or

interests.The Trump administration has

made it clear to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and other Arab countries that it will give them unequivocal support provided they side with the US in pressuring the Pal-estinians. The Arab states get it, and they are cooperating with the Trump administration’s policy.

Seen in these terms, the reaction is no different from relative silence about Trump’s symbolic decision to move the official location of US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Indeed, ignoring Golan is easier for Arab leaders than ignoring the more symbolically and emotionally fraught topic of Jerusalem.

Yet even if the Golan statement is meant to send the Palestinians a message, there’s no particular reason to think the Palestinians will respond by negotiating. After the embassy move, the Palestinians didn’t react by recognizing their weakness and choosing to negotiate.

In fact, the Palestinians did the opposite, cutting off all contact with the Trump administration. In the face of their weakness, the Palestinians had only one card to play: refusing to play the negotiation game at all. The strategy of making them negotiate by isolating them seems to have already failed.

If Trump’s statement didn’t benefit US interests, it does come with costs. Recognizing annexation of conquered land contradicts policies the US pursues all over the world, not to mention basic principles of interna-tional law.

Those costs aren’t theological. They’re real and concrete. And US presidents should avoid imposing them on US interests.

NOAH FELDMAN BLOOMBERG

QUOTE OF THE DAY

In a world with giants like China, Russia or our partners in the

United States, we can only survive if we are

united as the EU.

Heiko Maas German Foreign Minister

Trump’s Iran hawks wage a quiet war against his diplomats

It has been almost a year since President Donald Trump withdrew the US from

the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, and one might think proponents of the move are feeling vindicated. Iran has stuck to the limits in the agreement on nuclear fuel, despite the re-impo-sition of crippling sanctions on its banks and oil exports. Yes, it is still making mis-chief in the region - but no more so than it was a year ago, and now with less than half the oil revenue. The dire predictions of the deal’s supporters, meanwhile, have not come to pass.

Yet Iran hawks in Con-gress and the adminis-tration are worried that Trump will allow the deal to survive. They are waging a quiet war against Sec-retary of State Mike Pompeo and his special representative for Iran, Brian Hook. The goal is to force the State Department and Trump to end oil waivers granted to China, India, Italy, Greece, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey. The waivers, granted last fall and set to expire May 2, allow them to continue to buy Iranian oil.

There is a deeply reported article in the Atlantic laying out the internal struggle. In some ways, this shouldn’t be a fight at all: The State Department’s official policy, as articulated by Pompeo himself, is to get Iran oil exports to zero.

So what is all the fighting about? The

question is whether there will be enough surplus oil to stabilize the market if Iranian oil exports are slashed to zero. Trump has trashed the nuclear deal. But he has also acknowl-edged that he does not want to see the price of crude spike. Hook and Pompeo are trying to follow Trump’s policy guidance and reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero without disrupting the market.

The hawks in the administration, however, say there are more than enough oil producers willing to boost production to make up for any Iranian crude taken off the market. My Bloomberg colleagues have reported that the US Energy Information Administration estimates that global crude supply will exceed demand by 180,000 barrels per day.

While the debate is technical, the issue - the

survival of the Iranian regime - is existential, espe-cially for the original oppo-nents of the deal, such as National Security Adviser John Bolton. One adminis-tration official told me that the May 2 deadline was the administration’s last real-istic chance to end the oil waivers. The next deadline - Nov. 2 - will be too close to the election, and Trump will be loath to approve any measures that could pos-sibly raise oil prices.

This is not a paranoid fantasy. In April 2018, former Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iran’s foreign minister to discuss how to keep the nuclear deal on life support. What’s more, Al Monitor has reported that Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren have pledged to rejoin the 2015 deal. Momentum is building to get other Democrats to make the same promise.

Qatar Petroleum has taken several measures to expand its operations, aiming to become a major international player in the oil and gas industry. One of the major decisions was to increasing its LNG production capacity.

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFIeditorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMEDm.salim@pen.com.qa

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI osman@pen.com.qa

ESTABLISHED IN 1996

EDITORIAL

Qatar leading in LNG trade

Qatar’s recent decision to increase its LNG pro-duction level from 77 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) to 110 MTPA will improve the country’s

position as one of the main exporters of LNG to the global markets and reinforce its position as the world’s largest reliable LNG supplier.

Secretary-General of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) Dr. Yury Sentyurin, speaking to QNA recently stated that Doha’s announcement can contribute to increasing demand for LNG, mostly from Asia and especially China.

Qatar Petroleum has taken several measures to expand its operations, aiming to become a major inter-national player in the oil and gas industry. One of the major decisions was to increasing its LNG production capacity. QP had announced in September last year that it would increase the capacity of Qatar’s LNG expansion project, which was announced in 2017, by adding a fourth liquefaction train. After the completion of project, Qatar’s LNG production capacity would reach 110 MTPA, rep-resenting an increase of around 43 percent from its

current production capacity of 77 MTPA.

In February this year, QP and ExxonMobil announced that they had taken the final investment decision for developing the Golden Pass LNG export project. The project, located in Sabine Pass, Texas, is owned by Golden Pass Products — a joint venture between affil-iates of Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil.

The continued preference towards cleaner energy will drive interest in natural gas and LNG. In the longer term, more nations will press for fuel oil generation con-version to natural gas, which will drive LNG development infrastructure

Dr. Sentyurin pointed out that the global energy market is becoming more and more dynamic, with the interplay

of economics and geopolitics getting more complex. This increased degree of complexity and dynamics brings a higher degree of unpredictability, which in turn raises the volatility of various commodities, including the oil price.

The GECF member countries continue to be a very important source of natural gas supply needed, to not only satisfy their contractual obligations, but also to meet their domestic gas requirements.

Natural gas consumption grew by 3-4% over the past two years, and that this upward trend would continue in the near future, which would be driven mainly by higher consumption in Asia, especially in China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and in the United States, as well as in Europe and the Middle East. With proactive taken by the authorities in the past years, Qatar will maintain its role of world’s trusted LNG supplier. ELI LAKE

BLOOMBERG

The United States, with its financial capital (or an outfoxing illusion of it), evolved into a debtor empire through the Wall Street guaranties. Titanium-made Sputnik vs. gold mine of printed-paper… Nothing epitomizes this better than the words of the longest serving US Federal Reserve’s boss, Alan Greenspan, who famously said to then French President Jacques Chirac: “True, the dollar is our currency, but your problem”.

09MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019A OPINION

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In Ukraine race, some call for close ties witharch-foe Russia

Trade Wars: China - Winner or a Game Changer ?

OLGA SHYLENKO & DMYTRO GORSHKOV

AFP

PROF. ANIS H. BAJREKTAREVIĆ

Ukrainian economist Yevgeniya Gorobey will vote for a pro-Moscow candidate in next week’s presidential poll even

though Russia annexed Crimea and

fuelled a separatist uprising in the ex-Soviet country’s east.

“What is the most important thing right now? To stop the war,” Gorobey, who lives in the capital Kiev, said. “I will vote for Yuriy Boyko.”

The 35-year-old mother of one said she believed the former ally of ousted Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanu-kovych -- unlike the current elites -- would look for ways to end a conflict that has claimed some 13,000 lives since 2014.

In a pro-Western country of 45 million that firmly rejected its Soviet past a significant number of people plan to vote for Boyko or other pro-Russian figures.

Of the 39 presidential candidates, roughly four including Boyko are Russia-friendly.

None stands a chance of winning the crucial presidential election on March 31 but their combined support among

voters stands at around 15 percent. Polls put the 60-year-old former

deputy prime minister Boyko in fourth place with more than 10 percent, behind the three most popular candidates led by actor and comedian Volodymyr Zelensky.

While the top three contenders -- including President Petro Poroshenko -- run on promises of closer ties with the West, Boyko insists that restoring political and economic ties with arch-foe Russia is important, too.

“We should have an absolutely pragmatic course,” said Boyko, who won 0.19 percent of the vote during a presi-dential election in 2014.

“We should act in the interests of the country -- in some areas we will restore our relations with Russia for sure, we have lost this market,” he said. This week Boyko travelled to Moscow for high-profile economic talks with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, sparking Poroshenko’s anger.

Friday’s talks centred on the impor-tance of resumption of cooperation including in the gas sphere and included energy giant Gazprom chief Alexei Miller and Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, who claims President Vladimir Putin is godfather to one of his daughters.

“They are discussing economy while our boys are dying on the frontlines,” a seething Poroshenko said of the Moscow talks. Boyko, a former member of Yanu-kovich’s largely moribund Party of Regions, also contradicts Kiev’s line by insisting on direct talks with Kremlin-backed separatists.

Mykhailo, who lives in the gov-ernment-held port city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine, also said he would vote for Boyko.

“The current authorities did not allow opposition forces to develop,” said the 63-year-old pensioner, who declined to give his last name for fear of reprisals.

“Even under Yanukovych the oppo-sition had more opportunities than now.”

The newly established Orthodox Church of Ukraine -- which has recently won independence from Moscow -- this month warned voters against supporting candidates who appear to promote peace but in fact urge them to “sur-render to the enemy.”

But observers say that despite Kiev’s pivot to the West after a popular uprising in 2014 some Ukrainians had nostalgic memories of life under the Soviet Union and backed closer ties with Moscow.

“Very often they are ready to support candidates who are well-dis-posed towards Russia,” said political analyst Mykola Davydyuk.

Boyko is backed by Dmytro Firtash, a tycoon with links to the Kremlin and former Donald Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, and his TV channel gives him ample airtime.

Given Boyko’s high profile, his party, the Opposition Platform, appears set to win parliamentary seats during legis-lative polls in October. Pro-Moscow candidates have traditionally enjoyed popularity in the country’s Russian-speaking eastern and southern regions but the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of the separatist conflict undermined their support base.

Of roughly 6 million people living in annexed Crimea and separatist-con-trolled territories, many will not be able to take part in the vote. Other pro-Moscow voters have been disillusioned with Russia’s tactics.

Does our history only appear overheated, but is essen-tially calmly predeter-mined? Is it directional or

conceivable, dialectic and eclectic or cyclical, and therefore cynical? Surely, our history warns. Does it also provide for a hope? Hence, what is in front of us: destiny or future?

One of the biggest (nearly schizo-phrenic) dilemmas of liberalism, ever since David Hume and Adam Smith, was an insight into reality; whether the world is essentially Hobbesian or Kantian. As postulated, the main task of any liberal state is to enable and maintain wealth of its nation, which of course rests upon wealthy indi-viduals inhabiting the particular state. That imperative brought about another dilemma: if wealthy indi-vidual, the state will rob you, but in absence of it, the pauperized masses will mob you. The invisible hand of Smith’s followers have found the sat-isfactory answer – sovereign debt. That ‘invention’ meant: relatively strong central government of the state. Instead of popular control through the democratic checks-&-balances mechanism, such a state should be rather heavily indebted. Debt – firstly to local merchants, than to foreigners – is a far more powerful deterrent, as it resides outside the popular check domain. With such a mixed blessing, no empire can easily demonetize its legitimacy, and abandon its hierarchical but invisible and unconstitutional controls. This is how a debtor empire was born. A blessing or totalitarian curse? Let us briefly examine it.

The Soviet Union – much as (the pre-Deng’s) China itself – was far more of a classic continental military empire (overtly brutal; rigid, authori-tative, anti-individual, apparent, secretive), while the US was more a financial-trading empire (covertly coercive; hierarchical, yet asocial, exploitive, pervasive, polarizing). On opposite sides of the globe and cog-nition, to each other they remained enigmatic, mysterious and incalcu-lable: Bear of permafrost vs. Fish of the warm seas. Sparta vs. Athens. Rome vs. Phoenicia… However, common for the both was a super-appetite for omnipresence. Along with the price to pay for it.

Consequently, the Soviets went bankrupt by mid 1980s – they cracked under its own weight, imperially over-stretched. So did the Americans – the ‘white man burden’ fractured them already by the Vietnam war, with the Nixon shock only officializing it. However, the US imperium managed to survive and to outlive the Soviets. How? The United States, with its financial capital (or an outfoxing illusion of it), evolved into a debtor empire through the Wall Street guar-anties. Titanium-made Sputnik vs. gold mine of printed-paper… Nothing epito-mizes this better than the words of the longest serving US Federal Reserve’s boss, Alan Greenspan, who famously said to then French President Jacques Chirac: “True, the dollar is our cur-rency, but your problem”. Hegemony vs. hegemoney.

Conventional economic theory teaches us that money is a universal equivalent to all goods. Historically,

currencies were a space and time-related, to say locality-dependent. However, like no currency ever before, the US dollar became – past the WWII – the universal equivalent to all other moneys of the world. According to history of currencies, the core component of the non-precious metals money is a so-called prom-issory note – intangible belief that, by any given point of future, a particular shiny paper will be smoothly exchanged for real goods.

Thus, roughly speaking, money is nothing else but a civilizational con-struct about imagined/projected tomorrow – that the next day (which nobody has ever seen in the history of humankind, but everybody operates with) definitelly comes (i), and that this tomorrow will certainly be a better day then our yesterday or even our today (ii). This and similar types of social contracts (horizontal and vertical) over the collective constructs hold society together as much as its economy keeps it alive and evolving. Hence, it is money that powers economy, but our blind faith in tomorrows and its alleged certainty is what empowers money.

Clearly, the universal equivalent of all equivalents – the US dollar – follows the same pattern: Strong and widely accepted promise. What does the US dollar promise when there is no gold cover attached to it ever since the time of Nixon shock of 1971?

Pentagon promises that the oceanic sea lines will remain opened, pathways unhindered, and that the most traded world’s commodity – oil, will be delivered. So, it is not a crude or its delivery what is a cover to the US dollar – it is a promise that oil of tomorrow will be deliverable. That is a real might of the US dollar, which in return finances Pentagon’s massive expendi-tures and shoulders its supremacy.

Admired and feared, Pentagon further fans our planetary belief in tomorrow’s deliverability – if we only keep our faith in dollar (and hydro-carbons’ energized economy), and so on and on in perpetuated circle of mutual reinforcements.

These two pillars of the US might from the East coast (the US Treasury/Wall Street and Pentagon) together with the two pillars of the West coast – both financed by the US dollar and spread through the open sea-lanes (Silicone Valley and Hollywood), are an essence of the US posture.

This very nature of power explains why the Americans have missed to take our mankind into completely other direction; towards the non-con-frontational, decarbonized, de-mone-tized/de-financialized and de-psy-chologized, the self-realizing and

While the top three contenders -- including President Petro Poroshenko -- run on promises of closer ties with the West, Boyko insists that restoring political and economic ties with arch-foe Russia is important, too.

green humankind. In short, to turn history into a moral success story. They had such a chance when, past the Gorbachev’s unconditional sur-render of the Soviet bloc, and the Deng’s Copernicus-shift of China, the US – unconstrained as a lonely superpower – solely dictated terms of reference; our common destiny and direction/s to our future/s.

Sadly enough, that was not the first missed opportunity for the US to soften and delay its forthcoming, imminent multidimensional imperial retreat. The very epilogue of the WWII meant a full security guaranty for the US: Geo-economi-cally – 54% of anything manufac-tured in the world was carrying the Made in USA label, and geostrategi-cally – the US had uninterruptedly enjoyed nearly a decade of the ‘nuclear monopoly’. Up to this very day, the US scores the biggest number of N-tests conducted, the largest stockpile of nuclear weaponry, and it represents the only power ever deploying this ‘ultimate weapon’ on other nation. To complete the irony, Americans enjoy geographic advantage like no other empire before. Save the US, as Ikenberry notes: “…every major power in the world lives in a crowded geopolitical neigh-bourhood where shifts in power routinely provoke counterbal-ancing”. Look the map, at Russia or China and their packed sur-roundings. The US is blessed with neighbouring oceans – all that should harbour tranquility, peace and prosperity,

Author is chairperson and professor in international law and global political studies, Vienna, Austria.

A file picture of US President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping along with members of their delegations, hold a dinner meeting at the end of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Buenos Aires, on December 1, 2018.

10 MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019AMIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Thousands of Moroccan teachers stage protest over pay termsREUTERS RABAT

About 10,000 teachers staged a new protest in the Moroccan capital Rabat yesterday to demand permanent jobs, hours after police had used water cannon to disperse an overnight demonstration.

The teachers, many of whom had spent the night in the streets of Rabat after the first event, marched from the education ministry to the square in front of parliament where police had intervened after midnight to prevent them from spending the night in the main Mohammed V Avenue.

They want an end to renewable contracts in favour of permanent jobs that offer civil service benefits, including a better retirement pension.

Some also shouted political slogans such as “This is a corrupt country” and “We are ruled by a

mafia,” urging Prime Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani and Education Minister Said Amzazi to step down.

Morocco, which has avoided the turmoil seen by other

countries during and after the Arab Spring of 2011, regularly sees protests though they rarely draw several thousands or involve con-frontations with police.

The protest was organised

by an alliance of leftist oppo-sition parties, main unions, civil society organisations and uni-versity students. The teachers have been striking for three weeks in a row.

Teachers protest for better work conditions in Rabat, Morocco, yesterday.

Trump to recognise Golan as Israel’s territory today

Iraq: Governor sacked over ferry tragedyAFP/BAGHDAD

Iraq’s parliament yesterday sacked the governor of a northern province where 100 people died in a ferry disaster that sparked a wave of grief and anger. Most of those killed when the boat sank Thursday in the Tigris River in Mosul were women and children headed for a Mother’s Day picnic on the Kurds’ Nowruz New Year holiday. Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mehdi wrote to parliament on Saturday calling on legislators to fire Nineveh provincial governor Nawfel Akoub, citing “negligence and concrete failings” meriting his dismissal. His two deputies were also fired during a vote in the national assembly. Parliament declared those killed in the tragedy “martyrs”, allowing their families to receive financial compensation and paving the way for court proceedings. Sixteen people have been arrested as part of an investigation into the ferry capsize.

Algeria oppn proposes six-month transitionAFP/ALGIERS

A group of Algerian opposition parties and unions proposed a “roadmap” to end a political crisis and weeks of protests sparked by the veteran president’s bid to stay in power. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said on February 22 he would run for a fifth term in April 18 elections, despite concerns about his ability to rule, triggering an outcry in the country which has since been gripped by demon-strations. The 82-year-old, who uses a wheelchair and has rarely appeared in public since suffering a stroke in 2013, earlier this month said he would pull out of the race. But he also postponed the elec-tions, meaning he will stay in power until polls are held. Boutef-lika’s current mandate expires on April 28 and proposals agreed at a meeting between opposition parties and unions call for a six-month transition period from that date.

Palestinian dies of wounds from Israeli gunfire in GazaAP/GAZA CITY

Gaza’s Health Ministry said a Palestinian has died of wounds sustained from Israeli gunfire at protests along the perimeter fence.

The ministry said yesterday that 24-year-old Habib Al Masri was shot in the chest at protests near Beit Hanoun the previous night, and that two others were wounded. Hundreds had gathered for protests in various locations, hurling stones and firebombs toward Israel.

The Israeli military says that in response to the explosives its aircraft targeted two Hamas observation posts in the southern Gaza Strip.

The protests are aimed at breaking a blockade that Israel and Egypt imposed when Hamas seized power in 2007. Over the past year, about 190 Pal-estinians and an Israeli soldier have been killed in weekly rallies. Two more Palestinians were killed on Friday.

AFP &AP JERUSALEM

US President Donald Trump will sign an order recognising Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights when he meets Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington today, Israel’s foreign minister said.

“President Trump will sign tomorrow in the presence of PM Netanyahu an order recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on Twitter yesterday.

Again breaking with long-standing international con-sensus, Trump said on Thursday that the United States should acknowledge Israeli sovereignty over the strategic plateau it seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War.

He however left unanswered if or when he would follow through with an order to do so.

Netanyahu has long pushed for such recognition, and many analysts saw Trump’s statement, which came in a tweet, as a campaign gift ahead of Israel’s April 9 polls.

The prime minister is locked in tough election campaign with a centrist political alliance headed by former military chief Benny Gantz and ex-finance minister Yair Lapid.

Syria and other states in the region condemned Trump’s pledge, saying it violates inter-national law. France said the same. Israel annexed the Golan in 1981 in a move never recog-nised by the international community.

The decision is the latest major move in favour of Israel by Trump, who in 2017 recog-nised the disputed city of Jeru-salem as the country’s capital.

Meanwhile, the leaders of Romania and Honduras have announced they will recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, fol-lowing the lead of President Donald Trump.

Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila and Honduran President Juan Orlando Hern-andez delivered their announce-ments at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference in Washington.

Cyclone toll in Africa above 750; fighting disease new challengeAP/BEIRA, MOZAMBIQUE

Cyclone Idai’s death toll has risen above 750 in the three southern African countries hit 10 days ago by the storm, as workers restore electricity, water and try to prevent outbreak of cholera, author-ities said yesterday. In Mozambique the number of dead has risen to 446 while there are 259 dead in Zimbabwe and at least 56 dead in Malawi for a three-nation total of 761. All numbers for deaths are still preliminary, warned Mozambique’s Environment Minister Celso Correia. As flood waters recede and more bodies are discovered, the final death toll in Mozambique alone could be above the early estimate of 1,000 made by the country’s president a few days after the cyclone hit, said aid workers.

‘Israeli war crimes should go to international court’ANATOLIA GENEVA

Israeli crimes against peaceful Palestinian protesters in Gaza should go to the International Criminal Court (ICC), said the Palestinian ambassador to UN in Geneva yesterday.

Ibrahim Khraishi’s call came after the UN Human Rights Council on Friday passed a res-olution on strengthening the UN presence in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.

The council said it was “gravely concerned” by the

findings of the UN-appointed independent international com-mission of inquiry, which said Israeli forces may have com-mitted war crimes and crimes against humanity during the peaceful Great March of Return protests.

“That report should be trans-mitted to the ICC by the commis-sioner,” Khraishi told Anadolu Agency, referring to Michelle Bachelet, who heads the council.

Khraishi said that Israeli forces target all people, not sparing children, the disabled, the media, or healthcare

providers. Expressing his hope that the report will go to the ICC, Khraishi said court prosecutors should start investigating Israeli war crimes.

Mentioning British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt saying his country would oppose all anti-Israeli resolutions at the council, Khraishi said: “Our cause was started by Britain’s Balfour Dec-laration more than 100 years ago. After their mandate, they encouraged Israeli gangs to kill our people and evict them from their houses.”

He went on to say that under

the British mandate in Palestine, Israeli forces had damaged more than 500 villages and cities.

Khraishi criticised British “double standards” towards Pal-estinians, saying the UK “is always asking for accountability everywhere but when it comes to Israel, they are the protectors and they encourage a culture of impunity.”

Since Palestinians began holding rallies along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone in March 2018, more than 250 demonstrators have been killed by Israeli army gunfire.

Relatives mourn during funeral ceremony of Palestinian Habib Al Masri, 24, who died of wounds from Israeli fire during anti-occupation protests in the northern Gaza Strip, in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, yesterday.

Syria’s return to Arab League not on summit agendaAFP/CAIRO

he Arab League said yesterday it was not planning to discuss reinstating Syria’s membership at a summit later this month, more than eight years after suspending it as the country descended into war.

The pan-Arab bloc, which is set to hold its annual summit in Tunisia on March 31, froze Syria’s membership in November 2011 over a bloody government crackdown on protestors.

But several of the bloc’s other 21 members have recently renewed ties with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, and some have called for Syria to be re-admitted to the league.

“The issue of Syria’s return to the Arab League has yet to be listed on the agenda and has not been formally proposed,” said the League’s spokesman Mahmoud Afifi. The “Syrian crisis” still tops the agenda, along with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the situation in Yemen and Libya.

Mali village massacre toll up to 134 AP/BAMAKO, MALI

The death toll from a massacre in a central Malian village rose to 134 dead, the UN said, as new video emerged yesterday showing victims strewn on the ground amid the burning remains of their homes. An ethnic Dogon militia already blamed for scores of attacks in central Mali over the past year attacked an ethnic Peuhl village just before dawn on Saturday. Among the victims in Ogossogou were pregnant women, small children and the elderly, according to a Peuhl group known as Tabital Pulaaku. A graphic video shows the aftermath of Saturday’s attack, with many victims burned inside their homes. A small child’s body is covered with a piece of fabric, and at one point an ID card is shown covered with blood.

Royal adviser fired over Khashoggi murder absent from Saudi trialREUTERS LONDON

A Saudi royal adviser fired over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is not among the 11 suspects on trial at secretive hearings in Riyadh despite Saudi pledges to bring those respon-sible to justice, sources familiar with the matter said. The Saudi public prosecutor indicted 11 unnamed suspects in November, including five who could face the death penalty on charges of “ordering and committing the crime.” The CIA and some Western countries believe Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing, which Saudi officials deny.

Saud Al Qahtani, a top aide to Prince Mohammed until he was sacked then sanctioned by the US Treasury over his sus-pected role, is not on trial and has not appeared at any of the four court sessions convened since January, said seven sources, who are familiar with the proceedings but have not

attended the trial.Two regional intelligence

sources said weeks after the killing that Qahtani oversaw Khashoggi’s murder and dis-memberment by giving orders via Skype to a team of security and intelligence operatives.

The Saudi public prosecutor said in November that Qahtani had coordinated with deputy intelligence chief Ahmed Al Asiri, who ordered the repatriation of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who had become a vocal critic of the crown prince’s policies following years as a royal insider.

The prosecutor said Qahtani had met the operatives charged with Khashoggi’s repatriation ahead of their journey to Istanbul. When Khashoggi resisted, the lead negotiator decided to kill him, according to the prosecutor. Asiri is on trial, the seven sources said.

Three of the sources said that Maher Mutreb, the lead negotiator, and Salah Al Tubaigy, a forensic expert specialised in autopsies, are also on trial and

could face the death penalty.The sources said the

defendants have legal counsel and have defended themselves in court by claiming they did not intend to kill Khashoggi or were merely carrying out orders.

The public prosecutor, the government media office, Qahtani and Asiri did not respond to requests for comment on the status of the trial. Reuters could not reach Mutreb, Tobaigy or any of the defendants’ lawyers.

Saudi Arabia wants to move on from the global outcry sparked by Khashoggi’s killing in the kingdom’s Istanbul con-sulate last October, which tar-nished the crown prince’s rep-utation, prompted some investors to pull out, and inten-sified criticism of the country’s human rights record.

A credible investigation and trial are among Western demands to restore Saudi Ara-bia’s standing after the killing. But Riyadh has refused to coop-erate with a UN inquiry, rejecting it as interference in its internal affairs.

“President Trump will sign in the presence of PM Netanyahu an order recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on Twitter yesterday.

11MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019A ASIA

Congress finally makes alliances in states

IANS NEW DELHI

After much uncertainty, the Congress has finally succeeded in putting in shape alliances in some states for the Lok Sabha battle, with a top leader of the party saying yesterday it will be the “most alliance friendly” election for the party.

After being in power in Kar-nataka along with the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S), the Congress has formed major alliances in Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir. The Congress is largely contesting alone in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh after being rebuffed by the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). And its talks with the Left in West Bengal have crashed and there is also uncertainty over a tie-up with the ruling Aam Aadmi Party

(AAP) in Delhi. In Assam, AIUDF appears keen to shake hands with the Congress to avoid a split in opposition votes.

Praveen Chakravarty, Chair-person, Data Analytics Department of Congress, said the Congress will concede the most number of seats to allies and contest the fewest number in this parliamentary election.

The Congress had reached out to opposition parties in a major way in 2004 to oust the Atal Bihari Vajpayee gov-ernment. The party contested 414 seats, its lowest number since 1996, and the carefully crafted alliances helped the party get a surprise result and form a coa-lition government. The Con-gress-led alliance was re-elected in 2009. Congress leaders are hopeful of a similar outcome in 2019. The Congress contested 529 seats in 1996, 467 in 1998,

451 in 1999, 414 in 2004, 440 in 2009 and 464 in 2014. The party has so far declared candidates on 218 seats for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The party will fight nine of 40 seats in Bihar, 26 of 48 in Maharashtra with two seats being given to smaller parties, 20 of 28 in Karnataka, seven of 14 in Jharkhand, nine of 39 seats in Tamil Nadu and at least four

in Jammu and Kashmir, including two where it will have “friendly contests” with its ally, the National Conference.

The nitty-gritty of alliances in Bihar and Maharashtra were announced only in the last two or three days and the time taken in reaching the tie-ups could impact campaigning by the candidates.

Rahul Gandhi, President of India’s main opposition Congress Party, speaks during a public rally ahead of elections in Khumulwng, on the outskirts of Agartala, the capital of northeastern state of Tripura.

Rahul to decide on contesting from Wayanad, says Chandy IANS KOTTAYAM

The decision to contest on the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala rests with Congress Pres-ident Rahul Gandhi, said All India Congress Committee General-Secretary Oommen Chandy yesterday. “There is no confusion at all regarding Gandhi contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Wayanad. Our party here

has already indicated our desire that this should happen. Now it’s Gandhi who has to make the final decision and it’s expected today itself,” Chandy told the media here on the sidelines of an inau-gural election campaign meeting.

On Saturday, top leaders urged Gandhi to contest on the seat. The Congress had nomi-nated Kozhikode district Con-gress President T Siddique to contest on the Wayanad seat.

IANS PATNA

The CPI yesterday formally announced it will field former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) Pres-ident Kanhaiya Kumar from Begusarai in Bihar to contest the Lok Sabha elections. State CPI Secretary Satyanarayan Singh said here: “Kanhaiya will be the

CPI candidate from Begusarai.” The announcement came two days after the Grand Alliance of RJD, Congress and other parties did not allocate Begusarai to the Communist Party of India (CPI). The RJD is set to field Tanweer Hasan, who unsuccessfully contested from Begusarai in 2014. Begusarai is set to see a hree-cornered fight.

CPI formally fields Kanhaiya Kumar from Begusarai

AAP starts Delhi poll drive with multiple rallies IANS NEW DELHI

Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) launched its Lok Sabha election campaign with multiple rallies across the city.

Different AAP leaders, including Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, sought votes in the name of full statehood while attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party for not fulfilling its promises and “torturing” the

ruling AAP. Addressing a rally in north Delhi’s Timarpur, Kejriwal asked the people to not vote for the BJP or Congress as “they failed to fulfill their promise of full statehood”.

He said people should vote for the AAP, as it is serving the people and will continue doing that. His deputy Manish Sisodia also held rallies in several places, including Kasturba Nagar in New Delhi Lok Sabha constituency and asked people to vote for his

party as the BJP MPs had not done anything for the city in the past four years.

A road show, spearheaded by AAP leader Gopal Rai, passed through 10 Assembly constitu-encies in west Delhi, including Dwarka, Nawada, Uttam Nagar and Tilak Nagar, before con-cluding at Rajouri Garden.

Rai addressed people at various locations and sought votes for party’s candidate Balbir Singh Jakhar. Jakhar also

addressed the people. Rai cited the “dual standards” of the Con-gress and the BJP.

“They promised statehood to Delhi, only to forget later,” he said, adding the seven AAP can-didates will rake up the issue during campaign and later take the issue of full statehood to Parliament.

“We will bring full statehood to Delhi. Our MPs will also raise the issues of people in Par-liament,” he added.

BJP goes safe in Gujarat, repeats 15 sitting MPs IANS GANDHINAGAR

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday released its second list of Lok Sabha candidates from Gujarat, containing 15 candidates — all sitting MPs, In the first list, announced on Thursday, party President Amit Shah’s candidature was announced for the Gandhinagar seat, replacing veteran leader L K Advani, who had held the seat since 1998.

In the second list, Vinod Chavda has been repeated from the Kutch constituency while Deepsinh Rathod has been con-tinued for the Sabarkantha con-stituency and Kirit Solanki for the Ahmedabad West (reserved) constituency.

For the Surendranagar con-stituency in Saurashtra region, the party has once again gone with the sitting member Mahendra Munjpara whereas for

Rajkot. Mohan Kundariya has been repeated. Poonamben Madam has been repeated for the Jamnagar constituency while for the another Saurashtra seat of Amreli, Narayanbhai Kachidiya has been fielded again. For yet another Sau-rashtra seat of Bhavnagar, Dr Bhartiben Shiyal has been selected for the second time.

Devsinh Chauhan has been selected again for the Kheda seat and Jaswantsinh Bhabhor for the Dahod seat.

For the Vadodara seat, the saffron party has once again decided to go with Ranjanben Bhatt who had won the bypolls held after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had vacated the Vadodara seat while retaining Varanasi.

For the Bharuch seat, Man-sukhbhai Vasava has been repeated while another Vasava, Prabhubhai has been repeated for the Bardoli seat.

IANS LUCKNOW

The Samajwadi Party yesterday announced 40 top leaders, including party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, President Akhilesh Yadav and actor-MP Jaya Bachchan, will be the party’s star campaigners for the

2019 Lok Sabha elections. According to its leaders, Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav, his uncle Ram Gopal Yadav, cousin Tej Pratap Yadav, senior leader and former state minister Azam Khan and party’s Secretary Rajendra Choudhary will also be among the star campaigners. Earlier in the day, the party has

announced that Akhilesh Yadav will contest from Azamgarh parliamentary constituency and Azam Khan from Rampur. The Samajwadi Party, which won five seats in 2014 general elec-tions, is contesting the elections this year in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal.

Samajwadi Party lists Mulayam, Akhilesh and Jaya Bachchan as its star campaigners

Indian women carry pots with a coconuts on top as they take part in a traditional procession in Amritsar, yesterday.

Traditional procession

IANS NEW DELHI

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj yesterday sought details from the Indian High Commission in Islamabad following reports of abduction, forced conversion and underage marriages of two Pakistani Hindu girls in Sindh province.

“I have asked the Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan to send a report,” the Minister tweeted.

The two sisters, aged 15 and 13, were reportedly abducted on the eve of Holi.

The incident came to light after their father and brother

said in videos that went viral on social media that the two were kidnapped and forced to embrace Islam.

In a separate video, however, the minor girls are heard saying that they accepted Islam of their own free will.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has ordered a probe into the incident, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said yesterday. Chaudhry said Khan wanted concrete steps taken to prevent such incidents from happening again.

The Hindu community in Pakistan staged protests seeking action against the kidnappers

India seeks details on Hindu girls’ abduction

IANS THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

With the mercury rising, three suspected sun stroke deaths were reported in Kerala, offi-cials said yesterday.

Karunakaran (42), a state government employee from Parasala in the southern suburb of the state capital, fainted while working in his paddy field yesterday morning. He was rushed to a local hospital where he was declared dead. The body was later shifted to the state-run Medical College for post-mortem. After preliminary examination, the doctors sus-pected it to be a case of sun stroke as there were burn marks on the deceased’s shoulders.

In Kannur, an elderly person named Narayanan suf-fered sun burns and fell uncon-scious. He was later declared dead. A third case was reported from Maramon in Pathan-amthitta district where a 60-year-old hotel employee named Shahjahan was found dead on the road side.

In Punalur in Kollam dis-trict, while campaigning for Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) candidate N K Premach-andran, RSP leader Nasar Khan fell unconscious and had to be rushed to a hospital. His con-dition is stated to be stable. According to a forecast for the coming two days, the mercury in 11 out of the 14 districts of the state is expected to rise by 2 to 3 degree Celsius above the normal for this time of the season. Since the beginning of March, around 100 people have suffered sun stroke in the state, the Health Department pointed out. The department has also issued an advisory for people on how to tackle the heat.

Three die of sun stroke in Kerala

IANS SRINAGAR

Life across the Kashmir Valley was affected by the separatist-called shutdown yesterday against the Centre’s decision to ban the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) led by Muhammad Yasin Malik. The Joint Resistance Leadership, a

separatist conglomerate headed by Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Yasin Malik, had called for the shutdown.

Shops, other business estab-lishments and educational insti-tutions were closed and public transport remained off the roads. Inter-district transport and train services were also suspended.

Separatist shutdown affects life in Kashmir

The party will fight nine of 40 seats in Bihar, 26 of 48 in Maharashtra with two seats being given to smaller parties, 20 of 28 in Karnataka, seven of 14 in Jharkhand, nine of 39 seats in Tamil Nadu and at least four in Jammu and Kashmir, including two where it will have “friendly contests” with its ally, the National Conference.

Bangladesh alone can’t solve Rohingya issue: UNANATOLIA DHAKA

The UN yesterday urged world leaders bring pressure to bear on Myanmar to bring back its nationals, the persecuted Rohingya who fled a military crackdown to seek shelter in Bangladesh, the state-run Bang-ladesh Sangbad Sangstha news agency reported.

“Bangladesh cannot solve the [Rohingya] problem alone,

and the international community should mount more pressure on Myanmar to solve it,” Adama Dieng, the visiting UN special advisor on the prevention of genocide, said yesterday while paying a courtesy call on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her office. Dieng stressed the need for peaceful Rohingya repatri-ation with due dignity and safety for a permanent solution to the crisis. “The UN wants repatri-ation of the Rohingya to their

homeland of Rakhine state, and a peaceful and inclusive society built up there,” he added.

Praising Bangladesh’s con-tribution in giving shelter to more than million Rohingya ref-ugees, Deing said: “You have opened the door widely for the Rohingya.” Hasina, for her part, stressed the strain sheltering the refugees has taken on her country, as the Rohingya in the town of Cox’s Bazar outnumber the locals.

12 MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019AASIA

IN SHORT

Pakistan on threshold of change after defeating terror: PresidentINTERNEWS ISLAMABAD

President of Pakistan Dr Arif Alvi has said Pakistan is on the threshold of change after successfully addressing the chal-lenge of terrorism.

Addressing a ceremony in Islamabad in connection with Nowruz celebrations yesterday, the President said Pakistan had learned a lot while dealing with the menace of terrorism and the world could benefit from the country’s experience.

The President said Pakistan bel ieved in peaceful neighbourhood.

He said the Muslim coun-tries needed to devise a joint strategy to deal with the phe-nomenon of Islamophobia in the wake of the attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which left 50 people dead.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi yesterday said Pakistan had always supported peace in the region, but it reserved the

right to defend itself against any foreign aggression.

Talking to the media in the southern Punjab town of Multan, his home constituency, Qureshi said Pakistan was ready to resolve all issues with India

through dialogue and Islamabad would take two steps if New Delhi took one in that direction.

He said there could be ups and downs in statements from Indian leadership in run-up to general elections in India, starting next month.

He added relations could improve after elections in the neighbouring country.

To a question, the Foreign Minister said China played an important role in de-escalation of tensions between Pakistan and India. He said in his recent

visit to China, Beijing showed that it had supported Pakistan in past and will do so in future as well.

Regarding internal political situation, Qureshi invited Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to give suggestions regarding the National Action Plan, evolved unanimously by the political leadership of the country, to fight terrorism. The PTI-led government, he said, would consider suggestions by the opposition.

President Arif Alvi says Muslim countries need to devise a joint strategy to deal with the phenomenon of Islamophobia.

Pakistan ranked 1st in affordable telecom servicesINTERNEWS ISLAMABAD

Pakistan has been ranked number one in the provision of most affordable telecom services amongst 139 countries in a new report.

According to World Eco-nomic Forum’s Network Read-iness Index Report, Pakistan is ahead of India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the South Asian region, which are ranked 8th, 14th and 35th respectively.

Furthermore, Competi-tiveness Index Report of World Economic Forum has also ranked Pakistan above India, Bangladesh and Iran in terms of availability of latest technol-ogies and Internet bandwidth, says the Pakistan Telecommu-nication Authority (PTA).

The PTA has evaluated monthly plans and packages offered by mobile companies in Pakistan and average price of 1GB is US$ 0.72.

Based on PTA’s analysis, Pakistan’s average price per GB is the second lowest in the Asia Pacific region ahead of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Iran, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Further, the PTA also gathered data from mobile companies, according to which, the average price of 1GB mobile data is in the range of US$0.29 to US$0.59 per month.

Army-linked party leads in Thai polls AFP BANGKOK

Thailand’s ruling junta took an unexpected lead in the country’s first election since a 2014 coup with more than 90 percent of ballots counted, putting it on course to return to power at the expense of the kingdom’s pro-democracy camp.

Yesterday’s election was held under new laws written by the military to smooth its transfor-mation into a civilian government.

While it had set the rules of the game in its favour, analysts had not expected the party to win the popular vote, given mounting anger at junta rule and due to the enduring popularity of Pheu Thai, the party of former Premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

The army-linked Phalang Pracharat party, which wants

junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha to return as Premier, gained more than 7.3m votes with 91 percent of ballots tallied, according to the Election Com-mission - nearly half a million more than Pheu Thai.

The EC said it would announce full results today, including the numbers of lower house seats won by each party.

The election pitted a royalist junta and its allies against the election-winning machine of bil-lionaire Thaksin - who was toppled in a 2006 coup - and featured an unpredictable wave of millions of first-time voters.

There was a high turnout as voters flocked to schoolyards, temples and government offices across the nation, their enthu-siasm fired by years of denied democracy.

The junta has pledged to rescue the kingdom from a

decade-long treadmill of protests and coups.

The election commission’s announcement late yesterday diminished prospects of a pro-democracy alliance nudging it

from power. But still supporters clung on in hope.

With 250 votes of the appointed Senate in hand, Phalang Pracharat needed just 126 lower house seats to secure

a parliamentary majority, even if it does not carry the popular mandate.

Pheu Thai needs 376 lower-house seats to command an overall majority.

12 Afghan civilians dead in air strikesREUTERS KUNDUZ/LASHKAR GAH

Air strikes in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz on Saturday left about a dozen civilians dead, local officials said, as battle intensified there and in southern Helmand province.

The air strikes killed 13 civilians, said Safiullah Amiri, a member of Kunduz Provincial Council. The casualties included children, said fellow Council Member Amruddin, who pegged the civilian death toll at 12.

The bodies were brought into Kunduz city in the back of a truck as part of protests by dozens of civilians.

The civilian deaths occurred as Afghan and Taliban forces claimed to inflict heavy losses on each other in that province and in Helmand, two Taliban strongholds.

A spokeswoman for the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan did not respond immediately to ques-tions yesterday. Resolute Support comprises troops from 39 countries and trains, advises and assists Afghan security forces.

A record number of Afghan civilians were killed last year as aerial attacks and suicide bombings increased, the United

Nations said in a report last month.

Kunduz is also where two US soldiers were killed in combat on Friday. The US Department of Defence iden-tified the soldiers as Specialist Joseph Collette, 29, and Ser-geant Will Lindsay, 33.

Fighting has accelerated during a period of recurring peace talks. The latest negoti-ating round concluded this month with US and Taliban offi-cials citing progress toward ending the 17-year war.

Afghan forces, with NATO air support, killed 58 Taliban, including several commanders, in Kunduz, the Defence Ministry said on Saturday. The Taliban said they had killed 19 members of Afghan forces and five from foreign forces.

Fighting was also fierce in Helmand, including more civilian deaths. The Taliban on Saturday claimed an attack at a stadium celebration of Farmers Day in Helmand, which killed four people and wounded 31, including minor injuries to the province’s governor.

A day earlier, Taliban attacked two Afghan outposts in Sangin, killing 48 Afghan security personnel, said Hashim Alokozay, a Helmand member of parliament.

NZ to hold national remembrance for Christchurch victims next FridayAFP CHRISTCHURCH

New Zealand will hold a national remembrance service on March 29 for the victims of the Christchurch mosque massacre and their families, the Prime Minister’s Office announced yesterday.

The interfaith service will take place in Christchurch two weeks after an Australian white supremacist shot and killed 50

Muslims who had gathered for Friday prayers at two mosques in the city on March 15.

“The national remembrance service provides an opportunity for Cantabrians (Christchurch-area residents), New Zealanders and people all around the world to come together as one to honour the victims of the ter-rorist attack,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement.

“In the week since the

unprecedented terror attack there has been an outpouring of grief and love in our country.

“The service will be a chance to once again show that New Zealanders are compassionate, inclusive and diverse, and that we will protect those values.”

The attack also left dozens of people injured, some critically. Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian, was arrested within minutes of the massacre and has been charged with murder.

People attend a vigil in memory of the mosque attack victims in Christchurch, yesterday.

Australia hit with 2nd cylcone in two daysAGENCIES SYDNEY

A severe category 3 cyclone blew into the key mining region of Pilbara in Western Australia yesterday, forcing evacuations and a halt to port operations, as the north of the country dealt with the effects of an even more powerful storm that hit the previous day.

Cyclone Veronica weakened from a category 4 storm before its core made landfall near the mining centre of Port Hedland,

but officials warned the system was slow moving and would continue pounding the region with gale force winds and heavy rain for 24 to 48 hours.

The Bureau of Meteorology said Veronica was producing wind gusts of up to 200km per hour (120 mph) and pushed a storm surge of up to two metres (seven feet) onto the coast.

Rainfall was expected to hit 20-40 centimetres, it said.

Major mining and energy companies took precautionary steps across the region, a hub of

liquefied natural gas and iron-ore exports, with ports cleared of ships and non-essential staff evacuated. Australia’s western coast usually sees three or four cyclones per year and emer-gency services said residents were well-prepared for this storm.

Meanwhile, Cyclone Trevor, which hit northern Australia on Saturday as a powerful category 4, weakened to a tropical storm overnight as it moved inland in the sparsely populated region.

Officials said no deaths,

injuries or significant damage had been reported from the storm, but that heavy rains were continuing and flooding was still a danger. The army and police had evacuated more than 2,000 residents from outposts in Trevor’s path, many of them indigenous communities, and people began returning to their homes yesterday, police said.

Cyclones are frequent in Australia’s north but rarely claim lives. Still, two large storms such as Trevor and Veronica hitting on the same weekend is rare.

People watch the vote counting process at a polling station in Bangkok, yesterday.

Bikers rally in Manila to

protest new plate rules

MANILA: More than 10,000

motorcycle riders staged a

motorcade in the main high-

ways of the Philippine capital

Manila yesterday to protest at

new regulations forcing them

to display bigger licence plates,

saying the measure would not

solve the problem. Cases of

murders, robberies and other

crimes perpetrated by people

on motorbikes have been ram-

pant in the Philippines, as more

and more people turn to using

motorbikes because the roads

are so congested. President

Rodrigo Duterte signed the

measure into law this month,

requiring all licenced motor-

bikes to display bigger front

and rear plates to make them

more visible to the authorities

and any witnesses to crimes.

At present, registration plates

are displayed only on the back.

Under the law, the font style of

plates should be readable from

a distance of 15 metres. For

quick and easy identification,

the plates need to be colour

coded for each of the country’s

17 regions. REUTERS

Over 110 dead in Indonesia floods ANATOLIA JAKARTA

The death toll from floods in eastern Indonesia climbed to 112 yesterday, according to the National Disaster Management agency.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management (BNPB), said at least 94 people remained missing while another 915 people are injured, including 107 in critical condition.

Some 16,783 people have been affected by the flooding, which began on March 16. A total of 3,876 victims have been relocated to over 30 safe zones.

Former Kazakh PM

made President’s aide

ALMATY: Kazakhstan’s new

President yesterday appointed

a recently dismissed Prime

Minister to head his admin-

istration . The appointment

of former Prime Minister

Bakytzhan Sagintayev as the

new President’s Chief of Staff

will bolster the view that Kaza-

khstan’s former President

Nursultan Nazarbayev still

calls the shots in the country.

Nazarbayev announced his res-

ignation in a televised address

on Tuesday. The 78-year-old

however retains significant

powers thanks to his con-

stitutional status as “Leader

of the Nation” and life-time

position as chief of the secu-

rity council. AFP

13MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019A EUROPE

UK Ministers back PMamid report of ‘coup’BLOOMBERG LONDON

Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond and other cabinet colleagues publicly backed Theresa May yesterday as several British newspapers said the prime minister is under increasing pressure to stand down over her handling of Brexit.

Speaking on Sky News, Hammond said that removing the prime minister won’t help the UK, and talk of a new leader is “self-indulgent.” Still, in com-ments that could harden splits in May’s cabinet, the chancellor refused to rule out holding a second referendum to help break the impasse over her Brexit deal, saying it was a “per-fectly coherent proposition.”

The chancellor was speaking after the Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, Mail on Sunday and the Observer said that cabinet ministers were taking steps to remove May and install an interim leader to complete the Brexit process.

According to the Sunday Times, at least six senior min-isters want her deputy, David Lidington, to take the job until there’s a formal leadership election. They’ll confront her at a cabinet meeting on Monday, and threaten a mass resignation if she doesn’t step down, the report said.

Michael Gove, a leading Brexiteer in the 2016 refer-endum, and Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt also have some

support.Lidington said that he had no

interest in taking May’s job, adding that “one thing that working closely with the prime minister does is cure you com-pletely of any lingering shred of ambition to want to do that task.” He was interviewed outside his home.

Gove, speaking outside his home, said he backed May and rejected any plan to change the prime minister.

“This is a time for cool heads,” he said. “It’s not the time to change the captain of the ship, what we need to do is chart the right course.”

May has two weeks to find a way forward after the European Union postponed the UK’s March 29 exit date, and hopes to hold a third vote on her Brexit deal in the coming week and give members of Parliament a chance to weigh in on alternatives. The prime minister has grown increasingly isolated in recent months, both at home and in Brussels, and colleagues were irked by last week’s televised address that blamed the deadlock on the House of Commons.

Hammond reiterated that it was up to lawmakers to come together to find a way forward if they continue to reject May’s deal, and that the government would give them time to do that in coming days. “One way or another Parliament is going to have the opportunity this week to decide what it is in favour of.”

When presented with a list of possible options, he ruled out a no-deal exit or revoking Article 50 — which is the formal notifi-cation to the EU — but he was less equivocal about the prospect of a second vote.

Another referendum ‘deserves to be considered” along with other proposals, he said, but added that he didn’t think there was majority in Par-liament for such an outcome.

Meanwhile, Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay said that it wasn’t the right time for a leadership contest, said that any majority in indicative votes planned in the coming week will not be binding. If Parliament voted for a softer Brexit, it would collide with the Conservative’s 2017 manifesto and risk a general election, he said.

With Parliament due to enter another crunch week of votes, an estimated 1 million anti-Brexit protesters rallied alongside leading politicians in central London on Saturday to demand a second referendum. Meanwhile, an online petition urging the government to cancel Brexit neared 5 million signa-tures — the most names ever col-lected in a public campaign.

France probes case of injured old protester in Nice

Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said that removing the prime minister won’t help the UK, and talk of a new leader is “self-indulgent.”

AP NICE

French authorities are investi-gating the case of an older female protester who suffered head injuries when police charged people defying a ‘yellow vest’ protest ban in Nice.

The woman was waving a rainbow flag marked “Peace” and wearing a yellow vest when riot police carrying shields sud-denly pushed toward the pro-testers on Saturday.

A reporter saw her fall to the pavement, blood spilling from her head.

Locals identified her as 73-year-old anti-globalization activist Genevieve Legay.

Regional broadcaster France Bleu Azur reported that she is in intensive care, and cited the Nice prosecutor as saying an investigation was opened.

Hungarian PM resumes anti-EU campaignBLOOMBERG BUDAPEST

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (pictured) went on a fresh offensive against European Union institutions, raising his antagonistic rhetoric just days after his party’s suspension from the bloc’s largest political family.

Orban’s Fidesz averted out-right expulsion from the European People’s Party in the past week after he apologised for

some of his most controversial remarks and offered to change some billboards that had alleged a sinister scheme by financier George Soros and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

The premier, who has turned Hungary into an ‘illiberal state’ after centralising power and silencing many critical voices, unleashed another onslaught on EU peers in an interview with public radio yesterday. Ramping

up his campaigning for European Parliament elections due in May, he claimed he was undaunted on the issues that led to the rupture with the EPP.

‘I am ready to face the toughest conflicts without blinking,’ Orban said.

‘They are mad at us in Brussels because we have unmasked them. Anyone can wave their fists at us, but Hungary will not give in.’

Orban signalled that he

would persist in holding what he describes as ‘information cam-paigns’ ahead of the European elections. These have included the controversial posters that depicted Juncker and Soros, which were plastered all over Hungary.

In a speech on his pet topic of migration earlier in the weekend, Orban tried to court Italy and other western European states to help reduce his isolation.

Serbia & Kosovo mark 1999 Nato intervention

A car drives past a graffiti reading ‘Thank You Nato’ and featuring the US flag near the village of Stagovo, in Kosovo, yesterday.

Norwegian liner reaches port after airlift dramaAFP OSLO

A cruise liner that ran into trouble in stormy seas off Norway reached port under its own steam yesterday after hundreds of passengers were winched to safety by helicopter in a spectacular rescue oper-ation.

Escorted by tugboats, the Viking Sky arrived in the port of Molde at around 4:15pm (1515 GMT), television images showed. Nearly a third of its 1,373 pas-sengers and crew had already been airlifted off the ship.

The cruise liner lost power and started drifting on Saturday afternoon two kilometres off a stretch of Norwegian coastline

notorious for shipwrecks.The captain sent out a

Mayday prompting authorities to launch the airlift in difficult conditions rather than run the risk of leaving people on board.

Some 460 of the 1,373 people on the ship had been taken off by five helicopters before the airlift was halted.

Police said 17 people had been taken to hospital. One person more than 90 years old and two 70-year-olds suffered serious fractures.

With three of four engines restarted yesterday, two tugs towed the vessel away from dan-gerous reefs before it set sail for Molde, 500km northwest of Oslo, under its own power.

Dramatic footage of

the passengers’ ordeal showed furniture and plants sliding around the lurching vessel as parts of the ceiling came down.

Dozens of passengers wearing life jackets were seen seated waiting to get off the ship.

“I have never seen anything so frightening,” said Janet Jacob, who was rescued.

“I started to pray. I prayed for the safety of everyone on board.”

“The helicopter trip was ter-rifying. The winds were like a tornado,” she added.

The ship was sailing south from Tromso to Stavanger when engine trouble struck mid-afternoon on Saturday in an area off More og Romsdal that has claimed many vessels.

The cruise ship Viking Sky, that ran into trouble in stormy seas off Norway, reaches the port of Molde under its own steam, yesterday.

Spain’s Socialists lead in opinion poll but fall short of majorityREUTERS MADRID

Spain’s Socialists led in a poll published yesterday in El Pais newspaper, but fell short of a majority with its main ally ahead of a general election next month.

The Socialists would win 27.1 percent of the vote, or 122 seats in the 350-seat parliament. Together with far-left ally Podemos they would have 162 seats in parliament.

That is exactly the same number that a coalition of three right-wing parties — People’s Party (PP), Ciudadanos and far-right Vox — would have, according to the poll conducted on March 14 to 19.

Both blocs would be short of the 176 seats needed to secure an outright parliamentary majority.

Socialist Pedro Sanchez could clinch a majority to get re-elected as prime minister if he gets the support of the array of parties that backed him last June when he won a vote of confi-dence against PP’s government at the time.

Sanchez then received the backing of Podemos and small regional parties. But two Catalan pro-independence parties that

voted for him last year did not support his budget proposal last February, prompting him to call for a snap election.

The Socialists would be the most voted party in the April 28 election, with 27.1 percent of votes, followed by PP with 19.3 percent but losing 61 seats from the last election in 2016, while Ciudadanos would get 17.7 percent of votes and gain 23 seats in parliament, according to the poll.

Podemos would receive 12.3 percent of votes and lose 31 seats, while Vox would get 10.2 percent, equivalent to 31 seats, being the first time in nearly four decades that far-right law-makers would be elected to Spain’s parliament.

Podemos once led the polls and nearly snatched the lead-ership from Sanchez’s Socialists at the general election in 2016.

A poll of polls published by El Pais on March 13 gave the Socialists 27.3 percent of the vote, PP 20 percent, while support for Vox rose sharply to 12.1 percent.

Yesterday’s poll was con-ducted by 40db with 1,500 respondents and had a margin of error of 2.58 percentage points.

AP BELGRADE

Twenty years after Nato inter-vened to stop Serbia’s onslaught in Kosovo, Belgrade yesterday commemorated the victims of what it says was an aggression while Kosovo hailed the beginning of its national liber-ation.

The staunchly opposed views of the two former war foes reflect persisting tensions over Kosovo, a former Serbian province whose 2008 decla-ration of independence Serbia

still does not recognize.Serbian far-right supporters

burned Nato and European Union flags in Belgrade, con-demning the 78-day bombing that ended the country’s rule over the territory many here view as their nation’s historic heartland.

“Serbia is not ashamed to remember those who fought for it and we must never forget that,” Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said at a commemo-ration in Belgrade.

In Kosovo, leaders said Nato’s air war brought freedom

for their people as they paid their respects to the victims of the 1998-99 war that killed more than 10,000 people.

“It is wonderful that Kos-ovo’s people are free and children can grow up at their home and can go to their schools and that’s only thanks to Nato air campaign,” Prime Minister Ramush Haradinajsaid.

Serbia and Kosovo have been told they must normalize relations in order to advance in their bids to become members of the EU, but EU-mediated talks have stalled amid tensions.

Hungary court orders arrest of suspected militantREUTERS BUDAPEST

A Hungarian court has ordered the arrest of a 27-year-old Syrian man suspected of taking part in beheadings in Syria as a member of IS terror group, prosecutors said.

The man, previously iden-tified by Hungarian authorities as F. Hassan, is suspected of executing about 20 people in 2016, all family members of a person in Homs city who refused to join IS group, pros-ecutors added.

Based on a motion filed by prosecutors, a Budapest court yesterday ordered the arrest of the man for a month.

Under the law, the man is suspected of murder committed as part of an act of terror and of preparations to commit an act of terror.

14 MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019AAMERICAS

Russian planes carrying troops arrive in CaracasREUTERS CARACAS

Two Russian air force planes landed in Venezuela’s main airport yesterday carrying a Russian defence official and nearly 100 troops, according to a local journalist, amid strength-ening ties between Caracas and Moscow.

A flight-tracking website showed that two planes left from a Russian military airport bound for Caracas on Friday, and another flight-tracking site showed that one plane left Caracas yesterday.

The report comes three months after the two nations held military exercises on Ven-ezuelan soil that President Nicolas Maduro called a sign of strengthening relations, but which Washington criticised as Russian encroachment in the region.

Reporter Javier Mayorca wrote on Twitter that the first plane carried Vasily Tonko-shkurov, chief of staff of the ground forces, adding that the second was a cargo plane car-rying 35 tonnes of material.

An Ilyushin IL-62 passenger jet and an Antonov AN-124 mil-itary cargo plane left for Caracas on Friday from Russian military airport Chkalovsky, stopping along the way in Syria, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24.

The cargo plane left Caracas yesterday afternoon, according to Adsbexchange, another flight-tracking site.

A witness saw what appeared to be the passenger jet at the Maiquetia airport yesterday.

It was not immediately evident why the planes had come to Venezuela.

Venezuela’s Information

Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Russia’s Defence Ministry and Foreign Ministry did not reply to messages seeking a comment. The Kremlin spokesman also did not reply to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has levied crippling sanctions on the OPEC nation’s oil industry in

efforts to push Maduro from power and has called on Vene-zuelan military leaders to abandon him. Maduro has denounced the sanctions as US interventionism and has won diplomatic backing from Russia and China.

In December, two Russian strategic bomber aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons

landed Venezuela in a show of support for Maduro’s socialist government that infuriated Washington.

Maduro on Wednesday said Russia would send medicine “next week” to Venezuela, without describing how it would arrive, adding that Moscow in February had sent some 300 tonnes of humanitarian aid.

An airplane with the Russian flag is seen at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas, yesterday.

Over 100 migrants detained in MexicoREUTERS MEXICO CITY

Mexico police and federal offi-cials detained 107 Central American migrants seeking to enter the United States in the border city of Reynosa, the government of the northeastern state of Tamaulipas said.

Following a tip-off, state police intercepted a group of

migrants who had been taken out of trucks in a western part of the city, which lies across the border from McAllen, Texas.

At the scene, unidentified gunmen began shooting at police, and one of the attackers was killed in the ensuing exchange of fire, the Tamaulipas government said in a statement.

The statement said police seized a firearm and cartridges

but did not provide details on whether any gunmen were arrested or who they were.

Separately, police discovered a group of Central American men and women on the edge of a highway in Reynosa. They called in federal migration officials, who are now reviewing the legal status of the Central Americans detained, the government said.

The National Migration

Institute counted 51 Guate-malans, 47 Hondurans and 9 Sal-vadorans detained in total, it added.

Mexico’s new government has pledged to regulate and stem the flows of people moving from Central America to its northern border as it seeks to reduce ten-sions with US President Donald Trump over illegal immigration into the United States.

Second Parkland shooting survivor commits suicideAFP WASHINGTON

A second student from the Florida high school where 17 were shot dead in 2018 has committed suicide within a week, US media reported.

The Miami Herald said police in Coral Springs told the paper that a current student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in nearby Parkland had died of “apparent suicide” late Saturday.

The student was not iden-tified by the police but the report said it was a male sophomore or second-year student, who survived the school massacre.

Last weekend, Sydney Aiello, 19, also a Parkland massacre sur-vivor and graduated last year, killed herself reportedly out of grief and “survivor’s guilt.”

Two of Aiello’s best friends, Meadow Pollack and Joaquin Oliver, were among the dead when former student Nikolas Cruz raked the school on Feb-ruary 14, 2018 with a semi-automatic weapon, killing 14 students and three staff members.

Aiello’s parents said that she had been treated for PTSD and suffered from survivor’s guilt, when a victim fixates on why he or she managed to live, not someone else.

After the shooting, Stoneman Douglas students became crusaders against gun violence under the banner “March for Our Lives,” lobbying for tougher gun control laws and organising protests and rallies.

American Airlines extends 737 MAX flight cancellations through April 24REUTERS WASHINGTON

American Airlines said yesterday that it will extend flight cancellation through April 24 because of the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX after two fatal crashes since October and cut some additional flights.

American, the largest US carrier, said it is cancelling about 90 flights a day.

American is the second-largest US operator of MAX in the United States with 24 jets, behind Southwest Airlines with 34.

American said earlier this month it was flying about 85 flights a day out of its 6,700 daily departures on 737 MAX planes when the grounded was announced.

The airline said it was making the announcement “to provide more certainty to our customers and team members and better protect our cus-tomers on other flights to their final destination.”

Boeing Co is expected as early as today to formally dis-close a planned upgrade to its anti-stall system to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that has been in the works since October’s Lion Air crash but still needs approval from US regulators.

The FAA has said it plans to mandate the upgrade by April, but it is still not clear if the upgrade will address any issues after the March 10 Ethiopian Airlines crash.

Flooding causes water treatment issues in KansasREUTERS KANSAS CITY

Record flooding along the Missouri River, rain and melting snow have impacted water treatment in the Kansas City, Missouri area, the city’s water operator said as it advised some customers to seek medical advice about the safety of their drinking water.

KC Water, which serves some 170,000 customers, said that it had failed to meet “enhanced treatment tech-nique standards” this month for the treatment of the par-asite Cryptosporidium, which can cause diarrhea.

While KC Water said the state does not consider this an emergency, it advised customers with compromised immune systems, the elderly and those with infants to seek advice from their health care providers.

Record floodwaters that sub-merged vast stretches of Nebraska and Iowa farmland along the Missouri River crested on Friday at the waterfront city of St. Joseph, Missouri, forcing the evacuation of thousands of

residents from low-lying areas. As the floodwaters receded

yesterday and the river fell to 9.4m from Friday’s record of over 32 feet, a spokeswoman for the city of St. Joseph said the evacuation order had been lifted for the area.

The flooding along America’s longest river was triggered by last week’s “bomb cyclone” storm, which killed at least four people, drowned livestock and

closed dozens of roads across a large swath of Nebraska and Iowa.

Property and financial losses for the two Midwestern states were projected to surpass $3bn.

Sections of the Missouri and Mississippi River Valleys expe-riencing major flooding could see more light to moderate rainfall in the coming days, the National Weather Service said in a bulletin.

The Kansas side of the Missouri River is seen in Atchison, Kansas, yesterday.

Brazilian leader ‘open for talks’ over pensionAP RIO DE JANEIRO

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro sought to calm mounting tensions around his pension reform, a central pillar of his agenda, after the speaker of congress threatened to stop lobbying in favour of the proposal.

Bolsonaro said he was “open to dialogue” .

His comments came after several days of conflict between congress and the government.

Speaker Rodrigo Maia said Bolsonaro lacks conviction when it comes to defending the reform and needs to spend more time with lawmakers and party leaders.

In Brazil, retirement benefits are enshrined in the consti-tution, meaning any reform requires at least three-fifths of both chambers of congress.

Maia is key in this difficult undertaking, liaising between the government and both chambers.

Casually addressing the

frictions, Bolsonaro said that his administration and Congress just needed to talk things over in order to find a solution. “Have you never had a girlfriend?” the president told reporters in Chile. “And when she wanted to leave, what did you do to get her back?”

In response, Maia said on TV Globo: “I do not need lunch, I do not need coffee and I do not need to go back to dating. I need the president to assume defini-tively his institutional role, which is to lead the vote on the pension reform.”

Bolsonaro’s latest com-ments, defending the reform and pledging for an open dialogue, seemed to have appeased tensions.

The reform seeks to increase the retirement age to 65 for men and 62 for women. Officials said the gradual changes would save more than $310 billion over the next 10 years.

However, if the current system remains unchanged, studies show Brazil’s social security could collapse within two-to-three years.

Mueller found no Trump-Russia collusion: BarrBLOOMBERG WASHINGTON

Special Counsel Robert Mueller made no conclusion on possible obstruction of justice by Pres-ident Donald Trump but found no evidence of collusion with Russia, according to Attorney General William Barr.

“The report found evidence on both sides of the question” and “leaves unresolved what the special counsel views as difficult issues of law,” Barr wrote in a four-page letter to Congress.

Barr issued the summary of Mueller’s “principal conclusions” two days after Mueller gave him his still-secret report. It was the close of a politically explosive 22-month investigation into whether Trump or those around

him conspired in Russia’s inter-ference in the 2016 campaign and whether the president sought to obstruct justice.

It’s sure to be only the beginning of months of fighting in Congress — and perhaps in the courts — over how much should be disclosed from Mueller’s report. Barr said in a letter to Congress on Friday that after this initial summary he’ll consult with Mueller and Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein “to determine what other information from the report can be released to Con-gress and the public.”

Nothing in the Justice Department’s regulations on special counsels would prevent Barr from releasing Mueller’s report once certain material is redacted, including classified matters and information about continuing law enforcement operations. But Barr has cited the department’s policies against publicly criticising someone who isn’t indicted — and against indicting a sitting president.

Democratic lawmakers already have demanded the full report as well as the underlying evidence so they can pursue their

own investigations.Trump, who has proclaimed

or tweeted “NO COLLUSION” more than 200 times and has routinely denounced Mueller’s “witch hunt,” made no comment on the special counsel’s report over the weekend in Florida. He spent much of the time on his golf course with partners including Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham. The Democratic candidates who seek to replace him in 2020 joined in demanding the full release of the report.

Justice Department officials, who described Mueller’s report as comprehensive, said he didn’t recommend any additional indictments and doesn’t have any secret indictments under seal.

Before completing his probe, Mueller helped secure guilty

pleas from five people involved in Trump’s presidential cam-paign — including his campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, who became his first national security adviser -- though none admitted to con-spiring with Russian operatives. He also indicted more than two dozen Russian hackers and mil-itary intelligence officers.

While Mueller didn’t seek an indictment of Trump or members of his family, they’re not neces-sarily in the clear.

Trump faces continuing risk from other investigations, with federal prosecutors in New York looking into his company, pres-idential campaign and inaugural committee.

Mueller has been sharing some matters and handing off

others to US attorney’s offices in Manhattan; Alexandria, Virginia; and Washington, as well as the Justice Department’s national security division. That may keep alive cases that touch on his per-sonal and business affairs.

Through a series of indict-ments, Mueller laid out a picture of operatives and hackers tied to Russian intelligence agencies doing all they could to help put Trump in the White House even as other Russian officials had scores of contacts with people tied to Trump’s campaign.

In the letter on Friday to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, Barr said, “I remain committed to as much transparency as possible, and I will keep you informed as to the status of my review.”

William Barr wrote in a letter to Congress: The report found evidence on both sides of the question” and “leaves unresolved what the special counsel views as difficult issues of law.

15MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019A HOME

Indian and Nepalese expats celebrate Holi

SACHIN KUMAR THE PENINSULA

The members of Indian and Nepalese com-munity in Qatar cele-brated Holi- the festival

of colours- with full fervour. The festival, which generally falls during the end of February or in the middle of March, was celebrated on March 21 this year. Holi is widely celebrated in India and Nepal where people smear each other with colours and throw water.

The scene was no different in Qatar as many Indian and Nepalese expatriate’s faces were seen covered with bright colours on Thursday. The res-idents cooked special traditional menu for Holi and made a plan to visit neigbhours in the evening with sweets and other

delicacies. Some played Holi in the res-

idential compounds while some decided to celebrate in beaches and parks with their groups.

Gujarati Samaj Qatar organised Holi celebrations on Al Khor Community Cricket Ground. The organisation, with a membership of 1,700 members, saw strong turnout of people who came out from across the country to be part of the celebration.

The celebrations, that began from 3 pm, witnessed jubilant members dancing to the tune of Garba songs. Garba is traditional dance form, which has originated from Gujarat- a state in the western India - but now has become famous across India.

“The Gujarati Samaj has been organising Holi

Celebrations in Qatar for past many years. We choose venue according to the availability and convenience of the members. Earlier we had organised celebration in Dukhan and Simaisma beach, and this year we opted for Al Khor Community Cricket Ground,” Hasmukh Patel, Chairman of Gujarati Samaj Qatar, told The Peninsula. “This year’s celebrations are very special to us as the country is observing Qatar-India Year of Culture in 2019,” he added.

Such celebrations help us to remain connected with our traditions and culture. Through these events, our children come to know about our culture and tradition.

“We are all busy in our pro-fessional life and family affairs and it is difficult to meet with

members of our community living in Qatar. Such celebra-tions give us chance to socailise with each other. We come to know more about each other on such festive celebrations. Celebrations like this are perfect platform to strengthen interpersonal bonds,” said Hasmukh Patel.

Al Dosari Zoo and Game Reserve also witnessed Holi celebrations where many Nepalese expatriates gathered to celebrate the festival of colours. Help Madhesi-Qatar, an organasiation of Nepalese expatriates, organised ‘Holi Utsav’ at Al Dosari Zoo and Game Reserve. The organi-sation, with a membership of over 15,000 expatriates, invited its members to be part of the colourful celebrations.

“Al Dosari Zoo and Game

Reserve is perfect place for cel-ebration for Holi celebration because here visitors are allowed to cook. We witnessed strong turn out of our members who came to celebrate Holi,” Engr. Mohammad Ayub, Pres-ident of Nepalese Muslim told The Peninsula. The celebra-tions began at around 10am and lasted until 1 pm.

For Indian expatriates living in Ezdan Village-4 in Meshaf, it was a different Thursday. The residents, who had been waiting for months for Holi, decided to make this a memorable day. Ladies came with packets of colours while the children were armed small water-guns.

In the age of social media, no event is considered until it is shared on social media plat-forms. Residents streamed their

celebrations live on facebook and posted videos. Much time was devoted to select the best picture which can be shared on facebook, twitter or instagram.

“Holi is one of my favourite festivals and I was eagerly waiting for this day. We have formed a group of ladies and celebrate all the festival together. Our celebrations started 2.30pm and went on until evening,” said Leena Ghosh, resident of Ezdan 4.

“At the end of the day, our faces were covered with colours, making us unrecog-nisable. This is what Holi is all about- immersing yourselves in colours, joy and happiness,” she added.

Residents of Al Attiya Com-pound in Umm Ghuwailina also organised Holi celebrations on Thursday.

Indian expatriates: ‘Qatar-India 2019 Year of Culture bringing two nations closer’SANAULLAH ATAULLAH THE PENINSULA

With the wide array of exciting cul-tural events and activities lined up

for the Qatar India 2019 Year of Culture, Indian expatriates see the year as a golden opportunity to introduce the rich and diverse tradition and culture of India to their children and the wider international community.

A number of cultural events are scheduled to be held during the course of the year. A number of activities were organised in February and March and many events will be followed in the coming months. One event ‘Dances of North Eastern India (Amrapali Repertory)’ is slated to be held in April. These events

cover a wide range of activities including dance performances, musical presentations, film fes-tivals, painting and photography exhibitions, food festivals, fashion shows, calligraphy exhibitions, textiles exhibitions and yoga.

“I have been living in Qatar for the past 11 years and it is the first time Indian culture and tra-ditions are being showcased at this level under the events of Qatar India 2019 Year of Culture,” Subramanya Heb-bagelu, Joint Secretary, Indian Community Benevolent Forum (ICBF) told The Peninsula.

He said that children are more exited in attending cultural events especially musical shows like those performed by Vishal Shekhar and A R Rahman.

“I attended all prgrams held under the event. A big number

of people of all age groups including families with children enjoyed the programs, especially classical musics and dance,” said Hebbagelu.

Mohamad Sharif, an Indian expatriate attended a classical dance program with his family held under the event on March 22. “My children who were born and brought up in Qatar watched first time such porgarms live. Really it is a great opportunity to introduce the children to the culture and tradition of their country,” said Sharif.

Opening Ceremony of India-Qatar Year of Culture 2019 at Opera House, Katara Cultural Village held on February 4, 2019 was in collaboration with Qatar Museums & Katara Cultural Village.

Scintillating fusion music

show by Indian musicians led by Naveen Kumar, in part-nership with the talented members of the Qatar Philhar-monic Orchestra, mesmerised the audience at Qatar National Convention Center (QNCC). An energetic rendition of Indian contemporary dance enthralled the audience at DPS- MIS Audi-torium on February 22.

Tabla Virtuoso & Percus-sionist Anuradha Pal and her team entertained the audience with their live performance at Drama Theatre, Katara Cultural Village on February 28, 2019.

An Odissi dance per-formance by Rina Jana Group from India was held on March 21 at Majlis Hall, Hotel Sheraton, Doha. It was an exquisite ren-dering of classical Odissi by them.

ICBF plans various initiatives for expatsSACHIN KUMAR THE PENINSULA

Indian Community Benevolent Forum (ICBF) has made several plans to help Indian expatriates in Qatar. P N

Baburajan (pictured), the newly elected President of ICBF, in his first interview to media after taking charge early this month, shared his future with The Peninsula.

Baburajan, a well-known social worker in Qatar, said that he is working on the idea of opening of a permanent institution for under privileged children and children with special needs. This insti-tution will provide counselling to parents of children with special needs.

“There are many people in our community who are ready to help us in this regard. If we can set up this institution, it will be a good step for such children and there parents,” added Baburajan, who has been involved in social works since past two decades in Qatar.

Since 1984, ICBF that works under the aegis of Embassy of India, has been helping the needy and under privileged expatriates in distress by providing financial, medical and various other assistance.

Baburajan has also plans to help blue-collar workers in their legal issues. He said that ICBF is working on the plan to sign an agreement with legal experts in Qatar. “The idea is to have a group of legal experts who will help low paid workers in their documentation work. If such workers have any kind of issues with their employers, they can approach these experts and get their documentation done,” explained Baburajan.

The forum is also thinking of creating a separate fund for helping patients with severe problems. “There some cases of patients who needs to be taken back to India for further treatment, but they do not have enough money for this. A separate fund for such patients is required,” he added. ICBF keeps organising several programme for Indian expa-triates, including medical camps and awareness programme. It organises free medical camps five times in a year for workers. Workers can get their blood sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure and other tests done free of cost by qualified medical experts.

Last week, the forum organised its 37th free medical camp in asso-ciation with Ministry of Public Health at Imara Helathcare at the Labour City, Industrial area for workers. Free medical camp in April for fish-ermen and labour community and Hajikka Essay competition for school students in April are also planned. The forum will celebrate ICBF Day on April 6 and Labour Day on May 3.

Members of Help Madhesi-Qatar, celebrating Holi at Al Dosari Zoo and Game Reserve.

Odissi, one of India’s classical dance forms, performance organised by the Embassy of India as part of Qatar-India 2019, at the Al Majlis Hall of Sheraton Grand Doha Resort and Convention Hotel in Doha, yesterday. PIC: SALIM MATRAMKOT/THE PENINSULA

Expatriates in Qatar, hailing from the India subcontinent celebrate Holi, the Festival of Colors PIC: QASSIM RAHMATULLAH/THE PENINSULA

Residents of Al Attiya Compound celebrating Holi

Residents of Ezdan village 4 celebrating Holi.

Resting place

16 MONDAY 25 MARCH 2019MORNING BREAK

Love Ball Arabia at MIA on FridayTHE PENINSULA DOHA

Love Ball, one of the most anticipated charity events in the world drawing a high-profile audience, will take place at Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) this Friday.

This signature fundraising event was created by Natalia Vodianova in aid of her Naked Heart Foundation that supports children with special needs.

Under the patronage of H E Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and Natalia Vodianova, Love Ball Arabia will be held in partnership with Al Shafallah Centre and Qatar Museums as part of the Qatar-Russia Cultural Exchange.

Love Ball Arabia promises to be an outstanding charity gala that continues the tra-dition of the previous

occasions held in London, Paris, Moscow and Monte Carlo.

All proceeds will benefit the work of Al Shafallah Centre and Naked Heart Foundation, and will go towards developing profes-sional support services for families of children with mental, physical and sensory disabilities, as well as enhancing advocacy cam-paigns in both Russia and Qatar, raising awareness of the cause.

The evening’s pro-gramme will comprise of a gala dinner with an immersive theatrical per-formance combining dance, music and art produced by internationally-lauded per-formers alongside actors with special needs. It will cul-minate in an exclusive fashion show by Ulyana Ser-geenko featuring the full

Spring-Summer 2019 col-lection that includes brand-new couture pieces inspired by and devoted to Qatar.

Renowned Moscow chef, Georgy Troyan, has created a bespoke menu specifically for the event offering a con-temporary twist on tradi-tional Russian cuisine.

The festivities will end with a charity auction held by Lord Mark Poltimore offering a variety of money-can’t-buy experiences. Among the high-lights are: ‘Meet and Greet’ with top players of Paris Saint-Germain F.C.; Daniel Arsham’s unique sculpture ‘Wrapped Frog’; lunch with Tom Brady and Gisele Bun-dchen; personalised fashion advice and a couture dress by Balmain creative director Olivier Rousteing; afternoon tea with Valentino Garavani at his Château de Wideville; after hours exclusive

shopping experience at iconic Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche; UlyanaSergeenko unique Couture gown with Faidee limited edition ruby brooch; artwork by Markus Martino-vitch, visual artist with autism ‘Mama in a dress with dots’ and one-of-a-kind ‘Naked Heart” ring with a heart shaped garnet created espe-cially for the event by Russian jewellery and fashion house founded by designer Yana Raskovalova.

Love Ball Arabia itself will play a crucial part in advocacy, connecting the two worlds – the one of people with mental disabilities and the other of the typically developed. The performances during the evening will high-light how these two worlds can enrich and influence the other, and how together they can create an inclusive society.

A pigeon rests at the top of a turtle statue located at a fountain in front of the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava ,Slovakia, yesterday.

Hungry wolves relocated to Isle Royale National ParkAP/TRAVERSE CITY, MICHIGAN

A US-Canadian team has successfully relocated about half a dozen gray wolves to Isle Royale National Park in Michigan.

One of two private organi-zations helping to fund the effort reported on its Facebook page that the relocation involved six wolves from a second Lake Superior Island in Canadian territory and one from the Ontario mainland.

The National Parks of Lake Superior Foundation said yes-terday that the animals were captured, vet checked and transported over the past couple days.

The half-dozen from Mich-ipicoten Island were in danger of starvation after gobbling up a caribou herd.

The National Park Service is winding up the first phase of a multi-year effort to rebuild wolf numbers at Isle Royale, which have plummeted in the past decade. The latest arrivals join eight existing wolves.

IANS/NEW YORK

A common form of drug for weight-loss used for a short period, may also be safe and effective for long-term treatment, said researchers. Phentermine, approved 60 years ago, is currently FDA-approved for use of up to three months.

The study showed that people who stayed on the drug phentermine longer experienced greater weight loss than those who took the drug for three months or less. Conversely, when patients stopped taking the medicine, weight regain was common.

In addition, its longer-term use was not associated with increases in blood pressure or increased risk of heart attack, stroke or death, results showed, published in journal Obesity.

“Although diet and exercise are critical components of any weight-loss pro-gramme, up to half of patients don’t have long-term success with lifestyle changes alone,” said Kristina H. Lewis, Assistant Professor at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in the US.

“In those cases, medications or surgery can help. Generic phentermine is an effective and affordable option, but now that we view obesity as a chronic disease, it’s important to have medications that can be used indefinitely.

Most new weight-loss drugs are approved for long-term use, but unfortu-nately the newer drugs can be expensive if they are not covered by insurance.”

Amazon Alexa can aid doctors during surgeriesIANS NEW YORK

Amazon Echo with in-built Alexa or Google Home smart speakers can not only play your favourite songs at home but can also assist doctors during medical procedures, say researchers.

Smart speakers can be pro-grammed to act as an aid to physicians in hospital operating rooms, researchers said on Sat-urday during the Society of Interventional Radiology’s annual scientific meeting in Austin, Texas.

Smart home speakers offer a conversational voice interface that allows interventional radi-ology (IR) physicians to ask questions and retrieve infor-mation needed for their patient treatments without breaking sterile scrub.

During treatment, IRs rely on nuanced medical infor-mation delivered in a timely manner.

“When you’re in the middle of a procedure, you need to remain sterile, so you lose the ability to use a computer,” said Kevin Seals, MD, a fellow in interventional radiology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

This smart speaker tech-nology helps us to quickly and intelligently make decisions rel-evant to a patient’s specific needs, added Seals, who is also the lead author of the study.

To reach this conclusion, the researchers at UCSF developed a device-sizing application for the Google Home smart speaker.

The application processes questions from a human voice and provides recommendations on the precise sizing of medical devices.

There are hundreds of devices, with more being intro-duced every day, making it dif-ficult to determine the correct sizing or materials needed in every circumstance.

“This technology allows physicians to concentrate more closely on the care of their patients, devoting less time and mental energy to device tech-nicalities,” noted Seals.

In developing the appli-cation, size specifications were acquired using literature reviews for 475 IR devices, such as catheters, sheaths, stents, vascular plugs and others.

“Further research will look to provide information from electronic health records and patient clinical data, such as allergies or prior surgeries,” said researchers.

AP DUBAI

A Kenyan teacher from a remote village who gave away most of his earnings to the poor won a $1m prize yesterday for his work teaching in a government-run school that has just one computer and shoddy Internet access.

The annual Global Teacher Prize was awarded to Peter Tabichi in the opulent Atlantis Hotel in Dubai in a ceremony hosted by actor Hugh Jackman.

Tabichi said the farthest he’d trav-elled before this was to Uganda. Coming to Dubai marked his first time on an airplane.

“I feel great. I can’t believe it. I feel so happy to be among the best teachers in the world, being the best in the world,” he said after his win.

Tabichi teaches science to high schoolers in the semi-arid village of Pwani where almost a third of children are orphans or have only one parent. Drought and famine are common.

He said the school has no library and no laboratory. He plans to use the million dollars from his win to improve the school and feed the poor.

Despite the obstacles Tabichi’s stu-dents face, he’s credited with helping many stay in school, qualify for inter-national competitions in science and engineering and go on to college.

“At times, whenever I reflect on the challenges they face, I shed tears,” he said of his students, adding that his win will help give them confidence.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta

said in a statement that Tabichi’s story “is the story of Africa” and of hope for future generations.

The prize is awarded by the Varkey Foundation, whose founder, Sunny Varkey, established the for-profit GEMS Education company that runs 55 schools in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Qatar.

In his acceptance speech, Tabichi said his mother died when he was just 11 years old, leaving his father, a primary school teacher, with the job of raising him and his siblings alone.

“I found tonight to be incredibly emotional, very moving,” Jackman said after hosting the ceremony and per-forming musical numbers from his film The Greatest Showman.

“It was a great honour, a thrill to be here and I just thought the whole evening was just filled with a really pure spirit,” he added.

Now in its fifth year, the prize is the largest of its kind. It’s quickly become one of the most coveted and prestigious for teachers. Tabichi selected out of out 10,000 applicants.

The winner is selected by com-mittees comprised of teachers, jour-nalists, officials, entrepreneurs, business leaders and scientists.

Last year, a British art teacher was awarded for her work in one of the most ethnically diverse places in the country. Her work was credited with helping students feel welcome and safe in a borough with high murder rates.

Other winners include a Canadian teacher for her work with indigenous students in an isolated Arctic village

where suicide rates are high, and a Pal-estinian teacher for her work in helping West Bank refugee children trauma-tized by violence.

The 2015 inaugural winner was a teacher from Maine who founded a nonprofit demonstration school created for the purpose of developing and dis-seminating teaching methods.

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Kenyan who gave earnings to poor wins $1m teacher prize

Kenyan teacher Peter Tabichi holding up the Global Teacher Prize (GTP) trophy after winning the $1m award during an official ceremony in Dubai, yesterday.

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