THE FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE DAILY IN FREE KUWAITEstablished in 1977 / www.arabtimesonline.com

THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2021 / JUMADA AL THANI 15, 1442 AH emergency number 112 NO. 17599 16 PAGES 150 FILS

ice hockey markets

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Bloomberg ‘Sandvine’ censorship report queriedBy Saeed Mahmoud Saleh

Arab Times Staff

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27: National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim received Inter Parliamentary Union President Duarte Pacheco who arrived in Kuwait on Tuesday on a four-day official visit.

Secretary General of the Assembly Allam Al-Kandari and MP Saleh Ziab Al-Mutairi were present at the reception, during which the two parties exchanged pleasantries and discussed issues of mutual concern.

On the other hand, MP Mehalhal Al-Mudaf asked interim Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Thamer Ali Al-Sabah to clarify a

recent report of Bloomberg that Kuwait was one of several countries which ordered internet censorship technology from Sandvine – a company based in the United States of America.

If the report is true, he wants to know the reasons for bringing such tech-nology to Kuwait, if the necessary legal procedures were taken before tak-ing the decision to buy the technology, and if this decision is based on the recommendation of a certain committee. If yes, he demanded for a copy of the committee’s report in this regard.

MP Abdulkareem Al-Kandari forwarded queries to interim Minister of Public Works and State Minister for Municipality Affairs Dr Rana Al-Fares

US back with Palestine

MINNOW TEL AVIV BROWBEATS BIDEN OVER IRAN N-DEAL

Israel preps unilateral attack on Iran

By Sulaiman Al-Jarallah and Agencies

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27: His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah affirmed on Wednesday the right of any parliament member to use the grilling tool.

In a speech during his meeting with the editors-in-chief of local newspapers, His Highness the premier mentioned that he wel-comed any questioning within the Constitu-tion and law.

He added that during his presiding of the Ministers Council in the government of the 15th legislative term of the National Assem-bly, he referred to the four nos, which are nei-ther to refer the grilling to the Constitutional Court, nor to refer to the Parliamentary Leg-islative and Legal Affairs Committee, nor to request an extension of the time, nor to dis-cuss the interrogation in a secret session.

His Highness the Prime Minister affirms his pride in the trust shown to him by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah in appointing him as the Prime Minister of the State of Kuwait and en-trusting him with the responsibility of form-ing the government.

He said, “I look forward to holding meetings with the members of the National Assembly to discuss the formation of the new government, its work program and a number of laws.

“The government has submitted to Nazaha a total of 87 reports related to mishandling of public funds, and 44 of them were referred to the Public Prosecution. The government also referred 1,691 cases of encroachment on state properties and 82 cases of residency trading.

We support the medical personnel that are fighting the COVID-19 pandemic with effi-ciency. It is our responsibility to support them and stand by them, and provide them with ev-erything they need to perform their tasks.

“I affirm that combating corruption is a

priority for the government. When I was as-signed to head the Council of Ministers, I re-ceived direct guidance from His Highness the Amir of the country about the need to com-plete all requirements to eliminate corruption.

“We are faced with an imbalance in the economy in light of the circumstances due to the COVID-19 crisis. In return, we have excellent financial solvency in the event that this imbalance continues without reform-ing and restructuring the Kuwaiti economy, which will affect this solvency.

TEL AVIV, Jan 27, (AP): Israel’s mili-tary chief has warned the Biden admin-istration against rejoining the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, even if it toughens its terms, adding he’s ordered his forces to step up preparations for possible offensive action against Iran during the coming year.

The comments by Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi came as Israel and Iran both seek to put pressure on Presi-dent Joe Biden ahead of his expected announcement on his approach for dealing with the Iranian nuclear program. In Iran, leaders said they would not wait indefinitely for Biden to act.

The 2015 deal put curbs on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the easing of crippling economic sanctions. Israel strongly opposed the deal, saying it did not include sufficient safeguards to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. It welcomed the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the agreement in 2018.

Biden has said he will seek to revive the deal, with some changes.

In his address to the Institute for National Security Studies, Kohavi said a return to the deal, even with some improvements, “is bad operationally and it is bad strategi-cally.” He said allowing Iran to proceed with a nuclear program would be “an unacceptable threat and will lead to nuclear proliferation across the region.” Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Kohavi said that given the threat posed by Iran, Israel’s military would be prepared to attack on its own if needed.

Plans“I instructed the army to prepare a number of opera-

tional plans in addition to the existing ones,” he said. “We are taking care of these plans and will develop them during the coming year. Those who decide on carrying them out, of course, are the political leaders. But these plans have to be on the table.”

Just hours before Kohavi spoke against a deal, Iran prodded Biden to rejoin the atomic accord. “The window of opportunity will not be open for long,” said Iran’s Cabi-net spokesman Ali Rabiei.

Israeli officials, including Kohavi, say that Iran is in a much weaker position than in 2015 after years of sanc-tions by the Trump administration. They say that any new deal should eliminate “sunset” provisions that phase out certain limits on Iran’s nuclear activities, address Iran’s long-range missile program and its military involvement and support for Israel’s enemies across the region.

Tensions around Iran have steadily increased. During Trump’s final days as president, Tehran seized a South Korean oil tanker and begun enriching uranium closer to weapons-grade levels, while the U.S. has sent B-52 bomb-ers, the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and a nuclear subma-rine into the region.

Iran has also increased its military drills, including fir-ing cruise missiles as part of a naval drill in the Gulf of Oman this month.

Iran has missile capability of up to 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), far enough to reach Israel and U.S. military bases in the region.

Biden’s administration announced Tuesday it was re-storing relations with the Palestinians and renewing aid to Palestinian refugees, a reversal of the Trump administra-tion’s cutoff and a key element of its new support for a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict between Is-raelis and Palestinians.

Acting U.S. Ambassador Richard Mills made the an-nouncement of Biden’s approach to a high-level virtual Security Council meeting, saying the new U.S. administra-tion believes this “remains the best way to ensure Israel’s future as a democratic and Jewish state while upholding the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations for a state of their own and to live with dignity and security.”

Trump’s administration provided unprecedented sup-port to Israel, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv, slashing finan-cial assistance for the Palestinians and reversing course on the illegitimacy of Israeli settlements on land claimed by the Palestinians.

Far-fl ungIsrael captured east Jerusalem and the West Bank in the

1967 war. The international community considers both ar-eas to be occupied territory, and the Palestinians seek them as parts of a future independent state. Israel has built a far-flung network of settlements that house nearly 700,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem since their capture in 1967.

The peace plan unveiled by Trump a year ago envisions a disjointed Palestinian state that turns over key parts of the West Bank to Israel, siding with Israel on key conten-tious issues including borders and the status of Jerusalem and Jewish settlements. It was vehemently rejected by the Palestinians.

Mills made clear the Biden administration’s more even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Under the new administration, the policy of the United States will be to support a mutually agreed two-state solu-tion, one in which Israel lives in peace and security along-side a viable Palestinian state,” he said.

Mills said peace can’t be imposed on either side and stressed that progress and an ultimate solution require the participation and agreement of Israelis and Palestinians.

“In order to advance these objectives, the Biden admin-istration will restore credible U.S. engagement with Pales-tinians as well as Israelis,” he said.

“This will involve renewing U.S. relations with the Pal-estinian leadership and Palestinian people,” Mills said.

“President Biden has been clear that he intends to restore U.S. assistance programs that support economic develop-ment programs and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, and to take steps to reopen diplomatic relations that were closed by the last U.S. administration,” Mills said.

Other Voices

Corruption heavy enough to be carried by trucks

PM meets editors

Your tool ... Grill at will

His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah with the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Al Seyassah and the Arab Times Sulaiman Abdulaziz Al-Jarallah, during a meeting on Jan 27 with the editors-in-chief of local newspapers.

Garden of EdenCONSTRUCTION of the new Kuwait airport will be completed in August 2022, and will accommodate 25 million passengers, while there are eighty mil-lion passengers who use Dubai Airport for years, and its duty-free markets gen-erate 40 billion dirhams annually. Dubai issues visitor visas to everyone without exception or conditions.

The new Kuwait airport could in-crease its capacity four times if passen-gers used it frequently and its duty-free income could be in billions.

All this remains theoretical, as long as our government forbids visiting the Gar-den of Eden in Kuwait, especially young men and women under the age of forty, and this means that the new airport will only benefit the elderly of the world as we continue to spend huge sums of money from the Future Generations Fund for its services.

... Yet tomorrow is another day.

Zahed Matar

Day by Day

By Ali Ahmed Al-BaghliFormer Minister of Oil

EVERYONE talks about administrative corruption and its heroes among the em-ployees of our rational government. The corruption in Kuwait Municipality is so much rampant and is present in a very shameful way. It is the corruption that our late Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad (May God rest his soul) had described as “Mu-nicipality corruption cannot be carried by camels”. To that I add, “O Bu Nasser, the corruption of our government employees cannot be carried even by trucks, not just camels”.

The problem is that the top officials in the government, starting from His High-ness the Prime Minister to the ministers, undersecretaries and senior employees to whom independent organizations with budgets of millions have recently been assigned, watch corruption as if it is hap-pening in other places.

In other words, it seems the matter does not concern them. The evidence of that is that no senior official is behind bars so far, except in some rare cases. The tan-gible evidence is the number of rare cases that the Kuwait Anti-Corruption Author-ity has dealt with or that it just chooses to watch corruption – no difference. It in-formed us about the number of corruption stories which are less than the few it has dealt with since its inception until now.

That is why we were enthusiastic on December 5 to go to the elections and choose those who would represent us in terms of oversight and legislation, hoping that the wheel of corruption would per-haps stop turning. However, it seems our hopes turned into vapors and our dreams into ashes.

The people we elected on that day have not yet held a single productive session due to the government’s absence in light of the threat to His Highness the Prime Minister to be grilled by the majority of the MPs. We looked at the members of the committees, in which the government participated in terms of selecting some of their members from the “Yes, Sir” cat-

egory, to surprise us with desperate deci-sions and suggestions.

A few days ago, the Interior and De-fense Committee refused to lift the im-munity of an MP who won membership through legally criminalized by-elections under the pretext that there is no evidence of committing the crime except the in-vestigations of the detectives. We, our rational government and the whole world

watched him in both audio and vi-sual form receiv-ing congratulations for his criminal-ized victory, which means the crime was documented in the act. So how were the members of that committee not convinced of

his committing that illegal act?

Five MPs belonging to the two funda-mentalist parties – Muslim Brotherhood Group and Salafi Movement – have sug-gested increasing the reward for Kuwaiti muezzins and imams. Such an increase is meaningless in light of the financial deficit that the government had been re-peatedly talking about day and night. In addition to that, it is assumed that these young people are graduates from the un-necessary College of Sharia and Islamic Studies and are supposed to take over the work in mosques as muezzins and imams in pursuit of pleasing Allah. So how do these huge rewards meet that noble goal?

This came from some of the MPs dur-ing the parliamentary session held after a month and a half of their membership in the Legislative and Supervisory Council. It proves that they are as far as the earth’s distance from the sky when it comes to legislation and oversight, but are efficient in increasing corruption such that trucks cannot carry them, as I had earlier de-scribed.

❑ ❑ ❑

ali-albaghli@hotmail.com

Al-Baghli

Newswatch

KUWAIT CITY: The Central Bank of Ku-wait has instructed banks to monitor the accounts of 28 individuals and entities, including a former lawmaker sentenced to jail for involvement in money laundering and real estate fraud cases; as well as key offi cials in various companies including a well-known offi cial implicated in real es-tate fraud cases and currently serving his prison sentence, reports Al-Rai daily quot-ing sources.

Sources explained this entails monitor-ing funds deposited and withdrawn from the accounts, their trends and sources; in addition to determining the balance at the beginning and last period accounted for as these steps are necessary in assessing whether the movement of funds is natural or there have been signifi cant leaps.

Sources disclosed the period covered for monitoring extends to more than four years ago, indicating the regulatory au-thority inquired if the banks notifi ed the Financial Intelligence Unit about any of the 28 clients mentioned in the investiga-tion report or not.

❑ ❑ ❑

KUWAIT CITY: Results of Reuters’ quar-terly survey on the opinions of economic analysts showed that growth expectations for 2021 have shrunk for all countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) at varying degrees, reports Al-Qabas daily.

Decline in GDP growth estimates for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ku-wait and Oman was the steepest, while growth expectations for Saudi Arabia and Qatar remained the highest among countries in the region.

According to the survey, the Kuwaiti economy is expected to grow by 2.2 per-cent this year, down from 2.5 percent growth in the previous estimates as the Kuwaiti economy was expected to shrink by 7.3 percent in 2020 and to grow by 2.7 percent the following year.

❑ ❑ ❑

KUWAIT CITY: For 60 years or more, the government has been supporting the industrial sector by providing industrial lands worth billions of dinars, not to men-tion the services provided by the state such as customs exemptions, provision of electricity, water and fuel at very low prices, such that the value of government support has reached more than half a bil-lion dinars, reports Al-Shahid daily.

Despite all this support, the Kuwaiti industrial sector did not achieve the ambi-tion and the desired goals expected from it, as the participation rate of the industrial sector does not exceed fi ve percent of Ku-wait’s GDP. This means what this sector provides is almost equal to the support provided by the government.

❑ ❑ ❑

WASHINGTON: America’s new top dip-

lomat took the helm of the State Depart-ment on Wednesday with a vow to rebuild the ranks of the foreign service and rely on its expertise as the Biden administration tries to restore US global standing.

On his fi rst full day in the job, Antony Blinken told a coronavirus-limited audi-ence of employees in the department’s main lobby that he values their work and commitment. He also said that they have a hard road ahead with the world watching how they will pursue foreign policy after four years of former president Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine.

President Joe Biden has vowed to re-verse Trump’s approach, which had alien-ated many traditional US allies who per-ceived it as a hardline unilateral approach that left no room for negotiation. Blinken said that after four years, the United States would again engage with allies on a recip-rocal, rather than a purely transactional, basis. (AP)

❑ ❑ ❑

THE HAGUE: Law enforcement au-thorities in several countries have joined forces to disrupt what they call one of the world’s most dangerous pieces of mal-ware, one that allowed criminal gangs to install ransomware and steal data from computer users.

European Union police and judi-cial agencies Europol and Eurojust said Wednesday that investigators took control of infrastructure behind a botnet called EMOTET. A botnet is a network of hi-jacked computers used to carry out cyber-attacks. (AP)

❑ ❑ ❑

NEW YORK: The Cannes Film Festival, canceled altogether last year by the pan-demic, is postponing this year’s edition from May to July in hopes of having an in-person festival.

Cannes organizers announced Wednes-day that this year’s festival will now take place July 6-17, about two months after its typical period. The French Riviera fes-tival, which had run for nearly 75 years with few interruptions, is currently hoping the coronavirus recedes enough by sum-mertime. (AP)

❑ ❑ ❑

CUPERTINO: Apple is urging iPhone and iPad users to update their devices to fi x security fl aws that might have been “ac-tively exploited” by hackers.

Apple made the software upgrades available Tuesday, adding a rare note sug-gesting it was a serious threat.

The company credited anonymous researchers for pointing out the vulner-ability but provided little details about the nature of the threat.

The company said one of the vulnerabil-ities affects the “kernel,” the nerve center of Apple’s operating system, iOS. (AP)

Continued on Page 4

2ARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2021

editor’s choice

While travel to Paris may be difficult this winter, masterpieces of the Musée

d’Orsay and the Bibliothèque nationale de France – both lending museums from the France Muséums network – have arrived at Louvre Abu Dhabi. Joining these loans will be Charing Cross Bridge by Claude Monet, on loan from a UAE private collection. Newly unveiled acquisitions and loans, many on view for the first time in the region, offer new expe-riences to attract both first-time and returning visitors to the museum. From 28th century BCE Mesopotamia to the height of Impres-sionism, new stories of cultural connections can be found at every turn throughout Louvre Abu Dhabi’s ‘museum city’, a modern marvel designed like an Arabian Medina by globally renowned architect Jean Nouvel.

HE Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chair-man of the Department of Culture and Tour-ism - Abu Dhabi, said: “Abu Dhabi is a cross-roads, a place in which to experience art and culture from all over the world. The artworks, the stories of the artists, and the journey that each loan and acquisition has taken represent the rich diversity of geographies, cultures and histories that ultimately brought each to Louvre Abu Dhabi. Fostering opportunities for cross-cultural understanding is more important than ever. We are proud to have this signifi-cant loan from a private collection on view alongside works from museum collections of renown. We look forward to safely and open-heartedly welcoming visitors once again to experience the emirate’s cultural sites and treasures, including these masterpieces now on view at Louvre Abu Dhabi.”

Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Director, Manuel Rabaté, commented: “The generosity of our lending partners, through the France Muséums network of museums and from the UAE, will allow visitors to experience masterpieces rarely seen in this region, on view side-by-side. Likewise, the acquisitions the museum has made to its permanent collection enrich the stories of cultural connections we bring to life. The four significant works included here reveal, together, new insights into ritual, representation and symbols from Central Asia to India and the Arab World.”

“A museum should always first be for its neighbourhood, aspiring to be a critical part of the cultural life of its community,” said Dr. Souraya Noujaim, Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management Director at Louvre Abu Dhabi. “Through the new works on display, we give returning visitors to Louvre Abu Dhabi an opportunity to re-engage with pieces in our permanent collection, to see them anew through stories of cultural connections. We are thrilled to have been able to carry out this season’s new rotation of loaned master-works, bringing here for the first time pieces that are considered priceless treasures by their respective museums. The success of these new loans speaks to the strength, solidarity, and cooperation of our partners – the lenders in our network, for whom we are grateful.”

New acquisitionsLouvre Abu Dhabi’s new acquisitions

include: Female figure praying (Iraq, 2800- 2550 BCE)Kneeling figure (Ancient Egypt, 400 – 300

BCE)Standing Jina figure (Tamil Nadu, India,

1000 – 1100)Feline-shaped Incense Burner (Eastern Iran

or Central Asia, 1000 – 1100)Each of these objects adds to the theme of

varied religious beliefs, practices, and rituals across time and geography, and their similari-ties and differences. Female figure praying is particularly rare, as statues of worship-pers from this time were nearly always male. Likewise, Feline-shaped Incense Burner tells us that the feline form had many meanings across cultures that we are only now beginning to interpret. This work is presented next to Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Aquamanile in the form of a lion from early 13th century Germany. Bestiary (the depiction of animals) was a com-mon language, with the feline form generally associated with power.

New works on loanThe loans from the Musée d’Orsay include

some of the most iconic paintings from the Modern-Impressionist period, as well as pho-tographs from the 19th century.

Edgar Degas, The Bellelli family, France, 1858 – 1869

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Railway Bridge in Chatou, France, 1881

Claude Monet, In the Norwegian, France, circa 1887

Vincent Van Gogh, Caravans, Gypsy Camp near Arles, France, 1888

Claude Monet, Haystacks, End of Summer, France, 1891

Osman Hamdi Bey, Old Man in front of Children’s Tombs, Turkey, 1903

Eugène Louis Gillot, The Arrival of the “La Fayette” in New York, France, 1921

Pierre Bonnard, Southern Landscape, France, 1928

Félix Nadar, Alexandre Dumas father, writer, France, 1854 – 1860

Eadweard Muybridge, Deer, running and jumping, United States, 1887

G. N. Barnard, Rebel Works in front of Atlanta, Georgia, no. 1, United States, 1864

The 19th century was marked by societal changes as well as technical advancements. Through these new loans by the Musée d’Orsay, viewers will be able to follow the many ways in which the Industrial Revolution transformed the world forever, as captured in the paintings by Monet, Van Gogh, and their contemporaries. Claude Monet’s In the Norwe-gian and Haystacks, End of Summer highlight

not just his ability to capture the light and atmo-sphere of a moment (mirroring our own current social media habits), but also show subtle changes in his brushstroke. Between 1890 and 1891, the artist embarked on a series of ap-proximately 25 paintings with the haystacks as his sole subject. With these plus the loan from a UAE private collection, Charing Cross Bridge, Louvre Abu Dhabi now offers visitors three magnificent artworks by Claude Monet. All portray Monet’s scientific precision in capturing the effects of light on colour and visibility. In Charing Cross Bridge, Monet explores the at-mospheric conditions created by the movement of light though the density of fog.

Osman Hamdi Bey’s Old Man in front of Children’s Tombs is displayed next to Louvre Abu Dhabi’s renowned Young Emir Study-ing by the same artist. Though the subjects could not be more different (one passive and languorous, the other full of emotion), both works have a common point— created by a Turkish artist trained in France, who endeav-oured to portray truth and precision through delicate details.

Vincent Van Gogh’s Caravans, Gypsy Camp near Arles is now hanging next to Louvre Abu Dhabi’s own The Bohemian by Édouard Manet. Van Gogh was struck by the light and the harsh landscape during his travels through the Camargue in the south of France, where many Romani pilgrims also passed through at that time. The adventure and excite-ment of leaving the studio, painting in nature, expressing emotions through colour, and the encounters that resulted are felt in both works.

In parallel, this year’s selection of works on loan also includes a number of maps along with sacred and scientific texts from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Displayed in Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Universal Religions gallery, the sacred texts are foundational to the three Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In this rotation, they are displayed alongside a Hindu horoscope. The sacred texts are:

Quran (Egypt, 800-1400)Pentateuch in Hebrew copied by Abraham

ben Jacob (France, dated 1303)Collection of texts in Syriac: acts of the

Apostles, general epistles and Epistles of Paul (Syria, 1398)

Janmapatra, horoscope with personification of the planets (Gujarat, North India, 1700-1800)

Other artworks on loan, displayed in the museum’s earlier gallery chapters, include:

Jeong-ri-ui-gwe, construction and inaugura-tion of Suwon Fortress (Korea, 1796)

Rawzat al-safa, Timur and his companions determine the fate of Amir Husayn by Mir Khwand (Iran, 1601 – 1604)

Map of the different lands and states of America by Denis Gobert Chambon (France, 1754)

Navigation Chart (portolan) of the Indian Ocean by Johannes Blaeu (Netherlands, 1665)

The new displays in Louvre Abu Dhabi’s permanent galleries coincided with the third anniversary of the museum, which also included the premiere of the museum’s first short film, The Pulse of Time, and a three-day symposium, Reframing Museums (16-18 November), which brought industry leaders together to discuss the future of art museums in our current global context.

Louvre Abu Dhabi is open Tuesday – Sunday from 10 am – 6:30 pm and closed on Mondays. Pre-purchased tickets are required to visit the museum. E-tickets can be reserved via the museum’s website.

About Louvre Abu DhabiCreated by an exceptional agreement

between the governments of Abu Dhabi and France, Louvre Abu Dhabi was designed by Jean Nouvel and opened on Saadiyat Island in November 2017. The museum is inspired by traditional Islamic architecture and its monumental dome creates a rain of light effect and a unique social space that brings people together.

Louvre Abu Dhabi celebrates the universal creativity of mankind and invites audiences to see humanity in a new light. Through its innovative curatorial approach, the museum focuses on building understanding across cul-

Old Man in Front of Children’s Tombs. © Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi

tures: through stories of human creativity that transcend civilisations, geographies and times.

The museum’s growing collection is unpar-alleled in the region and spans thousands of years of human history, including prehistoric tools, artefacts, religious texts, iconic paintings and contemporary artworks. The permanent collection is supplemented by rotating loans from 13 French partner institutions, regional and international museums.

Artworks from Claude Monet. His masterpiece

‘Charing Cross Bridge,’ on loan from a UAE private

collection.

Jeong-ri-ui-gwe, construction and inauguration of Suwon Fortress.

Feline-shaped incense burner.

Masterpiecesjust next door

ARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2021 3

Fajr ................ 05:18Sunrise .......... 06:40Zohr ............... 12:01

Asr .................. 15:01Maghrib .......... 17:22Isha ................ 18:41

Prayer TimingsExpected weather for the next 24 hours:

By Day: Warm and partly cloudy with light to moderate freshening at times south easterly wind with speeds of 15-45 km/h and a chance for rising dust over open areas.

By Night: Rather cold to cold and

partly cloudy with light to moderate freshening at times south easterly wind with speeds of 12-40 km/h.Station Max Exp Min Rec Kuwait City 22 12Kuwait Airport 23 05Abdaly 26 06

Bubyan 21 09Jahra 24 09Failaka Island - -Salmiyah 20 14Ahmadi 18 14Nuwaisib 21 08Wafra 23 07Salmy 22 08

Weather

VACCINE REGISTRATION WEBSITE: https://cov19vaccine.moh.gov.kw/SPCMS/CVD_19_Vaccine_Registration.aspx

National Bank of Kuwait rallies 10 fi ls, Mabanee drops

Kuwait’s bourse resumes ascent, volume turnover ebbsBy John MathewsArab Times Staff

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27: Kuwait stocks swung higher on Wednesday as it resumed its ascent following last session’s slight pullback. The All Shares Index, after a shaky start, climbed 25.71 pts to 5,752.78 points led by some of the heavy-weights and mid-caps.

The Premier Market jumped 33.39 points to 6,289.88 pts taking the month’s gains to 239 pts while Main Market paced 9.93 points. The BK Main 50 was up 10.11 points at 4,867.91 pts. The volume turnover meanwhile receded slightly after hitting a 4-month high on Tuesday. Over 480 mil-lion shares changed hand - down 3 pct from the day before.

The sectors closed mostly in green turf. Ba-sic Materials outshone the rest with over 1 pct gain whereas Real Estate shed 0.51 percent, the worst performer of the day. Volume wise, Finan-cial Services continued to top with 274.5 million shares whereas the Banking Sector dominated the value with KD 31.4 million.

SharesAmong the prime movers, sector bellwether

National Bank of Kuwait rallied 10 fi ls to 874 fi ls on back of over 12 million shares while Kuwait Finance House scaled 8 fi ls after pushing 11.7

million shares. Al Ahleia Insurance Co jumped 19 fi ls to 464 fi ls whereas Mabanee Co shed 10 fi ls before settling at 707 fi ls and is up 50 fi ls so far during the month. Kuwait National Cinema Co jumped 32 fi ls.

Trading Zain was unchanged at 632 fi ls after trading

4.9 million shares while Ooredoo added 3 fi ls to close at 688 fi ls. stc eased 1 fi l to 910 fi ls whereas Agility skidded 8 fi ls to 758 fi ls with a volume of 2.9 million. Humansoft Holding dropped 14 fi ls to KD 3.630 extending last session’s losses and Boursa Kuwait Securities rose 4 fi ls.

The market opened gap up and edged higher in early trade. The main index pivoted south to plumb the day’s lowest level of 5,732 points and rebounded in choppy session amid buying spurt in some of the counters. It peaked at 5,757 pts in the fi nal minutes before giving up some of the gains at close.

Top gainer of the day, Shuaiba Industrial spiked 14.67 percent to 172 fi ls while IFA Hotels and Resorts scaled 7.58 pct to stand next. Al Ma-nar shed 6.39 percent, the steepest decliner of the day and Arzan Financial topped the volume with over 51 million shares.

Refl ecting the day’s gains, the market spread was skewed towards the winners. 68 stocks ad-vanced whereas 47 closed lower. Of the 136

counters active on Wednesday, 21 closed fl at. 13,902 deals worth KD 64.24 million were trans-acted during the session.

In the Banking Sector, Gulf Bank took in 1 fi l on back of 14.6 million shares and Burgan Bank followed suit to end at 219 fi ls. Kuwait Interna-tional Bank clipped 1 fi l while Boubyan Bank gave up 5 fi ls after pushing 4.4 million shares. Ahli United Bank added 3 fi ls whereas Warba Bank stood pat at 248 fi ls.

KIPCO inched 1 fi l higher to 168 fi ls on back of 4.5 million shares while KAMCO crawled 0.1 fi l into green. International Financial Advisors added 3.9 fi ls on back of 25.6 million shares and Kuwait Investment Co took in 1 fi l.

National Investment Co dialed up 2 fils whereas Bayan Investment Co eased 1 fil to 40.3 fils. Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz) was unchanged at 82.5 fils and KMEFIC dialed down 2 fils. Noor Financial Investment slipped 3 fils to 183 fils while Tamdeen Investment shed 14 fils.

Budge National Industries Group paused at 191 fi ls

after moving 3.8 million shares and Mezzan Holding too did not budge from its earlier close of 584 fi ls. Boubyan Petrochemical scaled 7 fi ls before ending at 662 fi ls while Al Qurain Petro-chemical Co was up 4 fi ls at 364 fi ls. Integrated

Holding Co tripped 1 fi l whereas Aznour took in 1 fi l.

Jazeera Airways fell 2 fi ls to 705 fi ls whereas ALAFCO paced 4 fi ls on back of 5.6 million shares. United Projects Co erased 7 fi ls while OSOS Holding Group and Gulf Petroleum In-vestment held ground at 89.8 fi ls and 20.3 fi ls respectively. PAPCO trimmed 1 fi l and Mashaer Holding dialed up 1.5 fi ls with a volume of 25.3 million.

Clipped Kuwait Cement Co eased 1 fi l to 240 fi ls and

Kuwait Portland Cement added 2 fi ls. Gulf Cable fell 3 fi ls to 771 fi ls whereas Metal and Recycling Co gave up 4.7 fi ls. ACICO Industries dialed up 1.7 fi ls and Educational Holding Co was down 4 fi ls at 330 fi ls.

Burgan Company For Well Drilling whittled down 4 fils whereas IFA Hotels and Resorts added 2 fils. Kuwait and Gulf Links Transport Co and Automated Systems Co took in 0.1 fil each while Combined Group Contracting Co stood pat at 215 fils. Hayat Communications Co clipped 2 fils.

The market has been largely buoyant so far during the week gaining 64 points in last four sessions. It has rallied 205 points from start of the month after shedding 736 points during whole of 2020.

Euro/KD 0.3666

Yen/KD 0.0029

British £/KD 0.4146

Indian Rs/KD 0.0041

Philippines Peso/KD 0.0063

FTSE -86.64 pts at closing Jan 27

Nikkei +89 pts at closing Jan 27

Gold 1853.20 per oz (London)

US$/KDUS$/KD 0.30265/75 0.30265/75

NYMEX crude $52.56 per barrel

Brent crude $55.91 per barrel

LIBOR rate 0.21850%

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KUNA photoHis Highness the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah received at Bayan Palace, Wednesday, in the presence of the National Assembly Speaker, met Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Duarte Pacheco and the accompanying delegation. Senior offi cials at the Amiri Diwan and offi ce of His Highness the Amir

attended the meeting. (KUNA)

Kuwait tops‘shots’ drive

‘Clean towels, apron’

KD 30 for PCR

Some to get IDs pronto

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27, (Agencies): His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah on Wednes-day said the State of Kuwait was the fi rst among nations for securing vaccination against COVID-19 for all.

The international community has chosen the logo, “vaccine for all,” depicting the desire for an interna-tional partnership for securing the vaccines for nations of the human race, said the prime minister, during a meeting with the local chief editors.

Schedule Immunization in Kuwait is a process conducted accord-

ing to a timetable and a schedule. “We have vaccinated up to 35,000 citizens and residents so far,” he revealed.

“Shipments of the jabs have stopped throughout the world because suppliers are re-examining the needs, “and we hope to receive the new shipment of the vaccines by February 15,” he added.

Kuwait has begun injecting people with Pfi zer, he said, indicating that there was high demand for the approved British vaccine.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health said the PCR test for corona virus is set at 30 dinars for government and private hospitals and private medical centers, while at the same time announcing the formation of an investi-gation committee to exclude some of those who do not meet the vaccination requirements for taking the vac-cine, pointing out that the Minister of Health Sheikh Dr. Basil Al-Sabah has stressed on the necessity of inform-ing of submitting him the report as soon as possible, says Al-Seyassah.

The ministry spokesman Dr. Abdullah Al-Sanad con-fi rmed no virus infection has been detected among persons who have received the second dose of the vaccine saying the possibility of infection after the vaccination is taken is very low – as low as 95 percent.

He pointed out that the corona-related occupancy rate in intensive care wards increased by 2% during the past weeks due to what he called ‘wrong practices’, pointing to the rearrangement of appointments for new registrants at the vaccination centers according to the availability of vaccinations, indicating that each category has a daily vac-cination quota and that messages for vaccination are sent based on the availability.

Instructions Meanwhile, Director of the Health Licensing Depart-

ment, Suad Abel, has sent instructions to hospitals and private centers, dental centers, and all other treatment cent-ers indicating that the price of PCR examination for the “Covid-19” is set at 30 dinars.

She indicated that the Medical Licensing Committee De-cision No. 1 of 2021, issued on Jan 23 has given the nod to fi x the price for PCR test at 30 dinars.

The number of frontline workers dealing with corona pandemic in the Ministry of Electricity and Water reached 11,000 and all of them have been classifi ed under the second category, reports Al-Qabas daily quoting reliable sources.

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27: The Public Authority for Civil In-formation (PACI) is working hard to expedite the issuance of new civil IDs to a number of categories, reports Al-Rai daily quoting a reliable source.

The source affi rmed that PACI has taken several measures to speed up work procedures amid the measures being taken to curb the spread of coronavirus.

The source said Director General of PACI Mesaed Al-Asousi is fully aware of the complaints that reached the authority; so he instructed the concerned sectors in the au-thority to issue civil IDs within 24 hours for fi ve catego-ries -- citizens, Gulf workers, domestic workers (Article 20 visa), expatriates working in the government sector (Article 17 visa), and children below fi ve years old.

Meanwhile, Head of the Irregularities Removal Depart-ment at the Kuwait Municipality branch in the Capital Gov-ernorate Abdullah Jaber said salon owners should educate their employees on the importance of using hair cut aprons and towels only once to prevent transmission of coronavi-rus between customers, as well as the regular sterilization of shaving materials for the safety and good health of custom-ers, reports Al-Qabas daily. He warned that in case a salon owner does not provide clean hair cut towel, a citation of violation will be issued to the license holder. If necessary, there will be an immediate order to close the salon that does not comply with health regulations, he asserted.

Sa’adoun Hammad Al-OtaibiSunni

Third Constituency

SA’ADOUN HAMMAD AL-OTAIBI was born in 1959. He ob-tained Bachelor of Law from Kuwait University and worked as a lawyer.

He contested for the par-liamentary elections for the first time in 1990, during which he won 932 votes and ranked second in the 21st Constituency.

He lost in the 1992, 1996,1999 and 2003 elec-tions.

He won in the 2006 elections with 6,882 votes which put him in first place in the 21st Constituency; in the 2008 elections with 10,914 votes which put him in eighth place in the Fifth Constituency; in the 2009 elections with 15,647 votes which put him in second place in the Fifth Constituency; in the December 2012 elections with 2,195 votes which put him in fifth place in the Third Constituency; in the 2013 elections with 1,645 votes which put him in ninth place in the Fifth Constituency; and in the 2016 elections with 3,444 votes which put him in second place in the Third Constituency.

He was an independent MP in 2007. In the 2009 Assembly, he was among the MPs investigated by the Public Prosecution for the suspicious swelling of their bank accounts.

In the 2020 elections, he won 2,979 votes and ranked eighth in the Third Constituency.

StatementIn 2016, Hammad called on Dep-

uty Prime Minister and Interior Min-ister Sheikh Muhammad Al-Khalid to expedite the deportation of Ethi-opians due to the rising number of killings committed by Ethiopian do-mestic workers. He said such crimes are linked with this nationality due to certain religions and rituals.

Voting Record

■ Grilling motion against Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr Saud Al-Harbi in September 2020 – abstained

■ Grilling motion against Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Anas Al-Saleh in September 2020 – rejected

■ Grilling motion against Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Anas Al-Saleh in Au-gust 2020 – rejected

■ Grilling motion against Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr Saud Al-Harbi in August 2020 – abstained

■ Grilling motion against Minister of Fi-nance Barrak Al-Shi-tan in 2020 – rejected

■ Grilling motion against Minister of Commerce and Industry Khalid Al-Raw-dan in 2019 – rejected

■ Grilling motion against Minister of Information and State Minister for Youth Affairs Muhammad Al-Jabri in 2019 – rejected

■ Grilling motion against Minister of Finance Naif Al-Hajraf in 2019 – rejected

■ Grilling motion against Minister of Social Affairs and Labor and State Minister for Economic Affairs Hind Al-Sa-beeh in 2018 – approved

■ Grilling motion against Minister of Electricity and Wa-ter Bekeet Al-Rashedi in 2018 – rejected

■ Disqualifying candidates convicted in offending law-suits in 2016 – approved

■ DNA Law in 2015 – ap-proved

■ Cybercrimes Law in 2015 – approved

■ Partnership Enterprises Law in 2014 – approved

■ Amending the Constitu-tional Court Law in 2014 – ap-proved

■ Cancelling points in the grilling motion against HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber

Al-Mubarak in 2014 – ap-proved

■ Discussing the tape re-cording issue behind closed doors – approved

■ No confidence motion against Minister of Finance Muhammad Al-Abdullah in 2013 – rejected

■ Forming a fact-finding committee to investigate the bank deposits of MPs in 2013 – abstained

■ Referring the grilling mo-tion against Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Inte-rior Ahmed Al-Homoud to the parliamentary Legal and Leg-islative Affairs Committee in 2013 – rejected

■ First reading on the pro-posed writing off loan interest in 2013 – approved

■ Law on combating money laundering and financing ter-rorism in 2013 – approved

■ Postponing the grilling of Minister of Finance Mustafa Al-Shamali in 2013 – rejected

■ Postponing o the grilling of State Minister for Housing Affairs Salem Al-Ozaina in 2013 – rejected

■ One man one vote in 2013 – approved

■ Cancelling the grilling motion filed by MPs Ahmed Al-Saadoun and Abdulrah-man Al-Anjari against HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nass-er Al-Muhammad in 2011 – approved

■ No cooperation motion against HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Muhammad in June 2011 – rejected

■ No cooperation motion against HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Muhammad in January 2011 – rejected

■ Writing off loan interest in 2010 – approved

■ No confidence motion against the government in 2009 – rejected

■ No confidence motion against Minister of Education and Higher Education Nouriya Al-Sabeeh in 2008 – approved

■ Writing off loan interest in 2006 – approved

Al-Otaibi

Dutch birds meat barredKUWAIT CITY, Jan 27, (KUNA): The Public Authority for Food and Nutrition on Wednesday declared a ban on imports of all forms of bird meat and eggs from Holland due to spread of a highly contagious strain of bird fl u.

Adel Al-Suwait, the secretary general of the authority supreme com-mittee, said in a press statement bird meat thermally treated at 70 degrees is exempted from the ban.

The ban is also appli-cable on such imports from Richmond - Nr Hawes regions in Brit-ain for the same reason. The committee recom-mended lifting the ban on bird meat imports from all Russian re-gions due to recession of the epidemic.

LOCALARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2021

4

His Highness Sheikh Nawaf receives offi cials

HH Amir congratulates Ugandan president on re-electionKUWAIT CITY, Jan 27, (KUNA): His Highness the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sa-bah sent on Wednesday a cable of congratulations to the President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni on his recent re-election.

His Highness the Amir wished the African leader and his people evermore progress and develop-ment. His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Meshaal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and His High-ness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sa-

bah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah sent similar cables.

Meanwhile, His Highness the Amir received at Bayan Palace, Wednesday, His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Meshaal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and

Speaker of the National Assembly Marzouq Al-Ghanim.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Nawaf also met today with His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.

Exempt ‘stranded Kuwaitis’ fromdecision to allow less passengers

Total of 1,365 passengers arrived, while 3,635 departed

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27: The con-cerned offi cials at the Directorate Gen-eral of Civil Avia-tion (DGCA) recent-ly issued a directive to airlines operat-ing at Kuwait In-ternational Airport to exempt Kuwaiti families, elderly and students stranded abroad and in tran-sit destinations from the decision to re-duce the number of arriving passen-gers daily and allow them to immediately return to Kuwait on humanitarian grounds, reports Al-Qabas daily quoting a reliable source.

Speaking to the daily, the source revealed the proposed excluded cases will be studied and con-sidered separately based on the statement of the airlines; taking into con-sideration the health regu-lations and their current destinations. The source affi rmed there will be fl exibility and easing pro-cedures for Kuwaiti fami-lies and elderly stranded abroad including those in transit.

The source urged every-one to refrain from travel-ing at the moment due to the spread of the new strain of coronavirus, explaining that the decision to reduce the number of arriving passen-gers is aimed at preserving the health system and it will continue until Feb 6.

On the flights which were canceled due to the decision to reduce the number of passengers arriving in Kuwait, the source asserted the instructions of the con-cerned DGCA officials are clear in this regard; as the tourism and travel compa-nies are obligated to recover the value of the ticket in line with the directives.

ReduceMeanwhile, Director of

Air Transport Department at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) Abdullah Al-Rajhi dis-closed that after the deci-sion to reduce the number of passengers arriving at Kuwait International Airport, 32 flights arrived and 33 departed recently, reports Al-Anba daily.

Confirming the full coop-eration of all companies operating at the airport to ensure proper implementa-tion of the decision, Al-Rajhi said a total of 1,365 passengers arrived in the country; while the num-ber of departures to various destinations reached 3,635.

He said about 600 domes-tic workers with valid resi-dency permits enter Kuwait daily; affirming the corre-sponding fees are borne by the sponsors as per the agreement with the compa-nies that provide ground services and such fees should not increase.

He explained an arriving domestic worker is received from the airplane door through the interior and customs procedures until arrival at the quarantine center in cooperation with the Ministry of Health. He added the concerned com-pany conducts the first, sec-ond and third examination procedures; as well as pro-vide meals and other ser-vices.

He added that about 3,100 domestic workers have arrived in Kuwait so far, confirming full commit-ment to health regulations in order to prevent trans-mission of coronavirus from the workers to their sponsors.

KUNA photoHH the PM meets IPU president.

KUNA photo

FM with IPU president.

PM receives IPU president FM meets IPU presidentHis Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, on Wednesday, received President of Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Duarte Pacheco on the occasion of his offi cial visit to the country.

MP Dr Saleh Theyab Al-Mutairi attended the meet-ing.

Earlier on Tuesday, Pacheco arrived in Kuwait for an offi cial four-day visit.

Upon arrival, Pacheco was received by National As-sembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim, Head of the Hon-orary Mission Saleh Al-Mutairi, and National Assembly Secretary General Allam Al-Kanderi. (KUNA)

Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah received at the General Offi ce of the Foreign Affairs Ministry on Wednesday, the visiting President of the International Parliamentary Union (IPU) Duarte Pacheco, and his accompanying delegation.

The meeting was attended by Foreign Minister Assis-tant for his Offi ce Affairs Ambassador Saleh Al-Lougha-ni, Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister for Development and International Plenipotentiary Minister Nasser Al-Subaih, Deputy Assistant Minister for Foreign Minis-ter’s Offi ce Affairs, Counselor Ahmad Al-Shuraim, and a number of senior offi cials in the Foreign Affairs Min-istry. (KUNA)

Arab Open University virtual conference.

‘Education is the tributary of development’

‘Education is the tributary of development’

AOU celebrates International Day of Education

AOU celebrates International Day of Education

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27: The Arab Open University (AOU) celebrated the International Day of Education at its premises in Kuwait via a virtual cel-ebration under the title “Education is the tributary of development”, reports Al-Seyassah daily.

The event was held under the patron-age of the Chairman of its Board of Trustees in the Arab World Prince Ab-dulaziz bin Talal bin Abdulaziz.

Participating in the event were Acting Director of the UNESCO Regional Offi ce in the Arab World, Hamad Al-Sai, rep-

resenting Microsoft, the President of the Arab Open University, Prof. Muhammad Al-Zakri, the university’s senior manage-ment and a number of its students.

Nasser Al-Qahtani, Executive Di-rector of the Arab Gulf Program AG-FUND, who attended the ceremony on behalf of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Program, congratulated Prince Abdulaziz bin Talal on the occa-sion of the International Day of Educa-tion, praising him for his contribution to achieving the requirements of sustain-able development.

For his part, Prof. Nayef Bajad Al-Mutairi, Vice-President for Academic Affairs and Scientifi c Research, referred to the university’s efforts to ensure the continuation of the educational process for all its students in Kuwait and the Arab world in light of the corona pan-demic.

Omar Al-Jarrah, Vice-President for Planning and Development, speaking on the most important praised the technical solutions provided by the university to overcome learning diffi culties during this global pandemic.

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27: The Arab Open University (AOU) celebrated the International Day of Education at its premises in Kuwait via a virtual cel-ebration under the title “Education is the tributary of development”, reports Al-Seyassah daily.

The event was held under the pa-tronage of the Chairman of its Board of Trustees in the Arab World Prince Abdulaziz bin Talal bin Abdulaziz.

Participating in the event were Act-ing Director of the UNESCO Regional Offi ce in the Arab World, Hamad Al-Sai, representing Microsoft, the President of the Arab Open Univer-sity, Prof. Muhammad Al-Zakri, the university’s senior management and a number of its students.

Nasser Al-Qahtani, Executive Director of the Arab Gulf Program AGFUND, who attended the cer-emony on behalf of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Program, congratulated Prince Abdulaziz bin Talal on the occasion of the Interna-tional Day of Education, praising him for his contribution to achieving the requirements of sustainable develop-ment.

For his part, Prof. Nayef Bajad Al-Mutairi, Vice-President for Academic Affairs and Scientifi c Research, re-ferred to the university’s efforts to ensure the continuation of the educa-tional process for all its students in Ku-

wait and the Arab world in light of the corona pandemic.

Omar Al-Jarrah, Vice-President for Planning and Development, speaking

on the most important praised the tech-nical solutions provided by the univer-sity to overcome learning diffi culties during this global pandemic.

KUNA photo

HH the Amir with HH the Crown Prince.

about the same issue, particularly the comments of the State Audit Bureau (SAB) on the infrastructure and techni-cal support contract that the Communica-tion and Information Technology Regu-latory Authority (CITRA) signed with Sandvine. He asked if there is any other contract signed by the two parties, if they signed a contract for monitoring sociaal media and the internet, and the strategy of CITRA in intensifying cyber security.

MP Badr Al-Humaidi submitted ques-tions to interim Minister of Commerce and Industry and State Minister for Eco-nomic Affairs Faisal Al-Medlej about the request of the Environment Public Authority (EPA) to transfer supervision of rainwater drainage systems under it, on grounds that such facilities are ille-gally used for other purposes. He wants to know if the request of EPA is legal and if this is part of its functions as per Law No. 42/2014.

MP Osama Al-Shaheen forwarded queries to interim Minister of Finance Khalifa Hamada about the decision that the former minister Barrak Al-Shitan issued on Aug 24, 2020 on offering partnership enterprises for public sub-scription in accordance with the Islamic Sharia. He asked if this decision will be implemented, companies covered by the decision, and the situation of companies which were established prior to the issu-ance of the decision.

In another development, MP Muham-mad Hadi Al-Hewaila submitted a pro-posal to establish a permanent health center at Kuwait International Airport to conduct the required medical tests for returning expatriate workers and those coming to Kuwait for the first time. He said it usually takes many days for expa-triate workers to complete the necessary medical tests due to the small number of centers allocated for this purpose; hence, the transmission of infectious diseases to citizens. He proposed that the sponsors – individuals or companies – will shoulder the expenses for the return of expatriate workers to their home countries once proven that the workers have infectious diseases.

MP Fares Al-Otaibi has proposed obligating Kuwait National Petroleum Corporation (KNPC) to regularly pub-lish advertisements for the recruitment of Kuwaiti engineers. He called for eas-ing the conditions for appointing Kuwaiti engineers, such as reducing the minimum rating in the graduation certificates to ‘good’, increase the maximum number of years since the issuance of gradua-tion certificates from two to four years, accepting applicants after passing a spe-cial training course instead of interview-ing them, and increase the maximum age to 30 years old in consideration of those who graduated from foreign institutes where the educational system requires longer years for completing the degree.

MP Badr Al-Humaidi submitted a bill for the Ministry of Social Affairs to establish a mutual fund for supporting citizens with an initial capital of KD 50 million which will be taken from the fol-lowing sources:

■ 25 percent from the annual oil rev-

enues■ 50 percent from the annual revenues

of EPA, Public Institution for Social Se-curity (PIFSS) and Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED)

■ Revenues and profits of the mutual fund

■ Donations from individuals and enti-ties

■ Compensation that some people pay to seek forgiveness from God for obtain-ing money illegally

The bill stipulates that the fund will grant financial support to needy families and interest-free loans to retirees.

MP Abdullah Al-Turaiji has proposed amendment of Law No. 2/2016 on the establishment of Kuwait Anti-Corruption Authority (Nazaha) in order to put Naz-aha under the Supreme Judiciary Coun-cil. The proposal states that Nazaha will be headed by a seven-member Board of Trustees nominated by the relevant min-ister and upon approval of the council’s chairman.

According to the proposal, the mem-bers and chairman of the Board of Trus-tees will work full time at Nazaha so they will be required to give up their other jobs. They will occupy their posts for one term nonrenewable. They should have a good reputation with minimum experi-ence of 15 years in investigating money laundering and financing terrorism cases.

MPs Ali Al-Qattan, Fares Al-Otaibi, Mubarak Al-Arow, Muhammad Al-Ra-jhi and Ahmed Al-Hamad submitted a bill on ensuring job security for citizens working in the private sector.

The bill mandates PIFSS to establish a fund which will pay the salaries of citi-zens in case they lose their private sec-tor jobs – 65 percent of the last salary received before being fired from work and the reason for dismissal should not be a court decision on a disqualifying criminal offense. They must have worked for at least six months before losing their jobs and are registered at the Manpower and Government Restructuring Program (MGRP) as job seekers. Payment of the salary is stopped once the beneficiary re-fuses to enroll in training courses which will qualify them for a new job and if they refuse a job offered by MGRP.

Moreover, MP Osama Al-Menawer criticized the statements of interim Min-ister of Finance Khalifa Hamada that the State budget is in a critical situation and the deficit has reached KD 12 billion.

He argued the real issue is the wrong enforcement of Article 140 of the Con-stitution, which mandates “the State to prepare the comprehensive annual budget scheme of its revenues and expenditure and submit it to the National Assembly at least two months before the close of the fiscal year for examination and ratifica-tion.”

He pointed out the successive gov-ernments have been submitting budgets focusing more on expenditures than rev-enues. He said only 37 percent of the total revenues of the State goes to the public treasury which gives a wrong impression and shows ‘fake’ deficit. He urged the in-terim government to rectify this mistake and implement Article 140 of the Constitu-tion properly, away from partial solutions such as resorting to borrowing and impos-ing tax. He affirmed none of the MPs will approve the proposal to impose tax.

Bloomberg ‘Sandvine’Continued from Page 1

Envoy calls on defence minThe Indian Ambassador to Kuwait, H.E. Sibi George called on His Excel-lency Sheikh Hamad Jaber Al-Ali Al-Sabah, the Minister of Defence.

Both sides discussed bilateral ties, ways of enhancing cooperation in all matters especially defence and securi-ty and other matters of mutual interest.

Ambassador Sibi George with the minister of defence.

LOCALARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2021

5

‘Cast aside differences, pull out Kuwait from gradual decay’“I never doubt the sincere intentions of all Kuwaitis, as well as the case of all parties to the political conflict. There is no doubt that they love Kuwait, but from a different perspective, whether this perspective has its social, interest, scientific, logical or ideological dimensions, and here each person may take a different stand on a specific issue, and the war for positions may turn into a war of persons. The difference of views between the parties has often led to a war and conflict that extend for many years,” columnist Dr Anwar Al-Shrai’an wrote for Al-Shahed daily.

“There is no winner and no loser in continuing conflicts between the people of one country, sometimes the beneficiary is a third party who is happy with everything that harms Kuwait and impedes its progress.

“Yes, there is competition between people, whether members of the ruling family or others to play bigger roles but the congestion that we have reached today is a result of the transformation of differences of positions and ideas and conflicts of interest sometimes into a war of people, a war that has lasted for years and will not reap any benefits but turn everything to ashes.

“Kuwait today needs everyone to be convinced that we all love our country, and we owe allegiance to His Highness the Amir and His Highness the Crown Prince, and are committed to the Constitution as an approach to managing the state and the specificity of our Kuwaiti system that mixes between the presidential system and the parliamentary system, after that we must deal with each other according to the principle of issues, so we struggle about the case and its details. Who is my oppo-nent in this case?

“Kuwaitis are not machines, their condition is the condition of human beings, you will not find someone who agrees with you 100% except in two cases, either you disabled your mind and started listening to his thoughts with your heart, or he did so, because every person has his thoughts, beliefs, infor-mation, experiences, personality and way of thinking that is unique to anyone else, even if they are identical twins.

“This is a fact that cannot be rejected, and therefore it must be applied to everyone around us, whether near or far, an enemy or a friend, and we must also acknowledge that God Almighty created us and we commit sins, we are not angels, so whoever searches for a person without mistakes will die looking for faults, perhaps he will find them in the Garden of Eternity after we forfeit our desires.

“To sum it up, Kuwait today needs to cast aside the differences and accept the others opinions and sit with opponents at the tables of dialogue and find solutions to extricate Kuwait out of this dangerous retreat at all levels, save the future for our children, rebuild our economy again, fight corruption and corrupt people, and reform the state’s flabby organizational structure.”

Also:“When we watch our old plays, and compare the problems that the citizen

suffered from we become certain that we have been suffering from the same problems for many decades, with different times, data and leaderships. We are still debating about them and we are in the same labyrinth and we have not and will not reach a conclusion,” columnist Tariq Al-Darbas wrote for Al-Anba daily.

“Our political struggles are as they are, the scene has been heating up over those decades, and the government apparatus is still flabby and unable to resolve the outstanding issues for a long time, and the reason is that “the sys-tems are idle”. By the system, I mean a malfunction, which is our democratic system based on individual work and not collective action according to work programs.

“Even when our democratic system makes a simple achievement and elimi-nates the by-elections at a time which is one of the negative aspects of our electoral system over the past decades, the system was changed and political currents were dismantled to return to square one.

“It is natural that a parliamentarian who won the elections with a few votes will seek to clear transactions to ensure a return to his parliamentary seat and for political escalation against the government in order to win the people’s satisfaction, and it is a legitimate right for a parliamentarian under a sterile electoral system in which the leadership is in the hands of the street.

“In our current electoral system, the fate of a representative who cooperates with the government for reform and rational work shall be catastrophic failure and downfall in the subsequent elections and the results of the 2016 Assembly is an example, and the evidences are many.

“Under the current system, a representative cannot lay down reform laws that achieve sustainability of resources but rather seeks popular laws that achieve the sustainability of the parliamentary seat. As for the government, we sometimes find that there are diligent ministers, but when they are on a colli-sion course with senior officials in the ministry (the deep state), they lose their ministerial positions at first sight.

“What is worse than that is if it is necessary to make important and sustain-able decisions and legislate solutions, those decisions may face the specter of their unpopularity and the result will be a clash with the street, a conflict with the Assembly losing the ministerial seat, so that another person comes trying to keep the issue as it is and here we can say a minister is the weakest link in this sterile political system.

“I think all that we are experiencing in terms of crisis and what we see in terms of practices are the superficial results of a problem that has its deep foundation in malfunction. The problem is not with the representatives and it is not with the diligent ministers, but rather the democratic system.

“Real reform begins by reforming the core of the problem in an electoral system based on collective action, and through proportional lists through which the government is formed in order to maintain its stability and strength and the

actual ability to lead, accomplish and revive the nation.“In conclusion, I believe we urgently need to reform our malfunctioning

system, not its consequences.”❑ ❑ ❑

“In the Sultanate of Oman, 16 percent of the total expatriate workers left the country so far. The rope is on the tractor, meaning that the departure of expatri-ate workers continues batch by batch. It is expected that the percentage will reach 1/3rd during the first quarter of this year,” Talal Al-Saeed wrote for Al-Seyassah daily.

“Even if the 1/3rd expatriate population leaves, it does not mean the number becomes very less, as the number of expats remaining is very large. At the same time, life there has not stopped and the service sector has not been affected. In fact, the vision is almost clearer for the decision-maker, after the trend has become replacement of expatriates with nationals.

“All of this is happening in complete silence and calm, far from any external interference and pressure. There is no immigration minister who interferes, or a foreign minister who visits Oman. They all know the red lines that they are forbidden to cross either from near or from afar. This has been the Sultanate’s policy since the time of Sultan Qaboos until now.

“Here in Kuwait, we have not had the same number of expats leaving the country like in Oman. The pressure on us is continuing; we are still taking one step forward and two steps back in the matter of modifying the demographic structure. According to an official statement, the demographic structure of the country should become 30 percent expatriates compared to 70 percent citizens!”

❑ ❑ ❑

“Since the liberation of Kuwait from the brutal and unjust Iraqi invasion, we have been remembering the “lesson and sermon” several times a year. We remember it on August 2 every year, and on January 17 as well as on February 26”, columnist Waleed Jassem Al-Jassem wrote for Al-Rai daily.

“Thirty years have passed, and we celebrate the memory several times every year. In these past years, we have breathed a lot from our anger, pain, and shock, but do we hold ourselves accountable? Where were we? Where did they get? Where will we be?

“During the months of the invasion, many of our faults and the faults of oth-ers were revealed to us, just as many of our positives and the positives of others crystallized before us. However, did we benefit from that? Have we overcome our faults and fixed them? Have we strengthened our advantages and strengths?

“I know the answer exactly, just as everyone who reads these words knows it. I cannot help but call again to take notice of what happened, and to start again. We know that the opportunity that seldom comes will return, and as long as there is a new opportunity, there is hope for a new beginning? Should we do that or will we end up wasting another 30 years?”

— Compiled by Ahmad Al-Shazli

Other Voices

Dr Al-Shrai’an

Other Voices

Better than thousand menBy Ahmad Alsarraf

Angela is a woman and a wife and does not complain of any male

symptoms. She is full of femininity and is proud of that. She fears, like most women, many things such as dogs and mice. Despite she was born to a pastor, she grew up in a radical political atmosphere in East Germany in 1954, under C o m m u n i s t rule, and fol-lowed her f a t h e r ’ s Protestant reli-gion, despite being a mem-ber of secular youth organizations. She mastered the Russian language and mathematics, studied physics, and obtained a Doctorate in chemis-try, and she has many research papers.

Shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, she subsequently saw the unifi-cation of Germany, Angela worked hard persistently and became a Member of Parliament (Bundestag) in 1990. She was successful six times in the federal elections. In 1994 she became the Federal Minister for Women and Youth in the Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Ministry, and her political life did not stop developing for the better.

In 2000 she became the first woman, I repeat a woman, the leader of a major German party of hundreds of men under her command and in one of the world’s greatest prestigious and economic countries, respectful and strong.

Angela strengthened her position through economic and social reform plans, more supportive of the European Union, and sought to change the German labor law, remove barriers to layoffs and increase the permissible number of working hours per week, and got rid of laws that limited the ability of the German economy to compete, because compa-nies cannot easily control labor costs when business is slow.

In November 2005, Angela, or Mrs. Merkel became ‘All-German’

Chancellor, and the leader of 80 mil-lion people, including 40 million men. This did not carp Germany, but, under her leadership, to this day, Germany is the best country in every-thing. This woman enjoyed good rela-tions with American presidents and President Putin and she set a record for attending eleven world summits.

The New York Times described Angela as “the last defender of the liberal West” and “the leader of the free world”, and she is a female, and no country or other leaders carp.

In 1977 Angela married physics stu-dent Ulrich Merkel, from whom she took the family name. The marriage ended in divorce and she remarried professor of quantum physics, Joachim Sauer. She had no children from both experiences, but the sober German “Der Spiegel” described her as the mother of Germany. This woman topped Forbes magazine’s list of the 100 most powerful women for the years 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. She was also named by Statesman maga-zine in 2010 the 50 most influential figures in the world, and she was awarded the highest titles, honors and honorary doctorates from the most prestigious scientific bodies.

Merkel is the first female German chancellor - who grew up in the for-mer East Germany, the youngest chan-cellor since World War II, the first female chancellor born after World War II, and the first female chancellor with a doctorate in natural sciences.

As for this woman - how worse our view of women is - is the one who opened the borders of her country to more than a million Arab refugees fleeing our male countries, and gave them safety, warmth and nationality, which we all failed to provide.

***Is this wonderful biography of a

great head of state not enough in everything, and tens of thousands of other examples, for many of our back-ward people to change their view of women, and that she is already fully qualified to be a mother, wife, sister, leader and head of state?

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email: a.alsarraf@alqabas.com.kw

Photo by Mahmoud JadeedAll kinds of fish on display at a counter in the Souq Sharq fish market.

‘Zubaidi scarce ... rate manipulation will not be allowed’Ministry of Commerce and Industry says all types of fish are available in the market, including the local and the imported ones. They include about 12 to 13 vari-eties, and their prices are afford-able for everyone, reports Al-Qabas daily.

Even though the ministry

affirmed the availability of all types of fish at affordable prices, the Silver Pomfret (Zubaidi) fish is subject to scarcity and lack of supply in addition to the season-ality of the fishery, but the minis-try stressed that it will not allow any unjustified price increase.

In a press statement, the minis-

try explained that every day between five tons to 40 tons of imported fish and four tons to six tons of local fish enter the market. Fishing Zubaidi fish depends on the decisions of the Public Authority for Agricultural Affairs and Fish Resources (PAAAFR) to determine the start and end of the

fishing season of Zubaidi fish, as well as the sizes that are allowed to be traded in the market.

In addition, the ministry closed a company through administra-tive closure after discovering that the company violated the law pertaining to regulations of fish auction markets.

Duo jailed, fined KD 128 millionFraud victims sold elusive real estate

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27: In a case related to real-estate fraud and money laundering, the Criminal Court sentenced an Iraqi expatriate to seven-year imprisonment and a Kuwaiti citizen to two-year imprisonment with hard labor, fined them jointly a sum of KD 128 million, and ordered them to pay compensa-tion of KD 5,001 to each of their victims, reports Al-Anba daily.

The Public Prosecution had referred the defendants to trial on charges related to money laundering of KD 64 million and 294,000 which were collected from the victims for the purpose of investing in the real estate field through the two defen-dants’ companies. Later, the money was transferred to the defendants’ accounts with the purpose of disguising and con-cealing their source.

The two defendants were accused of fraud and misappropriation of KD 3 million and 379,000 using

ment of 250 lawyers in the Fatwa and Legislation Department, consid-ering their appointment as violation of the relevant law, after the passing mark of the written test scores were reduced from 12 to 10, reports Al-Rai daily.

According to the case files, the plaintiff petitioned the appointment decision after his name did not appear on the list of the applicants who passed the personal interview and written test.

He argued that some of those who were appointed got less marks than he did and were even under-qualified, and that the department that issued the list failed to address his inquiries in this regard, prompting him to file a legal law-suit.

The court faulted the process by which the written tests were marked, stating that the marking officers were able to view the civil ID num-ber and the name of the applicant, which is against the principles of transparency implemented in such settings.

The court’s ruling considered the fact that the administration sent a letter to the Kuwait Institute for Judicial Studies.

It stated that the reduction of the acceptance mark “undermines the principle of transparency and impar-tiality” and its absence raises fears of infiltration practices that violate legitimacy.

alsarraf

The Public Relations Department at the Kuwait Municipality announced the Public Cleaning and Road Works Department of the Hawalli Governorate Municipality branch, during a field tour of Al-Shaab Marine Park lifted 10 vehicles and 10 boats which were abandoned in the vicinity of the park, reports Al-Seyassah daily. The Director of the Public Cleaning and Road Works Department at the Capital Governorate Municipality Branch, Muhammad Al-Jaba’a, said in a press statement the aim of the intensive field campaigns is to monitor

violators and take all legal measures.

fraudulent methods by deluding the victims about the existence of a false project and creating hope for a false profit by announcing in the media outlets the opening of the door to invest in real estate with their com-panies through the sale and purchase of chalets.

The counsel to some of the plain-tiffs Lawyer Ali Al-Ali affirmed that

the accusation against the defen-dants and their criminal intent were proven through them committing an act of fraud and deceiving the vic-tims in order to make them surren-der their money.

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Decision revoked: The Admin-istration Court revoked the appoint-

News in Brief

200 kg drugs seized: Two persons who attempted to smuggle a large amount of narcotics into the country were detained, the Ministry of Interior said Wednesday.

According to a ministry statement, some 200 kilograms of hashish were found in their possession.

The detainees, who dumped the shipment in sea, were along with confiscated goods, referred to relevant authorities, pending legal action, noted the statement. (KUNA)

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Procedure nullified: The Court of Appeals overturned the verdict issued by a lower court and nullified the procedure taken by a bank to deduct the entire salary of a citizen as the value of the monthly installment of a loan - deduction that exceeded 40 percent of the plaintiff’s sal-ary, thus cancelling the entire procedure and its repercussions, most notably what was deducted in excess, says Al-Seyassah.

According to the case file, the citizen’s counsel Lawyer Jassim Al-Tuwaitan explained that his client works as a secu-rity and safety inspector at the Public

Authority for Minors Affairs and receives a net salary of KD 970.

He had borrowed some money from the defendant bank, and accordingly his sala-ry was transferred to the bank. However, he was surprised that the bank had deduct-ed his entire salary for the payment of the debt, and he had nothing left in his bal-ance to sustain himself with.

Lawyer Al-Tuwaitan invoked article 2 of decree-law No. 15/1979 regarding the civil service which states that, “It is not permissible to make a deduction or impose seizure of the amounts payable by the government to the employee in any capacity except for the fulfillment of the alimony decid-ed by the judiciary or the required of the government from the employee due to a reason related to his job or to recover what was disbursed to him unlawfully.

Al-Tuwaitan

LOCAL/GULFARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2021

6

CPR courses organized for physicians & nursing staff

Training ups first aid skills

By Marwa Al-BahrawiAl-Seyassah Staff

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27: The Farwaniya Health District is organizing Card-iopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) courses for nursing staff and physicians in cooperation with the Medical Emergency Depar-tment at Al-Omarah Family Medicine Health Center.

The Director of the Medical Emergency Department at the Ministry of Health, Munther Al-Jalahma, said the Training Center in Farwaniya Health Zone is the fourth that the Ministry of Health has established for training in first aid and special courses in cooperation with the American Heart Association, noting its importance for all medical sectors to contribute to saving the lives and raising the skills of providing first aid and medical treatments in case of heart failures.

Al-Jalahma announced there is ten-dency to increase the number of train-ing centers in all health districts, point-ing out that the four centers which are affiliated to the Ministry of Health are located in the Capital, Ahmadi, Al-Sabah and Al-Farwaniya health regions.

After the training is completed the participant is given certificate by the American Heart Association and is internationally and regionally accred-ited. He noted the ministry coordinat-ed with the American Heart Association to train the medical staff online on CPR courses, due to the outbreak of the Corona pandemic.

CPR course in progress.

Foreign schools students taking paper exams.

Ministry of Health accused of ‘double standard’ policyBy Abdul Rahman Al-Shimmari

Al-Seyassah Staff

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27: Foreign pri-vate schools began organizing paper tests for students inside schools after obtaining the approval of the health authorities, while the Ministry of Health is strictly adhering to its rules and regulations to continue distance education for public schools in what looks like a clear case of double stan-dard in dealing with students of private schools and public schools.

Education sources said the Ministry of Education has received an official letter from some foreign schools call-ing for paper-based tests and that it would adhere to all the necessary health requirements, explaining that the Ministry of Education confirmed the decision has the approval of the

Ministry of Health. The private for-eign schools are said to have given their commitment to social distancing and adhering to other health require-ments.

The sources clarified that the Ministry of Education had earlier sub-mitted several requests to the Ministry of Health to approve paper-based tests for students in public schools, but its request was rejected under the pretext of health status and the inability to fulfill health requirements, explaining that the ministry presented an inte-grated plan for returning to traditional education and set up a mechanism including all requirements, but it did not succeed in convincing the Ministry of Health, while it appears the foreign schools have succeeded in convincing the Ministry of Health to hold paper tests.

Adhere to ‘health’rules: Municipality

By Abdel Nasser Al-AslamiAl-Seyassah Staff

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27: The Head of the Violation Removal Department in the Capital Governorate Branch, Engr Abdullah Jaber, said if the salon owners do not comply with proper health regulations, a direct violation will be issued and in case of serious violation a salon may be shut down.

He added salons that are issued citations due to non-compliance with health requirements will be moni-tored by the municipality inspectors, and the materials used in salons must be con-stantly sterilized so that the epidemic does not spread among its customers.

‘TGS’ presents Dr DavenportKUWAIT CITY, Jan 27: The next episode of The Guest Show on Radio Kuwait International English Service Presents Dr Lavinia Davenport. Dr Davenport is a YouTuber, a doc-umentary filmmaker, writer and a podcaster. In Kuwait, she co-founded and co-hosted At My Kuwaiti Table, a unique podcast set around the Kuwaiti meal table featuring Kuwait based women achievers.

What makes Dr Davenport special is her warmth, authentic-ity and earthiness – her Infectious energy and liveliness. A fierce and loyal friend, she touches lives wherever she goes. In this episode of The Guest Show, Dr Lavinia Davenport speaks of her life journey, her various adven-tures as a YouTuber, podcaster and filmmaker and her take-aways from her years in Kuwait.

The Guest Show poster

Cooperation between Kuwait and Qatar praised

Qatar graduates 10 Kuwaiti pilotsDOHA, Jan 27, (KUNA): Al Zaeem (Leader) Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al Attiyah Air College held earlier on Wednesday the graduation ceremonies of ten Kuwaiti officers from the Kuwaiti Army and Kuwait National Guards (KNG), of the eighth batch of student officers’ air force pilots, and supporting majors including 85 gradu-ates.

The Kuwaiti military attache at the Kuwaiti Embassy in Qatar Colonel Nasser Al-Hujaili said in remarks to KUNA on the sidelines of the ceremo-nies that the graduating Kuwaitis include four from the Kuwaiti Army and six from the KNG.

The Kuwaiti graduates fulfilled all the major requirements during their studies of air sciences, he said.

Kuwaiti cadet officer Shamlan Abdulaziz Al-Khaldi from the Kuwaiti Army won the first place at the major of fighters director, as the graduation ceremonies included honoring the batch’s top ten.

A total of 16 students officers from the Kuwaiti Army will celebrate their graduation from Ahmad bin Mohammed Military College in Qatar, he said.

He praised the distinguished coop-eration between Kuwait and Qatar at all levels, especially in the military training the development.

The political leaderships at both nations are working to boost such cooperation, a matter noticed in the increasing number of Kuwaiti gradu-ated from various military faculties at Qatar, he affirmed.

The military cooperation between both countries include all kinds if armed forces, including the air force in order to exchange expertise and boos military capabilities, and conducting joint military trainings, he said.

The graduation was attended by the

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27: The “Be Aware” campaign,”Diraya” in Arabic, launched its inaugural video, introduc-ing banks, their role and the impor-tance of the various services they pro-vide.

This effort is part of the Central Bank of Kuwait’s (CBK) drive to increase the financial awareness of various segments of society, its direc-tion for Kuwaiti banks towards expanding and strengthening the role of the Kuwaiti banking sector in social responsibility, and within the scope of the activities of the banking awareness campaign “Diraya”. The campaign was launched by the CBK in collabo-ration with Kuwaiti banks and man-aged by the Kuwait Banking Association (KBA). It aims to spread and increase financial awareness to a wider segment of society.

The CBK stated that the banking awareness campaign “Diraya” covers diverse topics, including the role of banks as financial intermediaries.Banks are defined as “institutions

Kuwaiti Ambassador to Qatar Hafith Mohammad Al-Ajmi, and the head of the General Presidency delegation of

the Kuwaiti Of KNG, Associate Operations and Training assistant, Major General Faleh Shujaa’ Faleh.

whose primary function is to accept deposits for use in banking operations, like granting loans, advances, issuing and collecting checks, trading in for-eign currencies and precious metals, and other credit operations”.

The CBK also stressed the impor-tance of such campaigns which are a

great means to educate customers of their rights and protection dictated by the CBK through its instructions to the banking sector.

More information on the Diraya cam-paign and its objectives, as well as campaign content, is available through its official website: www.dirayakw.com

KUNA photosGraduation ceremonies of ten Kuwaiti officers from the Kuwaiti Army and

Kuwait National Guards.

‘Diraya’ campaign

Central Bank of Kuwait highlights financial awareness

Two sides agree on amending timetable

‘Diraya’ launches inaugural video on role of banks

GCC, Jordan okay cooperation in various sectorsAMMAN, Jan 27, (KUNA): Jordan and the GCC agreed on Tuesday on the prior bases for future cooperation in the sectors of health, agriculture, food security, transports, trade and investments.

The understanding was reached dur-ing a meeting that grouped the GCC Secretary General with the Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Al-Safadi.

The Jordanian Foreign Ministry said in a statement the two sides agreed on amending the timetable of the joint cooperation action (2013-2018) setting the time frame at 2021-2025. They also agreed on resuming meetings of the joint teams at dates to be discussed later.

Moreover, the two sides discussed activation of the strategic dialogue, as underlined by Al-Ula summit, noting that the strategic dialogue would be examined by the foreign ministers at a future meeting.

Al-Hajraf and Al-Safadi, moreover, examined some of the resolutions that had been taken at Al-Ula summit with respect of boosting stability and devel-opment in Jordan.

King Abdullah II of Jordan on Tuesday affirmed keenness on boost-ing cooperation with the GCC coun-tries and bolstering further “the solid partnership” between Amman and

these countries.The Royal Court said in a statement

that the monarch, during a meeting with the GCC Secretary General, Nayef Al-Hajraf, welcomed outcome of Al-Ula summit, adding that talks between the two sides dealt with Arab and regional issues, namely the Palestinian cause, where the monarch re-affirmed necessity of finding a just settlement to the cause on the two states’ basis.

King Abdullah also emphasized necessity of unifying the Arabs’ ranks and boosting joint action.

Separately, Al-Hjraf met with Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh who underlined the brotherly relations between Jordan and the GCC countries.

Al-Hajraf noted necessity of the 15 joint committees that cover various forms of cooperation between Jordan and the GCC. Secretary General of the Cooperation Council (GCC) Nayef Al-Hajraf, stressed Tuesday, the impor-tance of the strategic relationship that links GCC system with Jordan and the sincere desire to push cooperation efforts for benefit of both sides.

In a statement to KUNA, at the con-clusion of a one-day visit to Jordan, Al-Hajraf said that Jordan is very important to the GCC system, as this

visit is to confirm this strategic rela-tionship.

Regarding his visit to the Kingdom, Al-Hajraf said that the visit is follow-ing Al-Ula summit in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the fifth of January, 2021, and its statement, which speaks in one of its articles about cooperation between GCC countries and Jordan, and the council’s keenness on the security and stability of Jordan and supporting development efforts in it, for the benefit of both sides.

And on the meetings he had with Jordan’s King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein, Prime Minister Dr. Bicher Al-Khasawneh and the talks held with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, Al-Hajraf said the meetings showed the impor-tance of the strategic relations between GCC and Jordan and the existence of a sincere desire to push this relationship forward.

The meeting of senior officials in the Council and Jordan that was held yes-terday had completed with number of steps aimed at activating the common teams between the two parties, he said, as it also focused on some priority issues, especially after covid-19 pan-demic, such as health and food security, agricultural, economic, and transport.

INTERNATIONALARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2021

7

China

‘Probe US military lab’

China ‘sows doubts’on virus origin, jabsTAIPEI, Taiwan, Jan 27, (AP): Chinese state media have stoked concerns about Pfi zer’s COVID-19 vaccine, despite rigorous trials indicating it is safe. A government spokesper-son has raised the unsubstantiated theory that the coronavirus could have emerged from a US military lab, giving it more credence in China.

As the ruling Communist Party faces growing question-ing about China’s vaccines and renewed criticism of its early COVID-19 response, it is hitting back by encouraging con-spiracy theories that some experts say could cause harm.

State media and offi cials are sowing doubts about Western vaccines and the origin of the coronavirus in an apparent bid to defl ect the attacks. Both issues are in the spotlight because of the rollout of vaccines globally and the recent arrival of a World Health Organization team in Wuhan, China, to investi-

gate the origins of the virus. Some of these conspiracy theories

fi nd a receptive audience at home. The social media hashtag “American’s Ft. Detrick,” started by the Communist Youth League, was viewed at least 1.4 billion times last week after a Foreign Ministry spokesperson called for a WHO investigation of the biological weapons lab in Maryland.

“It’s purpose is to shift the blame from mishandling by (the) Chinese government in the pandemic’s early days to conspiracy by the US,” said

Fang Shimin, a now-US-based writer known for exposing faked degrees and other fraud in Chinese science. “The tactic is quite successful because of widespread anti-American senti-ment in China.”

Yuan Zeng, an expert on Chinese media at the University of Leeds in Great Britain, said the government’s stories spread so widely that even well-educated Chinese friends have asked her whether they might be true.

Infl aming doubts and spreading conspiracy theories might add to public health risks as governments try to dispel unease about vaccines, she said, saying, “That is super, super danger-ous.”

In the latest volley, state media called for an investigation into the deaths of 23 elderly people in Norway after they re-ceived the Pfi zer vaccine. An anchor at CGTN, the English-language station of state broadcaster CCTV, and the Global Times newspaper accused Western media of ignoring the news.

Vaccination Health experts say deaths unrelated to the vaccine are possi-

ble during mass vaccination campaigns, and a WHO panel has concluded that the vaccine did not play a “contributory role” in the Norway deaths.

The state media coverage followed a report by researchers in Brazil who found the effectiveness of a Chinese vaccine lower than previously announced. Researchers initially said Sinovac’s vaccine is 78% effective, but the scientists revised that to 50.4% after including mildly symptomatic cases.

After the Brazil news, researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a government-supported think tank, reported seeing an increase in Chinese media disinformation about vac-cines.

Dozens of online articles on popular health and science blogs and elsewhere have explored questions about the effec-tiveness of the Pfi zer vaccine at length, drawing on an op-ed published this month in the British Medical Journal that raised questions about its clinical trial data.

“It’s very embarrassing” for the government, Fang said in an email. As a result, China is trying to raise doubts about the Pfi zer vaccine to save face and promote its vaccines, he said.

Senior Chinese government offi cials have not been shy in voicing concerns about the mRNA vaccines developed by Western drug companies. They use a newer technology than the more traditional approach of the Chinese vaccines cur-rently in use.

In December, the director of the Chinese Centers for Dis-ease Control, Gao Fu, said he can’t rule out negative side ef-fects from the mRNA vaccines. Noting this is the fi rst time they are being given to healthy people, he said, “there are safety concerns.”

The Pfi zer mRNA vaccine and another one developed by Moderna have passed both animal and human trials in which they were tested on more than 70,000 people.

The arrival of the WHO mission has brought back persistent criticism that China allowed the virus to spread globally by reacting too slowly in the beginning, even reprimanding doc-tors who tried to warn the public. The visiting researchers will begin fi eld work this week after being released from a 14-day quarantine.

The Communist Party sees the WHO investigation as a po-litical risk because it focuses attention on China’s response, said Jacob Wallis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

The party wants to “distract domestic and international au-diences by pre-emptively distorting the narrative on where responsibility lies for the emergence of COVID-19,” Wallis said.

Evidence Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying got the ball

rolling last week by reviving earlier Chinese calls for a WHO investigation of the US military lab.

State media have referenced past scandals at the lab, but China has given no reliable evidence to support the corona-virus theory.

“If America respects the truth, then please open up Ft. Detrick and make public more information about the 200 or more bio-labs outside of the US, and please allow the WHO expert group to go to the US to investigate the origins,” Hua said.

Her comments, publicized by state media, became one of the most popular topics on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo.

China isn’t the only government to point fi ngers. Former US President Donald Trump, trying to defl ect blame for his government’s handling of the pandemic, said last year he had seen evidence the virus came from a Wuhan laboratory. While that theory has not been defi nitively ruled out, many experts think it is unlikely.

Also:BEIJING: The Chinese government said Wednesday that ac-tions like its warplanes fl ying near Taiwan last weekend are a warning against both foreign interference in Taiwan and any independence moves by the island.

Asked about the fl ights, Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Offi ce, said China’s military drills are to show the nation’s resolution to protect its national sover-eignty and territorial integrity.

“They are a stern warning against external interference and provocation from separatist forces advocating for Taiwan in-dependence,” she said at a regular briefi ng, giving the Chinese government’s fi rst offi cial comment on the recent fl ights.

China sent eight bombers and four fi ghter jets into Taiwan’s air defense identifi cation zone on Saturday, according to Tai-wan’s Defense Ministry. Taiwan scrambled fi ghters to monitor the activity.

The US State Department later issued a statement urging China “to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pres-sure against Taiwan” following China’s sizeable show of force.

China then sent 16 military aircraft into the same area on Sunday, Taiwan said.

Taiwan is a self-governing island about 160 kilometers (100 miles) off China’s east coast. The Chinese government regards it as a renegade province that should be united with mainland China.

Zhu said that China would not renounce the use of force to guard against separatist moves and foreign interference.

Gao

In this Jan 26 photo, President Joe Biden holds his face mask as he speaks on COVID-19, in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. Biden is dispatching the nation’s top scientists and public health experts to regularly brief the American public about the pandemic. Beginning Jan 27, the experts will host

briefi ngs three times a week on the state of the outbreak and efforts to control it. (AP)

Govt to reopen ‘Obamacare’ markets for COVID-19 relief

Biden calling up pros for virus briefi ngsWASHINGTON, Jan 27, (AP): For nearly a year it was the Trump show. Now President Joe Biden is calling up the nation’s top scientists and public health experts to regularly brief the American public about the pandemic that has claimed more than 425,000 US lives.

Beginning Wednesday, administra-tion experts will host briefi ngs three times a week on the state of the out-break, efforts to control it and the race to deliver vaccines and therapeutics to end it.

Expect a sharp contrast from the last administration’s briefi ngs, when public health offi cials were repeatedly undermined by a president who shared his unproven ideas without hesitation.

“We’re bringing back the pros to talk about COVID in an unvarnished way,” Biden told reporters Tuesday. “Any questions you have, that’s how we’ll handle them because we’re let-ting science speak again.”

The new briefi ngs, beginning just a week into Biden’s tenure, are meant as an explicit rejection of his prede-cessor’s approach to the coronavirus outbreak. President Donald Trump claimed center stage and muddled the message of the nation’s top public health experts in the critical early days of the virus and eventually largely muzzled them as the pandemic’s mor-tal toll grew steeper.

The new briefi ngs are part of Biden’s attempt to rebuild public confi dence in institutions, particularly the federal government, with a commitment to share the bad news with the good.

“I’ll always level with you about the state of affairs,” he said Tuesday, repeating a central pledge of his inau-gural address.

It’s a message that helped carry Biden to the White House. As a can-didate he warned that the nation faced a surge of coronavirus cases in what would be a “dark winter”; Trump, for his part, falsely claimed the worst of the virus was over.

Dr. David Hamer, a professor of global health and medicine at Boston University’s School of Public Health, said having briefi ngs from health of-fi cials that are “based on serious sci-ence” would go a long way toward improving public perceptions of the vaccine.

“There’s a certain amount of vac-cine hesitancy, and so educating peo-ple about the vaccine, how it works,

how safe it is and how it can protect against the disease but also slow trans-mission is really important,” he said.

The stakes for Biden, whose presi-dency hinges on his handling of the pandemic and the largest vaccination campaign in global history, could hardly be higher.

Biden is pushing a weary populace to recommit to social distancing meas-ures and mask-wearing, pointing to scientifi c models that suggest the prac-tices could save 50,000 lives over the coming months. He has insisted mem-bers of his administration model best behaviors for the country.

Those messages found few cham-pions in the former administration, as Trump openly fl outed science-based guidance from his own administra-tion. Face coverings were sparse at his reelection rallies and social distancing nearly nonexistent.

LeadingIn the weeks leading up to Biden’s

inauguration, the US set records in new cases and reported deaths almost by the day, as many states reimposed costly restrictions to slow the spread of the virus. Even so, Trump restricted media appearances by his top scientists and public health offi cials and contin-ued to spread misinformation.

Asked by CNN last week if the lack of candor from the Trump administra-tion about the virus had cost lives, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top in-fectious disease expert, replied, “You know, it very likely did.”

The Trump administration ended the practice of regular scientifi c briefi ngs early on in the pandemic, after Trump expressed anger over the dire warn-ings of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Nancy Messonnier in February about the threat from the virus.

Trump later told journalist Bob Woodward that he had been “playing it down” to avoid creating panic about the virus. Aides said he also was try-ing to protect the economy to boost his reelection prospects.

As the pandemic took hold in the US last spring, Trump adopted the position of a “wartime president,” holding ex-tended briefi ngs at the White House, where he - not science - was the star. Trump pointed to the strong television ratings for his early appearances and timed the sessions to overtake the na-tional evening news.

From the briefi ng room, Trump shared his skepticism about face cov-erings, despite the widespread conclu-sions of scientists that wearing a mask helps prevent the spread of the virus. He wondered aloud if Americans could ingest toxic bleach to kill the virus like cleaning a surface. He en-couraged governors to “reopen” their states, even as cases surged.

Wednesday’s briefi ng will be con-ducted virtually, rather than in per-son at the White House, to allow for questions from health journalists and to maintain a set timing no matter the schedule in the West Wing. It will feature Jeff Zients, the Biden admin-istration’s coordinator for pandemic response; his deputy, Andy Slavitt; Fauci; Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, the chair of Biden’s COVID-19 equality task force; and Dr. Rochelle Walen-sky, the director of the CDC.

It comes as government scientists, led by Fauci, have been making regu-lar media appearances to share their expertise in television and podcast interviews. Last week, Fauci called his current circumstances “liberating” and offered that “one of the new things in this administration is, if you don’t know the answer, don’t guess.”

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Fulfi lling a campaign promise, Pres-ident Joe Biden plans to reopen the HealthCare.gov insurance markets for a special sign-up opportunity geared to people needing coverage in the coro-navirus pandemic.

Biden is expected to sign an execu-tive order Thursday, said two people familiar with the plan, whose details were still being fi nalized. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the pending order ahead of a formal an-nouncement.

Although the number of uninsured Americans has grown because of job losses due to the economic hit of COV-ID-19, the Trump administration resisted calls to authorize a “special enrollment period” for people uninsured in the pandemic. Failure to repeal and replace “Obamacare” as he repeatedly vowed to do was one of former president Donald Trump’s most bitter disappointments. His administration continued trying to fi nd ways to limit the program or unravel it entirely. A Supreme Court decision on Trump’s fi nal legal challenge to the Af-fordable Care Act is expected this year.

America

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi inspects and watches the vaccina-tion processes to health workers at a hospital Wednesday, Jan. 27, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Health workers in Myanmar on Wednesday became the country’s fi rst people to get vac-cinated against COVID-19, just fi ve days after the fi rst vaccine supply was

delivered from India. (AP)

Prayuth Bundit

Court acquits 80-yr-old writer: An 80-year-old writer accused of defaming Thailand’s monarchy in 2015 because of comments he made at a public semi-nar about the constitution was acquitted Tuesday by the Criminal Court.

The court ruled that Bundit Aneeya had not violated the lese majeste law be-cause he had not specifi cally referred to royalty and had not used rude language.

The punishment for violating the law is three to 15 years’ imprisonment on each count.

The court last week gave a record sen-tence of 43 1/2 years under the law to a woman arrested six years ago who posted audio clips online deemed critical of the monarchy. The former civil servant had her nominal sentence of 87 years halved because she pleaded guilty.

In the past two months, the authorities have pursued lese majeste cases against at least 54 people, according to the legal aid group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.

They acted after growing public criti-cism of the monarchy, once virtually unknown, by a youth-led pro-democracy movement. The protest movement seeks reform of the monarchy, which it says is unaccountable and has excessive power in what is supposed to be a democratic constitutional monarchy.

After King Maha Vajralongkorn took the throne in 2016 following his father’s death, he informed the government that he did not wish to see the lese majeste law used. But as the protests grew last year and criticism of the monarchy got harsher, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha warned a line had been crossed and the law would be used. (AP)

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Contamination may delay cleanup: A draft investigation report into the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown, adopted by Japanese nuclear regulators Wednes-day, says it has detected dangerously high levels of radioactive contamination at two of the three reactors, adding to concerns about decommissioning challenges.

The interim report said data collected by investigators showed that the sealing plugs sitting atop the No. 2 and 3 reac-tor containment vessels were as fatally contaminated as nuclear fuel debris that had melted and fell to the bottom of the reactors following the March 2011 tsuna-mi and earthquake. The experts said the bottom of the sealed plug, a triple-layered concrete disc-shaped lid 12 meters (39

Asia

This Nov. 24, 2020, fi le photo Linda Thomas-Greenfi eld speaking at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del. Thomas-Greenfi eld, President Joe Biden’s pick to be America’s ambassador to the United Nations, says if she’s confi rmed by the Senate she’ll vigorously counter China’s authoritarian agenda and engage in

‘people-to-people diplomacy.’ (AP)

feet) in diameter sitting atop the primary containment vessel, is coated with high levels of radioactive Cesium 137.

The No. 1 reactor lid was less contami-nated, presumably because the plug was slightly knocked out of place and disfi g-ured due to the impact of the hydrogen

explosion, the report said.The experts measured radiation levels

at multiple locations inside the three reac-tor buildings, and examined how radioac-tive materials moved and safety equip-ment functioned during the accident. They also said venting attempt at Unit 2

to prevent reactor damage never worked, and that safety measures and equipment designs still need to be examined. (AP)

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Hackers sought cyber research: Google says it believes hackers backed by the North Korean government have been posing as computer security blog-gers and using fake accounts on social media while attempting to steal informa-tion from researchers in the fi eld.

Google didn’t specify how successful the hackers were or what kind of infor-mation could have been compromised. Experts say the attacks refl ect North Ko-rean efforts to improve its cyber skills and be able to breach widely used computer products, such as Google’s Chrome inter-net browser and Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system.

While the country has denied involve-ment, North Korea has been linked to ma-jor cyberattacks, including a 2013 cam-paign that paralyzed the servers of South Korean fi nancial institutions, the 2014 hacking of Sony Pictures, and the Wan-naCry malware attack of 2017.

The UN Security Council in 2019 es-timated North Korea earned as much as $2 billion over several years through il-licit cyber operations targeting crypto-currency exchanges and other fi nancial transactions, generating income that is harder to trace and offsets capital lost to US-led economic sanctions over its nu-clear weapons program. (AP)

Market Movements 27-01-2021

Business Change Closing ptsJAPAN - Nikkei +89.03 28,635.21PAKISTAN - KSE 100 +170.75 46,458.13CHINA - Shanghai SE +3.91 3,573.34

Change Closing ptsAUSTRALIA - All Ordinaries -51.23 7,060.16GERMANY - DAX -250.53 13,620.46FRANCE - CAC 40 -63.90 5,459.62EUROPE - Euro Stoxx 50 -56.45 3,536.38S. KOREA - KRX 100 -40.40 6,756.15PHILIPPINES - PSEi -113.55 6,863.61INDIA - Sensex -937.66 47,409.93

Boeing posts $8.4 billion loss on weaker demand for planes

Boeing lost $8.4 billion in the fourth quarter on weaker demand for planes during the pandemic and another setback to a new large plane designed for long-haul flights.

In the past two years, Boeing has posted huge losses mostly because of the crisis around two deadly crashes involving its 737 Max. However, the biggest piece of the fourth-quarter loss reported Wednes-day was a pretax charge of $6.5 billion tied to a different plane, the bigger 777X.

Revenue fell 15% to $15.3 billion, as the Chicago company delivered fewer

planes to airline customers.Orders for new Boeing jets have

tanked in the past two years, first from the worldwide grounding of the Max after two crashes that killed 346 people, then from a pandemic that devastated the airline industry. In the last few months, production flaws have halted deliveries of a larger plane, the 787, which Boeing calls the Dreamliner.

Boeing delivered 59 commercial planes in the fourth quarter, compared with 225 for European rival Airbus.

Boeing’s newest problem involves the 777X, a larger version of the long-range 777 that will feature new engines and com-posite wings that fold near the wingtips to accommodate the space at airport gates.

The company said Wednesday that the first 777X delivery will occur in late 2023, a year later than previously planned. Boeing cited new, tougher standards for certifying planes - an out-growth of the Max crisis - and the dam-age that the pandemic is doing to de-mand for international travel. (AP)

In this Jan 25, 2020 file photo, a Boeing 777X airplane takes

off on its first flight with the Olympic Mountains in the

background at Paine Field in Everett, Wash. Boeing is

reporting another huge loss, this one because of a setback to its 777X widebody jetliner. Boeing said Wednesday, Jan 27, 2021, it lost $8.4 billion in the fourth quarter on weaker

demand for planes during the pandemic. (AP)

US durable goods orders show modest 0.2% December gain

Home prices rise at fastest pace in more than 6 yearsWASHINGTON, Jan 27, (AP): US home prices jumped in November at the fastest pace in more than six years, fueled by demand for more living space as Americans stick closer to home during the pan-demic.

Home prices soared 9.1% in No-vember compared with 12 months ago, according to Tuesday’s re-port on the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index. That is the largest increase since May 2014.

Low borrowing costs are also con-tributing to rising home sales, which have sharply reduced the number of dwellings available. The limited inventory of homes is pushing up home prices. Sales of existing homes rose in December and home sales for all of 2020 rose to the highest level in 14 years.

Phoenix posted the largest price gain in November from a year earlier for the 18th straight month, with a 13.8% increase. Seattle’s 12.7% gain was the second-highest, followed by San Diego at 12.3%.

All 19 cities reported larger year-over-year price gains in November than in October. Detroit wasn’t able to fully report its home sales data be-cause of delays related to a coronavi-rus lockdown.

Home sales may slow in the com-ing months, consistent with de-clining sales in the winter, but are expected to remain elevated. The number of people who signed con-tracts to purchase homes fell in No-vember compared with October, but was at a record high for November. Contract signings are usually fol-lowed by a completed sale within two months.

Meanwhile, orders to U.S. fac-tories for big-ticket manufactured goods rose a modest 0.2% in De-cember, held back by a big drop in the volatile aircraft sector. A key category that tracks business invest-ment decisions slowed.

The rise in orders for durable goods, items expected to last at least three years, followed much stronger increases of 1.2% No-vember and 1.8% in October, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

Orders for commercial aircraft, hard hit because of the sharp drop in air travel during the pandemic fell 51.8% in December. Separate-ly, Boeing reported Wednesday that it lost $8.4 billion in the fourth quarter, capping a record loss for all of 2020.

A category that covers business investment plans rose 0.6% follow-ing bigger gains of 1% in November and 1.7% in December.

Economists had expected total or-ders would post a stronger advance of around 1% in December but noted that the overall gain was held back by the big drop in aircraft orders. Excluding transportation orders, to-tal orders rose 0.7% in December, and that followed a 0.8% rise in No-vember.

Even with the slowdown, total or-ders are close to their pre-pandemic levels. Orders for motor vehicles rose 1.4% in December while de-mand for defense aircraft jumped 5%.

“The manufacturing sector is fairing fairly well even as virus cases have surged,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. “The December data are signaling still strong but slower growth in both business investment and equip-ment spending.”

bottomlinethe

Kuwait oil prices to reach around $60 pb in 2nd half of ’21 – expert

Kuwait oil undersecretary discusses cooperation with OAPEC chief

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 27, (KUNA): An oil expert anticipated Kuwait oil prices to increase to USD 60 per barrel (pb) in the second half of this year as the world is projected to witness stability following coronavirus pandemic with provision of vaccines thus return of normal life.

Mohammad Al-Shatti, address-ing a virtual seminar about hori-zons of global economy and crude oil prices for 2021, organized by Kuwait Oil Ministry, said return of normal aviation operations would also help improve prices.

He said prices between USD 70-80 pb were “relatively desirable” for the Arabian Gulf countries and achieve some balances in their budgets.

Improvement of oil prices, added Al-Shatti, would primarily benefit the budgets of Arab Gulf countries which largely depend on oil as a major source of income.

He therefore called for diversifica-tion of income and execution of imme-diate reforms because oil prices were affected by global political and health conditions.

Al-Shatti anticipated global econo-my to recover by over four percent in the second half of 2021, triggered by availability of Covid-19 vaccines.

Recovery of economy, he added, would encourage return of oil and gas investment coupled with optimism driven by a new US Administration.

Initial estimates show that global oil stocks dropped by two million barrels per day (bpd) in December 2020, how-ever it remained 11 percent higher than 2019, he said.

Future of oil markets will depend on reaching an effective Covid-19 cure by mid-2021, recovery of economy by over four percent, an increase of industrial and economic operations, commitment of OPEC+ in markets’ stability and continuous drop of oil stocks, he said, which would transform the surplus into a deficit thus pushing prices to USD 60 pb.

Kuwait Oil Undersecretary Sheikh Dr. Nimr Fahad Al-Malek Al-Sabah held talks on Wednesday with Sec-retary General of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) Ali bin Sabt on boosting cooperaion.

The ministry said in a statement the two sides examined most significant actitvities carried out by the organiza-tion at present.

Sheikh Nimer held the talks with the OAPEC secretary general during a visit to the organization headquarters – accompanied by the ministry director of public relations Sheikha Tamador Khaled Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.

The statement indicated that the two sides also examined steps that had been taken to link up the ministry web-site with OAPEC’s library.

Vice President Kamala Harris participates in a swearing-in ceremony with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Yellen’s husband George Akerlof, Tuesday, Jan 26, 2021, at the White House in Washington. The Treasury build-

ing stands behind. (AP)

Yellen sworn in as first woman Treasury secretary

Treasury to help nation reeling from virusWASHINGTON, Jan 27, (AP): Janet Yellen, sworn in Tuesday as the na-tion’s 78th Treasury secretary and the fi rst woman to hold the offi ce, said in a message to the department’s 84,000 employees that they would play a ma-jor role in addressing the country’s biggest economic challenges.

“In addition to the pandemic, the coun-try is also facing a climate crisis, a crisis of systemic racism and an economic cri-sis that has been building for fi fty years,” Yellen said in her message. “I believe our department can play a major role in ad-dressing each of these crises.”

She was sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris, the fi rst woman elected to the position, at a ceremony performed outside on the East Wing entrance to the White House in view of the department Yellen will now lead. Yellen’s husband, George Akerlof, winner of the 2001 Nobel prize in economics, and their son Robert, also an economist, were present for the brief ceremony.

In her message to Treasury employ-ees, Yellen said she would be conduct-ing a virtual listening tour in the next few weeks to meet with employees to get their views on how the department can do a better job of addressing the crises facing the country.

“We must help the American people endure the fi nal months of this pan-demic by making sure they have roofs over their head and food on the table,” Yellen said. “Then, we must assist them in getting back to work safely.”

Yellen said it will be important to then turn to addressing what she called a K-shaped economy where some peo-ple have done very well with “wealth

built on wealth while certain segments of the population fell further and fur-ther behind.”

Treasury said that Yellen spent her fi rst day on the job meeting virtually with her advisers and career employ-ees as well as getting an update on President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion CO-VID-19 relief plan.

Yellen became the third of Biden’s Cabinet nominees to win Senate ap-proval on a vote of 84-15 late Monday. All of the no votes came from Repub-lican senators.

The administration has emphasized the need to get its nominees approved quickly given the threats facing the country from a global pandemic and a slumping economy.

Yellen is expected to play a key role in gaining congressional approval of Biden’s relief package, which is running into stiff opposition from Republicans who believe the price tag is too high.

Speaking on the Senate fl oor before Monday’s vote, Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer noted the for-mer Federal Reserve chairwoman had bipartisan support.

Schumer said Yellen has a “breath-taking range of experience” and sup-port for her nomination refl ected “just how well suited she is to manage the economic challenges of our time ... particularly during this moment of economic crisis.”

Before the approval by the full Sen-ate, Yellen had received unanimous backing from the Senate Finance Com-mittee. Republicans on the panel said they had policy disagreements with Yellen and the Biden administration in

such areas as raising taxes on corpora-tions and the wealthy, but believed it was important to allow Biden to as-semble his economic team quickly.

At her confi rmation hearing before the Finance Committee last week, Yel-len argued that without prompt action the nation faced the threat of a “longer, more painful recession.” She urged quick action on the relief package that would provide an additional $1,400 in payments to individuals making below $75,000 annually as well as providing expanded unemployment benefi ts, further aid for small businesses and support for cities and states to prevent layoffs.

The plan also provides more support for vaccine production and distribution.

But many GOP senators have pushed back on the proposal. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told Yellen that Biden’s plan represented a “laun-dry list of liberal structural economic reforms.”

As Treasury secretary, Yellen, 74, will occupy a pivotal role in shap-ing and directing Biden’s economic policies. She enters the Treasury job after many years serving in other top economic jobs, including as the fi rst woman to serve as chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018.

An economist by training who was a professor at the University of Califor-nia at Berkeley, Yellen will represent the Biden administration in global fi -nancial affairs and lead a sprawling de-partment whose responsibilities cover overseeing IRS tax collections, mak-ing policy on banking regulations and serving as the administration’s contact with Wall Street.

In GameStop saga on Wall St, 2 Goliaths fallNEW YORK, Jan 27, (AP): In the Da-vid and Goliath saga surrounding the struggling retail chain GameStop, Go-liath has fallen.

Two Goliaths, actually. A pair of professional investment

firms that placed big bets that money-losing video game retailer GameStop’s stock will crash have largely aban-doned their positions. The victors: an army of smaller investors who have been rallying online to support Game-Stop’s stock and beat back the profes-sionals.

One of the two major investors that surrendered, Citron Research, ac-knowledged Wednesday in a YouTube video that it unwound the majority of its bet that GameStop stock would fall. Andrew Left, who runs Citron, said it took “a loss, 100%” to do so, but that does not change his view that Game-Stop is a loser.

“We move on. Nothing has changed with GameStop except the stock price,” Left said. He did acknowledge that Citron is taking a fresh look at how it bets against companies, in light of the GameStop campaign.

Melvin Capital is also exiting GameStop, with manager Gabe Plot-kin telling CNBC that the hedge fund was taking a significant loss. He denied rumors that the hedge fund will fail.

The size of the losses taken by Cit-ron and Melvin are unknown.

The Wall Street frenzy over GameStop began when an army of smaller-pocketed investors on Red-dit started throwing dollars and buy orders at the stock - in direct oppo-sition to a group of wealthy inves-tors who were counting on the stock price to plunge.

There is no overriding reason why GameStop has attracted those smaller investors, but there is a distinct com-ponent of revenge against Wall Street in communications online.

Over the past three months, shares of GameStop Corp., which has been buffeted by a shift in gaming technol-

ogy, have spiked well over 1000%. Shares are up another 100% at the opening bell Wednesday.

That has created titanic losses for major Wall Street players who have “shorted” the stock, which means they borrowed shares and sold them, hop-ing to buy them back at a cheaper price and pocket the difference.

And the phenomenon does not ap-pear to by fading.

AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., the theater chain that has been ravaged by the pandemic, posted a quarterly loss this month exceeding $900 mil-lion.

It appears, however, that AMC has become the next battleground in the fight between smaller, retail investors, and Wall Street.

Shares of AMC spiked 260% when trading began Wednesday and #SaveAMC is rending on Twitter.

In this file photo, a woman wears a face mask as she walks past a GameStop store in Des Plaines, Il-

linois. (AP)

BERLIN: Oil and gas giant Shell is buy-ing ubitricity, a major provider of electric vehicle charging points in Europe.

Shell said Monday that it would buy a 100% stake in the Berlin-based startup, without disclosing the price.

“The move represents a further step in Shell’s efforts to support drivers as they switch to lower-carbon transport,” the company said.

The deal, which is subject to regulato-ry approval, will give Shell ownership of the biggest public EV charging network in Britain with more than 2,700 charge points.

Ubitricity also has smaller public net-works in Germany and France, and has installed over 1,500 charge points for fleet customers across Europe.

The company’s focus has been to in-tegrate charge points into existing street infrastructure such as lamp posts, to re-duce the cost of laying new power lines down streets.

Experts say easier access to charging facilities is key to the successful rollout of electric vehicles. (AP)

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NEW YORK: Jeans maker Levi Strauss & Co. is deepening its partnership with Target Corp. by launching its first-ever home collection at the discount chain.

Levi’s limited time only 100-item collection of denim-inspired tableware, quilts, pillows and other items will be launched on Target’s website and most Target stores on Feb. 28.

Target started selling low-price brand Denizen from Levi’s in 2011 and then be-gan carrying its premium Red Tab brand in 2019. It will be expanding the Red Tab brand to 500 stores by fall of this year. The move is yet another blow to depart-ment stores, which have been struggling even more during the pandemic.

Target CEO Brian Cornell and Levi’s CEO Chip Bergh told The Associated Press they believe the Levi products, which also include some clothing, will be collectors’ items.

For Target, it’s the latest strategic part-nership with a major brand and comes as Target extends its strong sales streak through the pandemic. The Minneapolis-based discounter signed a deal late last year with beauty chain Ulta to open more than 100 beauty shops by middle of this year. In 2019, it forged a partnership with Disney & Co to open Disney-branded shops at its stores. Cornell said that strategic partner-ships “have been key to Target’s success” and has set it apart from rivals. (AP)

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NEW YORK: Walgreens said Tuesday it has tapped Starbucks executive Roz Brewer as its new CEO, which will make her the only Black woman leading a For-tune 500 company.

Starbucks announced Tuesday that Brewer was departing after a little more than three years as its chief operating offi-cer. Walgreens later confirmed that Brewer will take over as its CEO on March 15.

Brewer succeeds Stefano Pessina, who served as CEO for six years following the merger between Walgreens and Al-liance Boots in 2014. Pessina will transi-tion to executive chairman of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.’s board.

Pessina praised Brewer’s expertise in operations, customer relations, talent de-velopment and digital innovation.

“She is a distinguished and experi-enced executive who has led organiza-tions globally through periods of chang-ing consumer behavior by applying innovation that elevates customer experi-ences,” Pessina said.

At Starbucks, Brewer revamped stores, taking out clutter and cutting down on administrative work so employ-ees could focus on customers and speed up service. She helped grow Starbucks’ rewards program and pushed for more diversity in its ranks. (AP)

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NEW YORK: A big jump in prescription drug sales boosted fourth-quarter rev-enue at Johnson & Johnson, despite the coronavirus pandemic cutting into sales of products from contact lenses to surgi-cal equipment and other medical devices used in procedures at hospitals swamped with COVID-19 patients.

Profits dove 57% due to higher re-search spending, plus litigation and other one-time charges totaling $2.4 billion, but the results still cruised past Wall Street expectations. J&J shares added $5.18, or 3.1%, to hit $171.16 in early afternoon trading Tuesday.

The world’s biggest maker of health care products reported net income of $1.74 billion, or 65 cents per share, down from $4.01 billion, or $1.50 per share, a year earlier.

Adjusted net income came to $4.97 billion, or $1.86 per share, easily topping the $1.81 Wall Street analysts expected.

Quarterly revenue totaled $22.48 bil-lion, up 8.3% from $20.75 billion. Ana-lysts had expected $21.62 billion.

J&J’s single-shot vaccine can be stored at standard refrigeration tempera-tures, while the Pfizer and Moderna two-dose vaccines must be kept frozen at very cold temperatures.

Sales of consumer health products such as Tylenol edged up 1.4% to $3.62 billion. Meanwhile, sales for the medi-cal devices and diagnostics unit dipped nearly 1%, to $6.59 billion. (AP)

Germany cuts ’21outlook to 3 pctBERLIN, Jan 27, (AP): The German government on Wednesday cut its growth forecast for this year to 3% as Europe’s biggest economy faces persistent head-winds from the coronavirus pandemic.

In late October, the government had forecast growth of 4.4% this year. The country started a partial shutdown shortly afterward and deepened it in mid-Decem-ber. That lockdown, Germany’s second, is still in place. Official data released ear-lier this month showed that the economy shrank by 5% last year, ending a decade of growth. That was still a smaller drop than many had expected.

Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said that “while industry is still robust at pres-ent, the services sector is badly hit.”

“We are currently seeing a flattening of the infection figures, which gives us hope,” he said in a statement. “But the situation is still serious and the danger from the virus mutation not yet over.”

Germany had a relatively successful first phase of the pandemic, but saw infections shoot up during the fall and winter months.

BUSINESSARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2021

9

Raimondo voices tough line on China

Biden Commerce pick stresses investment in COVID-19 recoveryWASHINGTON, Jan 27, (AP): Presi-dent Joe Biden’s pick to oversee the Commerce Department says invest-ments across the country are needed to provide Americans with a pathway to a good job as the nation recovers from the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rhode Island Governor Gina Rai-mondo, a former venture capitalist, ap-peared before a Senate panel Tuesday during a confi rmation hearing. If con-fi rmed, she would be responsible for promoting opportunities for economic growth domestically and overseas.

“If confi rmed as Commerce sec-retary, I look forward to scaling and deploying additional resources to busi-nesses and workers - with a focus on regions and communities that have often been left behind - to help them bounce back and grow stronger than ever,” Raimondo said in her prepared remarks.

Raimondo was elected governor in 2014 and won reelection in 2018. She’s expected to handily win a confi r-mation vote, but it’s unclear when that vote will occur. Nominations pertain-ing to national security generally take precedent. The vote may also have to wait on President Donald Trump’s im-peachment trial, which will dominate the Senate’s attention starting the week of Feb. 8.

Raimondo, 49, is the fi rst woman elected governor of Rhode Island. She is a Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Yale Law School who recalls her fa-ther losing his job at a Bulova watch factory in Providence to connect with those worried about jobs in the U.S. being moved to other countries.

She will tell the panel the country needs to invest in technology and ag-gressively combat unfair trade prac-tices from China and other counties, a topic that the previous administration seized upon to gain support in commu-nities that have seen extensive manu-facturing job losses in recent decades.

She will also emphasize tackling cli-mate change, saying that as governor she oversaw construction of the na-tion’s fi rst offshore wind farm.

“Like President Biden, I know the climate crisis poses an existential threat to our economic security, and we must meet this challenge by creat-ing millions of good, union jobs that power a more sustainable economy,” Raimondo said in her prepared re-marks.

The Commerce Department is com-prised of a dozen separate bureaus and agencies, ranging from the National Weather Service to the U.S. Cen-sus Bureau to the Minority Business Development Agency. If confi rmed, she’ll oversee the work of more than 40,000 employees.

Raimondo took a tough line on China in her confi rmation hearing Tuesday, though she stopped short of singling out which Chinese companies should remain on a list that limits their access to advanced U.S. technology.

“COVID has shined a light on the inequities in our economy,” Raimondo said. “The president has been very clear, we’re going to build back better and more equitably, and I strongly sup-port that.”

She would inherit a department that took actions during the Trump admin-istration that heightened tensions with China, namely through tariffs and the blacklisting of companies by placing them on the U.S. government’s so-called Entity List. U.S. companies need to get a license to sell sophisti-cated technology to companies on the list.

“China’s actions have been anti-competitive, hurtful to American workers and businesses, coercive, and, as you point out, they’re culpable for atrocious human rights abuses,” Rai-mondo said in response to a question from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. “So whether it’s the entities list, or tariffs, or countervailing duties, I intend to use all those tools to the fullest extent pos-sible to level the playing fi eld for the American worker.”

When Cruz pressed Raimondo on whether certain companies would re-main on the Entity List, Raimondo said she would consult with lawmakers, in-dustry and allies and “make an assess-ment as to what’s best for American national and economic security.”

Much of her hearing was focused on regional issues, with lawmakers from coastal states focused on pro-tecting valuable fi shing industries and lawmakers for rural states calling for enhanced access to broadband. She confi rmed her interest in working with them on those issues and emphasized the need to tackle climate change. She noted as governor that she oversaw construction of the nation’s fi rst off-shore wind farm.

“Like President Biden, I know the climate crisis poses an existential threat to our economic security, and we must meet this challenge by creat-ing millions of good, union jobs that power a more sustainable economy,” Raimondo said.

The Commerce Department com-prises a dozen bureaus and agen-cies, including the National Weather Service, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Minority Business Development Agency. If confi rmed, Raimondo would oversee the work of more than 40,000 employees.

In this photo provided by the New York Stock Exchange, traders John Panin (left), and Fred DeMarco work on the fl oor. (AP)

Walmart to build more robot-filled warehouses at stores

Walmart is enlisting the help of robots to keep up with a surge in online orders.

The company said Wednes-day that it plans to build ware-houses at its stores where self-driving robots will fetch groceries and have them ready for shoppers to pick up in an hour or less.

Walmart declined to say how many of the warehous-es it will build, but construc-

tion has started at stores in Lewisville, Texas; Plano, Texas; American Fork, Utah; and Bentonville, Arkansas, where Walmart’s corporate offi ces are based. A test site was opened more than a year ago at a store in Salem, New Hampshire.

Walmart hopes the ware-houses will speed up curbside pickups, where orders are brought outside to shoppers’

cars. Both options became increasingly popular as virus-weary shoppers avoid going inside stores. At the start of the pandemic last year, Walmart said delivery and pickup sales grew 300%.

The company said the ro-bots won’t roam store aisles. Instead, they’ll stay inside warehouses built in separate areas, either within a store or next to it. Windows will be

placed at some locations so shoppers can watch the ro-bots work.

The wheeled robots carry crates of apple juice, cereal and other small goods to Walmart workers, who then bag them for shoppers. Rival Amazon uses similar technol-ogy in its warehouses, with ro-bots bringing books, vitamins and other small items to work-ers to box and ship. (AP)

In this fi le photo, signage is pictured at a Walmart store in Oklahoma City. (AP)

More payments under investigation

Criminal rings loot billionsin jobless funds: CaliforniaLOS ANGELES, Jan 27, (AP): So-phisticated hackers, identity thieves and overseas criminal rings stole over $11 billion in unemployment benefi ts from California last year, but the extent of the fraud might grow far larger: billions more in payments are under investigation.

California Labor Secretary Julie Su told reporters in a conference call Monday that of the $114 billion the state has paid in unemployment claims, about 10% - or $11.4 billion - have been confi rmed as fraudulent.

Nearly $20 billion more - another 17% - is considered suspicious, and a large part of that could be found to be fraud, she said.

“There is no sugarcoating the re-ality,” Su said. “California did not have suffi cient security measures in place to prevent this level of fraud, and criminals took advantage of the situation.”

Nearly all of the fraudulent claims were made through the fed-erally supported Pandemic Unem-ployment Assistance program. The program was approved by Con-gress to provide unemployment benefi ts to people during the coro-navirus pandemic who are usually ineligible to receive them, such as independent contractors. But, of-fi cials say, its broad eligibility re-quirements made it an easy target of criminals, including from Nige-ria and Russia.

While conceding the state was unprepared, Su also faulted the Trump administration for failing to provide the state with the guidance and support needed to foil sophisti-cated fraud rings. She said an array of safeguards put in place last year had blocked billions of dollars in potential fraud schemes.

Su described an agency strug-gling to keep up with a fl ood of new jobless claims as the pandemic shuttered businesses and sent un-employment rates soaring. And that reservoir of new money was also a lure for criminal enterprises.

“It should be no surprise that EDD was overwhelmed, just like the rest of the nation’s unemploy-ment agencies,” Su said. “As mil-lions of Californians applied for help, international and national criminal rings were at work behind the scenes working relentlessly to steal unemployment benefi ts using sophisticated methods of identity theft.”

The state also has been trying to clear a persistent backlog of claims - more than 940,000 as of Jan. 20.

Offi cials noted the fraud prob-lems were widespread in the U.S.

Washington state was among the fi rst hit with fraudulent unemploy-ment claims believed to be tied to a West African fraud ring using iden-tities stolen in prior data breaches, such as the massive 2017 Equifax breach. More than 122,000 fraudu-lent claims made in the state si-phoned $600 million.

Washington was able to recov-er $357 million as a result of the state’s collaboration with federal law enforcement and fi nancial insti-tutions across the country.

Prosecutors around the state have been targeting unemployment ben-efi ts fraud in recent months. On Monday, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer announced charges against two business own-ers who opened up a storefront in Garden Grove, California, for the sole purpose of fi ling false un-employment claims. He also an-nounced the prosecution of eight people, including six state prison-ers, involved in two other unem-ployment fraud schemes.

Also Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla, all Democrats, urged President Joe Biden to create a federal task force to help states deter organized crimi-nal fraud in jobless claims.

“California and many other states are experiencing fraud at a much greater rate than previously under-stood, perpetrated by international and interstate criminal organiza-tions moving from state to state,” they wrote in a letter.

US indices drop sharply,led lower by tech stocksWorld shares turn lower on pandemic concerns, ahead of Fed

Shares of GameStop soared 141%, as the video game retailer remains caught in a tug-of-war between Wall Street institu-tions and an activist community of most-ly online investors. The online investors have bet that hedge funds have put too much money betting against the stock, a concept known as selling “short.” A pair of professional investment firms that placed big bets that GameStop’s stock would crash have largely abandoned their positions.

Boeing shares dropped 2.7% after the aircraft manufacturer posted its largest annual loss in the company’s history, mostly due to the grounding of Boeing’s 737-MAX fleet.

Markets have meandered since last week as investors weighed solid cor-porate earnings results against renewed worries that troubles with COVID-19 vaccine rollouts and the spread of new variants of coronavi-rus might delay a recovery from the pandemic.

Stock markets are down Wednesday as investors focus on the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting and the out-

look for the economy as the coronavi-rus pandemic rages on.

European indexes lost early gains after a mixed session in Asia.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index added 0.3% to 28,635.21, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong slipped 0.3% to 29,297.53.

The Kospi in South Korea sank 0.6% to 3,122.56, while the Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1% higher to 3,573.34. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.7% to 6,780.60.

Germany’s DAX fell 1.18% to 13,620.46, France’s CAC 40 dropped 1.16% to 5,459.26. Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 1.30% to 6,567.37

In other trading, benchmark U.S. crude oil dropped 1 cent to $52.60 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gave up 16 cents on Tuesday. Brent crude, the international standard, added 9 cents to $55.73 per barrel.

The dollar was trading at 103.83 Japanese yen, up from 103.62 yen late Tuesday. The euro slipped to $1.2115 from $1.2163.

NEW YORK, Jan 27, (AP): Stocks were broadly lower in late-morning trading Wednesday, as investors focus on the Federal Re-serve’s policy meeting and the outlook for the econo-my as the coronavirus pan-demic rages on.

The S&P 500 was down 1.7% as of 11:49 a.m. ET, dragged lower by technology stocks like Amazon and Facebook as well as materials and energy stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.4%, while the Nasdaq composite was down 1.7%.

Investors are waiting to hear from the Federal Reserve at around 2 p.m. Eastern Time today. The Fed is expected to keep its extremely sup-portive policy stance unchanged given the slow progress in vanquishing the pandemic, analysts said.

Along with the Fed, this is the busi-est week so far of quarterly earnings reporting season for U.S. companies. Apple and Facebook will report their quarterly results after Wednesday’s closing bell.

More than 100 companies in the S&P 500 are scheduled to tell inves-tors this week how they fared during the last three months of 2020. As a whole, analysts expect S&P 500 com-panies to say their fourth-quarter prof-it fell 5% from a year earlier. That’s a milder drop than the 9.4% they were forecasting earlier this month, accord-ing to FactSet.

A woman walks by an electronic stock board of a securities fi rm in Tokyo, Wednesday, Jan 27, 2021. Stocks were mixed in Asia on Wednesday after

a lackluster session on Wall Street. (AP)

NEW YORK, Jan 27, (AP): New York City officials announced this week that two pension funds for city workers will pull an estimated $4 billion in investments from fos-sil fuel companies in order to pro-mote clean energy use.

“The divestment from fossil fu-els is possible and necessary,” said City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who joined Mayor Bill de Blasio at a video briefing on Tuesday. “Smart investment policy and smart climate solutions go hand in hand. And we are putting our mon-ey where our mouth is.”

Several dozen universities have already stopped investing, at least partially, in fossil fuels, often under pressure from students.

De Blasio and Stringer an-nounced Monday that the boards of the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, worth $91.4 billion, and the New York City Teachers’ Retirement System, worth $77.4 billion, had voted to approve fossil fuel divestment. A third pension fund, the New York City Board of Education Retire-ment System, is expected to vote

for divestment soon.“Fossil fuels are not only bad for

our planet and our frontline com-munities, they are a bad invest-ment,” de Blasio said in announc-ing the pension funds’ actions.

De Blasio and Stringer, both Democrats, set a goal to divest city pension funds from the fossil fuel industry - which includes oil, gas and coal companies - in 2018. Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben said he knew then that New York City’s push to divest would have an impact.

“What I said at the time was, I thought this was particularly signifi-cant because of the signal it sent if the financial center of the world had gotten this message,” said McKib-ben, who joined Tuesday’s video call. “And I said New York’s actions would be heard loud and clear.”

New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced last month that the state’s $226 billion pension fund would drop many of its fossil fuel stocks in the next five years and sell its shares in other companies that contribute to global warming by 2040.

Pension funds to divest$4 bln from fossil fuels

Business PlusPlus

The president is com-mitted to stopping China’s economic

abuses

Debt is an emotional burden, but a lot of

times that overwhelm goes away once you

have clarity

‘

‘

’

’

‘Cooperation is the only correct choice for both sides’

Under Biden, China faces renewed trade pressureimportant gesture,” Leering said.

Trump’s opening shot in 2017 was a tax hike on $360 billion worth of Chinese imports. Beijing retaliated with tariff hikes and suspended soy-bean imports, hitting farm states that voted for Trump in 2016.

The U.S. trade defi cit with China narrowed by by 19% in 2019 over a year earlier and by 15% in the fi rst nine months of 2020.

That failed to achieve Trump’s goal of moving jobs to the United States. Importers shifted instead to Taiwan, Mexico and other suppliers. The total U.S. trade defi cit dipped slightly in 2019, then rose nearly 14% through November last year.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Offi ce estimates tariff hikes cost the average U.S. household nearly $1,300 last year. Businesses postponed investments, undoing some of the benefi ts of Trump’s 2017 corporate tax cut.

A study by the U.S.-China Business Council and Oxford Economics found the U.S. economy lost 245,000 jobs due to the tariffs. It said even a mod-est reduction would create 145,000 jobs by 2025.

Trump stepped up pressure by cutting off access to U.S. technology for telecom equipment giant Huawei Technologies Ltd. and other compa-nies seen by American offi cials as possible security risks and a threat to U.S. industrial leadership. Americans were ordered to sell shares in Chinese companies Washington says have links to the military.

The Communist Party responded by vowing to accelerate its two-decade-old campaign to make China a self-reliant “technology power.”

Psaki, the White House spokes-woman, said Biden also was review-ing those issues but gave no indication of possible changes.

Biden wants to hold Beijing ac-countable for “unfair and illegal practices” and make sure American technology doesn’t facilitate its mili-tary buildup, Psaki said.

Zhao, the Chinese spokesman, called on Washington not to “po-liticize or weaponize” science and technology and to avoid “groundless accusations to smear China.”

Biden’s envoys have the option of fi ne-tuning Trump’s penalties by dropping some in exchange for Chi-nese policy changes, said Kuijs. But he and other economists say rolling back tariffs and curbs on access to technology and fi nancial markets is unlikely to be a priority.

“It is diffi cult to see a U.S. reversal of the recent hawkish trends in China policy,” Sylvia Sheng of JP Morgan Asset Management said in a report.

Tech curbs are unlikely to be eased because Washington “regards China as a competitor,” said Tu Xinquan, di-rector of the Institute for WTO Stud-ies at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

Tariff cuts look like the only short-term option, Tu said. He said Biden could defend getting rid of taxes the World Trade Organization says were improperly imposed.

“In that case, he wouldn’t lose face,” said Tu. (AP)

Automated vehicles move shipping containers in a container port in Qingdao in eastern China’s Shandong Province, on Jan 12. The US-Chinese trade war isn’t going away under President Joe Biden. Biden won’t confront Beijing right away, economists say, because he needs to focus on the coronavirus and the economy. However, Biden looks set to renew pressure over trade and

technology complaints that prompted President Donald Trump to hike tariffs on Chinese imports in 2017. (AP)

Lenders tighten approval standards during pandemic

How to make good on your resolution to pay off debtBy Jackie Veling

NerdWallet

If you have high-interest consumer debt, getting control of your money

in the new year might sound over-whelming.

Most Americans say the COVID-19 outbreak has caused fi nancial stress, according to a survey released in Oc-tober by the National Endowment for Financial Education, with 30% listing debt as their top stressor.

Despite the pandemic, you can still pay down your debt with the right plan. Here’s how.

Confront your debt The fi rst step is simple, but it can

be the hardest: You have to face the problem.

Angela Moore, a Miami-based certifi ed fi nancial planner and founder of Modern Money Advisor, which of-fers virtual advising and education for consumers, says it’s common for her clients to know they’re in debt but not know how much.

She recommends compiling your debt onto one document or spread-sheet, listing all balances, minimum payments and interest rates. Though the task is daunting, most of her cli-ents feel relief once it’s fi nished.

“Debt is an emotional burden,” she says, “but a lot of times that overwhelm

goes away once you have clarity.”Communicate with your lendersAfter listing your debt, it’s time to

get on the phone with your creditors. Ask for a temporarily lowered

interest rate, reduced monthly pay-ment or waived late fees. Make sure to explain how the pandemic has infl uenced your fi nances.

Most creditors will be willing to work with you, says Dan Herron, a California-based CFP at Elemental

Wealth Advisors.“It doesn’t hurt to say, ‘I’m still

trying to do the right thing, I’m still trying to make payments. Where can we meet in the middle?’” he says.

Any break you get, take that money and apply it to your debt.

If you need help negotiating, contact a credit counselor at a reputable nonprofi t organization, like the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. Counselors have relation-

ships with creditors and can negotiate on your behalf. Services are typically free for those experiencing fi nancial diffi culties due to COVID-19.

Consider consolidatingIf you have multiple types of debt,

such as loans, credit cards and medi-cal bills, you may want to take out an unsecured personal loan to consolidate it into one monthly payment.

A consolidation loan is a good idea only if you can qualify for a lower interest rate than those on your current debts. Some lenders have tightened their approval standards in the pan-demic, but borrowers with good to excellent credit (690 FICO or higher) should have a good shot.

Look for a lender that specializes in debt consolidation and offers perks like direct payments to creditors or rate discounts for automated payments.

If you have credit card debt, you could apply for a balance transfer card. Though these cards typically charge a 3% to 5% fee, they offer an introductory 0% interest period, so all payments go toward your principal, which helps you pay off debt faster.

You’ll likely need good credit to qualify.

Charles Ho, a California-based CFP and founder of Legacy Builders Financial, urges caution for some con-sumers. Though consolidation tools

can save money, they also free up your credit cards for more spending.

“It might make mathematical sense to consolidate your loans, but the math is meaningless if we don’t account for our behavior and end up almost doubling our debt,” he says.

Pick a strategy and stick to itIf you choose not to consolidate,

there are two common methods for approaching debt payoff: the snowball or avalanche.

With the snowball method, you pay off your smallest debt fi rst, while mak-ing minimum payments on the others, then move to the second smallest and so on. The avalanche method uses the same strategy, but you start with the debt that has the highest interest rate.

According to Herron, the avalanche method may get you to the fi nish line faster since the money you save on interest can be applied to other debts, but it’s more important to pick the method that motivates you the most.

Break the cycleAs you make your way out of debt,

start to automate your fi nances. Moore has her clients set up

automatic bill payments and savings contributions, so the money is put aside without having to think about it. If fi nances are tight in the pandemic, build toward a $500 emergency fund. (AP)

By Joe McDonald and Paul Wise-man

The U.S.-Chinese trade war isn’t go-ing away under President Joe Biden.

Biden won’t confront Beijing right away, economists say, because he wants to focus on the coronavirus and the economy. But he looks set to renew pressure over trade and technology grievances that prompted President Donald Trump to hike tar-iffs on Chinese imports in 2017.

Negotiators might tone down Trump’s focus on narrowing China’s multibillion-dollar trade surplus with the United States and push harder to open its state-dominated economy, which matters more in the long run, economists say. But no abrupt tariff cuts or other big changes are expected.

“I think Biden will focus more on trying to extract structural reforms,” said Louis Kuijs of Oxford Econom-ics. “It’s going to take some time before we get any shift or explicit announcements.”

Biden is evaluating tariffs on Chinese goods and wants to coordinate future steps with allies, White House spokes-woman Jen Psaki said Monday. She gave no indication of possible changes.

“The president is committed to stopping China’s economic abuses,”

Psaki said.A Chinese foreign ministry spokes-

man, Zhao Lijian, appealed to Washing-ton to learn from Trump’s “erroneous policies” and adopt a “constructive at-titude” but gave no indication of possible changes by Beijing.

“Cooperation is the only correct choice for both sides,” Zhao said Tuesday.

Trump acted on complaints that are shared by Europe and other traders, but Washington has little to show for its bruising war. It brought President Xi Jinping’s government to the bargain-ing table but roiled global trade, raised consumer prices and wiped out jobs.

The last major development was a year ago, when Beiing promised in the “Phase One” agreement of January 2020 to buy more soybeans and other U.S. exports and stop pressuring com-panies to hand over technology.

China fell short on those purchases. Amid the coronavirus turmoil, it bought about 55% of what it prom-ised. As for tech policy, some econo-mists say those changes matter but question whether it counts as a win. They say Beijing might have made them anyway to suit its own plans.

China faces more opposition than ever in Washington due to its trade record, territorial disputes with neighbors, crack-

down on Hong Kong, reports of abuses against ethnic Muslims and accusations of technology theft and spying.

“The ground has shifted in a signifi -cant way,” said Nathan Sheets, a former Treasury undersecretary for international affairs in the Obama administration.

Katherine Tai, Biden’s choice to succeed U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, sounded a hawkish note on China in a speech this month.

“We face stiffening competi-tion from a growing and ambitious China,’’ said Tai. “A China whose economy is directed by central planners who are not subject to the pressures of political pluralism, demo-cratic elections or popular opinion.’’

That means China has to make changes if wants to make progress, said Raoul Leering, global trade ana-lyst for ING. He said that while many of Trump’s statements were “close to nonsense,” he was right that China has more trade barriers and offi cial intervention in the economy than the United States.

“It will depend on China, the speed at which they reform and change policies, to see whether Biden will roll back trade barriers,” he said.

After 2 1/2 years and 13 rounds of talks, negotiators have yet to tackle one of the biggest irritants for China’s

trading partners - the status of po-litically favored state companies that dominate industries from banking to oil to telecoms.

Europe, Japan and other governments criticized Trump’s tactics but echo com-plaints that Beijing steals technology and breaks market-opening promises by subsidizing and shielding companies from competition.

Those complaints strike at the heart of a state-led development model Communist Party leaders see as the basis of China’s success.

They are building up “national champions” including PetroChina Ltd., Asia’s biggest oil producer, and China Mobile Ltd., the world’s big-gest phone carrier by subscribers. The party in 2013 declared state industry the “core of the economy.”

Outside the state sector, the party is nurturing competitors in solar power, electric cars, next-generation telecoms and other fi elds.

Beijing could offer to drop its claim to being a developing economy, a sta-tus it insists on despite having become one of the biggest manufacturers and a middle-income society, Leering said. Under WTO rules, that allows the Communist Party to protect industries and intervene more in the economy.

Giving that up “would be a very

department store chain Belk filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Belk, the North Carolina-based department store chain which has catered to generations of shoppers for nearly 190 years, announced Tuesday that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The chain’s owner, private equity firm Sycamore Partners, said in a news release that Belk will continue with “normal operations” as it goes through bankruptcy, The Charlotte Ob-

server reported. Sycamore Partners said it

expects to emerge from bank-ruptcy by the end of February. It will retain majority control of Belk, according to an agree-ment it reached with some of Belk’s creditors. A group of the department store’s creditors, led by the private equity firms KKR and Blackstone, will get a minority stake. The bankruptcy plan will help Belk shed about

$450 million of debt. “We’re confident that this

agreement puts us on the right long-term path toward significantly reducing our debt and providing us with greater financial flexibility to meet our obligations and to continue investing in our business,” Belk CEO Lisa Harper said in a statement.

The 133-year-old chain grew from the opening of a

store in Monroe, North Caro-lina, by William Henry Belk in 1888. Three generations of the Belk family led the company to become the biggest family-owned department store chain in the country by 2015, when the family sold it for $3 billion.

The sale to Sycamore loaded the chain with over $2 billion in debt at a time when department stores were los-ing popularity. (AP)

In this Nov 25, 2011 file photo, shoppers line up

outside a Belk store in Vicks-burg, Mississippi, early in the morning for their Black Friday

sales. (AP)

In this July 18, 2012 file photo, a pedestrian passes credit card logos post-ed on a downtown storefront in Atlanta. Many consumers want to pay off their debt in 2021 but are unsure how to navigate the COVID-19 economy. Experts recommend listing all your debts and contacting each lender to see if it will reduce your interest rate, lower your monthly payment or waive

late fees. (AP)

SCIENCEARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2021

11

Complaints of shortage

US boosting virusvaccine deliveriesNEW YORK, Jan 27, (AP): Answering growing frustration over vaccine shortages, President Joe Biden announced that the US is ramping up deliveries to hard-pressed states over the next three weeks and expects to provide enough doses to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of the summer or early fall.

Biden, calling the push a “wartime effort,” said Tuesday the administration was working to buy an additional 100 million doses of each of the two approved coronavirus vaccines. He acknowledged that states in recent weeks have been left guess-ing how much vaccine they will have from one week to the

next.Shortages have been so severe that

some vaccination sites around the US had to cancel tens of thousands of ap-pointments with people seeking their fi rst shot.

“This is unacceptable,” Biden said. “Lives are at stake.”

He promised a roughly 16% boost in deliveries to states over the next three weeks.

The administration said it plans to buy another 100 million doses each from drugmakers Pfi zer and Moderna

to ensure it has enough vaccine for the long term. Even more vaccine could be available if federal scientists approve a sin-gle-dose shot from Johnson & Johnson, which is expected to seek emergency authorization in the coming weeks.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the government plans to make about 10.1 million fi rst and second doses available next week, up from this week’s allotment of 8.6 million. The fi gures represent doses of both the Pfi zer and Moderna vaccines. It was not immediately clear how long the surge of doses could be sustained.

Governors and top health offi cials have been increasingly raising the alarm about inadequate supplies and the need for earlier and more reliable estimates of how much vaccine is on the way so that they can plan.

Biden’s team held its fi rst virus-related call with the nation’s governors on Tuesday and pledged to provide states with fi rm vaccine allocations three weeks ahead of delivery.

PromisedBiden’s announcement came a day after he grew more bull-

ish about exceeding his vaccine pledge to deliver 100 million injections in his fi rst 100 days in offi ce, suggesting that a rate of 1.5 million doses per day could soon be achieved.

The administration has also promised more openness and said it will hold news briefi ngs three times a week, beginning Wednesday, about the outbreak that has killed over 420,000 Americans.

“We appreciate the administration stating that it will provide states with slightly higher allocations for the next few weeks, but we are going to need much more supply,” said Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican.

The setup inherited from the Trump administration has been marked by miscommunication and unexplained bottlenecks, with shortages reported in some places even as vaccine doses remain on the shelf.

Offi cials in West Virginia, which has had one of the best rates of administering vaccine, said they have fewer than 11,000 fi rst doses on hand even after this week’s shipment.

“I’m screaming my head off” for more, Republican Gov. Jim Justice said.

California, which has faced criticism over a slow vaccine rollout, announced Tuesday that it is centralizing its hodge-podge of county systems and streamlining appointment sign-up, notifi cation and eligibility. Residents have been baffl ed by the varying rules in different counties.

And in Colorado, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said that the limited supply of vaccine from the federal government is prompting the state to repurpose second doses as fi rst doses, though he expects that people scheduled for their second shot will still be able to keep their appointments.

The weekly allocation cycle for fi rst doses begins on Mon-day nights, when federal offi cials review data on vaccine avail-ability from manufacturers to determine how much each state can have. Allocations are based on each jurisdiction’s popula-tion of people 18 and older.

States are notifi ed on Tuesdays of their allocations through a computer network called Tiberius and other channels, after which they can specify where they want doses shipped. Deliv-eries start the following Monday.

A similar but separate process for ordering second doses, which must be given three to four weeks after the fi rst, begins each week on Sunday night.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the CDC reported that just over half of the 44 million doses distributed to states have been put in people’s arms. That is well short of the hun-dreds of millions of doses that experts say will need to be administered to achieve herd immunity and conquer the outbreak.

AdministeredThe US ranks fi fth in the world in the number of doses ad-

ministered relative to the country’s population, behind No. 1 Israel, United Arab Emirates, Britain and Bahrain, according to the University of Oxford.

The reason more of the available shots in the US haven’t been dispensed isn’t entirely clear. But many vaccination sites are apparently holding large quantities of vaccine in reserve to make sure people who have already gotten their fi rst shot receive the required second one on schedule.

Also, some state officials have complained of a lag be-tween when they report their vaccination numbers to the government and when the figures are posted on the CDC website.

In the New Orleans area, Ochsner Health said Monday that inadequate supply forced the cancellation last week of 21,400 fi rst-dose appointments but that second-dose appointments aren’t affected.

In North Carolina, Greensboro-based Cone Health an-nounced it is canceling fi rst-dose appointments for 10,000 people and moving them to a waiting list because of supply problems.

Jesse Williams, 81, of Reidsville, North Carolina, said his appointment Thursday with Cone Health was scratched, and he is waiting to hear when it might be rescheduled. The for-mer volunteer fi refi ghter had hoped the vaccine would en-able him to resume attending church, playing golf and seeing friends.

“It’s just a frustration that we were expecting to be having our shots and being a little more resilient to COVID-19,” he said.

The vaccine rollout across the 27-nation European Union has also run into roadblocks and has likewise been criti-cized as too slow. Pfizer is delaying deliveries while it up-grades its plant in Belgium to increase capacity. And As-traZeneca disclosed that its initial shipment will be smaller than expected.

The EU, with 450 million citizens, is demanding that the pharmaceutical companies meet their commitments on sched-ule.

The US recorded 147,254 new coronavirus cases and 1,758 virUS-related deaths in the past 34 hours, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The tally showed that the confi rmed cases nationwide reached 25,293,201 and at least 420,972 deaths.

Furthermore, 109,936 people are currently hospitalized with coronavirus in the US according to the COVID Tracking Pro-ject.

Meanwhile, at least 22,734,243 vaccine shots have been ad-ministered across the nation, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

COVID-19

AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine is seen on a cooler before it is administered to health workers at Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, Jan 27. Thousands of health workers lined up across Nepal to get the coronavirus vaccine Wednesday as the Himalayan nation began its campaign to get the population vaccinated

within three months. Neighboring India gifted Nepal 1 million doses of the vaccine manufactured under license by the Serum Institute of India. (AP)

A person holds a small bottle con-taining Moderna’s active ingredient for a Corona vaccination at the vac-cination centre in Eberswalde, Ger-

many, Jan 27. (AP)

Discovery

Merapi unleashes lava: Indonesia’s most active volcano erupted Wednesday with a river of lava and searing gas clouds fl owing 1,600 meters (5,250 feet) down its slopes.

It was Mount Merapi’s biggest lava fl ow since authorities raised its danger level in November, said Hanik Humaida, the head of Yogyakarta’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center.

After morning rain, ashfall turned into muck in several villages, where the sound of eruption could be heard 30 kilometers (18 away). Police and rescue services told miners to cease work along rivers but no one was evacuated.

Authorities in November had evacu-ated nearly 2,000 people living on the mountain in Magelang and Sleman dis-tricts on Java Island but most have since returned.

The alert was being maintained at the second-highest level and authorities told people to stay out of the existing 5-kilom-eter (3-mile) danger zone around the cra-ter as the local administrations in Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces closely monitor the situation.

The 2,968-meter (9,737-foot) volcano is on the densely populated island of Java and near the ancient city of Yogyakarta. It is the most active of dozens of Indone-sian volcanoes and has repeatedly erupted with lava and gas clouds recently.

Merapi’s last major eruption in 2010 killed 347 people. (AP)

❑ ❑ ❑

‘Full environmental review’: A fed-eral appeals court on Tuesday upheld the ruling of a district judge who ordered a full environmental impact review of the Dakota Access pipeline.

Following a complaint by the Stand-ing Rock Sioux Tribe, US District Judge James Boasberg said in April 2020 that a more extensive review was necessary than the one already conducted by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

The $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile (1,886 kil-ometer) pipeline crosses beneath the Mis-souri River, just north of the the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation that straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. The tribe, which draws its water from the river, says it fears pollution.

Tuesday’s ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit does not re-quire the pipeline to stop operating or be emptied of oil.

The Dakota Access pipeline was the subject of months of sometimes violent protests in 2016 and 2017 during its construction. The tribe continued its le-gal challenges against the pipeline even after it began carrying oil from North Dakota across South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois in June 2017. (AP)

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Ape recovers from virus: A troop of gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park is recovering from the coronavirus, including a 49-year-old silverback who received antibody therapy in what is be-lieved to be the fi rst known cases among such primates.

The western lowland gorillas were in-

Biden

fected with a variant that has been circu-lating in California and is believed to be more contagious than other strains, the safari park said in a statement.

Some gorillas showed symptoms in-cluding mild coughing, congestion, and intermittent lethargy.

The silverback named Winston, had pneumonia, likely caused by the virus, as well as heart disease. He has been more active since being put on antibiotics and

heart medication, and receiving an anti-body treatment — a therapy to block the virus from infecting cells, San Diego Zoo Safari Park executive director Lisa Peter-son said in a statement.

“We’re not seeing any of that lethargy. No coughing, no runny noses anymore,” Peterson said, adding that their fecal mat-ter is no longer testing positive for the vi-rus. “It feels to us like we’ve turned the corner.” (AP)

France’s Sanofi to make rival vaccine

Studies extend hopes for antibody drugsNEW YORK, Jan 27, (AP): New re-sults extend hopes for drugs that sup-ply antibodies to fi ght COVID-19, sug-gesting they can help keep patients out of the hospital and possibly prevent illness in some uninfected people.

Eli Lilly said Tuesday that a two-antibody combo reduced the risk of hospitalizations or death by 70% in newly diagnosed, non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients at high risk of se-rious illness because of age or other health conditions. All 10 deaths that occurred in the study were among those receiving placebo rather than the antibodies.

Separately, Regeneron Pharmaceu-ticals Inc. said partial results from an ongoing study suggest its drug combo completely prevented symptomatic infections in housemates of someone with COVID-19. Importantly, the drug was given as multiple shots rather than through an IV. The need for an infu-sion has greatly limited the use of anti-body drugs in the pandemic because of health care shortages.

None of the new results have been published or reviewed by other sci-entists, and the Regeneron ones were based on only one quarter of patients in its study and were not a planned early analysis.

EffectiveAntibodies are proteins that attach

to a virus and block it from infecting cells, but it takes several weeks after infection or vaccination for the most effective ones to form. The drugs aim to help right away, by supplying con-centrated doses of one or two antibod-ies that worked best against the coro-navirus in lab tests.

US regulators have allowed emer-gency use of some Lilly and Regen-eron antibodies for mild or moderate COVID-19 cases that do not require hospitalization while studies of them continued.

The drugs are also being tested to prevent infection in those at high risk of it. That’s called “passive vaccina-tion” because it supplies antibodies rather than prompts the body to make them. Both companies are asking regu-lators to expand authorization of their drugs based on the new fi ndings.

Regeneron’s results were on the fi rst 409 people in a study that has enrolled more than 2,000 so far. All tested neg-ative for the virus but live with some-one who has COVID-19.

There were roughly half as many infections among those given the drug versus a placebo, and none on the drug developed any symptoms. Infections also were shorter and the amount of virus lower among those given the drug.

Lilly’s new results were from a study of 1,035 non-hospitalized pa-tients recently diagnosed with COV-ID-19. About 2% on the drug were later hospitalized or died versus 7% of the placebo group.

Last week, Lilly said one of the two antibodies helped prevent illness among residents and staff of nursing homes in a different study. The four deaths that occurred in that study were all among those given placebo.

UK eyes traveler quarantine as viruspandemic death toll passes 100,000LONDON, Jan 27, (AP): Britain’s official death toll in the corona-virus pandemic passed 100,000 on Tuesday, a dreaded milestone reached as the government con-sidered imposing hotel quaran-tines on international travelers to stop new virus variants reaching the country.

The government said 100,162 people have died in the pandemic after testing positive for the virus, including 1,631 new deaths report-ed Tuesday.

“it is hard to compute the sorrow contained in that grim statistic,” a somber Prime Minister Boris John-son said. “The years of life lost, the family gatherings not attended and, for so many relatives, the missed chance even to say goodbye.”

Britain is the fifth country in the world to record 100,000 virus-relat-ed deaths, after the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico, and by far the smallest. The US has record-ed more than 400,000 COVID-19 deaths, the world’s highest total, but its population of about 330 mil-lion is about five times the size of Britain’s 67 million.

As in other countries, the real toll is likely even higher. UK statistics agencies say that the number of deaths registered that mention CO-VID-19 on the death certificate is more than 108,000.

Opposition politicians and public health officials accuse Johnson’s Conservative government of being slow to act throughout the outbreak when it has come to lockdowns and travel restrictions. A more trans-missible new variant identified in southeast England late last year also helped push infections to new highs and plunged the country into its third lockdown.

Johnson said at a televised news conference that he took “full re-sponsibility for everything that the government has done.”

“What I can tell you is that we truly did everything we could, and continue to do everything that we can, to minimize loss of life and

to minimize suffering in what has been a very, very difficult stage and a very, very difficult crisis for our country,” he said.

British authorities are banking on a successful vaccination program to help the country suppress the outbreak and ease the lockdown. So far more than 6.8 million people have received the first of two doses of a vaccine, and the government aims to give 15 million people, in-cluding everyone over 70, a jab by Feb. 15.

Johnson has promised a public inquiry into Britain’s handling of the outbreak - but not until the crisis is over.

“We will make sure we learn the lessons and reflect and prepare,” he said.

Vaccines Minister Nadhim Za-hawi said there would be an an-nouncement Tuesday on plans for tighter border measures. The BBC reported that U.K. citizens and resi-dents arriving from most of south-ern Africa and South America, as well as Portugal, will have to self-isolate in a hotel for 10 days at their own expense.

Quarantine hotels have been used to limit virus transmissions in countries including Australia, New Zealand, China, India and Singa-pore but the practice has not been widely adopted in Europe.

Current lockdown rules bar Brit-ons from taking foreign holidays, although essential travel is al-lowed. People arriving from over-seas are already required to self-isolate in Britain, but enforcement is patchy.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, law-and-order spokesman for Britain’s opposition Labour Party, said only a “comprehensive hotel quarantine system” would be strong enough to keep new strains of the virus from spreading in the UK.

“It cannot be restricted to only a handful of countries, leaving gaping holes in our defenses against dif-ferent strains of the virus emerging around the world,” he said.

Also:PARIS: French drug maker Sanofi said Wednesday it will help manufacture 125 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine developed by rivals Pfi zer and BioNTech, while its own vaccine can-didate faces delays.

The Germany-based BioNTech will initially produce the vaccines at Sanofi facilities in Frankfurt, starting in the summer, according to a Sanofi state-ment. The company did not reveal fi -nancial details of the agreement.

The French government has been pressing Sanofi to use its facilities to help make vaccines from its rivals, given high demand and problems with supplies of the few vaccines that are already available.

“We are very conscious that the

earlier vaccine doses are available, the more lives can potentially be saved,” Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson said in the statement.

Sanofi and British partner Glaxo-SmithKline will start a new phase-2 trial of their COVID-19 vaccine next month, Sanofi said. The two compa-nies said last month that their vaccine won’t be ready until late 2021 because the shot’s effectiveness in older people needed to be improved.

The European Union has been widely criticized for its slow rollout of a mass vaccination program. The bloc has approved using vaccines from Pfi zer and Moderna, and its regulatory agency on Friday was to consider ap-proval for the vaccine made by Astra-Zeneca and Oxford University.

COVID-19

Boasberg Peterson

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This image released by Focus Features shows Sidney Flanigan in a scene from ‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always.’ The fi lm was nominated for seven Independent Film Spirit Awards including one for best feature. (AP)

New milestone for legendary actor and fi lmmaker

Latest honor for Sidney Poitier: A fi lm school in his nameNEW YORK, Jan 27, (AP): In 1963, Sidney Poitier made a fi lm in Ari-zona, “Lilies of the Field.” The performance led to a huge milestone: He became the fi rst Black winner of a lead-acting Oscar.

Now, Arizona is the site of another career milestone for the legend-ary actor and fi lmmaker — Arizona State University has named its new fi lm school after him. The Sidney Poitier New American Film School was unveiled at a virtual ceremony on Monday.

The decision to name the school after Poitier, 93, is about much more than his achievements and legacy, but because he “embodies in his very person that which we strive to be — the matching of excel-lence and drive and passion with social purpose and social outcomes, all things that his career has really stood for,” said Michael M. Crow, president of the university.

“You’re looking for an icon, a person that embodies everything you stand for,” Crow said in an earlier interview. “With Sidney Poitier, it’s his creative energy, his dynamism, his drive, his ambition, the kinds of projects he worked on, the ways in which he advanced his life.”

“Look at his life: It’s a story of a person who found a way,” he said of the actor, who was born in Miami and raised in the Bahamas, the son of tomato farmers, before launching a career that went from small, hard-won theater parts to eventual Hollywood stardom. “How do we help other young people fi nd their way?”

The university, which is expanding its existing fi lm program into its own school, says it has invested millions of dollars in technology to create what’s intended to be one of the largest, most accessible and most diverse fi lm schools. Crow said that much like the broader uni-

versity, the fi lm school will measure success not by exclusivity but by inclusivity.

By expanding both its physical resources and fl exible learning op-tions like online study, it hopes to enroll thousands more students, teaching them skills that go far beyond traditional moviemaking.

The school will move in the fall of 2022 to a new facility in down-town Mesa, Arizona, 7 miles from the university’s Tempe Campus. It will also occupy the university’s new center in Los Angeles.

InclusivityThe university did not make Poitier, who has been out of the public

eye for some time, available for an interview. His daughter Beverly Poitier-Henderson told The Associated Press her father was “doing well and enjoying his family,” and considered it an honor to be the namesake of the new fi lm school.

Poitier-Henderson and two of Poitier’s other daughters described in interviews how the fi lm school’s emphasis on inclusivity and access aligned with their father’s long-held ideals.

“If it has my Dad’s name on it, it has to be inclusive, because that’s the foundation of who he is and what he stands for,” said Anika Poitier, like her father a fi lmmaker. “And it’s important to not only have inclu-sion but to have diversity, and to give people the opportunity to tell their stories. I think it’s imperative to cast a wide net and allow anyone who’s called to tell their story to learn how to do that.”

Sydney Poitier Heartsong, the actor’s youngest daughter, noted that the two most important things to her father as she grew up were educa-

tion and the arts.“Those are the two tracks that run throughout his life, that defi ne

what he has contributed and defi ned what he felt was important to im-part to his kids,” she said. “The arts were also a form of education. He wanted to pass that on to all young people but specifi cally young people of color.”

Poitier Heartsong, who followed her father’s footsteps into acting, added that the new school had special resonance in a time when “we’ve come to recognize that from a socioeconomic standpoint, a lot of (elite) schools exclude people of color disproportionately -- and people with-out the means to go to them. That is the antithesis of what my father would want to be a part of.”

And she noted that in Poitier’s heyday, when he won his Oscar, one of his biggest complaints was that “he was the only one up there, and he wanted others to be up there with him. Well, others can’t be up there with him if they don’t have access to these tools and these educations. Not the way the world works today. “

The ASU fi lm production programs now enroll 700 students, said Steven Tepper, dean of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts there, but that number is expected to double over three to fi ve years.

“I just hope that the students at the Sidney Poitier Film School take up the mantle of responsibility the way our father took up the mantle when he was coming up in his career,” said Poitier-Henderson, “and tell their stories regardless of fi nances, which is easy for us to say. But you’ve got to be true to yourself. It’s a very powerful thing, and I’m looking forward to seeing who comes out of it.”

NEW YORK: The fi rst inaugura-tions of presidents Ronald Rea-gan and Barack Obama were the only ones to exceed Joe Biden’s in popularity among television viewers over the past 40 years.

The Nielsen company said that 33.8 million people watched Biden’s inauguration over 17 tel-evision networks between 10 am, and 4 pm last Wednesday.

Reagan’s festivities in 1981 drew 41.8 million viewers, and Obama’s 2009 inaugural reached 37.8 million, Nielsen said.

Perhaps most important to a former president known to watch television ratings closely: Biden exceeded the 30.6 million who watched Donald Trump take of-fi ce in 2017, Nielsen said.

CNN was the most popular network for inaugural viewers, Nielsen said. Meanwhile, Fox News’ audience for Biden’s oath of offi ce and inaugural address was down 77% from the network’s viewership for Trump.

Meanwhile, the pro football conference championship games gathered people around televisions in big numbers Sunday. Nielsen said 44.8 million people saw Tom Brady and his Tampa Bay Bucs qualify for the Super Bowl, while 41.8 million watched Kansas City beat Buffalo.

With the prime-time game, CBS easily won the week in the ratings, averaging 10.4 million viewers. ABC had 3.4 million, Fox had 2.7 million, NBC had 2.5 million, Uni-vision had 1.2 million, while Ion Television and Telemundo each averaged 1.1 million viewers. (AP)

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NEW YORK: Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron, who has led the newspaper on a resurgence in recent years, said Tuesday that he will retire at the end of February.

One of the nation’s top journal-ism executives, Baron took over the Post’s newsroom in 2012 after editing the Boston Globe and Miami Herald before that. Liev Schreiber portrayed Baron in the 2015 movie “Spotlight” about the Globe’s investigation of the Catholic Church and introduced the journalist to a wider audience.

In a note to the Post’s staff, Baron recounted a series of “epic” stories that he’s been involved in during his 45-year career in journalism.

“The experience has been

deeply meaningful, enriched by colleagues who made me a better professional and a better person,” he wrote. “At age 66, I feel ready to move on.”

The Post’s publisher and CEO, Fred Ryan, said Baron had “sig-nifi cantly expanded our coverage areas, inspired great reporting, managed an awesome digital transformation and grown the

number of readers and subscribers to unprecedented levels.”

The paper has won 10 Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure. (AP)

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HOUSTON: The death of a Hou-ston social media star has been ruled a homicide two months after her body was found in roadside bushes.

Alexis Robinault died by strangulation, though no wounds were visible on her body, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences said in a statement.

A city employee found Rob-inault’s body on Nov 28, about 3 miles (4.83 kilometers) from her apartment. She was last seen alive the night before.

Police offi cials said the investi-

gation into her death continues and no arrests have been made, accord-ing to the Houston Chronicle.

Robinault, who the Chronicle reported also went by her married name Sharkey, garnered a sizeable Instagram following by showing off beauty products. She identifi ed herself as a “mentor” for Monat, a marketing company that sells hair and skincare products. (AP)

Film

Variety

Film

‘Soul,’ ‘Ma Rainey’s’ among AFI’s top 10 fi lms of the year

‘Never Rarely’ tops Spirit Awards nomsNEW YORK, Jan 27, (AP): The teen abortion drama “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” landed a lead-ing seven nominations, Chadwick Boseman was posthumously nominated and women dominated the best director category in the Film Independent Spirit Awards nominations announced Tuesday.

The 36th annual Spirit Awards, like most awards shows during the pandemic, are adjusting to the dif-fi cult circumstances. Tuesday’s nominees were an-nounced virtually, with taped messages from Olivia Wilde, Laverne Cox and Barry Jenkins — who was joined by his dog, Chauncey Wang-Jenkins. The awards, usually held in a massive tent on the Santa Monica, California, beach the day before the Os-cars, have been postponed to a primetime broadcast on IFC on April 22, three days before the Academy Awards.

“2020 was obviously hell on earth but one glori-ous lifeline these past few months has been the abil-ity to watch so many great fi lms and shows,” said Josh Welsh, president of Film Independent, in the presentation streamed on YouTube.

Eliza Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Al-ways,” a Pennsylvania’s teen’s odyssey in getting an abortion, racked up nominations for best fea-ture film, best director and best female lead for Sidney Flanigan. It was followed closely by Lee Isaac Chung’s Korean immigrant family drama “Minari,” with six nominations including best fea-ture film, best director, best male lead for Steven Yeun and supporting nods for Yeri Han and Yuh-jung Youn. Chloe Zhoe’s “Nomadland,” starring Frances McDormand, scored five nods, including best feature, best director and best female lead for McDormand.

The other nominees for best feature were Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow” (also up for best director and best supporting male for Orion Lee) and George C. Wolfe’s August Wilson adaptation “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Viola Davis and Boseman, the two stars of “Ma Rainey,” were also nominated, as was Glynn Turman.

Four out of fi ve nominees for directing were wom-en: Reichardt, Zhao, Hittman and Emerald Fennell, for “Promising Young Woman.” Overall, the nomi-nees were notably diverse: 42% of nominees were women and 37% were people of color. None of the nominees for best feature fi lm were directed by a white male.

Those fi ve fi lms have been regularly celebrated in a pandemic-marred awards season that has accel-erated lately. “Nomadland” took top honors at the Gotham Awards earlier this month. The American Film Institute announced its best 10 fi lms of 2020 on Monday.

Also on Tuesday, the National Board of Review gave a boost to Spike Lee’s Vietnam War drama “Da 5 Bloods,” naming it best fi lm along with awards for directing and best ensemble. Other picks by the long-running organization of fi lm enthusiasts, which normally holds a fl ashy gala for winners in New York, also included “Soul” for best animated fi lm, “Time” for best documentary and acting awards for Carey Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman”) and Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”).

Pre-eminentAt the Spirits, the pre-eminent indie fi lm soiree,

nominees are limited to fi lms made for less than $22.5 million. Last year, Lulu Wang’s “The Fare-well” won best feature, while Adam Sandler (“Uncut Gems”) and Renée Zellweger (“Judy”) took the top acting awards. This year, Netfl ix led all studios with 16 nominations.

Mulligan, star of Fennell’s revenge drama, was among the nominees for best female lead, along with Davis, Flanigan, McDormand, Nicole Beharie (“Juneteenth”) and Julia Garner (“The Assistant”). In the best male lead category, Yeun and Boseman were joined by Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”), Adarsh Gourav (“White Tiger”) and Rob Morgan (“Bull”).

The Spirits’ Robert Altman Award, an honor for a fi lm’s ensemble, will go to Regina King’s feature fi lm directorial debut “One Night in Miami...,” a

fi ctional account of a 1960s meeting of Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown.

The nominees for best documentary are: “Col-lective,” “Crip Camp,” “Dick Johnson Is Dead,” “Time” and “The Mole Agent.” Up for best interna-tional fi lm are: “Bacurau,” “The Disciple,” “Night of the Kings,” “Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time” and “Quo Vadis, Aida?”

Also:LOS ANGELES: The American Film Institute on Mon-day announced its top 10 fi lms of the year, including Pixar’s jazz themed “Soul” and two of Chadwick Boseman’s fi nal fi lms: the August Wilson adapta-tion “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and Spike Lee’s Vietnam drama “Da 5 Bloods,” both of which are Netfl ix fi lms.

Netfl ix featured heavily in the AFI’s list, which took up four positions on the list including David Fincher’s “Citizen Kane” origin story “Mank” and Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” Ama-zon, too, got two spots with the hearing loss drama “Sound of Metal,” with Riz Ahmed and Regina King’s “One Night in Miami...”.

Chloé Zhao’s awards and festival favorite “No-madland” with Frances McDormand was also named an honoree in advance of its theatrical roll-out in the coming weeks, as was “Minari,” with Ste-ven Yeun, which opens Feb. 12. AFI also selected Warner Bros.’ Black Panther Party fi lm “Judas and the Black Messiah” which will have its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on Feb. 1.

The AFI also named its top 10 television shows, including Netfl ix’s “The Queen’s Gambit,” the Dis-ney+ phenomenon “The Mandalorian” and Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso.”

The selection jury included fi lmmakers Rian Johnson and Lulu Wang. The group also included a special citation for “Hamilton.”

In lieu of the annual luncheon celebrating the hon-orees, AFI will hold a virtual benediction on Feb. 26 streaming on YouTube and the AFI website.

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People & Places

NEWS/FEATURESARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2021

13

‘We need mature voices’

D Smoke takes patient walk to ‘Grammy nod’

By Jonathan Landrum Jr.

When D Smoke was teaching high schoolers in Southern California, the rapper still pursued

his dreams of breaking through as a hip-hop artist while leaning on the encouraging phrase: “There’s no expiration on realness.”

D Smoke maintained that mindset as a mo-tivator before he made a splash on Netflix’s music reality TV series “Rhythm + Flow” in 2019. He won the competition, impressing judges Cardi B, T.I. and Chance the Rapper

with his ability as a multi-instrumentalist and bilin-gual rapper who could eas-ily switch from English to Spanish in his rhymes.

Last year, D Smoke rode the momentum from the show’s success, perform-ing alongside boxer Deontay Wilder before a heavyweight championship bout and re-leasing his debut album “Black Habits,” which this year earned him a Grammy

nomination for best rap album. He’s also up for best new artist against Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, Ingrid Andress, Phoebe Bridgers, Chika, Noah Cyrus and Kaytranada.

It’s been a long road toward Grammy recogni-tion for D Smoke, but the 35-year-old had other milestones along the way. He’s a UCLA graduate who taught Spanish and musical theory at Ingle-wood High School. He’s also penned songs for The Pussycat Dolls, Ginuwine, Joe and Jaheim, some of which he co-wrote with his brother, R&B singer SiR, who is signed to Kendrick Lamar’s Top Dawg Entertainment.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, D Smoke talked about the pressure of fi nding suc-cess outside “Rhythm + Flow,” how being a teacher matured his lyrics and his thoughts on why Gram-my voters nominated him and other 35-and-up rap-pers in the best rap album category.

AP: You were in your 30s with a decade of teaching under your belt, so did you ever think you were past your prime to pursue a music career?

D Smoke: I always tell people that there’s no expiration on realness. People need incredible art. Anytime you spend pursuing whatever level of suc-cess and see yourself achieving, it’s time to get bet-ter. Always getting better. It didn’t matter if I got a (Grammy nom) when I was 40. It’s just going to be that season.

AP: What compelled you to learn Spanish?D Smoke: I went to a middle school that was

predominantly Latino and all my friends spoke it. That’s when I told myself that I must be fluent in this. You’re not going to switch languages and I’m left out. I took Spanish one, two and three at Inglewood High. While everybody was doing it to get a grade, I was already like, “I’m learning this.” Then finally, when I went to UCLA, I just kept going.

AP: Was rapping in English and Spanish in front of Cardi B - who is also bilingual — your strategy to win “Rhythm + Flow”?

D Smoke: Everything I did on the show was stra-tegic. That’s how you approach a fi ght with strategy because just being tough or trying to outdo some-body will get you hurt. I’m using a fi ght metaphor. I knew there were lyricists on the show. I knew they could rap their (explicit) off. But the goal was to distinguish myself. I knew that was going to be memorable. By going into the later rounds, they would be like, “There he goes. That’s the dude who can speak Spanish.” They were going to remember me from that one performance. I knew they were going to remember that until the end.

AP: What was the strategy to ride the momen-tum after the show?

D Smoke: We knew that we had a limited win-dow of converting all of these Netfl ix fans into mu-sic fans and people who respect the craft and fol-low the journey outside of Netfl ix, because it’s far longer before than what people realize. There was pressure to show that. If you look at the trajectory of artists who come off shows, their biggest success is the show. ...That was our goal to go ahead and transition from the Netfl ix star that people viewed me as to an artist.

AP: In the best rap album category, each Gram-my nominee is 35-years-old and up (Nas is the old-est at 47). What are voters trying to say?

D Smoke: It opens a conversation of what our culture needs and wants. I think all the things that happened in the past year are really sobering. I think people are requiring, at this moment more than ever, music that speaks to them at a deeper level.

AP: Can you elaborate a little more?D Smoke: We need mature voices in rap. We

need them to be at the forefront. Of course, we’re going to listen to the kids, because we need to hear them out so they feel understood. But everybody stops to listen to a voice of reason, the voice of ex-perience and wisdom. ...I’m experienced but I’m speaking from a place of when I was 17, acting up and wild. I’m still wild, but I’m smart enough to go about my business a certain way.

AP: Did being a high school teacher help the ma-turity in your music?

D Smoke: Absolutely. I was a teacher who got to know my students. You can’t really reach nobody if you’re not concerned about who they are. It’s an exchange. I would ask, “What are you listen to? Put me up on what’s going on.” Some of it I hate, but some I would be surprised and say, “That’s dope.” In that exchange, you learn how music effects peo-ple.

AP: Is your music infl uenced by other West Coast rappers like Tupac, Kendrick Lamar and Nipsey Hussle?

D Smoke: I for sure borrow from them more than any other West Coast artist. Of course, I must mention Snoop (Dogg). I look up to him so much, because he’s an elder in the game and still as rele-vant as ever. That’s beautiful. That’s another exam-ple of these experienced voices still being present in the culture. (AP)

D Smoke

In this Jan 16, 2013, file photo, South Korean alternative hip-hop group Epik High poses for photographers as they arrive on the red carpet ahead of the 27th Golden Disk Awards at Sepang International Circuit in Sepang, Malaysia. Popular South Korean hip-hop trio Epik High was working on a song called ‘End of the World’

before the pandemic hit in 2020. Now, the band’s frontman Tablo says, ‘I wish that this song is not relevant.’ (AP)

BOSTON: Fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli’s request to serve the remain-ing three months of his prison term in the college admissions bribery scheme at home was denied Tuesday by a federal judge. Giannulli argued he should be released to home confi nement for the rest of his fi ve-month sentence because he spent eight weeks under “extreme” con-ditions in solitary confi nement because of the coronavirus pandemic after reporting to prison in November.

But US District Judge Nathaniel Gorton said Giannulli failed to demon-strate an “’extraordinary and compelling’ reason warranting his release,” though he noted that the quarantine was “longer than anticipated.”

An email seeking comment was sent to lawyers for Giannulli.

Giannulli, who reported to prison on Nov 19, believed he would only be held in quarantine for a short time before testing negative for the coronavirus, his lawyers said in court documents. Instead, he spent 56 days isolated in a small cell at California’s USP Lompoc before being transferred to a minimum security camp on Jan 13, they said.

“Mr Giannulli spent almost 40% of his total sentence confi ned in solitary quarantine, despite testing negative for COVID-19 at least ten times and despite his counsel’s multiple requests that (the Bureau of Prisons) release him from quarantine,” his lawyers wrote in a mo-tion fi led earlier this month.

“The toll on Mr Giannulli’s mental, physical, and emotional well-being has been signifi cant,” they wrote.

All incoming federal inmates are held in quarantine for at least 14 days to limit the spread of the virus. Giannulli’s quarantine was supposed to end on Dec 7, but on that day, several other inmates in his quarantine unit tested positive for the virus, the judge wrote. (AP)

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KANSAS CITY, Mo: R&B artist Trey

A detail from Sandro Botticelli’s paint-ing ‘Young Man Holding a Roundel’ is seen at Sotheby’s in New York, Jan. 22. This painting which is estimated to bring more than 80 million dollars to

be auctioned off on Jan 28. (AP)

Songz Giannulli

Variety

President Barack Obama presents the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom to Sidney Poitier during ceremonies in the East Room at the White House in Wash-ington on Aug. 12, 2009. Arizona State University has named its new film school after Poitier. The Sidney Poitier New American Film School will be unveiled at a

ceremony on, Jan 25. (AP) — See Page 12

day while an investigation continues, Jackson County Sheriff’s spokesman LeVanden Darks said. No charges have been fi led.

Songz’s representative, Sydney Mar-getson, declined to comment Monday.

Songz is a three-time Grammy-nom-inated singer. He earned his third No. 1 on Billboard’s Top R&B Albums chart with “Back Home” last year. His other two chart-topping albums are “Trigga” and “Tremaine The Album.” He has also appeared in fi lms including “Texas Chainshaw 3D,” “Baggage Claim” and he starred in “Blood Brother” in 2018.

In October, Songz posted on Ins-tagram that he had tested positive for COVID-19. He said he was taking the disease very seriously and urged his fans to do the same.

Kansas City police said in a statement that fans at the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills complained about a man who was not following COVID-19-related protocols and other code of conduct rules for fans, which include not being disruptive, intoxicated, or using obscene language.

The statement did not identify the man as Songz and did not say exactly which rules he was breaking.

Police said the man refused to follow orders from private security guards at Arrowhead Stadium and was asked to leave. When he refused, offi cers from the Kansas City police and Jackson County sheriff’s offi ce were called and he was told he would be arrested if he didn’t comply, police said. (AP)

Songz was jailed overnight after he scuf-fl ed with police offi cers during his arrest for not following coronavirus protocols and other rules at the AFC champion-

ship game in Kansas City, police said Monday.

Songz, 36, whose name is Tremaine Aldon Neverson, was released Mon-

Virus scuttles Glastonbury Festival

Epik High endures with new albumSEOUL, Jan 27, (AP): Popular South Korean hip-hop trio Epik High was working on a song called “End of the World” before the pandemic hit last year. Now, the band’s frontman Tablo says, “I wish that this song is not rel-evant.”

His group had 2020 all planned out, from a Coachella performance to a world tour. Then early last year, Tablo said he and bandmates Mithra Jin and DJ Tukutz saw their plans “completely becoming dust.”

With the world sharing their feelings of “fear, confusion and trepidation,” the group stayed home to document the mo-ment in songs, crafting a new double al-bum called “Epik High Is Here.”

The just-released fi rst half is a col-lection of 10 songs featuring a diverse roster of artists including K-pop heav-yweight CL, rising rapper Woo and Kim Sawol, the South Korean folk and rock singer-songwriter.

Tablo said one of his favorite songs in the album is “Rosario,” one of two lead tracks, which refl ects duality in his inner world - and perhaps this moment in the pandemic. “I have some demons that I can’t shake off,” he said. “But at the same time, I’m very optimistic.”

He said the trio had given lots of thought to the fl ow of the album, bal-ancing it with a mix of “dark and very hard-hitting” songs and those that give “a moment to breathe.” The ups and downs refl ect the band’s career.

Epik High has had an unusually long career spanning almost two decades in a competitive South Korean entertain-ment scene. They didn’t gain fame im-mediately upon their offi cial debut in 2003, but soon the trio uprooted South Korea’s nascent hip-hop scene.

Their music was different, with an experimental mix of genres, poetic lyrics skillfully weaving English and Korean, punchlines abounding with homonyms, and dense rhymes. The band has a knack for making songs about touchy subjects in South Korea, from its white-collar work culture, overly competitive educational system to religion - highlighted on their “Les-son ” series.

By 2010, the trio had topped domes-tic music charts and received multiple accolades. Tablo married well-known actress Kang Hye-jung and was ex-pecting a baby.

Then, his career came to a halt with the spread of online rumors that he’d lied about graduating from Stanford. At the time, South Korea was reeling from fake diplomas scandals involving government offi cials and celebrities.

Recognized (cross head)As rumors started making headlines,

more than 200,000 people signed up for an online group titled “TaJinYo,” a Korean acronym for “We Request the Truth from Tablo.” South Koreans started fl ooding the inboxes of Stan-ford professors asking if Tablo had re-ally graduated. He had.

Tablo said his family started getting death threats. Strangers knocked on the family home and work places. In the street, he was recognized and insulted. Even close friends turned their backs.

To clear his name, he returned to his alma mater with a camera crew in tow as he toured the school and revisited professors and friends. It was a turning point that fi nally cleared his name.

Tablo describes the three years of online and offl ine harassments and lawsuits as “the lowest point” in his ca-

reer. His father, whose health had dete-riorated from the stress of the scandal, died in 2012.

“The problem is … I lost someone that is irreplaceable,” he said. “I lost my dad … as a direct result of what people did … for no reason.”

Tablo says he’s still haunted by the scandal. “It’s been a long time, yes, but it’s not something that I can ever be OK with and that will affect every-thing I do,” he said. “There is a hole that can’t be fi lled.”

Despite bittersweet lyrics, Tablo said the name of the new album - “Epik High is Here” - represents his wishes to live in the present.

Also:LONDON: Britain’s Glastonbury music festival has fallen victim to the coronavirus pandemic for the second year in a row.

Organizers Michael Eavis and Emily Eavis said Thursday that “In spite of our efforts to move heaven & earth, it has become clear that we sim-ply will not be able to make the Festi-val happen this year.”

“We are so sorry to let you all down,” they said in a statement.

They said everyone who had put down a deposit on tickets for the 2020 festival, which also was canceled, would be able to attend in 2022.

The festival has been held almost annually since 1970, drawing up to 150,000 people to the Eavis’ Worthy Farm in southwest England.

Last year’s 50th anniversary event, which had been due to feature Tay-lor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, the Pet Shop Boys and Paul McCartney, was canceled in March as the virus began to sweep the UK.

Music

Music

SPORTSARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2021

14

Slalom leader Schwarz gets 2nd winNoel fi nishes second, Pinturault third

SCHLADMING, Austria, Jan 27, (AP): Right after fi nishing his second run and taking the lead in the race, Marco Schwarz held up one fi nger.

There were still fi ve more racers to come down at the World Cup night slalom, but the Austrian held on to his No. 1 position.

Schwarz improved from sixth after the opening run to win by a big mar-gin, 0.68 seconds ahead of Clément Noël. Another French skier, Alexis Pinturault, was 0.82 behind in third.

“It’s amazing, it’s the classic to win,” Schwarz said. “Schladming was on top of my wish list. To win here was a big dream.”

The night slalom at the resort of the 2013 world championships is usually attended by tens of thousands of spec-tators lining up along both sides of the course, but no visitors were allowed this time amid strict anti-coronavirus measures in Austria.

“Normally there are 45,000 people, this year is a little bit different, but the win feels amazing,” said Schwarz,

who earned his sixth podium result in seven slaloms this season.

Schwarz, who extended his lead in the discipline standings, previously won in Adelboden, Switzerland, and became the fi rst to win two slaloms this season, after the fi rst six races pro-duced as many different winners.

“Second run I had to full attack. It went pretty good the second run, so I’m really happy,” Schwarz said.

His Austrian teammate Manuel Feller held a commanding lead after the opening run but skied out after only six gates into his fi nal run.

Feller’s mishap resembled Schwarz’s fate in last year’s race, when he led after the opening run but failed to fi nish his second. Another Austrian who did well in the opening run, third-ranked Michael Matt, straddled a gate and also failed to fi nish. Sebastian Foss-Solevåg of Norway dropped from second to fourth after a problem with his goggles midway through his fi nal run when the lens came off.

With the best skiers from the open-ing run struggling, Pinturault used the opportunity to gain eight places by posting the fastest time in the fi nal run.

“It was a good performance. I won the second run but I was also lucky. What happened to Sebastian is incred-ible,” said Pinturault, who extended his overall lead over runner-up Marco Odermatt to 253 points. The Swiss skier doesn’t compete in slalom.

Austria’s Marco Schwarz, (center), winner of an alpine ski, men’s World Cup slalom, poses on the podium with second placed France’s Clem-ent Noel, (left), and third placed France’s Alexis Pinturault, in Schlad-

ming, Austria, on Jan 26. (AP)

Manchester City’s Aymeric Laporte, (right), duels for the ball with West Bromwich Albion’s Hal Robson-Kanu during the English Premier League soccer match between West Bromwich Albion and Manchester City at the Hawthorns Stadium in West Bromwich, England, on Jan 26. (AP)

Soucek nets twice as West Ham pip Crystal Palace 3-2

Gundogan helps Man City thrash West BromLONDON, Jan 27, (AP): Fueled by a sparkling attacking display, Man-chester City’s players powered to 5-0 win over West Bromwich Al-bion.

In a comical exhibit for VAR’s ever-lengthening highlights reel, West Bromwich Albion’s defend-ers virtually stopped in their tracks and looked on as Joao Cancelo curled a shot into the top corner for the second of City’s goals in the rout.

After all, the assistant referee had raised the fl ag for offside moments earlier but City, unlike West Brom, played on as Bernardo Silva col-lected the ball and fed Cancelo, who - unchallenged - picked his spot from the edge of the area.

A video review showed Silva was actually onside and the goal was al-lowed to stand. City was on course to match its biggest league win of the season and, on the evidence of this game and the last couple of months, Pep Guardiola’s team is going to be hard to stop.

“Now, with VAR in these situa-tions, we have to follow the actions until the end because you never know what is going to happen,” Guardiola said. “Is the goal allowed or disallowed? Nobody knows. So you have to continue until the end of the action.”

Make it seven straight wins in the league - and 11 in all competitions - for City in an ominous run of results. City became the ninth side to fi nish a day in fi rst place this season, the most within a single top-fl ight cam-paign since 1986-87.

Even if Manchester United re-claims the lead on Wednesday by beating Sheffi eld United, City - on its longest winning run in more than three years - looks to be the team to beat.

Ilkay Gundogan netted twice to make it seven goals in the last eight league games for a midfi elder who has never been a prolifi c scorer in his career but has hit a rich vein of form. Riyad Mahrez and Raheem Sterling set each other up for the fi nal two goals.

Another central midfi elder in scor-

Best and worst of Zlatan as Milan lose at Inter

Women’s fi rst weightlifting tournament concludes

MILAN, Jan 27, (AP): The best and worst of Zlatan Ibrahimović was on show as he scored and later was sent off in AC Milan’s 2-1 loss at city rival Inter Milan in the quarterfi -nals of the Italian Cup.

Ibrahimović clashed with former teammate Romelu Lukaku at the end of the fi rst half, and he was ejected for a second booking in the 58th minute.

Lukaku converted a penalty for the equalizer and Christian Eriksen scored the winner deep in stop-page time.

Inter will play Juventus or Spal in the semifi nals. They meet on Wednesday.

The two Milan clubs are also fi ghting it out in the league, with the Rossoneri leading second-place In-ter by two points.

Milan started the brighter of the teams and almost immediately went in front when Rafael Leão fi red just past the left post.

It did take the lead in the 31st minute when Ibrahimović con-trolled the ball on the edge of the area before placing an angled drive between the legs of Inter defender Aleksandar Kolarov. It went in off the base of the far post.

There was a huge argument be-tween Ibrahimović and Lukaku on the stroke of halftime and both were booked. The spat between the for-mer Manchester United teammates continued after the halftime whistle and a visibly furious Lukaku had to be pulled back.

That was to prove costly for Ibrahimović as he was shown a second yellow card after the break

for a tackle on Kolarov and sent off, leaving his side down to 10 men.

And Inter was level 13 minutes later. Leão brought down Nicolò Barella and, after viewing the inci-dent again on the pitchside moni-tor, the referee pointed to the spot. Lukaku slammed the penalty into the top left corner.

The match had a lengthy delay as referee Paolo Valeri received treatment for a thigh injury and was eventually replaced by the fourth offi cial.

Milan goalkeeper Ciprian T�t�ruşanu pulled off a number of saves but it wasn’t enough. Just as the match appeared to be head-ing into extra time, Eriksen curled a free kick into the top left corner in the seventh minute of stoppage time.

Kuwait’s fi rst women’s weightlifting tournament con-cluded on Tuesday its competitions that took place at Al-Tadamun SC over the course of three days.

This tournament was held to serve the purpose of improving player-lifting abilities.

Chief of Kuwait Weightlifting Association Talal Al-Jassar said to KUNA, that the tournament witnessed the participation of 34 players in different weight cat-egories. “The goal behind this tournament is prepping and scouting for lifters to represent Kuwait in future

tournaments,” he added.“Kuwait has many talents and the national team

includes a lot of star players not only locally but also regionally, and the association supports those players in order to represent Kuwait and achieve goals interna-tionally,” he noted.

Al-Jassar mentioned that a lot players have achieved fi rst places and honored on the podium in different weight categories such as 49kg, 55kg, 59kg, 71kg, 76kg ,81kg and 87kg. (KUNA)

ing form is Tomas Soucek, who net-ted twice for West Ham in its 3-2 win at Crystal Palace that lifted the team to fourth place.

The Czech Republic international is proving a solid source of goals for West Ham, having scored seven times in his last 13 league matches.

In a tweet, he dedicated his double to his wife.

“The most beautiful feeling in football is when you realize you have helped your team,” Soucek wrote. “But this time I want to dedi-cate the win and my two goals to my wife. It’s really tough time for her as she can’t see anyone from the fam-ily. Thank you for taking care of me and our daughter!”

Arsenal avenged a defeat to Southampton in the FA Cup at the weekend by beating the Saints 3-1 in the league.

Arsenal came from behind to win for the fi rst time in a Premier League game this season, having trailed after three minutes. Nicolas Pepe and Bu-kayo Saka replied before halftime, and Alexandre Lacazette made sure of the points with a third in the 72nd.

The win moved Mikel Arteta’s side above Southampton and up to eighth in the standings.

Newcastle’s winless run extended to 11 games in all competitions with a 2-1 home defeat to Leeds, pil-ing the pressure on manager Steve Bruce. Jack Harrison clinched three points with a swerving 61st-minute strike with the outside of his left foot, four minutes after Miguel Almiron canceled out Raphinha’s fi rst-half opener for Leeds.

Leeds ended its three-game losing streak in all competitions.

Newcastle has taken only two points from the last 27 in the league and has dropped to 16th.

KUNA photoPhoto taken during the Kuwait’s fi rst women’s weightlifting tournament closing ceremony.

Crystal Palace’s Andros Townsend, (left), and West Ham’s Declan Rice fi ght for the ball during the English Premier League soccer match be-tween Crystal Palace and West Ham in London, England, on Jan

26. (AP)

SOCCER

SKIING

Villarreal advance

Betis beat Sociedad,reach Copa quartersMADRID, Jan 27, (AP): Real Betis came from behind to beat Real So-ciedad 3-1 in extra time, reaching the Copa del Rey quarterfi nals for the sec-ond time in three seasons.

Forward Borja Iglesias scored twice in extra time after Sergio Canales equalized late in regulation in a round of 16 match played under heavy fog in Seville.

Iglesias netted with a left-footed shot from close range six minutes into extra time and then sealed the victory with a header in the 111th minute of the game.

Mikel Oyarzabal had put the visitors ahead after a breakaway in the 13th and Canales made it 1-1 in the 78th with a low shot from outside the area.

Both teams fi nished with 10 men as Sociedad’s Asier Illarramendi was sent off in the 48th and Betis’ Antonio Sanabria got a red card in the 76th.

Betis was eliminated in the round of 32 of the Copa in three of the last four seasons but made it to the semifi nals in 2019, when it lost to eventual cham-pion Valencia.

Sociedad made it to last season’s fi nal against Basque Country rival Athletic Bilbao. The fi nal has been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic and is yet to be rescheduled as offi cials try to wait for fans to be al-lowed to return to stadiums.

Yéremi Pino scored a 19th-minute winner as Villarreal beat second-divi-sion club Girona 1-0 to reach the quar-terfi nals for the second straight season.

SPORTSARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2021

15

US Olympic swim trials split into 2 meets because of COVID

IOC, Tokyo Olympics to unveil rule book on beating pandemicTOKYO, Jan 27, (AP): Remember the word: Playbook.

This is the rule book that the IOC and Tokyo organizers are set to roll out next week to explain how 15,400 Olympic and Paralympic athletes and tens of thousands of others will try to safely enter Japan when the Olympics open in just under six months.

Organizers and the International Olympic Committee are finally going public with their planning, hoping to push back against reports the Olympics will be canceled with Tokyo and much of Japan still under a state of emer-gency with C O V I D - 1 9 cases rising.

The rollout at Olympic head-quarters in Switzerland is planned for Feb. 4, with Tokyo likely to present on Feb. 5.

“We created four different scenari-os, one that had travel restrictions, clusters - to one where the pandemic was nearly gone,” Lucia Montanarella, head of IOC media operations, explained Tuesday for a panel discus-sion held by the International Sports Press Association.

“The present scenario is very much like one of those that we’d created, with the pandemic still among us, and some countries being able to contain it, some not.”

The playbook will be about creating safe bubbles in Tokyo, and will be updated with changing protocols as the July 23 opening gets closer. The Paralympics are schedule to open on Aug. 24.

Athletes and those traveling to Japan - coaches, judges, media, broad-casters, VIPS - are likely to face some self-quarantine period before they leave home. This will be followed by tests at the airport, tests arriving in Japan, and frequent testing for those staying in the Athletes Village along-side Tokyo Bay.

Montanarella said “we know that we are facing a huge challenge, this is to create a bubble for all athletes. One thing is to create a bubble for 200 ath-letes in just one sport, and a very dif-ferent thing is to create a bubble for thousands of athletes of different sports.”

A major unanswered questions involves fans. How many fans will be allowed into venues? Will fans from abroad be permitted?

Olympic Minister Seiko Hashimoto said Tuesday that the decision will be announced “by the spring.” Fewer fans means more costs for Japan. The local organizing committee expected to receive $800 million from ticket sales. Any shortfall will have to be made up by Japanese government entities.

Craig Spence, a spokesman for the International Paralympic Committee, said organizers must get the support of the Japanese public amid polls that show 80% of those surveyed think the Olympics should be canceled or postponed.

IOC President Thomas Bach, who has said vaccines are not “obligatory,” is still pushing for all participants to be vaccinated. The World Health Organization said earlier this week that Olympic athletes should not be a priority ahead of health care workers, the elderly and the vulnerable.

The IOC has had its high-profile members speaking publicly.

IOC member Sebastian Coe was on Japanese television on Wednesday, and IOC member Dick Pound suggested last week the “most realistic way of going ahead” was prioritizing athletes. He received strong opposition.

The IOC receives almost 75% of its income from selling broadcast rights. Tokyo could be worth $2 billion to $3 billion in rights income, making Japan’s games a financial imperative - even if it becomes a primarily televi-sion-only event.

Japan has more than 5,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19, but its health care system is under stress with deaths and new cases rising. A vaccine rollout is expected next month, but later in spring for much of the general public.

The president of the Japan Medical Association sounded a warning last week when asked about the Olympics and possible patients from abroad.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Olympic swimming trials will be split into two meets, a striking change designed to provide safer conditions on the pool deck in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

USA Swimming announced Tuesday that a Wave I meet of lower-ranked swimmers qualifying for the trials will be held on June 4-7.

Louisville guard Dana Evans, (left), drives around Wake Forest guard Gina Conti (5) in the first quarter of an NCAA women’s college basketball game

in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on Jan 24. (AP)

Hashimoto

OLYMPICS

Louisville survives Miami (Florida)LOUISVILLE, Kentucky, Jan 27, (AP): Louisville hasn’t had it easy as No. 1, but what’s important is that the Cardinals have answered the challeng-es.

Having the ball in Dana Evans’ hands has certainly helped.

Evans scored 20 points, including Louisville’s final 12 capped by two free throws with 6.5 seconds remain-ing, helping the top-ranked Cardinals survive Miami (Florida) 79-76.

Louisville (15-0, 8-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) led throughout in win-ning their third consecutive game as the No. 1 women’s team, but had to hold off a furious late rally by the Hurricanes.

Evans took over for the final nine minutes, making all eight free throw attempts around a couple of baskets

to give the Cardinals just enough space.

The senior All-American’s last four from the line were particularly huge, with the first two with 13.8 seconds left giving Louisville a 77-71 cushion that offset Kelsey Marshall’s 3-pointer

five seconds later. Evans was fouled after inbounding the ball and made two more to make it 79-74, a safe mar-gin to withstand Taylor Mason’s layup at the buzzer.

For Evans, the finish came two days after her three-point play in the final seconds rallied Louisville past Wake Forest 65-63.

BASKETBALL

Duke snaps skid

Cooper lifts Auburn over No. 12 MissouriAUBURN, Alabama, Jan 27, (AP): Sharife Cooper had 28 points, eight rebounds and seven assists to lead Auburn to an 88-82 win over No. 12 Missouri.

Cooper, a freshman point guard who missed Auburn’s first 11 contests this season, had his fourth 20-point outing in six career games. Bruce Pearl’s young Tigers, which also got 23 com-bined points from freshmen forwards JT Thor and Chris Moore, are now 4-2 since Cooper was ruled eligible by the NCAA.

Auburn (10-7, 4-5 Southeastern Conference) raced out to a 14-point lead early, thanks in large part to some tenacious defense and rebounding.

Duke 75, Georgia Tech 68In Durham, N.C., DJ Steward

scored 19 points, Jalen Johnson added 18 and Duke snapped a three-game losing streak pulling away from Georgia Tech 75-68.

Duke (6-5, 4-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) made 7 of 10 foul shots in the last 79 seconds after Khalid Moore’s layup with 1:40 left pulled Georgia Tech into a tie at 68.

Hurt scored 17 points and Jordan Goldwire had 11 for Duke.

Jose Alvarado scored 26 points on 10-for-15 shooting for Georgia Tech (7-5, 3-3). Moses Wright added 12 points with 14 rebounds.

Georgia Tech hasn’t won at Cameron Indoor Stadium since 2004.

LSU 78, Texas A&M 66In College station, Texas, Cameron

Thomas finished with 28 points and LSU scored the final 18 points of the game to beat Texas A&M 78-66.

Texas A&M led 66-60 with 8:50 remaining and then missed its last 15 field goals plus a free throw.

Ja’Vonte Smart scored 19 points and had a season-high nine assists for the Tigers, who ended a two-game stretch of double-digits losses, each against Alabama and Kentucky. Trendon Watford added 13 points and Darius Days had 11.

Jay Jay Chandler matched a career high with 21 points to lead Texas A&M (7-7, 2-6). Savion Flagg added 17 points.

Ohio 81, W. Michigan 58In Athens, Ohio, Mark Sears had a

season-high 21 points as Ohio romped past Western Michigan 81-58.

Dwight Wilson III had 19 points and eight rebounds for Ohio (9-6, 5-4 Mid-American Conference). Lunden McDay and Ben Vander Plas added 11 points apiece. Jason Preston had six points and 10 rebounds.

Greg Lee had 17 points and seven rebounds for the Broncos (2-10, 1-6), who have now lost six consecutive games.

B. Artis White, the Broncos’ lead-ing scorer coming into the matchup at 15 points per game, shot only 20 per-cent (1 of 5).

Portland St. 69, St. Martin’s 60InPortland, Oregon, Amari McCray

had a career-high 22 points as Portland State defeated St. Martin’s 69-60.

Paris Dawson had 12 points for Portland State (4-8). James Scott added 10 points. Khalid Thomas had three blocks.

BASKETBALL

Florida Panthers forward Alex Wennberg (right), of Sweden, controls the puck in front of Columbus Blue Jackets forward Cam Atkinson during the first period of an NHL hockey game in Columbus, Ohio, on Jan 26. (AP)

Hornqvist nets SO winner asPanthers edge Blue Jackets

Stars keep hot start going with 2-1 OT win over Red Wings

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Jan 27, (AP): Patric Hornqvist scored the tying goal with 3 seconds left in regulation and had the game winner in a shootout as the Florida Panthers beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-3.

Hornqvist beat Joonas Korpisalo in the fifth round of the shootout to end it after Columbus’ Mikhail Grigorenko’s try went into the pads of Panthers’ stopper Sergei Bobrovsky.

Hornqvist, the veteran who joined the Panthers in the offseason, had tapped in the tiebreaker from the door-step late during a 6-on-5 scramble after the Panthers had played from behind for most of the third period.

Carter Verhaeghe and Aleksander Barkov also scored in regulation, and Bobrovsky, the former Blue Jacket, stopped 19 shots for Florida. The Panthers stayed unbeaten in their third game of the season after having two series canceled because of COVID-19 issues with the other teams.

Kevin Stenlund, Alexandre Texier and Cam Atkinson scored, and Joonas Korpisalo - formerly Bobrovsky’s backup - had 28 saves.

Stars 2, Red Wings 1, OTIn Dallas, Jason Dickinson scored

1:32 into overtime and the Dallas Stars won a third straight home game to start their delayed season, beating the Detroit Red Wings 2-1.

The Red Wings controlled the puck for the first minute-plus of the 3-on-3 period before the Stars gained control and moved into the offensive zone. John Klingberg, who scored the other Dallas goal, passed up a couple of opportunities to shoot and sent the puck to Dickinson, who beat Thomas Greiss from the high slot.

Blues 5, Golden Knights 4, SOIn Las Vegas, David Perron and

Brayden Schenn scored in a shootout to lift the St. Louis Blues over the Vegas Golden Knights 5-4.

Max Pacioretty got his seventh career hat trick for the Golden Knights, who were missing their entire coach-ing staff because of COVID-19 con-cerns. General manager Kelly McCrimmon took over head coaching duties and was assisted by staff from the team’s minor league affiliate in the AHL, the Henderson Silver Knights.

Maple Leafs 4, Flames 3In Calgary, Alberta, Mitch Marner’s

goal midway through the third period was the winner, and the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Calgary Flames 4-3.

Marner scored Toronto’s fourth goal at 12:14 of the third period. With his assist on an Auston Matthews’ goal, Marner has two goals and four assists in his last four games.

Avalanche 7, Sharks 3In Denver, Brandon Saad scored

twice, one in a three-goal flurry at the end of the first period, and the Colorado Avalanche beat the San Jose Sharks 7-3.

Mikko Rantanen scored a goal for the sixth straight game to tie an Avalanche record, and Valeri Nichushkin added a short-handed goal and an assist in the rout.

Ryan Donato and Logan Couture had a goal and an assist each for the Sharks.

Ducks 1, Coyotes 0In Glendale, Arizona, John Gibson

stopped 31 shots for his second shut-

Washington Capitals left wing Carl Hagelin (62) and New York Islanders defenseman Adam Pelech (3) collide along the boards during the second period of an NHL hockey game, on Jan 26, in

Washington. (AP)

out in four starts, Danton Heinen scored and the Anaheim Ducks beat the Arizona Coyotes 1-0.

Heinen scored his first goal of the season in the opening period and Gibson was sharp all night for his 21st career shutout. Gibson stopped 34 shots in a shutout against Minnesota on Jan. 18.

Predators 3, Blackhawks 2, OTIn Nashville, Tennessee, Roman

Josi scored at 2:57 of overtime to give the Nashville Predators a 3-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks.

Yakov Trenin and Mikael Granlund had the other goals for Nashville, which snapped a three-game losing streak.

Dylan Strome and Mattias Janmark scored for the Blackhawks, who won their previous two games.

Jets 6, Oilers 4In Winnipeg, Manitoba, Nikolaj

Ehlers had a goal and three assists and the Winnipeg Jets rallied from a two-goal deficit and beat the Edmonton Oilers 6-4.

Andrew Copp added two goals, including one into an empty net, and had two assists. Adam Lowry scored and set up two others for Winnipeg (5-2-0).

Kings 2, Wild 2-1In St. Paul, Minnesota, Carl

Grundstrom and Kurtis MacDermid

scored, and Calvin Peterson made 32 saves as the Los Angeles Kings held on to beat the Minnesota Wild 2-1.

For the third time in three games between the teams, Los Angeles squandered a third-period lead. But this time, the Kings bounced back and earned the win after two losses at home to start the season.

Grundstrom skated from the side boards to the middle of the offensive zone and wristed a quick shot past Kaapo Kahkonen’s glove for his sec-ond goal in as many games. Los Angeles has won three of four after starting the season 0-2-1.

Bruins 3, Penguin 2, OT In Boston, Craig Smith scored with

11 seconds left in overtime, and the Boston Bruins recovered after blowing a two-goal lead to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2.

Brad Marchand had a short-handed goal and assisted on Nick Ritchie’s goal to help the Bruins earn their third straight victory. Tuukka Rask stopped 28 shots, giving up both Pittsburgh goals after he injured himself midway through the third period.

Sabres over Rangers 3-2In Buffalo, New York, Buffalo cap-

tain Jack Eichel’s first goal of the season gave him some relief and pro-vided a lift for the Sabres.

Eichel, Dylan Cozens and Tobias Rieder scored for Buffalo, which ral-lied for a 3-2 win over the New York Rangers.

Eichel’s power-play goal snapped a 2-all tie and gave Buffalo the lead at 7:31 of the second period.

Capitals 3, Islanders 2In Washington, Justin Schultz

scored the go-ahead goal with 26.4 seconds left, Vitek Vanecek made 32 saves and the Washington Capitals beat the New York Islanders 3-2 despite another injury to a key player.

Schultz’s goal allowed the Capitals to narrowly avoid a fifth consecutive overtime game, which has never hap-pened in franchise history.

Flyers 5, Devils 3In Newark, New Jersey, Nolan

Patrick, Joel Farabee and Ivan Provorov scored third-period goals, and the Philadelphia Flyers beat the New Jersey Devils 5-3 for their first road win.

James van Riemsdyk scored two power-play goals and Brian Elliott made 23 saves as the Flyers came back to win after blowing an early two-goal lead.

Auburn guard Allen Flanigan (22) drives past Missouri guard Mark Smith (13) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, on Jan 26,

in Auburn, Alabama. (AP)

ICE HOCKEY

WASHINGTON, Jan 27, (AP): Results and standings from the NHL games on Tuesday.Buffalo 3 NY Rangers 2Philadelphia 5 New Jersey 3Washington 3 NY Islanders 2Florida 4 Columbus SO 3Boston 3 Pittsburgh OT 2Winnipeg 6 Edmonton 4Los Angeles 2 Minnesota 1

Nashville 3 Chicago OT 2Dallas 2 Detroit OT 1Toronto 4 Calgary 3Anaheim 1 Arizona 0Colorado 7 San Jose 3St Louis 5 Vegas SO 4

East Division GP W L OT Pts GF GAWashington 7 4 0 3 11 25 23Boston 6 4 1 1 9 18 12Philadelphia 7 4 2 1 9 25 25Pittsburgh 7 4 2 1 9 23 26New Jersey 6 3 2 1 7 14 16Buffalo 7 3 3 1 7 21 21NY Islanders 6 3 3 0 6 11 11NY Rangers 6 1 4 1 3 15 18

Central Division GP W L OT Pts GF GAColumbus 7 2 2 3 7 18 22Dallas 3 3 0 0 6 12 3Florida 3 3 0 0 6 14 9Tampa Bay 4 3 1 0 6 15 10Nashville 6 3 3 0 6 15 19Chicago 7 2 3 2 6 21 26Detroit 7 2 4 1 5 13 22Carolina 3 2 1 0 4 9 6

West Division

GP W L OT Pts GF GAVegas 7 5 1 1 11 23 17St Louis 7 4 2 1 9 22 27Colorado 7 4 3 0 8 25 18Los Angeles 7 3 2 2 8 22 21Anaheim 7 3 2 2 8 12 14Minnesota 7 4 3 0 8 19 17San Jose 7 3 4 0 6 22 28Arizona 7 2 4 1 5 17 20

North Division

GP W L OT Pts GF GAToronto 8 6 2 0 12 26 22Montreal 6 4 0 2 10 29 18Winnipeg 7 5 2 0 10 28 21Edmonton 8 3 5 0 6 23 29Vancouver 8 3 5 0 6 27 34Calgary 5 2 2 1 5 16 13Ottawa 6 1 4 1 3 15 27

Note: Two points for a win one point for overtime loss. The top four teams in each division will qualify for playoffs under this season’s temporary realignment.

NHL Results/Standings

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SportsInter Milan’s Christian Eriksen scores his team second goal during an Italian Cup round of 8 soccer match between Inter Milan and AC Milan at the San Siro Stadium, in Milan, Italy, on Jan 26. (AP)– See Page 14

Hosts lead SA by 88 runs with 2 wickets remaining

Alam century leads Pakistan to 308-8 vs South AfricaKARACHI, Pakistan, Jan 27, (AP): Fawad Alam’s third Test century put Pakistan in charge on the second day of the fi rst Test against South Africa on Wednesday.

The 35-year-old Alam hit nine fours and two sixes in a patient 109 off 245 balls, compiled in just under six hours, to help his team reach 308-8 at stumps.

Faheem Ashraf also scored a fl uent 64 off 84 balls as Pakistan opened up a fi rst-innings lead of 88 runs on a slow wicket. He and Alam shared a stand of 102 for the seventh wicket.

Debutant Nauman Ali was 6 not out and Hasan Ali, who was bowled

by Keshav Maharaj off a no-ball late in the day, was unbeaten on 11.

Alam, who bats in an unorthodox style and exposes all three stumps to the bowler, was out in the last ses-sion when he fl icked a ball from Lungi Ngidi (2-55) straight to mid-wicket.

“I am feeling out of this world at the moment, it was a very good innings because the team needed it the most,” Alam said. “I think we can put South Africa under more pressure if we man-age to add 20-30 more runs tomorrow

because the pitch looks like quite slow and double-paced.”

Pakistan was in trouble overnight on 33-4 after South Africa had been skittled out for 220 on an eventful fi rst day when 14 wickets fell on an uneven wicket. But Alam showed lots of de-termination to keep the Proteas at bay. The home team went close to dismiss-ing him for 35 just before lunch when Dean Elgar failed to hold onto a sharp low catch in the slips.

Alam had long been ignored by Pakistan after scoring a debut Test hundred against Sri Lanka in 2009.

He fi nally got his chance against England last year and the left-handed batsman made his second test cen-

tury, 11 years after his fi rst, against New Zealand last month.

On Wednesday, Alam shared a 94-run, fi fth-wicket stand with Azhar Ali (51) before his partner was caught behind off left-arm spin-ner Maharaj (2-71).

Mohammad Rizwan then made 33 until he was removed by Ngidi.

Alam reached his century by loft-ing Maharaj, who shared the new ball with Kagiso Rabada (2-45), over long on for his second six.

Ashraf, who smashed Rabada for two boundaries in an over with the new ball, was dismissed when he dragged a full delivery from Anrich Nortje (2-84) onto the stumps.

Pakistan’s Faheem Ashraf plays a shot during the second day of the first cricket Test match between Pakistan and South Africa at the National Sta-

dium, in Karachi, Pakistan, on Jan 27. (AP)

NBA Results/Standings

WASHINGTON, Jan 27, (AP): Results and standings from the NBA games on Tuesday.

Atlanta 108 LA Clippers 99Houston 107 Washington 88

Utah 108 New York 94

Eastern ConferenceAtlantic Division

W L Pct GBPhiladelphia 12 6 .667 -Boston 10 6 .625 1Brooklyn 11 8 .579 1-1/2New York 8 11 .421 4-1/2Toronto 7 10 .412 4-1/2

Southeast Division W L Pct GBAtlanta 9 8 .529 -Orlando 8 10 .444 1-1/2Charlotte 7 10 .412 2Miami 6 10 .375 2-1/2Washington 3 10 .231 4

Central Division W L Pct GBMilwaukee 10 6 .625 -Indiana 10 7 .588 -1/2Cleveland 8 9 .471 2-1/2Chicago 7 10 .412 3-1/2Detroit 4 13 .235 6-1/2

Western ConferenceSouthwest Division

W L Pct GBMemphis 7 6 .538 -San Antonio 9 8 .529 -Dallas 8 9 .471 1Houston 7 9 .438 1-1/2New Orleans 5 10 .333 3

Northwest Division W L Pct GBUtah 13 4 .765 -Denver 10 7 .588 3Portland 9 7 .563 3-1/2Oklahoma City 7 9 .438 5-1/2Minnesota 4 12 .250 8-1/2

Pacific Division W L Pct GBLA Lakers 14 4 .778 -LA Clippers 13 5 .722 1Phoenix 8 7 .533 4-1/2Golden State 9 8 .529 4-1/2Sacramento 6 10 .375 7

Wall, Rockets rout Wizards

Antetokounmpo scores 27 points, Bucks beat Hawks 129-115

HOUSTON, Jan 27, (AP): John Wall scored 24 points in his first game against his former team, leading the Houston Rockets to a 107-88 victory over the Wash-ington Wizards.

Wall was selected by Washing-ton with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2010 draft and spent his entire career with the Wizards before he was traded to Houston in Decem-ber for Russell Westbrook and a future first-round pick.

Wall had 15 points and four assists by halftime, including a left-handed la-yup that came after a nifty behind the back move and put Houston up 53-45 in the second quarter. He cooled off in the third, but got going again in the fourth to put the game away in his sec-ond game back after missing fi ve with a sore left knee.

Houston was leading by six when Wall re-entered the game with about seven minutes left. He scored fi ve quick points before fi nding Victor Ola-dipo in the corner near the Washington bench for a 3-pointer to make it 93-79.

The Wizards called a timeout after that, and Wall yelled and jumped as he looked at the opposing bench before bounding back to the Houston side.

Wall and Westbrook were both giv-en technical fouls soon after that when they jawed at each other as Westbrook prepared to shoot free throws after be-ing fouled by DeMarcus Cousins.

Bradley Beal made a 3-pointer with about 3½ minutes left to trim Hous-ton’s lead to 10, but Wall hit a 3 sec-onds later and Cousins added two free throws to make it 99-84.

Oladipo and Eric Gordon added 20 points apiece to help the Rockets to their third straight win.

Beal scored 33 points to give him at least 25 in each of his 12 games this season, extending a franchise record. Westbrook, who spent just one season in Houston, had 19 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds.

Bucks 129, Hawks 115In Milwaukee, Giannis Antetok-

ounmpo had 27 points and 14 re-bounds and the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Atlanta Hawks 129-115 to snap a two-game losing streak.

Antetokounmpo had eight assists,

fi nishing two shy of a triple-double.Bobby Portis added 21 points, and

Khris Middleton had 19 for Milwaukee.De’Andre Hunter led Atlanta with

a career-high 33 points. John Collins had 30 points, but the short-handed Hawks saw their three-game winning streak end.

The Hawks were without two key starters, leading scorer Trae Young (back spasms) and center Clint Ca-pela (sore right hand). Rajon Rondo replaced Young in the starting lineup. Rookie center Onyeka Okongwu made his fi rst career start.

The Bucks outscored the Hawks in the paint 60-30 and had a 51-38 advan-tage in rebounds.

Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce called a timeout after Milwaukee took a 9-2 lead. The substitution of Solomon Hill

for Okongwu didn’t help as the Bucks quickly extended the lead to 10 points at 16-6.

Milwaukee’s lead was 24 points at 58-36 in the second quarter.

The Hawks narrowed the defi cit in the third period.

Okongwu’s block of a shot by Bob-by Portis set up Hunter’s apparent 46-foot 3-pointer as the buzzer sounded to end the third period. Following a lengthy review, offi cials ruled the shot came after time expired, leaving the Bucks with a 94-83 lead entering the fourth quarter.

Jazz 108, Knicks 94In Salt Lake City, Rudy Gobert

had 18 points, 19 rebounds and four blocked shots, and the Utah Jazz beat the New York Knicks 108-94 for their ninth consecutive win.

Royce O’Neale scored 20 points, helping Utah overcome a quiet night for Donovan Mitchell. Mike Conley had 19 points, seven rebounds, and fi ve assists.

Mitchell fi nished with nine points on 3-for-15 shooting.

Austin Rivers scored 25 points for New York - all in the fi rst half. Ju-lius Randle had 18 points and 10 re-bounds, and R.J. Barrett scored 17 in the Knicks’ third straight loss.

The Jazz trailed by as many 15 points in the fi rst half, but they grabbed the lead for good when they opened the fourth quarter with a 20-3 run. O’Neale punctuated the run with three straight baskets, giving Utah a 100-84 lead with 5:19 remaining.

Utah endured a cold spell on of-fense during the fi rst quarter. The Jazz missed 12 of their fi rst 14 shots and shot 2 of 13 from the perimeter during the period. They made only six baskets in the fi rst 12 minutes.

Houston Rockets’ Sterling Brown drives past Washington Wizards’ Alex Len during the fourth quarter of an NBA basketball game, on Jan 26, in Houston. (AP)

Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young (11) drives against Los Angeles Clippers guard Reggie Jackson (1) in the second half of an NBA basketball game,

on Jan 26, in Atlanta. (AP)

FIFA probes African soccer leader

LONDON, Jan 27, (AP): Euro-pean football teams face losing up to $10 billion due to disruption caused by the coronavirus pan-demic, according to the latest fore-cast of the umbrella organization for clubs on the continent.

Supporters have been kept out of stadiums in Europe’s main leagues longer than anticipated as the second wave of COVID-19 cases has devastated the continent.

Andrea Agnelli, the Juventus chairman who leads the European Club Association, said it would be “extremely diffi cult” to see spec-tators being allowed back in this season. There have also been re-bates to broadcasters and sponsors due to the pandemic after some leagues, including France, were abandoned last season and others paused for up to three months.

“When I look at the best infor-mation I’ve had so far, we’re look-ing at a bottom-line loss for the industry in the region of 6.5 billion euros ($7.9 billion) to 8.5 billion euros ($10.3 billion) for the com-bined two years,” Agnelli said on a News Tank Football virtual event on Wednesday.

Italy - like England - had brought a small number of fans back into some stadiums but had to prohibit access again as part of a national effort to contain the resurgence of coronavi-rus cases. There are concerns about the fi nancial impact on the value of broadcast rights to games.

“About 360 clubs (in Europe) will need cash injections, whether it’s debt or equity within those two years, for an amount of 6 billion euros ($7.2 billion),” Agnelli said.

Just as the ECA is in talks with UEFA about the distribution of Champions League revenue, Agnelli is painting a gloomier pic-ture of the state of club fi nances than Deloitte. The accountancy fi rm reported this week that the top 20 revenue-generating clubs lost around 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 bil-lion) last season and their turnover could drop by 2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) in this campaign.

“The revenue that’s been missed out on is driven by the lack of fans in the stadium, the lack of interaction on a match day - fans spending in the club shop and buy-ing food and drink - and there is an element that relates to revenue that broadcasters have either clawed back (or deferred) to next year,” said Tim Bridge of Deloitte.

Meanwhile, the interim president of the African soccer confederation is under investigation by FIFA and was barred Wednesday from an elec-tion to retain his seat on the govern-ing body’s ruling council.

FIFA said Constant Omari failed an integrity and eligibil-ity check because of “an ongoing formal investigation by the FIFA ethics committee.”

Details of the case were not given in a letter to the Confedera-tion of African Football from a FI-FA-appointed offi cial overseeing integrity checks. The letter was reported by African media and confi rmed by FIFA as authentic.

Omari is president of the Congo soccer federation and has been an African delegate on the FIFA Coun-cil since 2015. The position is paid $250,000 annually by FIFA.

Omari stepped up to lead CAF when previous president Ahmad Ah-mad was banned by FIFA in Novem-ber for fi nancial wrongdoing. Ahmad, from Madagascar, and Omari were among three African offi cials barred as candidates for FIFA positions at CAF elections on March 12.

The FIFA governance and re-view committee carries out man-datory checks on candidates as part of reforms introduced in fall-out from fi nancial and election scandals in the past decade. Omari has reportedly been investigated for suspected fi nancial wrongdo-ing linked to CAF commercial contracts while he was vice presi-dent under Ahmad’s leadership.

Turmoil at CAF in 2019 led to FIFA sending its secretary general, Fatma Samoura of Senegal, to run the organization for six months. A forensic audit detailed fi nancial ir-regularities.

The 54-nation African soccer body is due to elect a president, some of its six other FIFA Council delegates and members of its own executive committee. The election meeting is scheduled to be held in Rabat, Morocco.

European clubs’ head Agnelli fears pandemic ‘losses’ of up to $10 bln

In this July 19, 2019 file photo, the then Confederation of Afri-can Football President Ahmad Ahmad of Madagascar looks on during the African Cup of Nations final soccer match be-tween Algeria and Senegal in Cairo International Stadium in

Cairo. (AP)

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