MAIL [email protected] …...Hamad, in recognition of his role in supporting bilateral re -...

Directive to study implementation of welfare projects

• HRH Premier gave instructions to ensure that the new towns and mega housing projects should include the necessary facilities and services.

Manama

The Cabinet yesterday chaired by His Royal Highness Prime Minis-

ter Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, gave directives to study the implementation of 11 projects and services for the citizens in the housing, health, social, facil-ities and infrastructure fields in

many regions, including Al Maki-ya, Karzakan, Shahrakan, Sadad, Samaheej, Al Dair, Jid Ali, Jurdab, Al Kawara, Bilad Al Qadeem, and others.

HRH the Premier tasked the Ministry of Housing, the Min-istry of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Electricity and Water Affairs and the Ministry of Labour and Social Development Ministry to submit

reports on the 11 projects and ser-vices ordered by him in response to the remarks made the members of the Council of Representatives, whom he received recently.

HRH Premier gave instructions to ensure that the new towns and mega housing projects should in-clude the necessary facilities and services, in addition to larger units, so that they achieve the citizens’ satisfaction and comfort, which are the government’s ultimate goal.

In this regard, HRH Premier gave directives to expedite the infrastructure works at the Al Ramli housing project, ahead of the unit-distribution process, and to give a bigger share of its units to the A’Ali, Salmabad and Buri villagers, in accordance with the criteria in force.

While reviewing the prelimi-nary results of the National Health Survey 2018, HRH the Prime Min-ister gave directives to the Minis-

try of Health to put forward ef-fective programmes and policies to reduce the rate of premature mortality due to chronic diseases, such as heart, diabetes, cancer and respiratory diseases.

The Prime Minister also in-structed to intensify health aware-ness-raising and education cam-paigns on such diseases and their causes, and to take advantage of the survey and its indicators in devising future health policies and strategies.

HRH the Premier also gave di-rectives to continue conducting periodic health surveys, given their importance, and to refer the results of the 2018 survey, present-ed by the Minister of Health, to the National Information Committee to publish them.

03 VAT refund for tourists in place

04

Tamkeen programme to support businesses begins receiving applications

05‘Oil industry will remain a major contributor to national economy’

8

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Ties at new high HM King and Turkmenistan President hold talks; nine deals signed

• President Berdimuhamedow conferred the medal of Neutral Turkmenistan, on HM King Hamad, in recognition of his role in supporting bilateral relations.

• HM the King and the Turkmenistan president hailed the signing of the agreements and the memoranda of understanding that would boost bilateral ties.

Ashgabat

His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa yes-terday held a bilateral

session of talks with visited Turk-menistan President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow at the presi-dential palace in Ashgabat.

President Berdimuhamedow delivered a speech welcom-ing HM the King’s visit to his country, announcing that Turk-menistan and Bahrain would celebrate 25 years of diplomatic relations.

He commended political, trade and economic relations binding the two countries, stressing the importance of the visit which will further expand business co-operation.

He also wished the Kingdom further security and stability, led by HM the King.

HM the King thanked Turk-men president for the invita-

tion, stressing Bahrain’s strides in the sectors of culture, scienc-es, medicine, infrastructure and education.

His Majesty extended an in-vitation to President Berdimu-hamedow to pay an official visit to Bahrain to further bolster bi-lateral relations and expand joint co-operation.

The two leaders then held an expanded session of talks in the presence of delegations repre-senting the two countries.

Addressing the session, HM the King recalled the visit of President Berdimuhamedow in 2011, stressing Bahrain’s keen-ness on following-up on the agreements and memoranda of understanding and strengthen-ing relations.

His Majesty stressed the im-portance of developing joint co-operation, underlining keenness on expanding trade, economic and investment ties and explor-ing oil and gas cooperation.

HM the King hailed the neu-trality of Turkmenistan, which reflects its commitment to de-velopment, security and peace

in the Central Asian region and the world.

The two sides welcomed the establishment of a joint council between the two countries. Key issues of mutual interest were also discussed between the two leaders.

The two leaders then attended the signing of a string of joint agreements and memoranda of understanding.

A memorandum of under-standing (MoU) was signed between the heads of central banks of both nations while Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa signed deals to extend co-operation in the areas of transportation, eGovernance, education, youth and women

empowerment and culture with Turkmenistan ministers.

A separate MoU was signed in the field of tourism by Min-ister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism Zayed Al Zayani and Turkmenistan Government Committee for Tourism.

HM the King and the Turk-menistan president hailed the signing of the agreements and the memoranda of understand-ing which would herald a new phase in bilateral relations bind-ing the two countries.

President Berdimuhamedow conferred the medal of Neu-tral Turkmenistan, on HM King Hamad, in recognition of his role in supporting bilateral re-lations binding the two broth-erly countries.

His Majesty with President Berdimuhamedow. His Majesty waters a plant during his visit to the Independence Monument in Ashgabat.

25years of diplomatic

relations underscore His Majesty’s visit to

Turkmenistan.

HRH the Premier chairs the Cabinet.

Taliban under attack Kabul

Af g h a n i s t a n ’s g o v -ernment launched a

ground and air offensive yesterday to flush out Tal-iban insurgents from a key area in the northwestern province of Badghis, which is close to the border with Turkmenistan, officials said.

The focal point of the operation was the Bala Murghab district where, a few days ago, the Talib-an had captured dozens of government forces in addi-tion to overrunning several parts of the district, which serves as a gateway to the northern areas for the in-surgents.

S eve ra l g ove r n m e n t troops fleeing the Talib-an rampage crossed into neighbouring Turkmeni-stan, officials said.

Tighter gun laws backed Auckland

New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern has said she will

announce detailed gun law reforms within days, after an attack on two mosques left 50 people dead.

Ms Ardern said her cab-inet had backed gun law changes “in principle”.

Australian Brenton Tar-rant, 28, a self-described white supremacist, has been charged with mur-der.

Police say the kil ler used military-style assault weapons modified to make them more deadly - which is not illegal under current legislation.

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His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa yesterday paid a visit to the Independence Monument in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Rasit Meredow. HM the King was received upon arrival by Ashgabat Municipal Governor Shah Mohammed. HM the King laid a wreath at the Independence Monument and planted a tree in the name of the Kingdom of Bahrain. HM the King was taken on a tour of the monument and was briefed on the works of art there, which reflect the various historic stages and achievements of the country, in addition to a brief on the history of the monument and steps of construction.

Deputy King, His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, yesterday held discussions with His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa. They hailed achievements in the prosperous era, led by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, which bolstered Bahrain’s regional and international active role and strengthened its relations with other countries in the world.

HRH Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, yesterday at the Gudaibiya Palace, received Chairman of the Bahrain Red Crescent Society (BRCS), Shaikh Khalid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, and the accompanying delegation. HRH the Prime Minister said Bahrain’s record in the charitable and humanitarian work reflects its community’s belief in the values of solidarity as high religious and human values. He commended the BRCS’s efforts to provide aid and assistance to humanity.

Shaikh Hussam bin Isa Al Khalifa, President of HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa Award for Sustainable Development, yesterday met WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Geneva. Shaikh Hussam bin Isa conveyed greeting of HRH the Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa and gave a brief on Bahrain’s progress in the field of sustainable development. Shaikh Hussam bin Isa said the government has worked in accordance with a comprehensive vision and has made a good progress in terms of achieving the SDGs. It has staged a national plan 2016-2025 in the context of sustainable development.

Asry, the Arabian Gulf’s leading maritime repair and fabrication facility, celebrated its annual family day event on Friday, 15th March 2019, at Adhari Park. The event was attended by more than 2,200 staff members with their families, including ASRY’s CEO Andy Shaw and other management members. Attending the event, Shaw commented: “We’re very appreciative of the community on which we depend and strive to support. This event and others in our corporate social responsibility calendar are the company’s platform to demonstrate that appreciation.”

The Bahrain Tourism and Exhibition Authority (BTEA) announced that the Bahrain Food Festival has attracted more than 220,000 visitors since it opened to the public on February 28th, 2019. The fourth edition of the festival, which ran until the 16 of March 2019, served as a platform enabling participating local Bahraini businesses to showcase their concept, contributing to the development of the food startup ecosystem and local food businesses in the Kingdom.


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VAT refund for tourists in place Move to have positive impact on the Kingdom’s tourism sector

• The new desk will offer VAT refund solutions for tourists and non-residents visiting the Kingdom.

• Claimers are required to present their passports, entry visa permits, GCC National IDs, or residency permits for Bahraini nationals living abroad, when shopping VAT free.

TDT | ManamaMohammed Zafran

Tourists to Bahrain will be offered VAT refunds through a VAT refund

desk at the Bahrain Internation-al Airport.

This comes as the Kingdom’s National Bureau for Revenue (NBR) announced the launch of a VAT refund desk at the Bahrain International Airport yesterday.

The set up is in collaboration between the Bahrain Airport Company and international pay-ment specialist Planet Payment.

The NBR stated that the new desk will offer VAT refund solu-tions for tourists and non-res-idents visiting the Kingdom as well as citizens residing abroad.

“The VAT refund desk uses an integrated system that allows VAT refund claims on local pur-chases from over 300 retail out-lets across the Kingdom,” the

NBR stated. “The VAT refund desk repre-

sents one of many measures the Kingdom is implementing to ex-pand regional and international tourist base, while increasing market competitiveness and ex-panding growth across Bahrain’s established tourism sector,” it added.

Chief Commercial Officer of the Bahrain Airport Company, Ayman Zainal said, “The BAC is pleased to support the Ministry of Finance and National Econo-my and the National Bureau for Revenue in Bahrain with this important function. Two dedi-cated stands will be set up at the airport, where tourists can avail hassle-free VAT refunds on their shopping.”

The Country Manager of Plan-et Payment, Eyad Al Kourdi, commented, saying, “Planet is proud to be working close-ly with the National Bureau for Revenue and the Bahrain Airport Company to deliver a fast, efficient and state-of-the-art digital VAT refund scheme as the Kingdom’s

tourism and retail sectors con-tinue to grow and attract shop-pers from across the world.”

The NBR explained the VAT refund process stating, “Claim-ers are required to present their passports, entry visa permits, GCC National IDs, or residency permits for Bahraini nationals living abroad, when shopping VAT free”.

“Claimers need to request VAT free tags, available at retail

stores, upon completing their purchase. The tags can be at-tached to receipts, which will be validated along with purchased goods at the VAT refund desk during check out. Refunds will be paid in cash or via a credit/ debit card account provided by the claimer.”

Workshop

The National Bureau for Reve-

nue (NBR) held another interac-tive workshop primarily aimed at increasing the VAT awareness of professionals working in the retail and wholesale sectors.

The workshop attracted 90 representatives from over 50 companies, and recapped gen-eral and technical VAT concepts, including VAT record keeping.

Following the workshop, attendees visited the unique interactive demo-centre that provides innovative learning experiences to assist vendors in implementing VAT.

Today’s workshop is a contin-uation of the series of workshops organised by the NBR to provide an inclusive platform for all stake-holders from the public and pri-vate sectors to ensure the smooth registration of companies with an annual supply of BD500,000 to BD5000,000 by June.

Representatives of different companies and NBR officials at the workshop.

90representatives from over 50 companies

attended the workshop, according to NBR.

The VAT refund desk uses an integrated

system that allows VAT refund claims on local purchases from over

300 retail outlets across the Kingdom.

NBR

Parliamentary support to the press affirmedManama

Council of Representa-tives Second Deputy Speaker Ali Ahmed

Zayed stressed the crucial role of the national press in enlight-ening the public opinion, hail-ing its credibility, profession-alism and objectivity in raising key issues.

Receiving the new Bahrain Journalists Association (BJA) board members, led by Presi-dent Ahdeya Ahmed, he hailed

the press and media strides under the reform project in-itiated by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

The reform project, he said, expanded and consoli-date freedom of opinion and expression and bolstered the professional role of the press and media enterprises in Bah-rain and serve as partners in comprehensive national de-velopment.

He underlined the direc-

tives of the Council of Rep-resentatives Speaker Fawziya Zainal, supporting the legis-lation of new press law that meets the aspirations of the press and media community in Bahrain.

The BJA lauded the parlia-mentary support and efforts to pass a new, modern and en-lightened press law, stressing the importance of the legisla-tion in keeping abreast of the media strides.

Albania offers visa-free travel for Bahrainis this summer

TDT | ManamaMohammed Zafran

Bahrainis can now travel to Albania without having to take a visa in advance

this summer, it was announcedBahrain is one of the eight

countries to which Albania has announced that they are lifting visa regime.

The announcement was made by Albanian Foreign Ministry.

In a statement, the ministry elaborated that the change will only be applied for two months.

The ministry stated that this is a decision taken by the Coun-cil of Ministers on February 27.

This allows the citizens of

China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Be-larus, Qatar, Oman, Thailand and Bahrain to enter Albania by using only their passports.

“The decision allowing cit-izens of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Qatar, Oman, Thailand

and Bahrain to enter Albania without needing a visa will be in force from April 1 to October 31 in 2019, whereas for the citi-zens of the People’s Republic of China, it is valid from March 1 to October 31 of this year,” said the statement.

In February, a campaign was launched by Albania’s Ministry of Tourism and the Environ-ment entitled - Tourism 2019 “Be taken by Albania” in efforts to boost the country’s tourism and economic development.

Around six million foreign nationals visited Albania in 2018, which was an increase of 15.8 per cent year on year.

15.8per cent is the growth

in the number of tourists in Albania last

year when compared to 2017.


Kingdom’s human rights strides in focus Manama

The Assistant Foreign Min-ister, Abdulla Al Doseri, met with the Executive

Director for International Af-fairs at the Korber Foundation, Nora Muller, in Berlin, Germany, on the sidelines of his visit to the Federal Republic of Germany to enhance relations and bilateral co-operation, namely in the field of human rights.

During the meeting, a debate was held between the Assis-tant Foreign Minister and Nora Muller on the political situa-

tion in the Middle East and the enhancement of international peace and security.

The debate included topics such as recent developments in the Arab region and the im-portance of maintaining peace, stability, fighting terrorism and violent extremism, interference in the internal affairs of States, and the effect of conflict and war on human rights and efforts to address these humanitarian situations and reduce the harm-ful Iranian interference in the affairs of other countries.

The Assistant Foreign Minis-

ter stressed that the only way for States to develop is to achieve peace, security, and stability, which creates a sound environ-ment for growth and prosperity of peoples.

He also added that fostering human rights and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals is an international cross-bor-der goal that helps countries to develop and eradicate hunger, illiteracy, the growth of extrem-ism and terrorism in societies, all of which hinder national efforts of countries to achieve prosperity. Mr Al Doseri with Ms Muller, right, after the meeting.

Tamkeen revamped programme to support businesses begins receiving applications

Relaunch of Enterprise Development Support Programme falls in line with Tamkeen’s 2018-2020 strategy

• The enhancements represent the initial step in Tamkeen’s plan to improve its flagship Enterprise Support Programme.

• The program’s online portal includes more advanced solutions, such as allowing for the activation of the users’ accounts electronically.

TDT | Manama Supriya Reginald

Tamkeen announced that it has resumed receiving ap-plications to benefit from

its newly revamped and improved business support programme dur-ing a press conference held at the Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI), yesterday.

The relaunch of the Enter-prise Development Support Programme falls in line with the second phase of Tamkeen’s 2018-2020 strategy.

The enhancements represent

the initial step in Tamkeen’s plan to improve its flagship Enterprise Support Programme, which in-cludes the Business Development and Training and Wage Support programmes.

Speaking to Tribune, Qusay Al Arayedh, Chief Operations Officer at Tamkeen expressed the signif-icance of utilising contemporary technology to enhance the econ-omy and customer experience.

“The most important thing for us as a public sector is that we aim to be the best service provider and if we have that target in mind

we have to use technology that is current. It is essential that we provide our customers with better service and there is nothing better than technology to do so,” said Mr Arayedh.

“This is a way of helping com-panies manage the new economic realities. To convey the message that as the economy changes there are things companies can do that will ultimately help create a stronger economy and compa-nies,” added Dr Jarmo T Kotilaine Advisor- Chief Executive Office at Tamkeen.

Among the enhancements made to the program are several innovative support tracks. These include support grants for enter-prises with virtual commercial registrations.

The program’s online portal in-cludes more advanced solutions, such as allowing for the activation of the users’ accounts electroni-cally without the need to visit any of Tamkeen’s physical branches, as well as linking to the systems of partners including certain gov-ernment entities to ensure infor-mation accuracy and streamline

internal procedures.In light of cybersecurity, Mr

Arayedh revealed the incorpora-tion of a two-fold security pro-gramme with regard to the ex-change of sensitive information.

“First we have the firewalls to ensure our electronic services are protected. The second part is with regard to the sensitive information provided by the customer; there are confidentiality agreements between us and our customers,” stated Mr Arayedh.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Ebrahim Mohammed Janahi, Chief Executive of Tamkeen said: “The programme now boasts many added features to better ad-dress the varying characteristics and needs of enterprises from one of their developmental stage to the next. These efforts are aligned with the restructuring our internal team underwent to offer the right kind of support for each individual enterprise.”

Earlier this year, Tamkeen had temporarily suspended the En-terprise Support Programme to add more solutions and features and further refine its support offerings as part of its drive to support the growth and devel-opment of enterprises in Bah-rain.

Dr Janahi speaks in the presence of other Tamkeen officials at the press conference.

The programme now boasts many

added features to better address

the varying characteristics

and needs of enterprises from

one of their developmental

stage to the next. DR JANAHI

Expert calls for popularising Siddha treatment TDT | Manama Supriya Reginald

Dr T Thirunarayanan from the Centre for Tradi-tional Medicine and Re-

search (CTRM) in Chennai has approached the National Health Regulatory Authority (NHRA) in Bahrain with the purpose of fa-miliarising the Kingdom with the benefits of a traditional form of treatment known as Siddha.

Siddha, a system of traditional medicine originated in ancient Tamilakam (Tamil Nadu) in South India and Sri Lanka.

The strength of the Siddha Medical system lies in its holis-tic approach for healthy living. The healing science encompasses the physical, mental, social and spiritual well being

“Siddha and Ayurveda both, more or less, have the same basic principles and philosophies. Sid-dha believes that an individual should be treated in a holistic way

and not centered on a disease and its treatment,” stated Dr Thiruna-rayanan.

“All systems of medicine speak of two major approaches, one is prevention of disease through vaccines and the second is surgery or intervention procedures. Sid-dha emphasis on two things, pre-vention and wellness,” he added.

He said that the method of

treatment attains immense sig-nificance amidst the noncom-municable diseases and lifestyle disorders becoming a global issue.

“Postural disorders is a major issue, people are working in front of computers for hours togeth-er without moving from their seat. Traveling long distances, such as a 16-hour flight, causes issues. Siddha will help with the

prevention of many issues and prevention is better than the cure. It is also cost effective and afforda-ble,” Dr Thirunarayanan said.

Most resources used in this sys-tem are obtained from renewable biological resources including plant products, animal products, and marine products as well as naturally occurring geological products.

“The focus has all along been on preventive, promotive, reju-venate methods for maintaining good health, defying ageing and curative procedures including cleansing therapies and external therapies,” added Dr Thiruna-rayanan.

Meanwhile, Namat Al Subaie, NHRA Consultant-Advisor Allied Medical Profession and Head of

Alternative and Complementary Medicine Committee, empha-sised on the need to understand Siddha.

“Siddha is a type of alternative medicine that the people of Bah-rain are not very knowledgeable of. It may familiar in India and other countries, we need to edu-cate ourselves. We welcome lec-tures and information associated with the Siddha treatment,” said Ms Al Subaie.

“As a regulatory body, I am yet to attend a conference about Sid-dha. The current need is to fully understand Siddha if we are to regulate it,” she added.

As of now, the NHRA recognises acupuncture therapy, ayurveda medicine, massage therapy, Chi-ropractic, herbal therapy, home-opathy therapy, naturopathy ther-apy, osteopathy therapy, tradition-al Chinese medicine, biodynamic craniosacral therapy, cupping therapy, reflexology therapy and unani medicine.

Siddha believes that an individual should be treated in a holistic way and not centered on a disease and its treatment. DR THIRUNARAYANAN

As a regulator, we welcome lectures and information associated with the Siddha treatment to bring in more awareness. MS AL SUBAIE


‘Oil industry will remain a major contributor to national economy’

Challenges faced by the oil and related industries in focus as MEOS 2019 kicks off TDT | ManamaHarpreet Kaur

Held under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince

Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, Oil Minister Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa yesterday inaugurated the 21st Middle East Oil and Gas Show and Exhibition (MEOS 2019).

Organised by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), the Arab Exhibition Management Company and in co-operation with the National Oil and Gas Authority (NOGA) and support-ed by a number of regional and international oil companies, the expo will run until March 21 and is expected to attract over 8,500 delegates.

MEOS 2019 is co-hosted by UBM AEM and the world’s larg-est individual-member organ-isation serving professionals worldwide in the upstream seg-ment of the oil and gas industry, the SPE.

The event is supported by NOGA and a committee of NOCs, IOCs, academia and service pro-viders co-chaired in 2019 by Saudi Aramco and Petroleum Development Oman.

Deputy Premier Shaikh Khalid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa’s message was read out at the in-augural ceremony, in which he thanked HRH the Premier for patronising the conference and

the related exhibition. “The oil industries sector is

of great interest to the govern-ment under the leadership of HRH the Prime Minister, who spares no effort in upgrading it and bringing it up to date with the latest international systems and maximising its returns for the benefit of the national econ-omy,” Shaikh Khalid said.

Speaking to Tribune, Oil Min-ister said that despite current challenges, oil sector is one of the best industries that have bright future.

“The Kingdom of Bahrain’s

keenness to develop the oil in-dustry to enhance its ability to achieve returns that contribute to promoting the national econ-

omy,” Shaikh Mohammed said. S p e a k i n g a t t h e e ve n t ,

Waleed Al Mulhim, MEOS 2019 Co-Chairman and Chief Petro-leum Engineer at Saudi Ara-mco, said: “MEOS represents a strategic industrial event in the Middle Eastern region, focusing on innovation, opportunities, and breakthroughs, addressed by senior industry leaders. It provides an opportunity looking beyond the industry; focusing on collaboration with business, educational institutions, gov-ernments and society.

“We need joint development

of new technologies that will increase discovery and recovery, reduce cost, enhance safety and protect the environment.”

The MEOS 2019 theme ‘Resil-

ience through Talent and Tech-nology Transformation’ focuses on the challenges the oil and gas industry faces in meeting world energy demand efficiently, safe-ly, and responsibly in a fluctu-ating market, and the many emerging solutions available to those operating in this sector.

The opening was attended by over 200 exhibitors from vari-ous international oil companies from 25 countries including Australia, Canada, China, Bra-zil, Denmark, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, USA, Turkey, Russia and Malaysia.

Shaikh Mohammed delivers the inaugural speech. Shaikh Mohammed honours oil industry leaders and pioneers.

The oil industries sector is of great interest to

the government under the leadership of HRH

the Prime Minister, who spares no effort in

upgrading it. SHAIKH KHALID

8,500delegates are expected to take part in the high

profile exhibition.

Asian sailor convicted of attacking Coast Guard officers loses appeal

TDT | Manama

The High Appeals Court has upheld the sentence issued against an Asian

man convicted of attacking two officers serving in the Coast Guard.

The defendant was sentenced to one year behind bars, fol-lowed by immediate deporta-tion.

According to court files, the defendant was among sailors shrimping during the off sea-son, which is an illegal act ac-cording to the local law.

The two officers were as-signed to head to the zone, w h e r e t h e s a i l o r s we r e

shrimping, after receiving a tip-off.

It was reported that the defendant attempted to flee as soon as he saw the police officers closing in on them. Therefore, they chased him,

calling him to stop. However, he refused and con-

tinued running away until one of his boat’s engine broke down.

As a result, he turned his boat and crashed it into the officers’ boat in an effort to hurt them.

He was eventually brought under control, although the officers suffered various body injuries due to the assault.

The defendant was charged with shrimping and attacking on-duty police officers.

The High Criminal Court had earlier said in its ruling that it used article 72 of the local penal law, which allowed it to give a light sentence under certain circumstances.

The defendant was charged with

shrimping and attacking on-duty officers.PROSECUTORS

Sentence upheld in Sudan President insult case

TDT | Manama

The Third High Criminal Court yesterday upheld the imprisonment sen-

tence issued against a political activist for insulting the Suda-nese President on social media networks.

The man, who was the former Secretary-General of the dis-solved opposition party, Wa’ad, was sentenced on March 13 to six months of imprisonment for defaming Sudan President Omar Al Bashir on Twitter.

The defendant is said to have published insulting tweets against Al Bashir in the wake of

the protests, which broke out in the country.

He was earlier summoned by the Public Prosecution for in-terrogation in the case, which was later referred to the crimi-nal court, after he was accused by prosecutors of defaming the

president of a foreign country on social media networks.

The defendant was earlier sen-tenced to one year behind bars after he was tried in connection with a speech he gave in July 2015 during an event, where he encouraged the public to over-throw the government.

He was only released from jail in June, 2015, after serving four years of a five-year prison sentence.

He was one of 21 men convict-ed in 2011 in connection with a plot to overthrow the govern-ment with help from abroad.

Some were jailed for life, but the defendant was only jailed for five years.

Unionist sentenced in fake gold investment case TDT | Manama

The Lower Criminal Court has ordered to jail a pop-ular unionist for three

years after finding him guilty of fraud and unlawfully attempting to earn over BD2 million from his victims.

The defendant was fined BD2,000. Another suspect and his wife, who were as well accused in the case, received a one year imprisonment each.

The details of the case show

that the unionist had lured his victims, who were all females, to sign debt bonds of BD5,000, after convincing them that he would enrol them in a huge investment in gold and jewellery.

The total bonds the man convinced his victims to sign were 429 that are worth over BD2 million, sources added.

The case surfaced when a group of women, the victims, lodged a complaint against the trio, who allegedly misused the victims’ financial needs to per-

suade them to take part in the fraud investment project after promising returns of up to BD300 a month.

The fraud began with the first victim who was informed by the female defendant that the alleged investor, the first defendant, owns large quantities of gold bars.

The female accomplice told the victim that all she needed to do was to receive the bars from the first defendant and pretend she is selling it to him at his shop so the authorities wouldn’t suspect the

source of the gold. The victim was promised that

she will receive a monthly return of BD300, after she signed a debt bond of BD5,000 in guarantee for

the bars she would receive.The fraudsters allegedly ful-

filled their promise and paid the first victim BD300 for her effort.

She was later convinced by the defendants to invite more wom-en to participate in the alleged investment and effortlessly make BD300. The victim soon invited eleven other women, who all fell prey to the fraud scheme.

The first defendant filed cases to the court against the victims, and demanded them to pay the amounts, a total of BD2,145, 000,

supporting his claims citing the bonds the women have signed.

However, the authorities fur-ther investigated the man’s sus-picious claims after the 12 victims complained to the Anti-corrup-tion and Economic and Electron-ic Security Directorate in Interior Ministry.

The first defendant was charged with obtaining the bonds using fraudulent methods and the second and third defendants were accused of assisting the first defendant.

The defendant published insulting

tweets against Al Bashir in the wake of

Sudan protests. PROSECUTORS

The total bonds the man convinced his victims to sign were 429 that are

worth over BD2 million. SOURCES

06

world

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019

Over 160 dead in Zimbabwe, Mozambique

Beira, Mozambique

A cyclone that r ipped across Mozambique and Zimbabwe has killed at

least 162 people with scores more missing and caused “mas-sive and horrifying” destruction in the Mozambican city of Beira, authorities and the Red Cross said Monday.

Cyclone Idai tore into the cen-tre of Mozambique on Thurs-day night before barreling on to neighbouring Zimbabwe, bring-ing flash floods and ferocious winds, and washing away roads and houses.

“The scale of damage caused by cyclone Idai that hit the Mo-zambican city of Beira is massive and horrifying”, the Internation-al Federation of Red Cross and

Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a statement.

It said 90 percent of the city of some 530,000 people and its surrounding area had been “damaged or destroyed”

“The situation is terrible. The scale of devastation is enor-mous,” the IFRC’s Jamie LeSu-eur was quoted as saying in the statement. “Almost everything is destroyed. Communication lines have been completely cut and roads have been destroyed. Some affected communities are not accessible,” he said.

A large dam burst on Sunday and cut off the last road to Beira, he said.

A toll compiled Monday by AFP from official sources puts the death toll in Mozambique at 73, including 55 in Beira alone,

and 89 in Zimbabwe. At least 150 more are missing

in Zimbabwe, many of them be-lieved to government workers whose housing complex was en-gulfed by floods.

Mozambique’s environment minister, Celso Correia, warned that the death tally would rise.

“I think this is the biggest natural disaster Mozambique has ever faced. Everything is destroyed,” he told AFP on Sun-day night said at Beira interna-tional airport, which re-opened after being temporarily closed because of cyclone damage.

In Zimbabwe, Idai swept away homes and ripped bridges to pieces, leaving a trail of de-struction that the acting defence minister, Perrance Shiri, said “resembles the aftermath of a

full-scale war”.“There was a lot of destruc-

tion both on our facilities and on people,” said Shiri speaking on television from the affected eastern highlands region.

Roads have been swallowed by massive sinkholes, while bridges were ripped to pieces by flash floods, according to an AFP pho-tographer.

“This is the worst infrastruc-tural damage we have ever had,” Zimbabwean Transport and In-frastructural Development Min-ister Joel Biggie Matiza said.

School hitZimbabwe’s eastern district of

Chimanimani was the worst-hit part of the country, with houses and most of the bridges washed away by flash floods.

The most affected areas are not yet accessible, and high winds and dense clouds have hampered military rescue heli-copter flights. Two pupils and a worker at a secondary school in the area were among those killed after a landslide sent a boulder crashing into their dormitory.

Soldiers on Sunday helped rescue the surviving nearly 200 pupils, teachers and staff who had been trapped at the school in Chimanimani.

“The teachers and school au-thorities are making all efforts to ensure the children arrive and we take them home but it seems the situation is getting worse,” one unnamed parent told the state broadcaster ZBC, as she raised concerns about the ongoing rains.

Damages in Beira, Mozambique, in the aftermath of the passage of the cyclone Idai.

Damages at the airport in Beira, Mozambique A destroyed car is seen amid the destruction provoked by the passage of the cyclone Idai in Beira, Mozambique,

Toll rises to 32 dead, 91 hurt as DR Congo train derailsKinshasa, DR Congo

Thirty-two people were killed and 91 others in-

jured when a freight train carrying stowaways de-railed in DR Congo over-night, officials said on Mon-day, updating an earlier toll of 24 dead.

Officials said there was a large number of children among the dead when the train veered off the tracks in central Kasai province.

Of the injured, 18 were in serious condition, a district official told AFP after arriv-ing at the site on Monday.

The goods train veered off the tracks as it was crossing a bridge over a river about 140 kilometres (85 miles) northwest of the provincial capital Kananga.

“Many carriages fell into the water from the bridge over the Luembe River,” a police official said late on Sunday at Bena Leka train station.

“We are overwhelmed by the number of injured, we are working urgently,” said Dr Jean Claude Tshimanga who works at the nearby Kakenge hospital when the initial toll stood at 24 dead and 31 injured.

One dead in shooting on Dutch tram

Utrecht, Netherlands

A gunman opened fire on a tram in the Dutch city of

Utrecht yesterday, killing one person and wounding several others in what officials said was a possible terrorist attack.

Armed counter-terrorism po-lice launched a huge manhunt for the attacker, urging local res-idents in one of the Netherlands’ biggest cities to stay indoors in case of further incidents.

Police released a picture of the Turkish-born suspect, nam-ing him as 37-year-old Gokmen

Tanis, and warning people not to approach him.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the incident, just days ahead of local elections, was “deeply disturbing” and police stepped up security at mosques and airports.

A body covered in a sheet could be seen on the tracks in Utrecht as armed police and emergency services swarmed around the scene, while helicop-ters hovered overhead.

“We cannot exclude a terrorist motive,” the head of the Dutch national counter-terrorism ser-

vice, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, told a brief news conference before rushing off for a crisis meeting. Aalbersberg said there had been shooting at “several locations” but did not give fur-ther details.

“A major police operation is under way to arrest the gun-man,” he added.

The terror alert level in Utre-cht was raised to maximum level five, he added.

Police later surrounded a building a few hundred metres away, a reporter at the scene said, but it was not clear if the

gunman was inside.

‘New incidents not excluded’Police in Utrecht said the

shooting took place on a tram in the 24 Oktoberplein area of the city and that “a possible ter-rorist motive is part of the in-vestigation”.

“Multiple people have been injured. The surrounding area has been cordoned off and we are investigating the matter... Several trauma helicopters have been deployed to provide help.”

One witness told NOS News they had seen an injured person

running out of the tram with blood on her hands and clothes who then fell to the ground.

“I brought her into my car and helped her. When the police ar-rived, she was unconscious,” the witness, who was not named, told the broadcaster.

The Utrecht municipality said it advised “everyone to stay in-doors until more is known. New incidents are not excluded.”

Local media showed photo-graphs of masked, armed po-lice and emergency vehicles surrounding a tram that had stopped near a road bridge.

Special Police forces inspect a tram at the 24 Oktoberplace in UtrechtTurkish-born Gokmen Tanis

Mozambique president says cyclone death toll could exceed 1,000

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi yesterday

warned that the death toll from a cyclone that smashed into the country’s central provinces last week could climb to more than a thousand.

“For the moment we have registered 84 deaths officially, but when we flew over the area ... this morning to understand what’s going on, everything indicates that we could register more than 1,000 deaths,” he said in a nationwide address.


Mosque ‘gunman’ sacks lawyerChristchurch, New Zealand

New Zealand will tighten gun laws in the wake of its worst modern-day

massacre, the government said yesterday, as it emerged that the white supremacist accused of carrying out the killings at two mosques will represent himself in court.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ard-ern said her coalition was uni-fied on the need to reduce the availability of the kind of weap-ons used by Brenton Tarrant as he went room to room shooting Muslims gathered for Friday prayers.

“We have made a decision as a cabinet, we are unified,” she said, flanked by her coalition partner and deputy prime min-ister, Winston Peters.

Peters, whose New Zealand First party has previously op-posed changes, said he backed the prime minister fully.

“The reality is that after one pm on Friday our world changed forever, and so will our laws,” he said.

Ardern, the youthful premier who has become the face of the nation’s tragedy, said there would be an inquiry into the horrifying attack, as questions swirl over whether intelligence agencies should have spotted warning signs.

The role of social media has also come under the spotlight, after the gunman livestreamed his rampage on Facebook.

A teenager, whose name can-not be published, appeared in court yesterday charged with distributing that footage.

Meanwhile, police launched a probe into a bomb hoax that forced an hours-long closure of the airport in Dunedin on Sun-day, where Tarrant lived.

Grief continued to wash across the nation yesterday, with New Zealanders of all stripes gath-ering to express revulsion over the killings -- and a unified front against racial hatred.

Family and friends outside Al Noor mosque -- the scene of the largest massacre -- held a sun-set prayer session, with their mournful cries echoing through a park as locals looked on.

“It just happened to be the

time of our evening prayer. Any-where you are, you can just pray anywhere,” Saiyad Raza, who had travelled from Auckland to bury his cousin who died in the shootings, told AFP.

Earlier, a Maori cleansing cer-emony was performed at the mosque, bringing together in-

digenous Kiwis, Muslim leaders and local officials.

Dozens of students then paid their respects, with many coming together for a haka -- a traditional Maori ceremonial dance that has been performed by groups across New Zealand in the wake of killings.

Gunman ‘rational’

The Australian charged with murder in the mass

shootings at two New Zealand mosques plans to represent himself and appears “ration-al”, his court-appointed lawyer said.

Brenton Tarrant was charged with one count of murder and appeared at Christchurch Dis-trict Court on Saturday after the rampage during Friday prayers which left 50 people dead.

Duty lawyer Richard Peters, who represented him during the preliminary court hear-ing, told AFP the 28-year-old “indicated he does not want a lawyer”.

“He wants to be self-repre-sented in this case,” said Peters, who played down suggestions that Tarrant may not be fit for trial. “The way he presented was rational and someone who was not suffering any mental disability. That’s how he ap-peared. He seemed to under-stand what was going on,” Pe-ters said.

Facebook scrubs 1.5mn videosChristchurch, New Zealand

Facebook says it removed a staggering 1.5 million videos

showing harrowing viral foot-age of the Christchurch mosque rampage but criticism of social media giants for failing to block images of the “real-time terror attack” is also spreading fast.

As the alleged gunman cal-lously picked off his victims in Christchurch’s Al Noor mosque, he livestreamed the gruesome scene on Facebook Live, apparently using a camera mounted on his body, after also tweeting a racist “manifesto.”

Facebook said it “quickly” removed the video, plus the

gunman’s account and Insta-gram, and in the first 24 hours scrubbed 1.5 million videos worldwide “of which 1.2 million were blocked at upload.”

Spokeswoman Mia Garlick from Facebook New Zealand said the firm was “working around the clock to remove violating content using a com-bination of technology and people.”

But despite pleas -- and of-ficial orders from authorities -- not to share the content, the footage proliferated wide-ly online and experts said the 17-minute video was easily re-trievable several hours after the attack that killed 50 people.

Christchurch shooting suspect appears in New Zealand court

Digging gravesChristchurch, New Zealand

Frustrated families of the 50 victims were still wait-

ing yesterday for the release of the bodies of their loved ones, as officials worked their way through a painstaking investi-gation.

Dozens of graves were being dug in readiness for that release, which Police Deputy Commis-sioner Wally Haumaha said would hopefully happen soon.

“The process has been highly emotional and stressful for all... as in accordance with Islamic faith the families have want-ed the bodies to be returned as soon as possible,” he said.

“We have burial expert teams in place ready to receive the

bodies at a point in time.”The dead span generations,

aged between three and 77, according to a list circulated among relatives.

Some victims came from the neighbourhood, others from as far afield as Egypt. At least two of the dead came from the same family -- a father and son.

Delhi said Sunday that five of its nationals were killed, while Pakistan said nine of its citizens were among the dead, including one man who died trying to rush Tarrant. Authorities said 31 peo-ple remained in hospital, nine in critical condition.

Reigning Super Rugby cham-pions Canterbury Crusaders, who play in Christchurch, said Monday they would consider

changing their name after criti-cism that it was historically in-sensitive. Distinctive writing on the mosque attacker’s weaponry included the names of figures from the Crusades, the reli-gious wars waged by European Christians against Muslims for control of the Holy Land in the Middle Ages.

A worker prepares gravesites for victims in Christchurch

The Kuwait Towers as they display the flag of New Zealand in solidarity with the victims of the Christchurch mosque attacks in Kuwait City

School students perform the hakka during a vigil in Christchurch on March 18, 2019, three days after a shooting incident at two mosques in the city that claimed the lives of 50 Muslim worshippers

Dead whale had 40 kg of plastic in stomachManila, Philippines

A starving whale with 40 ki-los (88 pounds) of plastic

trash in its stomach has died after being washed ashore in the Philippines, activists said yesterday, calling it one of the worst cases of poisoning they have seen.

Environmental groups have tagged the Philippines as one of the world’s biggest ocean polluters due to its reliance on single-use plastic.

That sort of pollution, which is also widespread in oth-er southeast Asian nations, regularly kills wildlife like whales and turtles that ingest the waste.

In the latest case, a Cuvier’s beaked whale died on Satur-day in the southern province of Compostela Valley where it was stranded a day earlier, the government’s regional fisheries

bureau said.The agency and an environ-

mental group performed a nec-ropsy on the animal and found about 40 kilograms of plastic,

including grocery bags and rice sacks.

The animal died from star-vation and was unable to eat because of the trash fill-

ing its stomach, said Dar-rell Blatchley, director of D’ Bone Collector Museum Inc., which helped conduct the examination.

“It ’s very disgusting and heartbreaking,” he told AFP. “We’ve done necropsies on 61 dolphins and whales in the last 10 years and this is one of the biggest (amounts of plastic) we’ve seen.”

The 15.4-foot (4.7-metre) long whale was stranded in Mabini town on Friday where local of-ficials and fishermen tried to re-lease it, only for the creature to return to shallow water, said the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.

“It could not swim on its own, emaciated and weak,” region-al bureau director Fatma Idris told AFP.

“(The) animal was dehydrat-ed. On the second day it strug-gled and vomited blood.”

Darrell Blatchley, director of D’ Bone Collector Museum Inc., shows plastic waste found in the stomach of a Cuvier’s beaked whale in Compostela Valley, Davao on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

Baby reunited with dad as Indonesia flood toll hits 79Sentani, Indonesia

A baby trapped under rub-ble after flash flooding

destroyed his home in Indo-nesia has been reunited with his father after the disaster killed the rest of their family, officials said yesterday, as the death toll hit 79.

The five-month old was plucked Sunday from debris inside a house where his moth-er and siblings were found dead in the hard-hit town of Sentani.

The tot has since been re-turned to his surviving father.

“We took the baby to the hospital and had him treat-ed,” Papua military spokesman Muhammad Aidi told AFP.

“He was in stable condition and has been released. The fa-ther was distressed but happy to be reunited with his baby.”

The news came as Indone-sia’s disaster agency raised the official death toll from 58 on Sunday, with more than three dozen people still missing.

Indonesia’s military took up the grim task of putting the corpses of mud-caked victims into body bags, after flash floods and landslides ripped through the area.

Scores have been injured in the disaster, triggered by tor-rential rain on Saturday.

“The death toll could still go up,” said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

Rescuers battled mud, rocks and fallen trees in the hunt for survivors, as medical person-nel treated the wounded in makeshift tents.

“People need food, blankets, clean clothes and clean water,” Nugroho said.


Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Deputy Editor-in-Chief Ahdeya Ahmed | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: [email protected] | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: [email protected] & circulation: Tel: 38444698/17579877 | Email:[email protected] | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

DALIA GHANEM

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the president of Algeria, on March 11 announced in a

letter that he would not seek a fifth term as president and called off the presidential elections scheduled on April 18. He explained that a national conference on political and constitutional reform would be held and a new constitution written and approved by referendum.

The stunning development came after mass protests by Algerians since Feb 22 opposing Bouteflika’s attempt at reelection. Bouteflika, who is 82, had a stroke in 2013 and hasn’t addressed his nation in six years. Algerians found his desire to hold on to power absurd and insulting.

On Feb 22 and March 1, I joined the protests in Algiers. I was sur-rounded by people from every so-cio-economic background: men and women, seniors in wheel-chairs, fathers carrying children on their shoulders. Many carried signs with sharp, subtle and fun-ny catchphrases. Many brought garbage bags to collect the water bottles protesters were carrying; others organised the cleaning of the streets after the demonstrations ended.

As we passed by a hospital, the protesters stopped the chanting

to avoid disturbing the patients. A little later, they went quiet as we passed a funeral. Each time the procession reached a police barri-cade, the protesters chanted, “silm-iya, silmiya” (“peaceful, peaceful”) or “cha’b w chorta khawa khawa!” (“the police and the people are brothers”). I saw police officers bursting into tears and protesters hugging them. It was exhilarating to witness the awakening of the Algerian people.

Algeria hasn’t seen such protests since the 1990s; their scale and their peaceful nature surprised many in Algeria and abroad. The protest movement is leaderless and started with ordinary citizens call-ing upon fellow citizens on social media, especially Facebook. Nu-merous groups of students, teach-ers, lawyers, jurists, judges, doctors, public employees and petroleum workers simply came together for the greater common good.

Even veterans of Algeria’s war of independence, who have his-torically been loyal to the regime, joined the protest movement. And several important leaders and parliamentarians, who resigned from the ruling National Libera-tion Front, marched with the peo-ple. Algeria’s opposition parties, which are divided, marginalised or co-opted by the regime and have little credibility, joined the demon-strations but were largely ignored by the protesters.

People celebrated joyously in Algiers and other cities after the news came that Bouteflika would not seek another term in response

to the protests, but Algerians are rightly cautious and see it as a first step.

The absurdity of Bouteflika’s can-didacy and the cacophony around it stems from the very nature of the

state. Beyond the old man, there is a highly complex and opaque power structure composed of overlapping and intricate networks, varied and divergent interests, and fluid and shifting allegiances.

DARKNESS CANNOT DRIVE OUT DARKNESS; ONLY LIGHT CAN DO THAT. HATE CANNOT DRIVE OUT HATE; ONLY LOVE CAN DO THAT. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Another battle on

to capture AlgiersProtests have stopped

president Abdelaziz Bouteflika from seeking another term, but

it won’t change the military’s domination of the political

system

MICHEL WIEVIORKA

Nowhere else have the hard-ships of a vast segment of the population turned into

a social movement like this — one that refuses to bear the brunt of economic liberalisation, points out real inequalities, is active over large swathes of the country, is resolutely modern in its use of social media and the internet, and is widely supported by the public at large. Nowhere else have the authorities responded to a crisis of this magnitude by holding a “grand débat national,” or “great national debate,” with the head of state’s direct participation, some-times live on television.

But after four months of pro-tests and as that nationwide dis-cussion, started on Jan 15, is sup-posed to end, the Gilets jaunes, or Yellow Vests, seem to be running out of steam, both around traf-fic circles and in opinion polls. President Emmanuel Macron’s popularity ranking, for its part, is back up; that of Prime Minister Edouard Philippe even more so. And last week, Philippe cautioned the public not to expect too much of the consultation and warned that many might be disappointed.

What exactly did he mean? The

comment may have been intended simply to manage expectations. But it also seemed to reveal the strategic dimension — the cyni-cism? — of the whole exercise.

No doubt, the “grand débat” has already had major political effects — above all of giving Macron a chance to steady himself and then regain the upper hand. When the powers-that-be invited the people for that great big consultation, it wasn’t really the Gilets jaunes they were addressing or wanted to hear from. And it remains to be seen whether the government will take seriously all the claims and com-plaints that have been gathered.

Yet the Gilets jaunes — and France as a whole, which largely backed them — deserve no less. This protest movement, unlike a number of others across Europe, hasn’t devolved into nationalism or populism. Yes, it is somewhat skewed towards political ex-tremes, notably the far right. Yes, it has had some ugly lapses, notably anti-Semitic incidents. And the violence displayed by some par-ticipants, or free-riders — as well as the occasional brutality of the police forces — has increasingly overshadowed the substance of the movement, on social, fiscal and institutional issues. But at bot-tom, the Gilets jaunes have steadi-ly pointed out valid concerns and suggested reforms that deserve a full hearing — like raising the lowest incomes and the minimum wage, reinforcing state services in

disaffected areas, adjusting retire-ment pensions to inflation and in-troducing some forms of popular referendum.

In mid-December, after a long period of uncertainty, Macron did make concessions that were ma-jor and costly, in more ways than one. A spate of social measures worth up to €10 billion was an-nounced, even though the expense will bog down the national budget and risks turning France into a bad pupil of the European Union. The protests were sparked in part by a rise in gasoline prices, and when Macron later backtracked on that increase and some of his government’s green measures, he undercut France’s efforts to cast itself as a world leader in the fight against climate change.

Then came the “grand débat.” After a chaotic start, thousands of meetings took place throughout the country. In an inevitable ref-erence to the French Revolution of 1789, local authorities collected “cahiers de doléances,” or “books of grievances.” By late February, more than a million proposals had been submitted online on a dedi-cated site. Robots, algorithms and other digital tools are supposed to analyse all the input.

The effort has been amply criticised. Some people question whether the data can be processed properly. Other complaints, more politically driven, accuse the gov-ernment of having staged all this in the service of its campaign for the

European elections in May.But two other points are more

worrisome still.The first is that this nationwide

debate won’t have allowed the Gilets jaunes to really express themselves. It’s true that even at the height of the protests, the movement was representative of only some parts of French society — mostly the residents of towns and rural areas that are depopulat-ing; working-class and lower-mid-dle-class people who struggle to

make ends meet; car drivers, for whom gasoline prices are criti-cal. The movement did not really represent, say, the unemployed, residents of large cities or major suburbs, or students.

Still, the impression that pre-vails today is that the government isn’t listening enough to the Gilets jaunes’ concerns, as though it still hadn’t appreciated the seriousness of the crisis. And hasn’t the so-called great debate mostly served the president so far?

Saying so might be going a bit far, or mistaking effects for inten-tions. But it’s worth noting that the government hardly set up any meetings or direct exchanges with the Gilets jaunes as such. Instead of reaching out to them, Macron preferred to engage with local of-ficials or other ordinary citizens.

Nor has the great debate spawned any real representatives among the Gilets jaunes — a vac-uum that makes concrete negoti-ations difficult. The movement’s

There really is a French exceptionBut will the government rise to the occasion created by the Gilets Jaunes movement?



DALIA GHANEM

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the president of Algeria, on March 11 announced in a

letter that he would not seek a fifth term as president and called off the presidential elections scheduled on April 18. He explained that a national conference on political and constitutional reform would be held and a new constitution written and approved by referendum.

The stunning development came after mass protests by Algerians since Feb 22 opposing Bouteflika’s attempt at reelection. Bouteflika, who is 82, had a stroke in 2013 and hasn’t addressed his nation in six years. Algerians found his desire to hold on to power absurd and insulting.

On Feb 22 and March 1, I joined the protests in Algiers. I was sur-rounded by people from every so-cio-economic background: men and women, seniors in wheel-chairs, fathers carrying children on their shoulders. Many carried signs with sharp, subtle and fun-ny catchphrases. Many brought garbage bags to collect the water bottles protesters were carrying; others organised the cleaning of the streets after the demonstrations ended.

As we passed by a hospital, the protesters stopped the chanting

to avoid disturbing the patients. A little later, they went quiet as we passed a funeral. Each time the procession reached a police barri-cade, the protesters chanted, “silm-iya, silmiya” (“peaceful, peaceful”) or “cha’b w chorta khawa khawa!” (“the police and the people are brothers”). I saw police officers bursting into tears and protesters hugging them. It was exhilarating to witness the awakening of the Algerian people.

Algeria hasn’t seen such protests since the 1990s; their scale and their peaceful nature surprised many in Algeria and abroad. The protest movement is leaderless and started with ordinary citizens call-ing upon fellow citizens on social media, especially Facebook. Nu-merous groups of students, teach-ers, lawyers, jurists, judges, doctors, public employees and petroleum workers simply came together for the greater common good.

Even veterans of Algeria’s war of independence, who have his-torically been loyal to the regime, joined the protest movement. And several important leaders and parliamentarians, who resigned from the ruling National Libera-tion Front, marched with the peo-ple. Algeria’s opposition parties, which are divided, marginalised or co-opted by the regime and have little credibility, joined the demon-strations but were largely ignored by the protesters.

People celebrated joyously in Algiers and other cities after the news came that Bouteflika would not seek another term in response

to the protests, but Algerians are rightly cautious and see it as a first step.

The absurdity of Bouteflika’s can-didacy and the cacophony around it stems from the very nature of the

state. Beyond the old man, there is a highly complex and opaque power structure composed of overlapping and intricate networks, varied and divergent interests, and fluid and shifting allegiances.

DARKNESS CANNOT DRIVE OUT DARKNESS; ONLY LIGHT CAN DO THAT. HATE CANNOT DRIVE OUT HATE; ONLY LOVE CAN DO THAT. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Another battle on

to capture AlgiersProtests have stopped

president Abdelaziz Bouteflika from seeking another term, but

it won’t change the military’s domination of the political

system

MICHEL WIEVIORKA

Nowhere else have the hard-ships of a vast segment of the population turned into

a social movement like this — one that refuses to bear the brunt of economic liberalisation, points out real inequalities, is active over large swathes of the country, is resolutely modern in its use of social media and the internet, and is widely supported by the public at large. Nowhere else have the authorities responded to a crisis of this magnitude by holding a “grand débat national,” or “great national debate,” with the head of state’s direct participation, some-times live on television.

But after four months of pro-tests and as that nationwide dis-cussion, started on Jan 15, is sup-posed to end, the Gilets jaunes, or Yellow Vests, seem to be running out of steam, both around traf-fic circles and in opinion polls. President Emmanuel Macron’s popularity ranking, for its part, is back up; that of Prime Minister Edouard Philippe even more so. And last week, Philippe cautioned the public not to expect too much of the consultation and warned that many might be disappointed.

What exactly did he mean? The

comment may have been intended simply to manage expectations. But it also seemed to reveal the strategic dimension — the cyni-cism? — of the whole exercise.

No doubt, the “grand débat” has already had major political effects — above all of giving Macron a chance to steady himself and then regain the upper hand. When the powers-that-be invited the people for that great big consultation, it wasn’t really the Gilets jaunes they were addressing or wanted to hear from. And it remains to be seen whether the government will take seriously all the claims and com-plaints that have been gathered.

Yet the Gilets jaunes — and France as a whole, which largely backed them — deserve no less. This protest movement, unlike a number of others across Europe, hasn’t devolved into nationalism or populism. Yes, it is somewhat skewed towards political ex-tremes, notably the far right. Yes, it has had some ugly lapses, notably anti-Semitic incidents. And the violence displayed by some par-ticipants, or free-riders — as well as the occasional brutality of the police forces — has increasingly overshadowed the substance of the movement, on social, fiscal and institutional issues. But at bot-tom, the Gilets jaunes have steadi-ly pointed out valid concerns and suggested reforms that deserve a full hearing — like raising the lowest incomes and the minimum wage, reinforcing state services in

disaffected areas, adjusting retire-ment pensions to inflation and in-troducing some forms of popular referendum.

In mid-December, after a long period of uncertainty, Macron did make concessions that were ma-jor and costly, in more ways than one. A spate of social measures worth up to €10 billion was an-nounced, even though the expense will bog down the national budget and risks turning France into a bad pupil of the European Union. The protests were sparked in part by a rise in gasoline prices, and when Macron later backtracked on that increase and some of his government’s green measures, he undercut France’s efforts to cast itself as a world leader in the fight against climate change.

Then came the “grand débat.” After a chaotic start, thousands of meetings took place throughout the country. In an inevitable ref-erence to the French Revolution of 1789, local authorities collected “cahiers de doléances,” or “books of grievances.” By late February, more than a million proposals had been submitted online on a dedi-cated site. Robots, algorithms and other digital tools are supposed to analyse all the input.

The effort has been amply criticised. Some people question whether the data can be processed properly. Other complaints, more politically driven, accuse the gov-ernment of having staged all this in the service of its campaign for the

European elections in May.But two other points are more

worrisome still.The first is that this nationwide

debate won’t have allowed the Gilets jaunes to really express themselves. It’s true that even at the height of the protests, the movement was representative of only some parts of French society — mostly the residents of towns and rural areas that are depopulat-ing; working-class and lower-mid-dle-class people who struggle to

make ends meet; car drivers, for whom gasoline prices are criti-cal. The movement did not really represent, say, the unemployed, residents of large cities or major suburbs, or students.

Still, the impression that pre-vails today is that the government isn’t listening enough to the Gilets jaunes’ concerns, as though it still hadn’t appreciated the seriousness of the crisis. And hasn’t the so-called great debate mostly served the president so far?

Saying so might be going a bit far, or mistaking effects for inten-tions. But it’s worth noting that the government hardly set up any meetings or direct exchanges with the Gilets jaunes as such. Instead of reaching out to them, Macron preferred to engage with local of-ficials or other ordinary citizens.

Nor has the great debate spawned any real representatives among the Gilets jaunes — a vac-uum that makes concrete negoti-ations difficult. The movement’s


C I V I L I A N ’ S T R I B U N E


TOP

4TWEETS

01

In working for the good of humanity I don’t

think of myself just as a Tibetan or a Buddhist, but as a human being. We have to think of the whole of humanity. Being human is the common ground in our efforts to create a better world, be-cause we all survive in dependence on others.

@DalaiLama

03

The Fake News Media is working overtime

to blame me for the hor-rible attack in New Zea-land. They will have to work very hard to prove that one. So Ridiculous!

@realDonaldTrump

04

I don’t care about left-wing & right-wing

agendas. I care only about justice, the truth and doing the right thing. I’ll disagree with you, but I won’t allow you to be oppressed. I also expect the same in return. We will progress with fair and balanced citizens, not extremists.

@Imamofpeace

02

Why is President Trump the only

political figure in Amer-ica fighting tirelessly to end the illegal invasion of our sacred nation? Why won’t others honor their constitutional oath to up-hold the laws of the land?

@RealJamesWoods

Disclaimer: (Views expressed by columnists are personal and need not necessarily reflect our

editorial stances)

The National Liberation Front, the principal nationalist move-ment, and its military wing, the National Liberation Army, led the war of independence against the French. After independence, the

military wing became the country’s army — People’s National Army.

The legitimacy derived from the armed struggle against the colonial power gave the army a cardinal po-sition to control power in Algeria.

The army identifies itself with the nation and finds it inconceivable to separate itself from the political apparatus. The military leaders see letting elected civilian politicians run the country as endangering the nation.

The military rules even if it does not govern. It sits atop a pyramid of power composed by several strata of National Liberation Front appa-ratchiks, state officials and business tycoons connected by family or regional ties. Since Algeria’s inde-pendence in 1962, sadly, nepotism and corruption have remained the core tools of this model of gov-ernance.

The regime went from being outright authoritarian to a hybrid mix starting in 1995 when it rein-stated constitutional processes, but the rulers have maintained their control by tactically using political, economic and constitu-tional reforms.

In 2012, the government also introduced greater subsidies, bet-ter salaries and easier credit for young people and entrepreneurs. These resources were controlled and selectively distributed.

Elections have become routine since 1995, but they are marked by irregularities and are neither entirely fair nor free. A fraction of political participation was permit-ted after the end of the civil war in 2002. Several opposition groups — nationalists, democrats, independ-ents and even Islamists — were allowed to be part of the political arena, but the state ensured the opposition was marginalised and

divided through co-optation.Civil society organisations

were also allowed some space for contestation, but the state used repression, co-optation and reg-ulation to ensure they remained fragmented and too weak to chal-lenge the government.

The economy was partially lib-eralised since 1994, and more so under Bouteflika, but it has largely served the ruling elite and its cli-ents, who were granted generous loans, privileges and custom-made monopolies in return for their loy-alty and support.

The capacity of the system to react quickly, distribute timely political and economic resources not only helped in boosting its legitimacy but also allowed it to impede mobilisation and to defeat any oppositional force.

In the past few weeks of pro-tests, the regime struggled to re-spond. Its lack of responsiveness

to the people gave birth to the contestation; its contempt led to a visceral antipathy toward the leadership and a profound crisis of legitimacy.

The regime’s old tool of buying social peace by distributing gen-erous handouts using the high oil revenues is no longer available be-cause the country has been facing severe fiscal challenges since the fall in oil prices in 2014.

Algeria’s foreign exchanges have shrunk considerably, dropping to $96 billion in 2019 from $194 billion in 2013. Economic growth fell to 2.3 per cent in 2018 from 3.8pc in 2014.

Since Bouteflika is not seeking another term, the regime’s margin to maneuver has increased a bit, but the people seem to believe that the president’s renouncement is a way for his clan to gain time to install a successor close to them.

Bouteflika is abstaining from seeking a fifth term but he is ex-tending the fourth and manag-ing the pseudo-transition that he referred to in his letter. His re-nouncement is half a victory for Algerians, but the political-mil-itary elite and the bureaucracy will continue controlling the state. When another presidential can-didate emerges and appeases the demonstrators, he will remain a pure product of a system that has kept Algeria in a state of perma-nent transition.

(Dalia Ghanem, an Algerian political analyst, is a resident scholar at the

Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut.)

1848German revolutions of 1848–49: KingLudwig I of Bavaria abdicates.

1852Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published.

1854The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.

1861 An earthquake destroys Mendoza, Argentina.

TODAY DAY IN

HISTORY

When another presidential candidate emerges and appeases the

demonstrators, he will remain a pure product

of a system that has kept Algeria in a state of

permanent transition.

very nature contributed to this, of course, since time and again the Gilets jaunes themselves pushed back against any attempt to struc-ture or formalise their efforts. For a brief moment there seemed to be an impulse to create a politi-cal party from the movement or at least let emerge some official spokespeople. But that no longer seems remotely possible.

Macron, even when faced with the breakdown of the political sys-tem itself, has continued to tackle problems from the top down and without resorting to intermediar-ies. Instead of moving away from this vertical approach, he has ex-ploited it. His only credible polit-ical opponents now are parties at the extremes, on the far left (Jean-Luc Mélenchon and La France Insoumise) and the far right (Ma-rine Le Pen and le Rassemblement

National). According to polls, the president’s party is leading the race for the European elections.

Was all this a strategic calcula-tion? Quite probably. In any event, the situation today is a far cry from auguring the renewal of this dem-ocratic system. The most that has emerged so far is a handful of pro-posals from civil society — for ex-ample, the program for a greener economy jointly put forward by Nicolas Hulot, a former environ-ment minister, and Laurent Berg-er, the head of France’s leading (and reformist) union, the Con-fédération française démocratique du travail (the French Democratic Confederation of Labor).

France, unlike other countries, has been fortunate enough to ex-perience a popular upheaval that has raised serious economic, so-cial and institutional questions. Elsewhere — in Britain, the Unit-ed States, Italy, Poland, Hunga-ry — the discontent immediately lapsed into populism, nationalism or withdrawal. But if the French government doesn’t adequately address the legitimate, or at least reasonable, concerns of the Gilets jaunes, it runs the risk of pushing them, as well as other French peo-ple, toward the pitfalls France has avoided so far.

(Michel Wieviorka, a sociologist, is the head of the Fondation Maison des

Sciences de l’Homme, in Paris, and a member of the European Research

Council’s Scientific Council.)


Uniting against all forms of terrorism and hatred for humanity

If we create a climate of ha-tred, we shouldn’t be sur-prised when we later have to

face the bitter consequence. The extremists who joined Daesh didn’t appear out of nowhere but were the product of communities and sub-cultures where hatred of the West and intolerance of difference had become the norm. Daesh didn’t just hate Christians and Jews; the worst of their vi-olence was unleashed against Shia and ordinary Muslims who didn’t share their evil views.

Soon after ISIS gained strength in Iraq and Syria, they launched a series of attacks against mosques in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Muslim states. In Bahrain and elsewhere, Sunni and Shia Muslims rightly responded by holding joint prayer sessions and demonstrating their solidarity against Daesh’s hateful, intoler-ant views.

The terrible terrorist attacks against mosques in New Zealand during which 50 people were killed while at prayer come from the same rejected species of ha-tred. The killer was a white su-premacist who had fantasised online about ridding his coun-try of Muslim immigrants. In America and Europe, similar sick individuals have staged attacks against synagogues, mosques and other places of worship. We should be deeply outraged about such attacks by racist individuals; not just because Muslims were the victims, but because such hatred of humanity is a threat

against us all, whether Muslims, Christians, Jews or Hindus.

In Bahrain, we had a bitter taste of this sectarian hatred in the months after 2011. Extremist figures on both sides used hor-rible language against Shias or Sunnis - and of course the Aya-tollahs of Iran were ready and waiting to exploit such hatred; distributing guns and explosives to radical groups who went off and murdered policemen and placed bombs outside malls and children’s playparks.

After the 2001 9/11 attacks, ter-rorism and fanaticism came to be seen as a “Muslim problem”. It is a Muslim problem and a lot of progress has been made across the Islamic world in address-ing this problem and banishing extremist ideas – but we now know that it isn’t only a Muslim problem. In India dozens of at-tacks have been staged by Hin-du extremists against ordinary Muslims; in Israel we have seen radical settlers resorting to mur-der and terrorism; but in America and the West we have also seen far-right extremism spreading like a disease.

In European states known for their liberal traditions, ex-treme-right parties have moved from the radical fringes and into the mainstream, picking up sig-nificant numbers of seats in na-tional parliaments. Thousands of neo-Nazis and white suprem-acists have taken to the streets in Germany, the United States and France inciting violence and

hatred against immigrants and Muslims.

In Bahrain and the Arabian Gulf there is much more to be done to crack down against var-ious kinds of radicalism and ter-rorism; banishing them from cy-berspace, blocking funding from hostile states, and encouraging a culture of tolerance and mutual respect. But in America, Europe and around the world there must be similar efforts to crack down against all forms of racism, re-ligious hatred and fanaticism. Refugees fleeing conflict and vi-olence must be welcomed and assisted, not unjustifiably treated as criminals and terrorists and demonised by the media and pol-iticians who should know much much better.

These extremists have in com-mon their belief that different races and religions cannot coexist. This belief is rooted in ignorance. Nations like Bahrain are perfect examples of how Shia, Christians, Sunnis, Hindus, Jews and citizens of a hundred different nations can amicably coexist – despite the efforts of a hateful minority to thwart this social model.

We must adopt a zero-toler-ance approach for such hatred and incitement to violence, wherever this may be and what-ever the supposed agenda. These fanatics aim to set humanity against each other. Only when we unite against them and their ugly worldview can we enjoy a world which is free of their evil.

Citizens for Bahrain

Macron, even when faced with the breakdown of

the political system itself, has continued to tackle problems from the top

down and without resorting to intermediaries.

10

business


“MEET ICT” opens today

• Running alongside the conference is BITEX 2019 Exhibition

TDT | Manama

The ninth edition of in-formation and commu-

nication technology (ICT) conference, will open today under the patronage of Min-ister of Transportation and Telecommunications, Kamal Ahmed, at the Gulf Hotel Bahrain.

The event is being organised jointly by the Bahrain Tech-nology Companies Society (BTECH) and WorkSmart for Events Management to pro-mote ICT sector and provide a common platform for all IT en-thusiasts and decision-makers.

The three-day conference and exhibition will be explor-ing the developments and needs of the technology mar-ket in Bahrain and the region, and how best to meet them.

The event is being held this

year under the slogan “Inno-vative and Adaptive Digital Transformation” and will fea-ture the participation of more than 30 prominent speakers from around the world.

Running alongside the con-ference is BITEX 2019 Exhibi-tion where more than 50 lo-cal, regional and international IT companies are taking over to exhibit, offer services and products, sign agreements and contracts and enter into fruit-ful partnerships.

Kamal Ahmed

ABG units win Islamic Finance News AwardsTDT | Manama

Al Baraka Banking Group (ABG) said four of its banking units won the

prestigious Islamic Finance News Awards 2018 through an annual comprehensive referen-dum conducted by the Islamic Finance News magazine.

Al Baraka Bank Sudan won the Best Bank in Sudan 2018 Awards. Al Baraka South Africa won yet again this year the Best Islamic Bank in South Africa 2018, following its debut 2 Tier Sukuk issuance in December 2018.

Al Baraka Bank Lebanon won the Best Islamic Bank in Leba-non 2018 award. For the third year in a row, Jordan Islamic Bank was voted Best Islamic Bank in Jordan.

Al Baraka Bank Egypt, Al Baraka Islamic Bank Bahrain

and Al Baraka Turk Participa-tion Bank won second place in their respective countries. Al Baraka Banking Group won second place for Best Islamic Bank for Treasury Management.

Adnan Ahmed Yousif, Board Member and President & Chief Executive of Al Baraka Banking

Group said: “We are pleased today to see our units win these awards for the sixth consec-utive year, as this reflects the leading status and good repu-tation that Al Baraka Banking Group and its banking units enjoy in the Islamic banking sector locally, regionally and globally.”

Ahmed Albalooshi, Senior Vice President receiving the Awards for Al Baraka Banking Units at a gala ceremony held in Dubai on 10 March 2019

BIA’s ORAT familiarisation begins

TDT | Manama

The National Operations Readiness and Airport Transfer (ORAT) famil-

iarisation programme for Bahrain Inter-national Airport’s (BIA) new Passenger Terminal Building was inaugurated yes-terday by Minister of Transportation and Telecommunications and Chairman of Bahrain Airport Company (BAC), Kamal Ahmed.

The programmes will see more than

5,800 BIA stakeholders undergo a series of comprehensive training workshops over the next seven months in collabo-ration with Fraport AG Frankfurt Airport Services Worldwide, which is providing consultancy services for the new ter-minal.

The programme aims to ensure that all parties involved with the new facility are prepared for its opening in the third quarter of this year.

Accordingly, a dedicated 13-mem-ber ORAT training team from Bahrain

Airport Company (BAC), the Ministry of Interior (MoI), and Bahrain Air-port Services (BAS) will conduct the workshops right up until the facility’s launch.

The workshops will cover a range of topics, including a general airport and terminal overview, staff and passenger flows, and baggage handling systems, among others. In addition, on-site visits will familiarise trainees with the main terminal, 75 operational experiences, and advanced practical experiments.

Commenting, the Minister said: “The ORAT project is vital to ensure the read-iness of all services providers, a smooth transfer process to the new facility, and the successful commencement of daily operations. It will make sure all relevant government agencies, service providers, suppliers, and airlines at BIA understand what is required to deliver a safe and seamless travel experience for passen-gers.”

“This next stage provides BAC with the opportunity to set high-quality standards for the management and op-eration of the new terminal. With its new systems, state-of-the-art equip-ment, and increased capacity, the new facility will play a major role in the de-velopment of the kingdom’s aviation sector.”

The move also coincides with the com-pletion of 80 per cent of the construction work on the new Passenger Terminal Building.

Once all parties are sufficiently trained, around 8,400 community volunteers will participate in the next stage of the operational readiness trials, putting the new terminal’s facilities, services, and processes to the test.

Officials and participants during a photocall

Putin signs laws against ‘disrespecting’ authorities, fake newsMoscow, Russia

Ru s s i a n P r e s i d e n t V la di m i r Put i n on

Monday signed controver-sial legislation that allows courts to fine and briefly jail people for showing dis-respect for authorities and block media for publishing “fake news.”

Putin signed off on the legislation against the ad-vice of human rights activ-ists, who warned the laws amounted to censorship and would be abused to crack down on freedom of speech.

The hugely controversial legislation on disrespecting authorities backs punish-ment for “offending state symbols” and stipulates hefty fines and jail terms of 15 days for repeat offenders.

Another law allows pros-ecutors to decide what amounts to “fake news” and gives a media watchdog the power to demand an outlet delete the information.

Boeing: 737 MAX certification followed US rulesNew York, United States

Boeing said yesterday that the flight stabilization system

under scrutiny following two deadly 737 MAX plane crashes, met all US regulations.

“The 737 MAX was certified in accordance with the identical Federal Aviation Administration requirements and processes that have governed certification of all previous new airplanes and de-rivatives,” Boeing said Monday.

Boeing and regulators face increased examination over the stall prevention system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System or MCAS,

which authorities have said was likely a factor in deadly crashes in Indonesia in October, while the crash in Ethiopia earlier this month showed similarities.

“The FAA considered the final configuration and operating pa-rameters of MCAS during MAX certification, and concluded that it met all certification and reg-ulatory requirements,” Boeing added.

Since the Ethiopian crash, which claimed 157 lives, ques-tions have been raised not only about Boeing, but also the FAA and its close relationship with the company.

While it may take months for definitive conclusions, experts are asking why the MCAS was given the green light despite objections by American pilots who had voiced concerns with the system.

Investigation into the Lion Air crash in October implicated the MCAS which can erroneously force the plane down when the autopilot is engaged, if it detects the plane may be at risk of a stall. Both crashes happened shortly after takeoff.

American pilots had com-plained of the flaw, and Boe-ing has been working on a soft-

ware upgrade to the system and issued new instructions about how to override the issue in the meantime.

In service since May 2017, the 737 MAX 8, one of several vari-ants of the 737 MAX, has now ex-perienced two deadly tragedies, a scenario that is unprecedented for a new aircraft.

The US Transportation De-partment’s

inspector general is probing the FAA’s approval of the MCAS, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The newspaper also said the criminal division of the Justice Department was looking into the develop-ment of the plane.

Representative picture

Facebook to offer grants to bring more to ‘news deserts’Washington, United States

Facebook said yesterday it would begin directing

some of its funds to sup-port US journalism efforts to so-called “news deserts” with little or no media coverage.

The leading social net-work said its Journalism Project Community Net-work would begin taking proposals in May from ar-eas lacking in local news coverage.

Facebook, which has been blamed for accelerating the decline in legacy news or-ganizations, said it is taking the action after its own re-search confirmed the grow-ing problem of declining lo-cal news coverage in many parts of the United States.


Bahrain Bourse concluded its participation as Co-Partner in the 2nd E-Payments and Online Banking Summit which was held in Bahrain from 11–12 March 2019 at the Ritz-Carlton Bahrain. The event, held under the patronage of the Central Bank of Bahrain and Chairmanship of Abdulkareem Bucheery, Chairman of Bahrain Bourse, was attended by more than 400 leading players within banking, FinTech, e-commerce, retail and telecom enterprises. On the sidelines of the summit, “Khaleeji eTrade” platform was inaugurated by Khaleeji Commercial Bank (KHCB) which aims to facilitate online trading of stocks listed on Bahrain Bourse for retail investors through their existing bank account with KHCB. Above, officials during a photo call at the event

UK could seek Brexit delay up to final hourBrussels, Belgium

Brussels could handle a British request to delay its departure from the

European Union right up to the final hour before Brexit day, an official said Monday.

EU leaders hope Prime Min-ister Theresa May will come to their summit on Thursday with a plan to ratify Britain’s with-drawal deal before March 29.

But if she decides that Britain needs more time to settle on an exit plan, she could ask for a delay up to an hour before the divorce becomes final.

“I would say one hour before midnight Brussels time,” a sen-ior EU official told reporters at a briefing ahead of this week’s European Council summit meeting.

That is the moment -- 11.00 pm in London on March 29 -- when, according to current British and EU law the UK’s four-decade old membership comes to an end.

“I think everybody prefers to do it the formal way,” the official said, stressing that any delay would have to be unani-mously approved by EU mem-bers.

“But from a legal point of view I would say, not one min-ute to midnight, but a little bit before,” she said. “I think everybody would prefer to have clarity.”

May and her 27 EU colleagues approved a withdrawal deal, which foresees a two year tran-sition period for Britain’s de-parture, at a previous summit in November.

But the British premier has twice failed to convince West-minster lawmakers to ratify the accord, and plans to try again with less than two weeks until Brexit.

It appears more and more likely she will ask for the date to be postponed, but she has yet to submit a formal request and the other EU leaders need to agree.

If there is no agreement at this week’s summit, another emergency meeting could yet be called next week.

But the official said this would be a matter for mem-ber state leaders and added: “It’s not necessary for them to meet, we also have written pro-cedures.”

British PM battles to bring Brexiteers onside

London, United Kingdom

Britain’s government scram-bled yesterday to convince

Brexit hardliners to give in at last and back Prime Minis-ter Theresa May’s EU divorce deal, though several opponents were refusing to blink.

With less than two weeks to go until a potentially cha-otic departure on March 29 that could trigger an economic shock, May was struggling to turn the trickle of Brexiteers coming onside into a flood.

MPs have heavily rejected the divorce agreement twice.

If they can back a deal by Wednesday, then May will head to the EU summit in Brus-sels on Thursday and Friday and seek a short technical de-lay to Brexit until June 30.

If MPs cannot rally round a deal, she will seek a long delay beyond that date.

May will not bring the deal back before parliament if she is sure to lose.

“Before any further vote were to take place we would want to believe that we had a reasonable prospect of being successful,” her spokesman said. May wants to be able “to win a vote this week and then only have to ask for that short,

technical extension”.Foreign Secretary Jeremy

Hunt, citing strong critics of the deal who were now back-ing it, said there were “cautious signs of encouragement” but admitted there was a “huge amount of work to do” to win over hardcore Brexiteers.

All eyes are on Northern Ireland’s small Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which May ’s Conservatives rely upon for a slender majority in parliament, and the Europe-an Research Group (ERG) of Conservative Brexiteers, both of which have so far rejected the deal.

“The prime minister held discussions with a number of her colleagues over the week-end. Talks have been taking place with the DUP. Those talks are continuing,” her spokes-man said.

European foreign minis-ters meeting in Brussels for pre-summit talks on Monday were broadly supportive of granting a delay but ques-tioned its purpose.

“We are not against an ex-tension in Belgium but the problem is to do what?” Bel-gian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders told reporters.

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May (C) reacting on the front bench in the House of Commons in London

French ‘yellow vest’ demos caused 170 mln euros damage: insurersParis, France

Claims for damage linked to three months of yellow

vest protests in France have been estimated at 170 million euros ($190 million) even be-fore this weekend’s riots on the Champs-Elysees, the French In-surance Federation said.

The FFA said that 10,000 claims had been filed since the outbreak of protests in Novem-ber over fuel taxes, which then snowballed into a revolt against the governing style and policies of President Emmanuel Macron.

Since the end of December, the number of protesters has fallen, but each Saturday thou-sands still take to the streets, including far-right and far-left

groups as well as anarchists who are responsible for much of the violence.

On Saturday, 91 shops in-cluding luxury outlets such as Longchamps and Bulgari were damaged, burned or looted on the Champs-Elysees, accord-ing to the Paris Chamber of Commerce, in scenes that were broadcast worldwide.

Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire convened a meeting Monday to discuss the economic impact of the demonstrations, which have tarnished the coun-try’s image abroad.

The government and Macron were on the defensive again Monday amid renewed ques-tions over why security forces were again unable to prevent

the violence on France’s most famous avenue.

On December 1, protesters ransacked the Arc de Triomphe and ran amok through wealthy areas of the city, torching cars and damaging businesses, in scenes that shook the country and Macron’s presidency.

“Enough is enough. What hap-pened on the Champs-Elysees on Saturday is just the repeti-tion of what shopkeepers have already lived through,” the Con-federation of Small and Medi-um-Sized Companies said in a statement on Monday.

“It’s unacceptable that this was allowed to happen again,” it added, calling on the gov-ernment to “take the measures which are its responsibility.

A ellow Vest protester waves a French national flag in front of a burning newsstand during clashes with riot police forces

A woman takes a picture of the destroyed Hugo Boss shop window on the Champs-Elysees

BAB expresses confidence in Bahrain’s economic environment

TDT | Manama

Bahrain Association of Banks (BAB) held its regular Gen-

eral Assembly Meeting yester-day expressing its confidence in Bahrain’s economic growth.

“We look forward with con-fidence to 2019, as Bahrain’s economy is moving towards improvement and fiscal bal-ance, which will be reflected positively on all levels, especial-ly our banking industry, which is a key player in sustainable development,” Adnan Ahmed Yousif, Chairman of BAB said as he addressed the meeting.

The meeting approved BAB’s agenda, financial statements and the Board of Directors’ re-port for 2018.

Adnan Ahmed pointed out that BAB has embarked on a

well-defined business plan to mobilize the resources and ex-pertise of its members, who are considered key players in development and society.

L o o k i n g a h e a d , Ad n a n Ahmed Yousif said BAB in 2019 will focus on the special prepa-ration of the big celebration on the occasion of the 100th an-niversary of the establishment of banks in Bahrain at the end of the year, in addition to the initiatives planned.

“This event will include a number of expressive activi-ties that will rise to the level of our regional and global banking industry excellent position and will be a milestone in our grow-ing march”.

Melika Betley HSBC’s new CEO in Bahrain noted that the Association has already re-established its position as

a supporter for all financial and banking institutions in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

CEO of “Benefit”, Abdul Wa-hid Janahi stressed that banks and other financial institution could benefit from the mem-bership with BAB.”

For his part, Mohamed Ali Malik Deputy Chief Executive Retail Banking Group in BBK pointed out the importance of Joining BAB for all banks and fi-nancial institutions in Bahrain.

Khaleeji Commercial Bank Deputy General Manager of Support Services Mahdi Ab-dulnabi calling for further de-velopment of initiatives and launching them due to benefit all members of the Association and strengthens BAB’s support for all financial and banking institutions in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Adnan Ahmed Yousif with top officials during the meeting


Closing BellSAUDI 1.1 pc to 8,653 pts

ABU DHABI 1.8 pc to 5,067 pts

DUBAI 1.6 pc to 2,620 pts

QATAR 1.1 pc to 9,973 pts

EGYPT 0.8 pc to 14,911 pts

KUWAIT 0.3 pc to 5,689 pts

OMAN 1 pc to 4,128 pts

BAHRAIN 0.2 pc to 1,413 pts

Saudi near 4-year high as it joins FTSE Russell index• Saudi also records best one-day intraday gain since Feb 5

• All Saudi banks gain

• 159.2 mln Saudi shares traded for 3.6 bln riyals

• Abu Dhabi’s Dana Gas adds on share buyback plan

Reuters

Saudi Arabia’s benchmark stock index closed at its highest in nearly four years

yesterday as bank shares rose on its first day as a member of FTSE Russell’s emerging-mar-ket index, which is expected to attract billions in passive fund inflows.

Saudi’s Tadawul index will have a weighting of 2.9 per cent in the FTSE Emerging All Cap Index and later this year will join the MSCI emerging market benchmark. The market is posi-tioned for passive fund inflows of around $20 billion.

The kingdom is hoping its inclusion in the indexes will fuel its drive to become a major destination for foreign capital.

In the short term, the upside is limited since this was a well-flagged event, Al Mal MENA Equity Fund said in a note. In the long-term there are positive implications not just for the

Saudi market but for the re-gion as a whole.

With foreigners, there will be more institutional participants who are research-driven and

bringing more discipline to the market, the note added.

Saudi Arabia’s listed com-panies could see holdings by foreign investors rise to 10pc when shares are included in index providers MSCI and FT-SE’s emerging markets indices, Tadawul’s Chief Executive told Reuters.

The index has gained 10pc this year, outperforming its ma-jor Gulf peers, and foreigners have led the buying, with for-eign investors now net buyers of 9.6 billion riyals of stocks year-

to-date, Arqaam Capital said.Saudi’s Tadawul index rose

1.1pc with 159.2 million shares traded for a value of 3.6 billion riyals ($960 million). Al Rajhi Bank gained 0.8pc and blue-chip petrochemical maker Saudi Basic Industries (SABIC) added 1pc.

“We expect SABIC to see the biggest inflow of more than $110 million while Al Rajhi and National Commercial Bank are close behind,” Nick Wilson, chairman of the Gulf Invest-ment Fund Plc, said.

Abdullah Abdul Mohsin Al Khodari Sons surged 10pc. The stock has risen since sharehold-ers voted against the dissolution of the company.

The Abu Dhabi index rose 1.8pc, lifted by a 3.2pc rise in First Abu Dhabi Bank.

I n t e r n a t i o n a l H o l d i n g climbed 5pc after it called a shareholders’ meeting to ap-prove a capital increase by 1.31 billion dirhams ($357 million).

Dana Gas gained 1.8pc. On Sunday, the firm approved plans for a sukuk buyback and said it plans to seek approval to buy back 690 million shares.

In Dubai, the index was up 1.6pc with Dubai Islamic Bank gaining 3.2pc. The emir-ate’s largest listed developer, Emaar Properties, rose 2.2pc after saying its board will meet on Wednesday to discuss the proposal for a full-year dividend.

Marie Salem, director capi-tal markets at FFA Private Bank Dubai, said foreigners are con-tinuing to accumulate bank shares across the United Arab Emirates.

Qatar’s index increased 1.1pc. Qatar Islamic Bank added 3pc and the Middle East’s largest lender, Qatar National Bank, rose 1.5pc.

Egypt’s blue-chip index was down 0.8pc with its major lend-er Commercial International Bank shedding 1.7pc.

An investor watching stock movements at the Saudi Stock Market (AFP)

StanChart appoints Abdulla Bukhowa CEO TDT | Manama

Standard Chartered yes-terday announced the ap-

pointment of Abdulla Bukho-wa as its new Chief Executive Officer in Bahrain, effective 1 April 2019.

The appointment is consid-ered a milestone for the Bank as he is the first Bahraini na-tional to assume the CEO role in Bahrain, since the bank’s inception in 1920.

Abdulla assumes this new position after having success-fully led Standard Chartered Qatar as CEO. Prior to this, Abdulla held leadership roles including Head of Corporate and Institutional Banking and Head of Financial Markets in Standard Chartered Bahrain and Head of Portfolio Man-agement at the Central Bank of Bahrain. Bukhowa brings with him a wealth of international and regional experience that spans over 22 years.

Dr Boutros Klink, Chief Ex-ecutive Officer for Standard Chartered Bank Middle East (excluding UAE) said, “With Standard Chartered’s 100 years of rich history in the Kingdom of Bahrain and our international footprint, we are well positioned to provide our

clients with superior financial services, products and solu-tions.”

Abdulla Bukhowa, Chief Executive Officer for Stand-ard Chartered Bahrain said, “I am proud to be leading this strong franchise in Bahrain, especially as we embark on our centennial celebrations. Bahrain remains one of our important markets and we take great pride that this is where our journey began in the Mid-dle East.”

Abdulla Bukhowa

OPEC scraps meeting but keeps cuts in placeReuters | Baku

Oil producer group OPEC yes-terday scrapped its planned

meeting in April and will de-cide instead whether to extend output cuts in June, once the market has assessed the impact of US sanctions on Iran and the crisis in Venezuela.

A ministerial panel of OPEC and its allies recommended that they cancel the extraordinary meeting scheduled for April 17-18 and hold the next regular talks on June 25-26.

The energy minister of Saudi Arabia said the market was look-ing oversupplied until the end of the year but that April would be too early for any decision on output policy.

“The consensus we heard ... is that April will be premature to make any production deci-sion for the second half,” the Saudi minister, Khalid al-Falih, said.

“As long as the levels of inven-tories are rising and we are far from normal levels, we will stay the course, guiding the market towards balance,” he added.

The United States has been increasing its own oil exports in recent months while impos-

ing sanctions on OPEC members Venezuela and Iran in an effort to reduce those two countries’ shipments to global markets.

Washington’s policies have introduced a new level of com-plication for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Coun-tries as it struggles to predict

global supply and demand.“We are not under pressure

except by the market,” Falih told reporters before the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Com-mittee (JMMC) meeting in the Azeri capital, Baku, when asked whether he was under US pres-sure to raise output.

US President Donald Trump has been a vocal critic of OPEC, blaming it for high oil prices.

Trump’s sanctions policies have been the key factor behind a price rally, many OPEC mem-bers say, having removed more than 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian and Venezuelan

crude from the market.Brent oil prices hit a 2019 peak

above $68 per barrel last week. Saudi Arabia needs a price of around $85 per barrel to balance its budget.

OPEC and its allies agreed in December to cut output by 1.2 million bpd - 1.2 per cent of glob-al demand - during the first half of this year in an effort to boost prices.

The JMMC, which also in-cludes non-OPEC Russia, moni-tors the oil market and conform-ity with supply cuts.

Asked if he had been updated on whether Washington would extend its waivers for buyers of Iranian crude, which are due to end in May, Falih said: “Until we see it hurting consumers, until we see the impact on invento-ry, we are not going to change course.”

Inventory levels and oil in-vestments are the two main fac-tors guiding OPEC’s action, Falih said, adding that oil industry estimates show that $11 trillion of investments will be needed over the coming two decades to meet demand growth.

Oil inventories in developed countries continue to fluctuate, he said.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih speaks at a news conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Fire engulfs eight petrochemical storage tanks in HoustonReuters | Houston

A fire at a fuels storage com-pany at the Houston Ship

Channel spread yesterday to eight massive petrochemical storage tanks, shutting schools and forcing residents in the suburb of Deer Park to stay indoors.

The fire, which sent a plume of black smoke across the city’s eastern half and was visible from 10 miles (16 km) away, began in a giant storage tank

containing naphtha, a vola-tile component of gasoline, at about 10:30 a.m. (1530 GMT) on Sunday.

Tanks containing naphtha and xylene, petrochemicals used to make gasoline and base oils commonly used as ma-chine lubricants, were burn-ing, officials of the Intercon-tinental Terminals Co (ITC) said.

The company said on Mon-day that a tank containing Tol-uene also caught fire.

Indian tycoon Ambani pays debt after court threatened jailMumbai, India

Indian tycoon Anil Am-bani has settled a mul-

ti-million debt with Swe-den’s Ericsson, the company said yesterday, after judges threatened the billionaire with jail if he did not pay his dues.

The Supreme Court in February found that Am-bani, 59, had refused to pay telecom giant Ericsson 5.5 billion rupees ($77 million), as previously ordered by In-dia’s top court.

T h e j u d g e s w a r n e d that Ambani would be jailed for three months if 4.5 billion rupees were not stumped up within a month.

“We’ve received complete payments, as mandated by the Supreme Court, today from Reliance Communi-cations,” a spokesperson for Ericsson told AFP on Mon-day, without elaborating on the details of the settlement.

Reliance Communica-tions could not be reached for comment.

M O V I E R E V I E W

13 TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019

I, MANOJ THOMAS MATHEW F/O MELVIN VARUGHESE MANOJ, holder of Indian Passport No L4522682 dated 08/05/2014 issued at Bahrain, having permanent residence at VADAKKETTATHU HOUSE, MARAMON P.O , PATHANAMTHITTA, KERALA – 689549. Presently residing at FLAT NO. 18, BLDG NO. 39, ROAD NO. 1369, BLOCK NO. 913, BUKAWARA, RIFFA, BAHRAIN do hereby change my son name as (Given Name) MELVIN, (Surname) VARUGHESE MANOJ, objection if any may be forwarded to Embassy of India , P.O.Box 26106, Bldg No. 1090, Road No. 2819, Block 428, Al Seef, Kingdom of Bahrain.

I, SHAKEER AHMED, F/O SANAZ FATHIMA WAFA, holder of Indian passport No. N4911670, issued at BANGALORE on 02.12.2015, permanent resident of 67-11-405/ B22, MJM-399 Kasba, Bengre, Mangaluru City, Pin: 575013, Karnataka, India, (full postal address in India to be given) and presently residing at Flat No. 23, Entrance- 1268, Road- 6125, Block- 361, Bahrain, (full postal address in Bahrain) do hereby change my daughter name as (given name) SANAZ FATHIMA (surname) WAFA. Objection(s), if and may be forwarded to Embassy of India, P. O. Box 26106, al-seef, Kingdom of Bahrain.

I, MUMTHAZ W/O BENGRE SHAKEER AHAMED, holding Indian Passport No. K9778621, dated 05.02.2013 issued at BANGALORE having permanent residence at (full address in India) 67-11-405/ B- 22, MJM No 399, Kasba Bengre, Mangalore City, Pin: 575001, Karnataka, India, presently residing at (full address in Bahrain) Flat No. 23, Entrance- 1268, Road- 6125, Block- 361, Bahrain, will henceforth be known as (Given name) MUMTHAZ (Surname) SHAKEER. Objection(s) if any, may be forwarded to Embassy of India, P.O Box 26106, Bldg 1090, Road 2819, Block 428, Al Seef, Kingdom of Bahrain.

I, SHAKEER AHAMED BENGRE, F/O SAUD, holder of Indian passport No. S2895447, issued at BAHRAIN on 29.01.2018, permanent resident of 27-88, MJM. 163, Kasba Bazar Bengre, Mangalore – 575001, (full postal address in India to be given) and presently residing at Flat No. 23, Entrance- 1268, Road- 6125, Block- 361, Bahrain, (full postal address in Bahrain) do hereby change my son name as (given name) SAUD (surname) SHAKEER. Objection(s), if and may be forwarded to Embassy of India, P. O. Box 26106, al-seef, Kingdom of Bahrain.

CHANGE OF NAME

OASIS JUFFAIR1- WONDER PARK (PG) (ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY) NEW

BRIANNA DENSKI, JENNIER GARNER, KEN HUDSON CAMPBELL

DAILY AT (3D): 12.00 + 4.30 + 9.00 PM DAILY AT (KIDS CINEMA): 11.15 AM + 1.15 + 3.15 + 5.15 + 7.15 + 9.15 + 11.15 PM

2- GRETA (15+) (THRILLER/CRIME) NEW CHLOE GRACE MORETZ, ISABELLE HUPPERT,

MAIKA MONROEDAILY AT: 2.30 + 7.00 + 11.30 PM

3- MERE PYARE PRIME MINISTER (15+) (HINDI/DRA-MA) NEW

RASIKA AGASHE, SONIA ALBIZURI, SYNA ANANDDAILY AT: 12.15 + 2.30 + 7.00 + 11.30 PM

4- PHOTOGRAPH (PG-13) (HINDI/DRAMA/ROMANTIC) NEW

NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI, SANYA MALHOTRA, AKASH SINHAFROM THURSDAY 14TH AT 7.00 PM ONWARDS DAILY AT: 4.45 + 9.15 PM

5- AN INTERNATIONAL LOCAL STORY (PG) (MALAY-ALAM) NEW

MANOJ K. JAYAN, TINI TOM, JOHN KAIPPALLILDAILY AT: 12.30 + 6.00 + 11.30 PM

6- ISPADE RAJAVUM IDHAYA RANIYUM (PG-13) (TAMIL) NEW

HARISH KALYAN, SHILPA MANJUNATH, MA KA PA ANAND FROM THURSDAY 14TH AT 4.30 PM ONWARDS DAILY AT: 3.00 + 8.30 PM

7- CAPTAIN MARVEL (PG-13) (ACTION/ADVENTURE) BRIE LARSON, GEMMA CHAN, SAMUEL L. JACKSON

DAILY AT (ATMOS): 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PMDAILY AT (3D): 2.00 + 6.30 + 11.00 PM DAILY AT (VIP): 10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PM

8- BADLA (PG-15) (HINDI/THRILLER/CRIME) AMITABH BACHCHAN, TAPSEE PANNU, TONY LUKE

DAILY AT: 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.30 + 6.00 + 8.30 + 11.00 PM

9- ESCAPE ROOM (PG-15) (THRILLER) TAYLOR RUSSELL, LOGAN MILLER, DEBORAH ANN WOLL

DAILY AT: 11.00 AM + 1.15 + 6.30 + 11.45 PM

10- TOTAL DHAMAAL (PG-13) (HINDI/COMEDY/AD-VENTURE)

AJAY DEVGN, MADHURI DIXIT, ANIL KAPOORDAILY AT: 12.00 + 4.30 + 9.00 PM

11- KUMBALANGI NIGHT (PG-13) (MALAYALAM) FAHADH FAASIL, SHANE NIGAM, SOUBIN SHAHIR

DAILY AT: 11.00 AM + 5.00 + 11.00 PM

12-GULLY BOY (PG-15) (HINDI/DRAMA/MUSICAL) ALIA BHAT, RANVEER SINGH, SIDDHANT CHATURVEDI

DAILY AT: 3.30 + 8.45 PM

13-KODATHI SMAKSHAM BALAN VAKEEL (PG-13) (MALAYALAM)

DILEEP, MAMTA MOHANDAS, PRIYA ANANDDAILY AT: 2.00 + 8.00 PM

CITYCENTRE1- WONDER PARK (PG) (ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY) NEW


DAILY AT: 11.30 AM + 1.30 + 3.30 + 5.30 + 7.30 + 9.30 + 11.30 PM DAILY AT (ARABIC DUBBED): 11.00 AM + 1.00 + 3.00 + 5.00 + 7.00 + 9.00 + 11.00 PMDAILY AT (3D): 10.30 AM + 12.30 + 2.30 + 4.30 + 6.30 + 8.30 + 10.30 PM DAILY AT: 11.15 AM + 2.00 + 4.45 + 7.30 + 10.15 PM + (12.30 MN +

1.00 AM THURS/FRI)

2- GRETA (15+) (THRILLER/CRIME) NEW CHLOE GRACE MORETZ, ISABELLE HUPPERT,

MAIKA MONROEDAILY AT: 12.00 + 2.00 + 4.00 + 6.00 + 8.00 + 10.00 PM + 12.00 MN + (12.45 MN THURS/FRI)DAILY AT (VIP II): 11.00 AM + 1.00 + 3.00 + 5.00 + 7.00 + 9.00 + 11.00 PM

3- THE HOLE IN THE GROUND (15+) (HORROR) NEW SEANA KERSLAKE, JAMES COSMO, SIMONE KIRBY

DAILY AT: 11.15 AM + 1.15 + 3.15 + 5.15 + 7.15 + 9.15 + 11.15 PM


DAILY AT (IMAX 3D): 12.00 + 2.45 + 5.30 + 8.15 + 11.00 PM DAILY AT (ATMOS): 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.45 + 6.30 + 9.15 PM + 12.00 MNDAILY AT: 11.15 AM + 2.00 + 4.45 + 7.30 + 10.15 PM + (12.30 MN + 1.00 AM THURS/FRI)DAILY AT (VIP I): 12.30 + 3.15 + 6.00 + 8.45 + 11.30 PM


DAILY AT: 2.45 + 7.15 + 11.45 PM


DAILY AT: 10.30 AM + 12.45 + 3.00 + 5.15 + 7.30 + 9.45 PM + 12.00 MN +(1.00 AM THURS/FRI)

7-COLD PURSUIT (15+) (ACTION/CRIME/DRAMA) LIAM NEESON, EMMY ROSSUM, LAURA DERN

DAILY AT: 11.30 AM + 2.00 + 4.30 + 7.00 + 9.30 PM + 12.00 MN

8- FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY (15+) (DRAMA/COME-DY/BIOGRAPHY)

DWAYNE JOHNSON, FLORENCE PUGH, JACK LOWDENDAILY AT: 12.30 + 2.45 + 5.00 + 7.15 + 9.30 + 11.45 PM

9-HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD (PG) (ANIMATION/ACTION/ADVENTURE)

CATE BLANCHETT, JONAH HILL, GERARD BUTLERDAILY AT: 10.45 AM + 12.45 + 2.45 + 4.45 + 6.45 + 8.45 + 10.45 PM

10-THE UPSIDE (PG-15) (COMEDY/DRAMA) KEVIN HART, BRYAN CRANSTON, NICOLE KIDMAN

DAILY AT: 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PM

11-ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (PG-15) (ACTION/ADVEN-TURE/ROMANTIC)

ROSA SALAZAR, CHRISTOPH WALTZ, JENNIFER CONNELLYDAILY AT: 10.45 AM + 4.00 + 9.15 PM

12-GLASS (PG-15) (THRILLER) JAMES MCAVOY, BRUCE WILLIS, SAMUEL L. JACKSON

DAILY AT: 11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PM

13-THE LEGO MOVIE 2 (G) (ANIMATION/ACTION/AD-VENTURE/COMEDY)

CHRIS PRATT, ELIZABETH BANKS, WILL ARNETTDAILY AT: 2.00 + 6.30 + 11.00 PM

14-NADI ELREGAL EL SERI (PG-15) (ARABIC/COMEDY) KARIM ABDULAZIZ, GHADA ADEL, MAJDE ALKIDDAWI

DAILY AT: 12.15 + 2.30 + 4.45 + 7.00 + 9.15 + 11.30 PM

15-JOHNNY ENGLISH STRIKES AGAIN (PG) (COMEDY/ACTION/ADVENTURE)

ROWAN ATKINSON, OLGA KURYLENKO, EMMA THOMPSONDAILY AT: 10.45 AM + 12.45 + 5.15 + 9.45 PM

16-AQUAMAN (PG-15) (ACTION/ADVENTURE) JASON MOMOA, AMBER HEARD, NICOLE KIDMAN

DAILY AT: 1.15 + 6.30 + 11.45 PM

17-RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET (PG) (ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY)

JOHN C. REILLY, SARAH SILVARMAN, GAL GADOT DAILY AT: 11.45 AM + 4.15 + 8.45 PM

SEEF (II)1- WONDER PARK (PG) (ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY) NEW


DAILY AT: 11.00 AM + 1.00 + 3.00 +5.00 + 7.00 + 9.00 + 11.00 PM DAILY AT (ARABIC DUBBED): 11.30 AM + 1.30 + 3.30 + 5.30 + 7.30 + 9.30 + 11.30 PM

2- GRETA (15+) (THRILLER/CRIME) NEW CHLOE GRACE MORETZ, ISABELLE HUPPERT, MAIKA

MONROEDAILY AT: 11.45 AM + 1.45 + 3.45 + 5.45 + 7.45 + 9.45 + 11.45 PM


DAILY AT: 12.00 + 2.00 + 4.00 + 6.00 + 8.00 + 10.00 PM + 12.00 MN

4- CAPHARNAUM (18+) (ARABIC/DRAMA) NEW KAWTHAR AL HADDAD, NADINE LABAKY, FADI YOUSEF

DAILY AT: 10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PM


DAILY AT: (1.00 AM THURS/FRI)


DAILY AT: 12.15 + 2.30 + 4.45 + 7.00 + 9.15 + 11.30 PM

7-COLD PURSUIT (15+) (ACTION/CRIME/DRAMA) *- LIAM NEESON, EMMY ROSSUM, LAURA DERN

DAILY AT: 1.45 + 6.30 + 11.15 PM

8- FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY (15+) (DRAMA/COME-DY/BIOGRAPHY)

DWAYNE JOHNSON, FLORENCE PUGH, JACK LOWDENDAILY AT: 12.45 + 5.15 + 9.45 PM

9-THE UPSIDE (PG-15) (COMEDY/DRAMA) KEVIN HART, BRYAN CRANSTON, NICOLE KIDMAN

DAILY AT: 1.45 + 6.45 + 11.45 PM

10-ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (PG-15) (ACTION/ADVEN-TURE/ROMANTIC)

ROSA SALAZAR, CHRISTOPH WALTZ, JENNIFER CONNELLYDAILY AT: 11.15 AM + 4.15 + 9.15 PM

11-THE LEGO MOVIE 2 (G) (ANIMATION/ACTION/AD-VENTURE/COMEDY)

CHRIS PRATT, ELIZABETH BANKS, WILL ARNETTDAILY AT: 11.30 AM + 4.15 + 9.00 PM

12-NADI ELREGAL EL SERI (PG-15) (ARABIC/COMEDY) KARIM ABDULAZIZ, GHADA ADEL, MAJDE ALKIDDAWI

DAILY AT: 10.30 AM + 3.00 + 7.30 PM + 12.00 MN

13- TOTAL DHAMAAL (PG-13) (HINDI/COMEDY/AD-VENTURE)

AJAY DEVGN, MADHURI DIXIT, ANIL KAPOORDAILY AT: 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 6.30 PM + 12.00 MN

14- KUMBALANGI NIGHT (PG-13) (MALAYALAM) *- FAHADH FAASIL, SHANE NIGAM, SOUBIN SHAHIR

DAILY AT: 3.30 + 9.00 PM

SEEF (I) 1- GRETA (15+) (THRILLER/CRIME) NEW

CHLOE GRACE MORETZ, ISABELLE HUPPERT, MAIKA MONROE

DAILY AT: (1.00 AM THURS/FRI)

2- MERE PYARE PRIME MINISTER (15+) (HINDI/DRA-MA) NEW

RASIKA AGASHE, SONIA ALBIZURI, SYNA ANANDDAILY AT: 12.00 + 2.15 + 4.30 + 6.45 + 9.00 + 11.15 PM

3- PHOTOGRAPH (PG-13) (HINDI/DRAMA/ROMANTIC) NEW

NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI, SANYA MALHOTRA, AKASH SINHAFROM THURSDAY 14TH AT 7.00 PM ONWARDS

DAILY AT: 12.30 + 2.45 + 5.00 + 7.15 + 9.30 + 11.45 PM


DAILY AT: 11.45 AM + 12.45 + 2.30 + 3.30 + 5.15 + 6.15 + 8.00 + 9.00 + 10.45 + 11.45 PM


DAILY AT: 11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PM

6-HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD (PG) (ANIMATION/ACTION/ADVENTURE)

CATE BLANCHETT, JONAH HILL, GERARD BUTLERDAILY AT: 11.00 AM + 1.00 + 3.00 + 5.00 + 7.00 + 9.00 + 11.00 PM

SAAR1- WONDER PARK (PG) (ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY) NEW


DAILY AT: 11.30 AM + 1.30 + 3.30 + 5.30 + 7.30 + 9.30 + (11.30 PM THURS/FRI)DAILY AT (ARABIC DUBBED): 10.30 AM + 12.30 + 2.30 + 4.30 PM

2- GRETA (15+) (THRILLER/CRIME) NEW *- CHLOE GRACE MORETZ, ISABELLE HUPPERT, MAIKA MONROE

DAILY AT: 11.15 AM + 1.15 + 3.15 + 5.15 + 7.15 + 9.15 + (11.15 PM THURS/FRI)


DAILY AT: 12.30 + 3.00 + 5.30 + 6.30 + 8.00 + 9.00 + (10.30 PM + 11.30 PM THURS/FRI)

AL HAMRA1- AN INTERNATIONAL LOCAL STORY (PG) (MALAY-ALAM) NEW

MANOJ K. JAYAN, TINI TOM, JOHN KAIPPALLILDAILY AT: 3.00 + 9.00 + (12.00 MN THURS/FRI)

2- ISPADE RAJAVUM IDHAYA RANIYUM (PG-15) (TAMIL) NEW

HARISH KALYAN, SHILPA MANJUNATH, MA KA PA ANANDFROM THURSDAY 14TH AT 4.30 PM ONWARDS DAILY AT: 12.00 + 6.00 PM

WADI AL SAIL1- WONDER PARK (PG) (ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY) NEW

BRIANNA DENSKI, JENNIER GARNER, KEN HUDSON CAMPBELLDAILY AT: 10.30 AM + 12.30 + 2.30 + 4.30 + 6.30 + 8.30 + 10.30 PMDAILY AT (3D): 1.00 + 5.30 + 10.00 PM

2- GRETA (15+) (THRILLER/CRIME) NEW CHLOE GRACE MORETZ, ISABELLE HUPPERT, MAIKA

MONROEDAILY AT: 12.00 + 2.00 + 4.00 + 6.00 + 8.00 + 10.00 PM + 12.00 MN


DAILY AT: 11.30 AM + 1.30 + 3.30 + 5.30 + 7.30 + 9.30 + 11.30 PM


DAILY AT: 11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PM DAILY AT (3D): 10.30 AM + 3.00 + 7.30 PM + 12.00 MN


DAILY AT: 2.15 + 7.00 + 11.45 PM


DAILY AT: 12.00 + 4.45 + 9.30 PM

Annihilation: Natalie Portman thriller leaves a haunting impression

Annihilation is a movie so pre-pared to alienate audiences that it comes with its own

built-in version of a dissatisfied viewer. His name is Lomax, he’s played by a gruff, hazmat-suited Ben-edict Wong, and he appears to work for the secret agency responsible for sending expeditions into Area X, a stretch of swampy wilderness that’s been taken over by a mysterious at-mospheric phenomenon nicknamed “the Shimmer.”

In the opening scene of the film, Lomax stands over the lone survivor of the latest expedition, a dazed biol-ogist named Lena (Natalie Portman), and demands answers she doesn’t know how to provide — and that the movie doesn’t really care to.

He wants to know what happened to the other scientists, played by Jen-nifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, and Tuva Novotny, who were part of Lena’s team. He wants to know what explanation they found for the Shimmer, which has claimed the lives of almost every-one else who ventured into it. He

wants to know how Lena survived for four months she was gone when she only had food to last two weeks.

Lena doesn’t remember eating at all when she was in Area X. Maybe she didn’t have to. It doesn’t seem all that important when compared to the rainbow fungi peppering the trees in Area X, like Seussian tum-ors, or the attacking alligator with rows of teeth like a shark, or the churning guts revealed in a vivisect-ed stomach, spinning impossibly like

a coiled snake trying to escape.The expedition, unfurling like an acid trip gradually going wrong, makes up the bulk of Annihilation.

The result is less welcoming than you might expect, considering it’s the hotly anticipated second feature from Ex Machina director Alex Gar-land, adapted loosely (and with some controversy) from the 2014 novel by Jeff VanderMeer, with a cast full of interesting women and an Oscar winner in the lead role.

Natalie Portman and Gina Rodriguez in Annihilation

14 TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019

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Freida Pinto urges people to

act on climate change

Los Angeles

Ahead of the pre-miere of “Wild Edens: South

Asia” documentary in India, actress Freida

Pinto urged people to “focus on the

planet before the effects of global warm-ing become

absolutely ir-reversible”.The documen-

tary highl ights the issue of climate

change with an empha-sis on the unique and delicate habitats of India and Bangladesh

and the region’s rarest and most spectacular wildlife, read a statement.

So being an ambassador of the “Wild Edens: South

Asia” project, Freida said: “We all share a common vision that human kind has to be inspired

to focus on the planet before the effects of global warming become

absolutely irreversible.

Kim makes online appeal to help

rehouse ex-prisonerLos Angeles

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian has issued a plea on social me-dia after her deal to rehouse a

former prisoner fell through.Earlier this week, it was revealed

that the beauty mogul had offered to cover Matthew Charles’ rent for the

next five years, as he was struggling to find a place to live due to his criminal record.

Matthew was released in January after serving more than 20 years of his 35-year sentence for non-violent drug

and weapons charges, following the implementation of the First Step Act, a US prison reform bill, reports aceshowbiz.com.

The “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” star reached out to him privately and made the generous offer in an effort to get him back on his feet following his release.

Kim took to social media to appeal to her fans and followers to put her in touch with someone who could help the former prisoner.

In the post, she appealed to her followers on Twit-ter and Instagram for any landlords who knew of a two-bedroom apartment in Tennessee to e-mail her team.

“Matthew Charles’s lease application was re-jected again (because) of his criminal record (even with me paying his rent in advance),”

she wrote.

Chris shares selfie with quokkaLos Angeles

Ac t o r C h r i s Hemsworth took to

Instagram, sharing a pho-tograph of himself and an “epic” animal he said he’d encountered in Australia.

Hemsworth took his “first quokka selfie” while visiting Rottnest Island, he wrote in the caption.

In the photograph, the actor appeared to making a face similar to that of the furry critter.

“G o t my first quokka selfie this week at Rot-tnest Island,” the “Thor ” star wrote.

“Epic little creatures are all over the island just cruisin through the day doing their thing. Get there and check it out!”

Jackie Chan, Wu Jing to star in Chinese mountain climbing epicLos Angeles

Two of China’s big-gest action stars

Jackie Chan and Wu Jing are teaming up for an action adventure film that revolves around scal-ing Mount Everest.

T e n t a -tively titled “Climbers” in English, the movie is about the first Chinese moun-taineers to summit the world’s highest peak.

According to The Hol-lywood Reporter, the film will be directed by Hong Kong filmmaker Daniel Lee and produced by Shanghai Film Group.

Idea of directing films interests me, says KeiraLos Angeles

Br i t i s h a c t o r

Keira Knight-ley says the art of filmmaking interests her but she is not planning to turn to direction anytime soon. The actor also said she likes to be involved in the script writing process.

“I don’t know, at the mo-ment with a three year old, no. But maybe further down the line. I’ve worked on a lot of films, I’ve worked with a lot of wonderful directors and I’m really interested in how it’s all put together and I really like working with scripts and storylines. I think there’s certain areas that I’m confident I’d be okay in, and certain areas where I’m not as confident.

JLo gushes over daughter’s singing skills

Los Angeles

Singer-actress Jennif-er Lopez, who shares 11-year-old Emme

and her twin brother, Max, with former husband Marc

Anthony, couldn’t help but gush over her little girl’s

singing skills.Lopez took

to Instagram o n S a t u r -day to share a t h r o w -back video of her daughter, Emme, singing her 2015 song, “Feel the light”, reports etonline.com.

“Scrolling through my phone and found this video of my coco-nuts. I blinked and now they’re fearlessly performing in their fifth grade play,” she wrote, adding the hashtags, “#time-flies #coconuts #maxstarat-threndmakesmesohappy #emmesvoicemakesme-melt #amor”.

Schwarzenegger ‘having best time’

planning weddingLos Angeles

Author Katherine Schwarzeneg-ger is reportedly

enjoying the process of planning her wedding to fiance and actor Chris Pratt.

“They have a general idea when they want the wedding to happen, but don’t have the exact date yet,” a source told people.com.

“Katherine is having the best time planning everything. She loves it!”

According to the source, Pratt, 39, “has been letting Katherine take charge” of the arrange-ments for their big day.

“They both seem very happy,” the insider said of Pratt and Schwarzeneg-ger, 29. “They live togeth-er and are just so cute.”

As for her future step-son, “Katherine cares so much about Jack,” the

source said of Pratt’s son, 6, with former wife Anna

Faris. “She always talks about him.”

Hope to inspire girls who aren’t normal: CaraLos Angeles

Actor-supermodel Cara Delevingne says she aims to inspire and mo-tivate girls who find it difficult

to fit in.The “Paper Towns” star said she

wants to connect with her fans and share her ups and downs with them through her social media accounts.

“I think it’s important to express yourself. I hope I can be an inspi-ration to girls who aren’t normal or feel like they (don’t) belong, be-cause I definitely don’t a lot of the time,” Delevingne told Elle mag-

azine.The actor also revealed that

despite being successful, she at times, suffers from self-doubt.

Would be crazy not to do ‘Game of Thrones’ spin-offs: Kristian Nairn

Los Angeles

Kristian Nairn, who played the gentle giant

Hodor in the epic fantasy series “Game of Thrones”, says he is looking forward to the proposed spin-offs of the HBO show.

Now that “GOT” is head-ed towards its finale, Nairn believes not going in for the continuation of the world of Westeros would be an op-portunity lost.

“A lot of people are ex-cited about it, all I know is rumours, unfortunately,” he said of the spin-off (possi-bly) titled “The Long Night”.

“I just think it’s a good thing. Obviously ‘Game of Thrones’ has created this complete alternative uni-verse, and Westeros, just to lose that at the end of this year, or this season, would be crazy, after all these in-credibly well-developed characters and places, they almost feel real. It would be crazy not to do something else with it,” Nairn told Digital Spy.

Chris Hemsworth

Jackie Chan

Keira Knightley

Mathew

Emme

Jennifer

Messi hat-trick blows away Betis

Lionel Messi dazzled again as Real Betis had no answer to the Barcelona star

• Four awesome goals - three from Lionel Messi and one from Luis Suarez - gave Barcelona an easy victory despite being outpassed by Betis

AFP | Madrid

Even the Real Betis fans were applauding by the end as Lionel Mes-

si scored another spectacular hat-trick to fire Barcelona to a 4-1 victory on Sunday and leave them with one hand on the La Liga trophy.

Messi’s treble, his second in a month in Seville, fourth of the season and 51st of his career, moves Barca 10 points clear of Atletico Madrid with 10 games left to play, a gap surely too big to close.

“We had a great opportunity to increase the gap on Atletico,” Messi said. “We had to take it tonight.”

Luis Suarez, whose superb flick set up Messi’s second, scored his own brilliant goal af-ter a scintillating solo run but it was ultimately reduced to a foot-note, in what became another night all about his Argentinian partner.

The only blot was the sight of

Suarez limping off late on, with what coach Ernesto Valverde suspected was a “bad sprain” to his ankle.

Messi now has 29 league goals this season, 39 in all competi-tions, and together with Suarez’s 18 their joint-total of 47 is more than all but two of the other teams in the division.

A simple finish from Suarez’s exquisite assist came between a free-kick perfectly planted into

the top corner and a bending lob that grazed the crossbar and dropped in. The Betis fans left at the Benito Villamarin, and most of them were, felt compelled to stand and applaud.

“I don’t remember the opposi-tion cheering me for a goal, I am very grateful,” Messi said.

This was supposed to be one of the more awkward tests in Barcelona’s run-in, which in-cludes Atletico Madrid at home

and fifth-placed Alaves away.All the rest of their opponents

currently sit 10th or lower.But regardless of the fixtures,

Barca seem to be saving their best for the home straight, which bodes badly for Manches-ter United, whom they face in the Champions League quar-ter-finals next month.

Already in the final of the Copa del Rey, where Barca will return to this stadium to face

Valencia in May, a treble is cer-tainly not beyond the realms of possibility.

No time to breathe There was barely a moment to

pause for breath in the first half, both teams throwing players forward without restraint or, seemingly, regard for the spaces they left at the back.

Betis were happy to open up and almost took the lead when Joaquin volleyed first-time to the stretching Sergio Canales, but he was unable to connect.

Barca were perhaps fortunate to earn the free-kick for Messi’s opener as Canales obstructed Arthur Melo just outside the area, to the right of centre.

15

sports


KNOW WHAT

After Lionel Messi scored a wonderful

third goal to complete his 51st career hat-trick,

Real Betis supporters stood, applauded Messi and joined with Barce-lona fans in chanting

his name

Barcelona’s Argentinian forward Lionel Messi (L) vies with Real Betis’ Portuguese midfielder William Carvalho

PSG shrug off fan protest to beat rivals Marseille

AFP | Paris

Angel Di Maria scored twice as Paris Saint-Germain

eased to a 3-1 victory over Mar-seille on Sunday to extend their long unbeaten run against their arch rivals and move 20 points clear at the Ligue 1 summit.

A group of PSG ultras were boycotting the opening stag-es of the game over the team’s shock Champions League de-feat by Manchester United, but when they arrived they were given a 16th win in 19 meetings with Marseille, alongside three draws, to cheer.

Banners reading “We don’t forget”, “respect the establish-ment” and “banknotes in place of a heart” were hung in a sec-tion behind the goal to make clear supporters’ unhappiness at PSG’s 3-1 home loss to United on March 6.

“There are some thing we can’t change, we have to accept that we had a very, very sad defeat -- very, very bad for us.

But we started again at Dijon (last week) and even today the guys showed their character,” said PSG coach Thomas Tuchel.

“I’m glad we could show that today, because it’s important for our supporters and for us.”

Kylian Mbappe put PSG in front on the stroke of half-time with his 26th league goal of the season, but Valere Germain equalised in the first minute of

the second period.Argentine Di Maria restored

the home team’s advantage, though, and Marseille ‘keeper Steve Mandanda was sent off for a clear handball 30 yards from goal.

Di Maria’s wonderful free-kick added further gloss to the scoreline, although Mbappe saw a late penalty saved by vis-iting substitute Yohann Pele.

Paris Saint-Germain’s Argentine midfielder Angel Di Maria (L) vies with Marseille’s French goalkeeper Steve Mandanda

Roaming performers add colour and pomp to F1 Bahrain GP entertainmentTDT | Manama

The long list of roam-ing performers com-

ing from all over the world and entertaining fans at the Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2019 is expected to make anyone smile.

There is something for everyone at Bahrain In-ternational Circuit’s (BIC) Formula 1 Village vending area when the Grand Prix spectacle takes place March 28 to 31 in Sakhir.

BIC makes it a point each year to offer something spe-cial for the entire family, and this upcoming Formula 1 weekend is no exception.

Among the roaming acts set to mingle with race-go-ers are Dr Bubbles, Tri-Col-our Walkabout, Batucada Timba and the Steam Danc-ers. Each offers their own unique kind of amusement, and they are sure to be a favourite amongst those in attendance.

Dr. Bubbles provides a spectacular show that starts with gentle, modest and ro-mantic bubbles synchronis-ing with music and evolving into a fantastic, wild, mag-ical and impressive show.

Tri-Colour Walkabout is a magnificent roaming act on stilts, dressed in show-stop-ping, impressive and unique outfits.

Energetic Batucada Tim-ba, composed of young and talented musicians, are pas-sionate and full of life. Their purpose is to enliven the au-dience with their rhythms.

The Steam Dancers per-form on stilts while playing with large wind-sleeves and wearing funky costumes. These recall past times but also the future, linked to technology and innovation.

Mumbai Riders held by Central cafeTDT | Manama

Mumbai Riders’ a CBA Di-vision C League match

against Central cafe ended in a draw.

Central Cafe won the toss and elected to bat first. Sachin (49) became the top scorer for central cafe and Furhan took two wickets Riders. Chasing the target Rider lost their top for cheap runs, then Rizwan (43) played a unbeaten innings and tied the match in the last ball of the match. Danny took two wickets for Central Cafe.

Brief Score: Central Café 173/6 in 25 overs (Sachin 49, Danny 43, Prrem 23, Furhan 2/29) tied with Central Café 173/7 (Rizwan 46, Waleed 25, Danny 2/14)

Other Match ResultsRebel II 172/4 in 24.1 overs

(Burhan 54, Shanawaz 35) beat SNCS TransFast 170/10 (Vishnu 54, Aneesh 33, Bhawin 2/25) by 6 wickets

Azeem CC 110/3 in 14.2 overs (Nafees 40, Ibrar 2/19) beat Ti-tans 109/6 (Zeeshan 40, Saleem 20, Hidayath 2/15) by 7 wickets

Pak CC 150/9 in 2 overs (Fais-

al 56, Awais 26, Vijesh 3/9) beat Tornado Riders 131/10 (Ranjeet 36, Zaman 4/27, Shoaib 3/21) by 19 runs

Lanterns Z XI 165/2 in 20 overs (Ajay 77, Zaki 55) beat Indian Delights 163/6 (Lenu 31, Shabab 30, Zaheer 2/16) byb 8 wickets

Alyusuf Exchange 133/1 in 13.1 overs (Anoop 55, Shyam 55) beat Smile Mart 131/10 (Asim 26, Anees 3/23) by 9 wickets

Rebel CC 51/9 in 23.1 overs (Senthil 9, Basith 3/6, Shami 3/19) beat Waqas Pak 50/10 (Aziz 10, Senthil 4/14, Sukesh 3/14) by 1 wicket

Asgharali 77/2 in 13.2 overs (Yousif 23, Sameer 24) beat BOC 76/10 (Numan 16) by 8 wickets

Biyas Bahrain Indians 171/6 in 25 overs (Karthik 54, Hari 58, Ruwan 2/22) beat Srilankan Club 99/10 (Suren 28, Karthik 3/10) by 72 runs

Ajay - Lantern XI Anoop - Alyusuf Burhan - REBEL II

Faisal - Pak cc Guru - RKCT Hari - Bahrain Indians

Canadian teen Andreescu topples Kerber to win Indian Wells WTA title

AFP | Indian Wells

Canadian sensation Bianca Andreescu became the first

wild card to win the WTA title at Indian Wells on Sunday with a gritty 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 victory over Wimbledon champion Angeli-que Kerber.

Andreescu, 18, shook off fa-tigue and rallied from a break down in the third set to topple the eighth-ranked German, who hasn’t won a title since she beat Serena Williams in last year’s Wimbledon final for her third Grand Slam crown.

Ranked 60th coming into the tournament, Andreescu will rise to 24th in the world with her first WTA title.

When she finally convert-ed her fourth match point she kissed the sun-baked court and flopped spread-eagled on her back.

‘It’s crazy’ “If you believe in yourself,

anything is possible,” Andreescu said as she hoisted the crystal trophy as the youngest player ever to win one of the WTA’s prestigious Premier Mandatory tournaments.

“It’s crazy. Crazy is the word of the tournament for me. Just crazy.”

It’s another giant step in a breakout season for Andreescu, who finished 2018 ranked 178th in the world.

She has racked up 28 match wins in 2019 across all lev-

els, including qualifying and challenger circuit wins -- but Sunday’s triumph was a cut above.

She had held for 2-1 in the third when she received treat-ment on her right arm and shoulder and looked to be flag-ging when she was broken in the fifth game.

Urged by her coach at the change over to push through, Andreescu dug deep.

“After I spoke to my coach I just let it all out there,” she said. “I was really tired, so I went for my shots more,and that obvi-ously worked.

“The next couple games I did the same thing. And I just fought till the end, because physically I

wasn’t feeling too well. I fought till the end. I managed to pull through.”

She broke Kerber in the next game, taking a 15-30 lead with a lovely drop shot-lob combina-tion, and giving herself a break point with an overhead winner before converting with another forehand winner to launch a run of three straight games for a 5-3 lead.

Andreescu had to call on her last reserves as Kerber saved three match points in the next game on the way to earning a break.

But Andreescu broke Kerber for the third time in the set to seal the victory, giving herself a break point with a blistering

forehand before Kerber ended things with a ball into the net.

“She did a good job then at the end, especially the last three games,” Kerber said.

Andreescu’s run to the fi-nal included rallying from 3-1 down in the third set to beat Irina-Camelia Begu in the first round and a 6-0, 6-1 rout of for-mer world number one Garb-ine Muguruza of Spain, with a three-set win over sixth-ranked Elina Svitolina putting her into the title match.

She showed no sign of nerves as she opened the match with a break of Kerber’s serve. It would be all she needed to take the set without facing a break point herself.

Thiem upsets Federer Dominic Thiem rallies to deny Roger Federer sixth ATP Indian Wells Masters title

• Federer fails to win title No 101 as out-of-form Thiem becomes first Austrian since Thomas Muster to lift Masters 1000 title

AFP | Indian Wells

Dominic Thiem denied Roger Federer a record sixth Indian Wells title,

beating the Swiss great 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 on Sunday to claim his first ATP Masters 1000 crown.

The 25-year-old Austrian, ranked eighth in the world, had fallen in two prior Masters fi-nals, both in Madrid.

But he rallied for a third career win over Federer in five meet-ings, his first over the Swiss on hard courts.

“It feels just unreal what hap-pened in this 10 days,” Thiem said. “I came from a really bad form in all categories, and now I’m the champion of Indian Wells.

“It feels not real at all,” add-ed Thiem, the first Austrian to win a masters 1000 title since Thomas Muster at Miami in 1997.

Thiem earned the crucial break in the 11th game of the final set, connecting on two sharply angled passing winners

off of Federer drop shots to give himself a break point which he converted with a stinging fore-hand winner.

“He stayed cool under pres-sure there,” Federer said. “When he got up to the ball, stayed calm, made the shot.”

Thiem sealed the match af-ter two hours and two minutes when Federer’s backhand found the net and will now return to a career-high ranking of fourth in the world, bumping Federer down to fifth.

It was the second year in a row that Federer was denied in the

Indian Wells final. In 2018 he missed out on three champion-ship points as he fell to Argenti-na’s Juan Martin del Potro in the

title match.Federer, fresh off a remarka-

ble 100th career title in Dubai, remains tied with Novak Djok-ovic for the most Indian Wells victories with five.

Thiem claimed his 12th career title -- as he noted at the trophy ceremony when he acknowl-edged Federer.

“I think it’s not my right to congratulate you, you have 88 more titles than me,” Thiem told Federer as he accepted the trophy, calling it a privilege to play against the 37-year-old su-perstar.

‘Double-good’

“It’s tough against Roger, Rafa (Nadal), Novak (Djokovic),” Thiem said. “Because you have to beat not only the player but somehow also the great aura they all have, all these titles they have won.

“So you have to play somehow double-good to beat them.”

Thiem was under attack early, saving three break points before succumbing on a fourth in the second game as Federer raced to a 3-0 lead. Federer led 4-1 before Thiem clawed a break back, but

Federer responded with another hard-won break for a 5-3 lead and captured the set with a ser-vice winner.

Coming into the contest Federer had won 20 straight fi-nals when claiming the opening set. But Thiem was not about to go quietly, saving break points for a 2-1 lead in the second and breaking for a 3-1 lead as the Swiss suddenly couldn’t put a first serve in.

“I think that was a really important five minutes in the match,” Federer said. “It was crucial.”


He stayed cool under pressure there. When he got up to the ball,

stayed calm, made the shot

ROGER FEDERER

KNOW WHAT

Andreescu follows in the footsteps of

2018 champion Naomi Osaka, who won her

first WTA title at Indi-an Wells to launch a

stellar season that has seen her capture the

US Open and Australi-an Open titles and rise to number one in the

world

Dominic Thiem hits a shot during his final victory over Roger FedererDominic Thiem holds his winners trophy and Roger Federer holds his runner-up trophy after the finals

Bianca Andreescu of Canada poses with the trophy after winning the final

Matic urges Man United not to let top four slip away after FA Cup exit

AFP | London

Nemanja Matic says Man-chester United must not

blow their bid for a Premier League top-four finish after they were dumped out of the FA Cup in their second consec-utive defeat under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Saturday’s 2-1 FA Cup quar-ter-final defeat at Wolves fol-lowed a 2-0 loss in the Premier League Arsenal last week, the first league reverse under the Norwegian interim boss.

Fifth-placed United are just a point ahead of Chelsea and two points adrift of Arsenal after Sol-skjaer turned t h e s e a s o n a ro u n d f o l -l o w i n g t h e s a c k i n g o f Jose Mour-inho, win-ning 14 of his 19 games and taking them to the Champions League quarter-fi-nals.

B u t M a t i c k n o w s U n i t e d must not let the top four slip away.

“We have to give our best now to reach the top four. We cannot let it go like this. We are not happy with the game,” he said after the Molineux defeat.

“We will analyse

everything. There is a lot to play for. We have eight games to play in the Premier League and we are fighting for the top four.

“We have the Champions League as well. We will see what we are able to do and how much quality we have. We have to learn from this type of game.” Marcus Rashford scored an injury-time conso-lation after Raul Jimenez and Diogo Jota had put Wolves 2-0 up in the second half.

Solskjaer said it was the worst performance of his reign

but Matic expects the boss to put it right.

“I am sure he (Solsk-jaer) will turn this sit-uation around and we

will do better,” he said.“After the inter-national break we will see. The first game back after a break is always difficult, especial-

ly for a team who has so many play-

ers away in the na-tional teams. Almost everybody at Unit-ed is on duty.

“We spoke after the game and said we have to be fo-cused for the next one and stick to-gether and get the top four, which is the main target for

us.Nemanja Matic

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