ISO 9001:2008 CERTIFIED NEWSPAPER Sunday 2 December 2012 18 Muharram 1434 - Volume 17 Number 5536 Price: QR2 First LNG cargo Boxer Flintoff to Singapore starts with next year a win Business | 17 Sport | 28 www.thepeninsulaqatar.com [email protected] | [email protected] Editorial: 4455 7741 | Advertising: 4455 7837 / 4455 7780 Emir to pray Expat workers for rains DOHA: The Emir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani may get trade will take part on Tuesday along with worshippers in special prayers seeking rain (Istisqa) at the Al Wajbah prayer ground. The prayers will also take place union rights at several mosques and prayer grounds across the country. Meanwhile, some parts of the country received scattered rains ITUC holds talks with minister yesterday. The Meteorology BY FAZEENA SALEEM Department has forecast strong voice,” she further said. winds today, with chance of rain ITUC activists marched along at times. THE PENINSULA DOHA: Having permitted a a stretch of the Corniche carry- See also page 2 rare protest march for workers’ ing placards ‘Qatar Do the Right rights here yesterday, Qatar Thing: No world Cup without Syrian army shells has hinted it might give foreign Workers’ Rights,’ while chanting workers the right to join trade slogans “Climate Justice, Workers outskirts of capital union. Justice Now,” waving at the work- The International Trade Union ers on construction sites along the DAMASCUS: The Syrian Confederation (ITUC) which Corniche. The International Trade army shelled the outskirts of organised the historic protest said Union Confederation also met Damascus yesterday in a drive that from next month it will start international football organistaion to establish a secure perimeter working to help labourers in Doha —FIFA— last month and the local around the capital, as telephone to form trade unions. committee on Thursday. and Internet services resumed An official from the world’s “We see no labour rights here. after a three-day blackout. largest trade unions’ federation We will make sure workers The army targeted several vil- told The Peninsula on the sidelines rights meet ILO standards,” said lages near the key Damascus air- of the march that they have dis- Burrow. port road that has come under cussed the trade union issue with She said if labour rights and sustained rebel attack, a monitor- the labour minister and will start their safety is not assured, “More ing group said. working on it from next month. laborers will die building stadiums The 27-kilometre highway “We met the labour minister than the number of players who remained perilous a day after and he did tell us that if we make play for the FIFA World Cup.” ITUC activists carry banners and placards demanding workers’ rights during a rally to call for action to combat troops said they had reopened union, workers joining it will not ITUC members have visited labour climate change. (KAMMUTTY VP) the link to the outside world in be punished,” said Sharan Burrow, camps in the country to find heavy fighting, said the Syrian ITUC General Secretary. out the conditions under which from joining a trade union by Trade Union Confederation was was preceded by the dissolution Observatory for Human Rights. ITUC members were partici- occupants live there. They have law, nearly 200 Nepali workers formed on November 1, 2006, out congresses of both the ICFTU Troops were in action against pating in a government-approved launched a campaign to tell Qatar die every year in the country of the merger of the International and the WCL. The ITUC repre- rebels entrenched in both the rally demanding action to combat “Do the right thing for workers.” and hundreds of other migrant Confederation of Free Trade sents 175 million workers through southwestern outskirts of the climate change. According to statistics given workers from India, Sri Lanka, Unions (ICFTU) and the World its 311 affiliate organisations in capital and the eastern suburbs, “We are going to work on it, we by the International Trade Pakistan and Bangladesh are Confederation of Labour (WCL). 155 countries and territories. where the ariport lies, human will be back next month, we will Union Confederation, 1.2 million also killed or injured in Qatar The Founding Congress of the THE PENINSULA rights monitors and opposition help workers to have their own workers in Qatar are prohibited every year. The International ITUC was held in Vienna and See also pages 6 & 8 activists said. AFP Ballot box Qatar ranked Egypt to hold vote on 41st in energy sustainability draft constitution DOHA: The World Energy Council (WEC) has ranked CAIRO: President Mohammed University, led by members of the Qatar 41st in energy sustaina- Mursi called on Egyptians yes- Muslim Brotherhood, on whose bility in a report that evaluated terday to vote in a December ticket Mursi ran for office, and by 94 countries. 15 referendum on the contro- hardline Salafists, causing traffic The country has improved its versial draft constitution at the jams in the capital. position in comparison with 2011, heart of a political crisis, amid On Friday, opponents of the when it was at the 48th place. mass Islamist rallies in Cairo. draft constitutions had massed The WEC’S global ranking of Mursi made the announcement in Tahrir Square, demonstrating energy sustainability perform- following a ceremony where he the country’s widening polarisa- ance of countries has revealed received a copy of the charter tion, squaring largely Islamist that most of the over 90 countries from the head of the Islamist- forces against secular-leaning assessed are still far from achiev- dominated constituent assem- opponents. ing fully sustainable energy sys- bly, boycotted by liberals and “We want this phase to end. tems. Members of the council said Christians, that adopted it the We want a constitution. If peo- in a press conference yesterday day before. ple don’t like the constitution, let that the main conclusion of the Hundreds of thousands of them say so through the ballot study is that the environmental Islamists rallied from early yes- boxes,” one protester said yester- impact mitigation remains a uni- terday in support of Mursi’s new day. Others chanted: “The people versal problem. See also page 8 expanded powers and the con- want the implementation of God’s tested charter, which has taken law.” “We are here to support First polysilicon plant centre stage in the country’s the decisions of Dr Mohammed worst political crisis since his Mursi; we support him because to open in 2013 Election officials count votes cast during parliamentary election in Kuwait City yesterday. The country’s election in June. those decisions were a part of second parliamentary election in less than a year was boycotted by opposition groups over a new electoral The crowds flooded the squares the revolutionary demands,” said DOHA: With the focus now law they say allows the government to influence results. and large avenues near Cairo Hend Abdellateef. AFP shifting to solar energy, Qatar See also page 9 is gearing up to produce polysil- icon, a basic component of solar panel cells. The first plant in Qatar for refining polysilicon is to open in Las Laffan next year. This facility will lay the foun- Owners install microchips to trace missing pets dation for Qatar’s plans to set BY AZMAT HAROON with the help of the chip. “The Recently, a 14-month old Centre here, saying that they the owners went out of the coun- up a complete solar panel pro- chip is not like a GPS (Global pure-bred Dalmatian, who its found someone trying to sell try, the pets disappeared. duction capability. The plant, a DOHA: With a rise in the Positioning System) that owners called Sab, reportedly a Dalmatian for QR500 in the Earlier last November, two venture that is 70 percent owned number of pets going missing would help track the move- went missing from his home South of the country, according Huskies, Lassi and her brother by Qatar Solar Technologies (some say they are being sto- ment of an animal, but if one in the West Bay area, she said to Rooney. Rusty, were reportedly ‘taken’ (QSTec), a subsidiary of the len!), more and more owners finds a lost pet with a chip it in remarks to this newspaper “That’s one way of making a from their yard. Qatar Foundation, will produce have begun installing micro- can be identified,” says Rhonda yesterday. fast buck…In the case of big- Rusty was found on the road 8,000 metric tonnes of polysilicon chips in the bodies of their pets Rooney of Parkview Pet Centre The news of Sab being lost ger dogs it’s cheaper to sell after being hit by a vehicle, while every year. through injections. in Doha. quickly spread among the vari- them off instead of nurturing Lassi continues to be missing. To make solar panels, polysili- Unfortunately, the chips do Installing a chip in a pet costs ous pet groups here, especially them.” The owner of the Huskies had con is melted into an ingot, then not help track the movement about QR250, says Rooney. She through Facebook pages of She said it was interesting gone to Germany for treatment. sliced into micro-thin wafers, and of animals, but if found, the pets hints that many pets going miss- these groups. Some users got to note that in recent incidents THE PENINSULA finally assembled into cells. can be scanned and identified ing are sold at low prices. in touch with the Parkview Pet involving missing dogs, as soon as Continued on page 4 See also page 8 SUNDAY 2 DECEMBER 2012 02 www.thepeninsulaqatar.com HOME QA to launch flights from Athens to New York Airline celebrates eight years of presence in Greece DOHA/ATHENS: Qatar The Athens route continues to In a brief presentation of the Airways will launch direct grow with strong demand despite airline’s chart to success in just scheduled flights from Athens the financial crisis in the country.