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Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn’t I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

American whistleblower Edward Snowden

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Qaradawi, Hezbollah and sectarian war

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QR2m food supplies for Syrians

Sheikh Eid bin Mohammad Al Thani Charitable Association has sent a convoy carrying food supplies worth QR2m to Syria. The charity has implemented projects worth QR68m for the Syrian people.

Qatar Airways orders nine Boeing 777s

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker (left) with Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Ray Conner celebrating a new order by the airline for nine new Boeing 777 aircraft. DOHA/LE BOURGET: Qatar Airways announced an order for nine Boeing 777 passenger aircraft worth QR10bn ($2.8bn) on the opening day of the International Paris Air Show yesterday, press statements by QA and Boeing said. The announcement has been made for the Boeing’s 777-300 ER (Extended Range) version of the aircraft. The additional aircraft will help the airline open up new routes and add capacity to existing markets in its rapidly-growing network. The order for seven Boeing 777s will increase to 16 and boost its fleet of 35 to 51 aircraft. “With its reliability, economics and range capability, the 777 will continue to play a key role in enabling Qatar Airways to operate more direct non-stop flights from our hub in Doha to destinations in many markets, including Australasia and the US,” Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker told a press conference at Le Bourget, the venue of the air show. He was accompanied by Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO, Ray Conner, to announce the order. “We have already shown a desire to open up new destinations in the US and the Boeing 777 will further feature in our expansion plans in this part of the world, in addition to increasing frequency to other destinations,” Al Baker said. “Since Qatar Airways started taking deliveries of Boeing 777s in November 2007, we have quickly expanded this fleet, flying to key long-haul destinations to all parts of the world — Europe, Southern Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America — and selected cities in the Middle East. “The 777 has proved popular with our passengers being an aircraft of choice and has made a positive impact on our operations, now established as the flagship aircraft of our long-haul flying programme.” Of the 777 fleet, Qatar Airways operates a mix of passenger and cargo aircraft — 22 Boeing 777-300ERs, nine 777-200LRs (Long Range) and four Boeing 777 freighters, with a fifth cargo plane set to be delivered this month. Al Baker said Qatar Airways is talking to Boeing about being a launch customer for a successor to its mini-jumbo, the 406-seat 777-9X. The airline is also looking at exercising options for a further 30 787-9 Dreamliners on top of 30 787s already confirmed, he said.

Taliban opening Doha office today

DOHA: A Taliban office, touted as a tool to help facilitate talks between the militants and the Afghan government, opens here today, Al Jazeera television reported. Al Jazeera cited anonymous sources for its yesterday’s report and gave no details but a Taliban spokesman in Kabul said he was “unaware” of any such development. In April, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that the opening of a Taliban office in Doha could “facilitate the peace process”. He made the remarks in an interview with Al Jazeera following talks with the Emir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani in Doha. Karzai previously opposed a Taliban office in Qatar over fears that his government would be frozen out of any future peace deal involving the extremists and the US. The militants refuse to have direct contact with Karzai, calling him a puppet of the US which supported his rise to power after the military operation that toppled the Taliban in 2001. But with US-led Nato combat troops due to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, Karzai recently backed the proposed office in Doha. Any peace talks still face numerous hurdles before they begin, including confusion over who would represent the Taliban and Karzai’s insistence that his appointees should be at the centre of negotiations. Talks have been underway since 2011 to open a Taliban office in Qatar. Agencies

Putin, Obama spar over Syria at tense G8 summit meeting

ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland: US President Barack Obama sparred with Russia’s Vladimir Putin over how to end the Syrian war yesterday during an icy encounter at a G8 summit where divisions over the conflict eclipsed the rest of the agenda. After talks with Obama, Putin said Moscow and Washington had differing views over Syria but agreed that the bloodshed must stop and the warring parties should be brought to the negotiating table. Both leaders looked tense and uncomfortable as they addressed reporters after about two hours of talks, with Putin staring mostly at the floor as he spoke about Syria and Obama only glancing occasionally him. “Our positions do not fully coincide, but we are united by the common intention to end the violence, to stop the number of victims increasing in Syria, to resolve the problems by peaceful means, including the Geneva talks,” Putin said. “We agreed to push the process of peace talks and encourage the parties to sit down at the negotiation table, organise the talks in Geneva.” Obama tried to lighten the mood at the end of talks by discussing judo but Putin, a black belt in the martial art, replied that the then-smiling US president was trying to get him to relax. Divisions over Syria dominated the atmosphere as global leaders met in the remote golf resort in Northern Ireland, once rocked by decades of violence but which Britain wants to showcase as a model of conflict resolution. Western leaders have rebuked Putin’s staunch support for Syria’s Bashar Al Assad and his attempt to crush a two-year-old uprising in which at least 93,000 people have been killed. Speaking alongside Putin after their first face-to-face meeting in a year, Obama said they had different views on Syria but shared an interest in stopping violence and ensuring chemical weapons were not used. “With respect to Syria, we do have differing perspectives on the problem but we share an interest in reducing the violence and securing chemical weapons and ensuring that they’re neither used nor are they subject to proliferation,” he said. Obama said that they had instructed their teams to work on a peace conference on Syria in Geneva. On Iran, Obama said that he and Putin expressed cautious optimism about the ability to move forward on a dialogue with Tehran after a moderate cleric was elected president. Stung by recent victories for Assad’s forces and their support from Hezbollah fighters, the US said last week it would step up military aid to the rebels, including automatic weapons, light mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Earlier British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is chairing the G8 summit, conceded there was “a big difference” between the positions of Russia and the West on how to resolve the war. In some of his most colourful remarks on Syria, Putin described anti-Assad rebels as cannibals who ate human flesh on the eve of the summit and warned of the dangers of giving guns to them. Western leaders have criticised Russia, Syria’s ally, for sending weapons to Assad forces and considering deliveries of a sophisticated missile system. Reuters

Coronavirus kills four more in Saudi

DUBAI: Four more people have died and three more have fallen ill in Saudi Arabia from the SARS-like coronavirus MERS-CoV, the Saudi Health Ministry said yesterday. It said the deaths were among previously registered cases. The new infections were in Eastern Province, Riyadh and Jeddah. Saudi Arabia has been worst affected by the respiratory-system virus, with 49 confirmed cases, of whom 32 have died, according to the ministry. Agencies

Defiant Snowden vows more leaks

WASHINGTON: Rogue US intelligence tech Edward Snowden issued a defiant rebuke to his critics in Washington yesterday and warned more leaks were on the way, declaring: “Truth is coming and it cannot be stopped.” The 29-year-old former contractor for the National Security Agency dismissed allegations he was a traitor or a Chinese agent, and insisted he had exposed a dangerous US global surveillance network that threatens the privacy of millions. US President Barack Obama’s administration has protested that the programmes exposed by leaks were vital to protecting US citizens from terrorism, but the revelations have triggered an embarrassing global debate. Snowden fled last month from his job at an NSA base in Hawaii to Hong Kong carrying with him a cache of secret documents.

Death for two Kuwait cops over torture

KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait’s supreme court yesterday sentenced to death two police officers convicted of torturing a citizen to death, overturning life imprisonment handed by lower courts. It also jailed four officers for 15 years each and a fifth for two years, and ordered their dismissal from the force. Two other policemen were each fined 75 dinars ($260), while the remaining 11 defendants were acquitted, including two foreigners who worked at a police station. All defendants were charged with torturing four detainees in January 2011. One of the victims, Mohammad Ghazzai Al Mutairi, 35, died of his injuries. The four were tortured in the desert and later at a police station, where they were accused of merchandising alcohol, a charge that was proved false.