Breath-taking pictures by NatGeo lensmen on show at Katara expo

The “Simply Beautiful” photo exhibition, being hosted by Qatar Photographic Society (QPS) in Building 18 of Katara – the Cultural Village until February 14, literally lives up to its title.
The 52 photographs on show in seven categories, all featured by some of the best National Geographic photographers, are absolute stunners in every respect.
Opening the exhibition on Wednesday, HE the Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage Dr Hamad bin Abdul Aziz al-Kuwari lauded the efforts of the QPS for organising what he described as a very distinctive event.
“This is a distinctive exhibition because National Geographic as we all know is a very respected institution and it brings a new perspective to photography as an art and as a technique,” stressed the Minister, who also took time to view each of the pictures.
HE Dr al-Kuwari cited the beauty and quality of the pictures taken artistically with perfection by the artists. He said the exhibition covers all fields of photography.
Hisham Qaddoumi, a photographer from Toronto and a member of QPS, who was among the attendees at the exhibition, told Gulf Times that he was inspired to see the images.
“They are inspiring because as you can see they have been taken from nature. Some of them were taken from very simple places around us,” he noted.
“Beauty is all around you but you do not notice it. These photos are like a reminder that you live in a very beautiful planet,” said Qaddoumi while complimenting the photographers, whom he prefers to call artists.
He pointed out that anyone can take a photograph but the way the pictures in the exhibition were taken needs an artist’s eye.
“I do a lot of photography and I realised it is not just the effort, it needs some talent, it needs some good eye, and to take such beautiful pictures you need to love the beauty around you,” stressed Qaddoumi.
He recalled telling his students not take a photo but instead capture a moment “which these guys (National Geographic) are actually doing”.
Like Qaddoumi, another photographer, Alex Campbell was also impressed with the exhibition and the pictures.
He described them as vivid images covering a broad spectrum of photography from landscapes to people.
Campbell likes a picture taken from Paris which features an underground scene lit by rays of the sun.
He cited its composition and the focus on the reflection saying it is a flat image but has a 3D effect. The pictures are from across the world.

Woman jailed for drug possession

.A Criminal Court in Qatar has handed down five years’ imprisonment and a fine of QR100,000 to a Nigerian woman, who was transiting through Doha International Airport, after being convicted of possessing illicit drugs, local Arabic daily Arrayah reported yesterday.  The woman, to be deported after serving the sentence, was arrested at the airport for possessing 3.2 kilos of cocaine. She was on way to Nigeria from Brazil.  She raised suspicion while passing an airport security gate carrying a backpack. When asked about the bag’s contents, her answers were not satisfactory and upon search she admitted carrying the illicit drugs in her backpack.  At the court, the accused, however, denied the charges of smuggling the drugs into the country as she was in transit and heading for another destination.  Eventually, the court convicted her for drug possession only.

Qatar Airways in IAG Cargo deal

Qatar Airways has reached a deal with British Airways parent IAG to provide it with cargo capacity. Qatar Airways, which last year joined the British Airways-led Oneworld alliance, will operate five Boeing 777 freighters between London and Hong Kong on behalf of IAG Cargo - formed from a merger of the BA and Iberia freight arms - starting in May, Europe’s third-largest airline said yesterday.  “We have reviewed our long-haul freighter programme following the merger of British Airways and Iberia freight businesses,” IAG Cargo chief executive officer Steve Gunning said in a statement. The measures will curtail IAG’s cargo capacity by about 13%, the company said.  “This new partnership is an important step forward for us and enhances our relationship with Qatar,” Willie Walsh, CEO of London-based IAG, said.

Court hears leopard attack case

A Doha criminal court has observed that the incident in which a Qatari boy was attacked by a leopard at a circus was the result of the failure of the organisers of the show to follow rules.

“Neglect, absence of caution and failure to observe the laws and regulations have been responsible for the incident,” the court said while hearing the case, local Arabic daily Al-Sharq daily reported.

The Al Rayan Prosecution  referred the case to the court after a six-year-old Qatari boy was attacked by the circus animal while he was posing with it for a picture at a Doha mall.

The company organising the circus, its general manager and the animal’s trainer have been accused and referred for trial on the charge of “committing a mistake which endangered the safety of a child”. The court has observed that the accident was a result of their neglect, absence of caution and failure to observe the laws and regulations. “The result is the crime caused by violation of the principles of their professions.”

According to the court, the accused have committed the offence which is criminal as per the provisions of Articles 1, 37, 38, 40, 312 and 313 of the Penal Code.

The father of the child said that his son  had gone with his mother to the circus and they wanted to have a  picture of the boy taken with  the leopard  and suddenly the leopard pounced upon him. He asked for legal action against those who were responsible for the accident.

The child’s mother told the court that the  leopard’s trainer had asked for money for allowing the child to pose with the animal. She gave her the money and the trainer allowed them to take the picture “and to pose in front of the leopard”, she added.

 “While doing this the leopard  attacked the child, by grabbing the boy by his neck”.

The mother said she tried to save her child by continually hitting the animal but she could not retrieve the child from its clutches. “The trainer also tried to save the child but she too failed. Meanwhile, other people who were around came to the rescue of the child and he was finally freed.”

The mother said that on seeing the child bleeding profusely, she had fainted. The child was taken to the hospital.

The Qatar Tourism Authority which  issued the licence for the circus maintained that the accident was an individual incident caused by the “mistake committed by the circus management and that taking of pictures with a wild circus animal is regarded as an abnormal behaviour”.

Firms urged to pay wages through bank transfer

Qatar should make electronic payment of wages to migrant construction workers mandatory, a UK-based NGO, Engineers Against Poverty (EAP), has suggested.

“Paying workers’ wages through bank transfers would greatly assist them to present evidence when they have not been paid,” the organisation said in a report, quoted by The Guardian newspaper in London.

Engineers Against Poverty presented the recommendation, along with others, to representatives of contractors and banks at a meeting in Doha  at the launch of the “Improving employment standards in construction in Qatar” report, The Guardian said.

“Non-payment and late payment of wages is one of the biggest concerns to migrant workers. It is also a potential source of disruption and delay to projects, and therefore a major risk to government clients and their project management consultants,” Jill Wells, the report’s research team leader, said.

Workers, who are usually paid in cash, often have to borrow large sums from moneylenders at high rates of interest to pay recruitment fees, the newspaper claimed.  “It is critical for them to receive wages on time and in full so debts can be repaid promptly.”

The report argued that while there were limits to the control contractors could exert over subcontractors, the former could do more to ensure that all workers received their wages on time. It said that clients should consider including clauses in their contracts with main contractors requiring them to pay the wages of their subcontractors’ workers if the latter failed to do so.

Some contractors told Engineers Against Poverty that they paid cash in hand because most workers earned less than the minimum salary required to open a bank account. Yet the NGO noted three companies were paying salaries to workers earning less than half of this amount by electronic bank transfers.

One contractor told Engineers Against Poverty that while providing accounts to low-paid workers was not profitable for banks, they could be persuaded to do so as banks hoped to secure more profitable lines of business from the big contractors.

“Paying through electronic bank transfer could provide workers with evidence to prove they have not been paid and allow them to seek a transfer of sponsorship,” the report said. “But as this is no guarantee of prompt payment, the main contractor should step in if subcontractors fail to pay workers on time.”

The report also recommended that all public sector clients follow the approach adopted by the Qatar Foundation, a major client of the construction industry, in setting up a workers’ welfare department to undertake regular welfare audits of contractors and subcontractors and aim to work only with those that comply with the foundation’s standards on migrant workers’ welfare.

Principal contractors should be required to set up a helpline for workers to alert all parties concerned to delayed payment of wages by subcontractors.

The Labour Department should be strengthened so the government could play a bigger role in enforcing its own laws and regulations and in clamping down on companies that flout the law, the report said.

The Qatar government should leverage its position with labour-sending countries whose economies are heavily dependent on remittances from migrant workers and pressure their governments to step up efforts to address corruption and exploitation in the recruitment business, the organisation suggested.

Indian minister’s wife found dead in hotel room

The wife of an Indian government minister was found dead in a New Delhi hotel room yesterday, days after she was involved in a row with a Pakistani woman journalist over Twitter.

It was not immediately clear how Sunanda Puskhar Tharoor, wife of junior human resource development minister Shashi Tharoor, had died, Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said.

“She was lying in bed. There were no signs of any foul play or any struggle. She had no sign of poisoning or anything,” the minister’s personal assistant Abhinav Kumar told reporters gathered outside the hotel.

The death came after Sunanda, 52, was embroiled in a spat with a Pakistan-based journalist, Mehr Tarar, whom she accused of stalking her husband in a series of Twitter posts.

Tarar denied she was having an affair with the Indian minister and hit back at Sunanda for making what she said were wild allegations.

Qatar Airways to launch Saudi operations by Q3

Qatar Airways has reached agreement with Saudi authorities on solving problems that blocked its entry into Saudi Arabia’s domestic market, and plans to start operating there by the end of the third quarter, its chief executive said yesterday.
“We have already now appointed a new CEO for the Saudi operations, and we are planning to launch the Saudi operations anytime between the middle to the third quarter of this year,” Akbar al-Baker said in an interview.
Saudi Arabia’s price caps for domestic flights have hurt airlines’ profit margins, while fuel subsidies have helped flag carrier Saudi Arabian Airlines compete against rivals.
Al-Baker, speaking on the sidelines of the Bahrain International Airshow, said those issues had now been resolved, though he did not give details.
“There is a compromise that has been accepted by the authorities regarding the price cap and the fuel price.”
Saudi Arabia started opening up its aviation market in 2012 by awarding additional carrier licences. Population growth and rapidly rising incomes mean there is considerable room for expansion, analysts believe.
 Currently, only Saudi Arabian Airlines and budget airline National Air Services serve a domestic market of about 27mn people. Foreign carriers can only fly in and out of Saudi Arabia, not within the country.
Qatar Airways has previously said its Saudi domestic carrier will be called Al Maha Airways and will start with main cities such as Riyadh and Jeddah, before moving to second-tier cities.
Earlier yesterday another new airline, Saudi Gulf Airlines, said it had signed a $2bn deal with Canada’s Bombardier Inc to buy 16 CSeries jets with options for 10 more. It aims to start operating in the Saudi domestic market later this year or next year.

HMC hosts symposium on PET MRI

Dr al-Tamimi addressing the symposium yesterday.

The evolution, advances, clinical potential and future expectations of Positron Emission Tomography magnetic resonance imaging (PET MRI) as well as hybrid imaging were some of the high points of the ‘Second Qatar PET and Molecular Nuclear Medicine Symposium (QPET-II), hosted by Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) yesterday.

Physicians, specialty nurses, physicists and other healthcare professionals from across the country gathered to discuss and exchange ideas on advances in PET and Nuclear Medicine.

The event featured presentations and open discussions on PET-CT (a combination of PET and computed tomography) application in oncology, breast carcinoma and gynaecological malignancies, head and neck cancer, lung cancer, liver tumours, lymphoma and 
neuron-endocrine tumours.

Several workshops were conducted on the principles of nuclear medicine and also on radiation protection for staff and family members.

“This symposium is highlighting the advances and clinical updates in PET and nuclear medicine. Hosting the event is part of our strategy to spread knowledge on cutting-edge diagnostic and treatment monitoring technologies that will aid healthcare professionals in providing optimal patient care,” said Dr Nawal al-Tamimi, QPET-II chairperson and HMC radiology department nuclear medicine consultant.

The symposium provided an opportunity for sharing experiences and knowledge, and also allowed participants to learn from internationally recognised experts in the field. Speakers included UK-based Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust professor and Nuclear Medicine Service chief Adil al-Nahhas; Australia’s Austin Health in Nuclear Medicine physician Dr Sze Ting Lee; Austin Health Clinical PET programme head Dr Salvatore Berlangieri; King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre’s consultant molecular imaging radiologist Dr Ahmad Ibrahim Almuhaideb; and HMC’s radiology department senior consultant Prof Dr Ahmed Khairy.

PET, also known as PET imaging or a PET scan, is a non-invasive, painless molecular imaging technology that allows physicians to determine how organs and tissues inside the body are functioning on a molecular and cellular level.

PET is a powerful tool for diagnosing and determining the stages of many types of cancer, as well as other ailments such as brain disorders and heart problems.

HMC’s state-of-the-art PET-CT Centre for Diagnosis and Research is one of the most technologically advanced in the region, offering complete patient care ranging from diagnosis to assessment of treatment response for cancer, cardiology and neurology patients.

“We hope that this symposium will benefit the daily practice not only of radiologists and nuclear medicine physicians but also other healthcare professionals from different specialties. There will also be an interactive quiz session with a chance for 10 participants to win prizes,” Dr al-Tamimi added.