Qatar Daily News

Qatar Airways has expanded its operations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by increasing frequency between Doha and Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam.

On the Dammam route, five flights per week have been added to the schedule, bringing the total frequency on the route to 12 services each week. The new early morning departures from Dammam on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays offer passengers excellent connections to the new mid-morning long-haul service to Houston in Texas, which Qatar Airways is launching on 30 March.

The capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Riyadh is being served with two additional flights a week, taking weekly capacity up to five services.

Two extra flights have also been introduced between Doha and Jeddah, a route previously served with five flights each week.
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Malaysia’s second largest builder Gamuda Bhd has pre-qualified for infrastructure jobs in Qatar worth more than 10 billion Malaysian ringgit ($2.72 billion), local daily New Straits Times reported on Monday.

The builder is also bidding for several infrastructure contracts in Bahrain and other Asian countries, said Chan Kong Wah, the managing director of Gamuda Engineering Sdn Bhd.

Gamuda currently has 4.01 billion ringgit worth of jobs in Qatar and Bahrain, including the 2.6-billion-ringgit contract to build the New Doha International Airport (NDIA).
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Qatar is set to become the newest member of the World Green Building Council (WGBC) with the formation of their own non-profit organisation to promote sustainable development.

The Qatar Green Building Council (QGBC) is being established by the Qatar Foundation (QF) and will encourage the construction industry to adopt environmentally friendly building practices.

QGBC will also develop a new green building model that will become the standard for all developers in Qatar, said QGBC founder Issa Mohamed al-Mohannadi in a report in the Gulf Times.

“QGBC will not only work to create awareness of the importance of sustainable environment management practices, it will also act as the central co-ordination point for the development of our own set of Qatar-specific green building solutions,” he said.

“These solutions will form the basis of a green building model, which will be adapted to specifically suit our culture and architecture.”
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HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Deputy Premier and Energy and Industry Minister HE Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah and a galaxy of dignitaries were present at the ceremony held in the ceremonial court.
Flanked by students and alumni of Carnegie Mellon Qatar, HH Sheikha Mozah cut a ribbon on stage, with Carnegie Mellon President Jared L Cohon assisting, marking the opening of the state-of-the-art building.
Qatar Foundation President Mohamed Fathy Saoud, Vice-President of Education Abdullah bin Ali al-Thani, and Carnegie Mellon Qatar Dean Charles E Thorpe were also present on the dais.
Both HH the Emir, who was invited onto the stage by Dean Thorpe after the ribbon cutting, and HH Sheikha Mozah cracked jokes with the students and alumni while posing for a group photo.
Earlier, the ceremony began with Carnegie Mellon fine arts alumni bagpiper Patrick W Regan, clad in full regalia, leading a procession in the Scottish tradition of the university.
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The official opening of Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) will take place on 16 March 2009, marking a new dawn of scientific innovation in the Middle East.

QSTP will be inaugurated in the presence of His Highness The Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani and Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al Missned, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation, in a glittering ceremony before 1,200 prestigious guests.

Among the international guests will be renowned figures in the energy, environment, health sciences and ICT industries, including: Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin; Jeff Immelt, Chief Executive of GE; Linda Cook, Executive Director Gas and Power for Shell; Stefen M. Cassiani, President of ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company; Symal Gupta, Chairman of Tata; Sir Martin Evans, Nobel Laureate in Medicine, Cardiff University; Professor Ian Leslie, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Cambridge University.

In another tangible step in Qatar’s journey towards a post-carbon economy, more than $800 million has been invested by Qatar Foundation and its 21 partner organisations in QSTP.
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Qatar Lubricants Company’s fourth dealers’ appreciation event was held last night with the participation of 40 dealers across the country.
At the ceremony, Qalco group finance officer Khalil Cherball was the chief quest while sales manager Shahbaz Akram made the introductions.
Qalco managing director Fawad Rana appreciated the dealers’ hard work despite stiff competition from multinational brands and extended wishes on behalf of the company’s chairman Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim al-Thani. Market opportunities for Qalco were also discussed. Read the rest of this entry »

Qatar’s new Islamic art museum, designed by famous American architect I.M. Pei, is the latest effort by this tiny, oil-rich nation to compete with rival Gulf countries for international attention and investment.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates also have spent billions during the last decade to transform themselves from small desert towns to sprawling international cities. Much of the initial investment was in business, entertainment and sports, but there has also been a push toward promoting arts and culture.

Qatar’s Museum of Islamic Art is the first of ambitious cultural project in the Gulf to be realized. The five-story stone building sits atop an artificial island like an imposing fortress half a mile off the Qatari capital of Doha.

Museum representatives said Pei’s design was inspired by Islamic architectural history, especially the 9th century mosque of Ahmed ibn Tulun in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. The Pei museum opened Dec. 1.

“The Museum of Islamic Art will be the starting place for the Qatari cultural experience,” Abdulla al-Najjar, head of the Qatar Museums Authority, said in a statement.
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MEMBERS of the Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing board held a reception at the Museum of Islamic Art, where officials promised that a “vibrant, dynamic and exciting list of books” will be published when the company starts operating in the Spring of 2010.

A $13.2mn agreement was signed between Qatar Foundation and Bloomsbury in October of last year, with the intention of stimulating literary excellence in the region by establishing a publishing house in Qatar.
Founder and chief executive of Bloomsbury, Nigel Newton, explained that there will be a number of initiatives involving the publishers, the first of which will the “World Book Day” on April 23. This will involve students from five schools to begin with, and is aimed at “getting children to enjoy reading for pleasure.”

He also mentioned that there will be creative writing courses on offer, to help develop more young writers in Qatar.
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Qatar on Thursday expressed a regret to some Iranian officials’ “infringement” against Bahrain’s sovereignty and independence, reported the Qatar News Agency.

“Such negative statements constitute an infringement on the sovereignty” of a member state of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), an official source at the Qatari Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying.

A number of Iranian officials have reportedly claimed that Bahrain was an integral part of the Islamic Republic of Iran and questioned its Arabic identity.

Voicing a regret from the Qatari side, the Foreign Ministry source said that the Iranians’ remarks hampered effort made by GCC states and their sincere interest in building relations of friendship and cooperation between them and Iran.

The GCC-Iranian ties has been marked by amity, mutual respect, good neighborliness and non-intervention in states’ internal affairs to strengthen relations of cooperation and to serve the region’s peoples, said the source.
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Qatar Telecom (Qtel) Q.S.C. (“Qtel”) today announced the expiration and preliminary results of its concurrent tender offers, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Indonesia Communications Pte. Ltd., to acquire Series B Shares of PT Indosat Tbk. (IDX: ISAT; NYSE: IIT), an Indonesian company (“Indosat” and, such shares, “Series B Shares”), pursuant to an Indonesian offer, and to acquire American Depositary Shares representing Series B Shares (“ADSs”) pursuant to a U.S. offer. The offers expired at 3:00 a.m., New York City time (which is 3:00 p.m., Jakarta time), on February 18, 2009. In the aggregate, Qtel had offered to purchase up to 1,314,466,775 Series B Shares (including Series B Shares underlying ADSs) in the offers, representing approximately 24.19% of the total issued and outstanding Series B Shares (including Series B Shares underlying ADSs) of Indosat.

Based on preliminary information provided by The Bank of New York Mellon, the ADS tender agent for the U.S. offer, and PT Danareksa Sekuritas, the share tender agent for the Indonesian offer, a total of approximately 17,705,799 ADSs were validly tendered into the U.S. offer and not withdrawn, and a total of approximately 1,439,620,500 Series B Shares were validly tendered into the Indonesian offer and not withdrawn, representing an aggregate of approximately 2,324,910,450 Series B Shares (including Series B Shares underlying ADSs). Each ADS represents fifty (50) Series B Shares. Because the number of Series B Shares (including Series B Shares underlying ADSs) tendered into the offers exceeds the aggregate number of Series B Shares that Qtel offered to purchase in the offers, the proration rules will apply pursuant to the terms of the offers. Qtel currently expects that the proration factor will be approximately 56.54%.
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