Qatar Daily News

The observation deck on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world, has been closed for repairs only a month after it opened.

Emaar Properties, the builder of the tower, said there had been an unexpectedly high number of visitors and problems with the power supply.
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A dispute over a Qatari prince’s plan to modernize one of the grandest mansions in Paris with an elevator and an underground car park has ended after he ag­reed to rein in the project to address the concerns of conservationists. The French Culture Ministry said Prince Hamad bin Abdullah al-Thani, brother of Qatar’s emir, had signed a deal with a cultural association that had sought to stop his overhaul of the Hotel Lambert, a UNESCO heritage site perched on the Ile Saint Louis Island in the Seine in central Paris.

Under the compromise, French media said the group would withdraw its lawsuit and the prince would be allowed to start renovations his supporters say is badly need to save the Hotel Lambert, an architectural gem where Frederic Chopin played and Voltaire wrote.
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Barwa Real Estate, Qatar’s second-largest developer, agreed to buy Qatar Real Estate Investment Co as the slump in real estate prices in the region quickens the pace of mergers in the industry.

‘This transaction will create a company with significant scale and depth across all real estate segments and which will continue to play a critical role in supporting the economic development of Qatar,’ Barwa Chairman Ghanim Bin Saad al Saad, said in the statement.
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Qatar is in ’serious’ talks with investors to build a $1 billion solar power project, an Arabic-language daily said on Wednesday, citing an executive.

‘Qatari and foreign entities are in serious talks… and a final agreement that will set the project’s road map is expected to be arrived at soon,’ Shadi Abu Daher, regional manager of the World Trade Centre in Doha, told Qatar’s Al Arab newspaper.

Qatar royal family has bought a five-star hotel in Marmaris town of southwestern province of Mugla, Turkey.

The company owned by Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Ahmad Ali al-Thani bought Munamar Hotel in Icmeler hamlet in Marmaris, officials said. Al-Maselah Construction and Industry Co. paid 22 million Turkish lira ($15.06 million) for the hotel. (One dollar equals 1.48 TL)

Munamar Hotel has totally 180 rooms including 13 suites and 2 king suites.

Source: Marmaris Guidebook

The region just can’t get enough of the rise and rise of Qatar. Jethu Abraham finds out what’s great about the country, even in these trying times

Anyone who’s ever been to Qatar knows that the place does not offer exciting or remotely interesting options to the most discerning of leisure travellers. Probably realising this at a very developmental stage itself, the country soon began investing heavily in business travel options and is still doing so at an interesting pace. The business formula worked effectively and soon this strip of a country made it to the regions’ news pages and the front cover of MICE magazines as the numero uno 
destination. It all started with Qatar’s astonishing economic growth with their nominal GDP growth averaging at around 24.6 
per cent in the four years between 2003 and 2006. This success was soon translated 
in the country’s infrastructural and real estate plans.
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Qatar slipped 20 points in France-based Reporters Without Borders’ ranking for press freedom in 2009 with no obvious explanation.

Qatar ranked 94 out of 175 countries listed in the worldwide press freedom index 2009 released by the media watchdog recently.

In the 2008 report, Qatar was ranked at 74 among 173 countries by the media watchdog.

Nothing has changed in terms of media freedom in the country in the last one year, so the question that comes to mind is why Qatar has dropped 20 points in the ranking in 12 months.
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Dubai Police have not been requested to open an investigation on a man who has been charged with attempting to blow up a jetliner over the US, and who had briefly studied at a Dubai-based university.
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December 17, 2009, will be the official holiday to mark the assumption of power by Sheikh Jassim bin Mohamed al-Thani, instead of December 18 since it is a weekend. This came in a circular issued yesterday by HE the Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Nasser bin Mohamed bin Abdul Aziz al-Thani.

Qatar and India signed a slew of bilateral trade agreements at the second meeting of Qatari-Indian Ministerial Committee held here yesterday. The Minister of State for International Cooperation and Acting Minister of Business and Trade, H E Dr Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah led the discussions on behalf of Qatar. The Indian delegation was led by T K A Nair, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister.

Talking to reporters, Al Attiyah said the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and India would sign the proposed free trade agreement in the immediate future. He said bilateral trade between India and Qatar has been steadily growing over the last few years. “The trade volume rose by 14.3 percent in 2008 to reach $3.7bn. This indicates the expected increase in trade in the current year”, he said.
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