Come
October 9, 2009 and the curtain will go up on Middle East film
festival with an international flavour. To be organised by the
Qatar Museums Authority in collaboration with the prestigious
Tribeca Film Festival, the Doha Tribeca Film Festival (DTFF)
will run from October 29 to November 1...
THE Supreme Court sent an important message when it ruled in
Roper v. Simmons in 2005 that children under the age of 18 when
their crimes were committed were not eligible for the death
penalty. Justice Anthony Kennedy drew on compassion, common
sense and the science of the youthful brain when he wrote that
it...
ALL
of us are in denial. Without it we couldn´t get through
life. Were we to confront the implications of mortality, were
we to comprehend all we have done to the world and its people,
we wouldn´t get out of bed. To engage comprehensively
with reality is to succumb to despair. Without denial there
is no hope.
One had seen
it coming. After Vodafone Qatar
offered its customers a promotional
low tariff on international calls
as a gift for the Holy Month of
Ramadan, it was only to be expected
that Qtel...
The Doha Tribeca Film Festival (DTFF) on Wednesday announced the team leaders for the inaugural 2009 Festival. Amanda Palmer, head of entertainment for Al Jazeera English, has been named DTFF Executive Director.
The private
sector should join hands with
the government to help the development
of small and medium enterprises
(SMEs), crucial for sustaining
high economic growth in the country,
senior officials...
Now that's
more like it. Michael Phelps bounced
back from a stunning loss with
something more familiar - another
world record on Wednesday. One
night after he was soundly beaten
by Germany's Paul Biedermann.
At Greenhouse,
no one could hear you scream,
and it wasn't for lack of trying.
The music at the club on a recent
Thursday night - a procession
of Michael Jackson songs played
at airplane-engine volume - ricocheted
off the low green-and-purple ceilings...
The first meeting of the Bloomsbury Qatar Literary Salon will be held on Thursday at the House of St Barnabas, No 1 Greek Street, Soho, London. Well known Egyptian British novelist, Ahdaf Soueif will discuss with Hay Festival Director Peter Florence important aspects of her work and Arab literature in general. The hour-long discussion will be followed by an interactive session for another hour. Chairman of the Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation...
Qatar Airways has offered thanks to the people of Houston for helping make the airline´s first route launch of 2009 a huge success. A Qatar Airways delegation has been in the heart of America´s energy capital city celebrating the official opening of the airline´s brand new office in Houston Pavilons, a newly-constructed multi-million dollar retail, dining and business centre. Attended by airline officials and a host of local VIPs, including Harris County Judge Ed...
DPS-Modern Indian School recently organised its annual co-curricular activity festival called ´Rendezvous 2009´. It comprised of inter-house and inter-class competitions. The festival held for the students of the senior wing provided them opportunities to hone their co-curricular and organisational skills. It aimed at instilling the spirit of healthy competition, team work and leadership qualities in the students. ´Rendezvous 2009´ had an array...
Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton on Wednesday said it had settled half its controversial iron ore contracts, with one-quarter of customers agreeing to cuts of between 33 and 44 percent. The company said it had agreed to sell 23 percent of its volume through contracts and 30 percent through a mix of quarterly negotiated pricing, spot market and index-based pricing. It did not detail which countries the settled contracts were from, but analysts said it appeared they were Japanese or Korean steel mills....
Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc have agreed to an online search and advertising partnership, in an attempt to rival Google Inc, that will be announced within 24 hours, a source familiar with the situation said on Wednesday. Microsoft will not pay an upfront fee to Yahoo, and the focus of the deal is on sharing revenue between the two companies, said the source, who did not want to be identified because a formal announcement has not been made. The news and details of the expected deal were first reported by the AllThings...
New orders for longlasting US manufactured goods notched their biggest decline in five months in June, while applications for mortgages fell last week in a sign that economic conditions remain fragile. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday durable goods orders fell 2.5 percent in June, the largest drop since January, after rising by a revised 1.3 percent in May. This was worse than market expectations for a 0.6 percent decline.
Cristiano Ronaldo began to pay off his world record transfer fee just before midnight on Tuesday. After 50 minutes of the Peace Cup match against Ecuadorean team Liga Universitaria de Quito, the expectant crowd in Real´s Estadio Bernabeu were beginning to show signs of impatience with the 0-0 scoreline - and with Real´s lack of fluency and imagination. On Sunday Manuel Pellgrini´s new-look outfit had been held to a 1- 1 draw by Saudi Arabian side...
As Mark Buehrle breezed through the first five innings against the Minnesota Twins, the Chicago White Sox ace felt even better than he did during his perfect game the last time he took the mound. Then the Twins used some of that Metrodome magic to dink and dunk their way to a 5-3 victory over the White Sox, turning a historic start by Buehrle into a loss in a matter of minutes. Coming off the 18th perfect game in major league history, Buehrle retired the first 17 batters to set a record with 45 outs in a row before the Twins...
Australia captain Ricky Ponting may be on the verge of overtaking Allan Border as his country´s leading Test run-scorer but the Tasmanian is adamant he has "bigger fish to fry". Ponting needs just 25 more runs to surpass retired former captain Border´s mark of 11,174 runs and move up into third place in the all-time list of Test run-scorers. If he achieves it in the upcoming third Ashes Test against England, starting at Edgbaston on Thursday, he will have...
Film G-Force is perhaps the most expensive 3-D h o u s e - p e t action movie ever made and, I´m willing to concede, probably one of the best. It is about an hour shorter than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, half as pretentious and twice as witty. Call this faint praise, if you like. "G-Force," as loud and enervating as the words "A Jerry Bruckheimer Production" might lead you to expect, can hardly be accused of modesty, but on the other hand no film full of talking guinea pigs would be so rash as to attempt...
Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington says that he would like to play a character who has to bear physical and mental suffering due to his partner. The Hollywood star has revealed that he is intrigued by sadomasochism, but would rather play a character who likes it than be exposed to violent acts himself. "Oh, I´ve been very bad. Do you think you should punish me? I don´t know anything about sadomasochism, but there must be that aspect about it —powerful people wanting to be humiliated. Maybe I get it out of playing...
Since the release of Om Shanti Om, Deepika Padukone has been seen in two more films — Bachna Ae Haseeno and Chandni Chowk To China. But the leggie beauty insists that if at all there is a special movie after her debut vehicle, it has to be Love Aaj Kal. "I´m aware of the huge expectations that audiences have from Love Aaj Kal. Personally speaking though, the film is beyond expectations for me. I would rather call it a very special film," said Deepika...
A car bomb exploded outside a
police barracks in northern Spain
early Wednesday, leaving nearly 50
people injured in an attack authorities
blamed on the Basque separatist
group ETA. The powerful bomb
destroyed the facade of the barracks
of the Civil Guard police force and
gouged a crater in front of the modern
building.
Yahoo! and Microsoft reached agreement
on Wednesday on a long-awaited
Web search partnership that
would unite the two companies
against Google. Yahoo! will use
Microsoft’s new Bing search engine
on its own sites, while Yahoo! will act
as the exclusive global sales force for
the companies’ premium search
advertisers.
The first meeting of the Bloomsbury Qatar Literary Salon will be held on Thursday at the House of St Barnabas, No 1 Greek Street, Soho, London. Well known Egyptian British novelist, Ahdaf Soueif will discuss with Hay Festival Director Peter Florence important aspects of her work and Arab literature in general. The hour-long discussion will be followed by an interactive session for another hour. Chairman of the Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation... 
Qatar Airways has offered thanks to the people of Houston for helping make the airline´s first route launch of 2009 a huge success. A Qatar Airways delegation has been in the heart of America´s energy capital city celebrating the official opening of the airline´s brand new office in Houston Pavilons, a newly-constructed multi-million dollar retail, dining and business centre. Attended by airline officials and a host of local VIPs, including Harris County Judge Ed... 
DPS-Modern Indian School recently organised its annual co-curricular activity festival called ´Rendezvous 2009´. It comprised of inter-house and inter-class competitions. The festival held for the students of the senior wing provided them opportunities to hone their co-curricular and organisational skills. It aimed at instilling the spirit of healthy competition, team work and leadership qualities in the students. ´Rendezvous 2009´ had an array...
Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton on Wednesday said it had settled half its controversial iron ore contracts, with one-quarter of customers agreeing to cuts of between 33 and 44 percent. The company said it had agreed to sell 23 percent of its volume through contracts and 30 percent through a mix of quarterly negotiated pricing, spot market and index-based pricing. It did not detail which countries the settled contracts were from, but analysts said it appeared they were Japanese or Korean steel mills.... 
Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc have agreed to an online search and advertising partnership, in an attempt to rival Google Inc, that will be announced within 24 hours, a source familiar with the situation said on Wednesday. Microsoft will not pay an upfront fee to Yahoo, and the focus of the deal is on sharing revenue between the two companies, said the source, who did not want to be identified because a formal announcement has not been made. The news and details of the expected deal were first reported by the AllThings... 
New orders for longlasting US manufactured goods notched their biggest decline in five months in June, while applications for mortgages fell last week in a sign that economic conditions remain fragile. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday durable goods orders fell 2.5 percent in June, the largest drop since January, after rising by a revised 1.3 percent in May. This was worse than market expectations for a 0.6 percent decline. 
Cristiano Ronaldo began to pay off his world record transfer fee just before midnight on Tuesday. After 50 minutes of the Peace Cup match against Ecuadorean team Liga Universitaria de Quito, the expectant crowd in Real´s Estadio Bernabeu were beginning to show signs of impatience with the 0-0 scoreline - and with Real´s lack of fluency and imagination. On Sunday Manuel Pellgrini´s new-look outfit had been held to a 1- 1 draw by Saudi Arabian side...
As Mark Buehrle breezed through the first five innings against the Minnesota Twins, the Chicago White Sox ace felt even better than he did during his perfect game the last time he took the mound. Then the Twins used some of that Metrodome magic to dink and dunk their way to a 5-3 victory over the White Sox, turning a historic start by Buehrle into a loss in a matter of minutes. Coming off the 18th perfect game in major league history, Buehrle retired the first 17 batters to set a record with 45 outs in a row before the Twins...
Australia captain Ricky Ponting may be on the verge of overtaking Allan Border as his country´s leading Test run-scorer but the Tasmanian is adamant he has "bigger fish to fry". Ponting needs just 25 more runs to surpass retired former captain Border´s mark of 11,174 runs and move up into third place in the all-time list of Test run-scorers. If he achieves it in the upcoming third Ashes Test against England, starting at Edgbaston on Thursday, he will have... 
Film G-Force is perhaps the most expensive 3-D h o u s e - p e t action movie ever made and, I´m willing to concede, probably one of the best. It is about an hour shorter than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, half as pretentious and twice as witty. Call this faint praise, if you like. "G-Force," as loud and enervating as the words "A Jerry Bruckheimer Production" might lead you to expect, can hardly be accused of modesty, but on the other hand no film full of talking guinea pigs would be so rash as to attempt... 
Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington says that he would like to play a character who has to bear physical and mental suffering due to his partner. The Hollywood star has revealed that he is intrigued by sadomasochism, but would rather play a character who likes it than be exposed to violent acts himself. "Oh, I´ve been very bad. Do you think you should punish me? I don´t know anything about sadomasochism, but there must be that aspect about it —powerful people wanting to be humiliated. Maybe I get it out of playing...
Since the release of Om Shanti Om, Deepika Padukone has been seen in two more films — Bachna Ae Haseeno and Chandni Chowk To China. But the leggie beauty insists that if at all there is a special movie after her debut vehicle, it has to be Love Aaj Kal. "I´m aware of the huge expectations that audiences have from Love Aaj Kal. Personally speaking though, the film is beyond expectations for me. I would rather call it a very special film," said Deepika...
Yahoo! and Microsoft reached agreement
on Wednesday on a long-awaited
Web search partnership that
would unite the two companies
against Google. Yahoo! will use
Microsoft’s new Bing search engine
on its own sites, while Yahoo! will act
as the exclusive global sales force for
the companies’ premium search
advertisers.
