Dr Muhammad Aflah is redefining responsible influence in Qatar, showing how medicine, media, and ethics can coexist to educate, inspire, and engage communities meaningfully.At first glance, the worlds of medicine and social media could not be more different.Yet Dr Aflah, popularly known as Wayward, has made both work in harmony.**media[411866]**A practicing general practitioner at Nassem Medical Centre in Doha, he also runs Wayward Gourmet, a digital platform sharing his love for food, culture, and the hidden corners of Qatar with a growing audience.“I always tell people: help as much as you can, and Allah willing, it will come back to you,” he said. “With great power comes great responsibility. Social media is a double-edged sword – but my golden rule is simple: don’t harm anyone.”Wayward’s journey began in 2017 during his medical school days in India.He initially posted food photos on WhatsApp as a creative outlet.“I never expected it to grow,” he recalled. “Once I hit 500 followers, I realised I could genuinely help people by recommending honest experiences. That small spark turned into Wayward Gourmet.”The name, he explained, comes from the Gourmet World region of the *Toriko manga and anime series, where the hero gains strength through food.**media[411867]**“I wanted to capture that spirit of exploration without boundaries – to be ‘wayward’ in discovering flavours everywhere I go.”His dual career often informs his online choices.“I don’t post fad diets or health gimmicks,” he said. “Credibility matters more than virality. Anything in excess is poison – even the healthiestfood. I stick to science-based, responsible guidance while still celebrating the joy of eating.”Time management is critical.“My 9-to-5 is clinical work; 5-to-9 is creative time,” Wayward said. “I delegate public relations, logistics, and filming to a team. That way, I can enjoy content creation as a passion, not as pressure, without compromising patient care.”Cultural awareness is also central to his approach.“Qatar’s diversity allows me to connect with locals and expats alike,” he explained. “Sharing food from hidden restaurants emotionally resonates with those who know them, while introducing new flavours to those discovering them for the first time. It’s about building trust and community.”Maintaining clear boundaries between patients and followers is key.“I often get medical questions on social media, which I politely redirect,” he said. “In the hospital, I give scientific guidance. Online, I focus on food and culture – two separate spaces. That clarity is crucial to maintaining trust in both worlds.”Wayward also encourages young audiences to pursue passions responsibly.“Integrity and being yourself matter more than anything,” he said. “Don’t wait for perfection. Start, make mistakes, learn, and stay true to your principles.”He believes that creativity and academics can coexist: “I did it, and so can others – without giving up one for the other.”Looking ahead, Wayward wants his influence to evolve beyond food.“I aim to showcase Qatar’s culture, invite people to explore the country, and build a supportive community where creators, business owners, and enthusiasts can help each other grow.“Social media should connect, not divide.”For Wayward, impact outweighs fame.“In the morning, I help people with medicine; in the evening, I help them explore culture and cuisine. Both are ways of improving lives,” he said.As social media becomes increasingly influential, Wayward stands out as a voice of responsibility.His journey proves that influence, ethics, and expertise can coexist – and that doing good, whether online or offline, is both possible and deeply rewarding.

In the history of the silver market, prices had traded above $40 an ounce for only a handful of brief periods before last year. On Friday, exhausted traders watched in shock as the precious metal plunged by that much in less than 20 hours.For weeks, traders across the metals world have spent their nights glued to screens as prices for everything from gold to copper and tin seemed to break free from the gravity of supply and demand fundamentals, spurred higher on a wave of hot money from speculators in China.And then, in just a few hours, the rally reversed into one of the most dramatic crashes ever seen in commodity markets. Silver’s 26% plunge on Friday was the biggest on record, while gold dropped 9% in its worst day in more than a decade. Copper traders were already reeling after a sudden spike past $14,500 a ton that unravelled just as fast.“In my career it’s definitely the wildest that I have seen,” said Dominik Sperzel, the head of trading at Heraeus Precious Metals, a leading bullion refiner. “Gold, it’s a symbol of stability, but such a move is not a symbol of stability.”While the trigger for Friday’s crash was the news that US President Donald Trump planned to nominate Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve, which sent the dollar higher, many had been warning that the metals markets were overstretched and due for a correction following weeks of relentless surges. Still, the speed and scale of the drop was breathtaking, particularly for a market as large and liquid as gold.Metals traders in Europe and the US have been working around the clock, unwilling to miss the Asian trading day when many of the sharpest moves have taken place — and even frantically trading through long-distance flights. At the world’s biggest coin conference taking place in Germany last week, executives stood staring at their phones, watching in silence as the crisis unfolded.“Parabolic”, “frenzied” and “untradeable” were all descriptions of the market on Friday, wrote Nicky Shiels, head of metals strategy at MKS PAMP SA. January 2026, she said, would go down as “the most volatile month in precious metals history”. Gold’s rally has been building for a number of years, as central banks expanded their holdings as an alternative to the dollar, and accelerated last year as western investors piled into the so-called debasement trade.But the gains have taken on a more frenzied pace in recent weeks, driven by a wave of buying from Chinese speculators — from individual investors to large equity funds venturing into commodities — that has lifted metals from copper to silver to fresh records. As prices surged, trend-following commodity trading advisors piled in, adding more froth to the rally.“We had identified about three or four weeks ago that it turned into a momentum trade, not a fundamental trade,” said Jay Hatfield, chief investment officer at hedge fund Infrastructure Capital Advisors. “We were just riding it, waiting for this type of thing to happen.”With concerns over the independence of the Fed and geopolitical confrontations from Venezuela to Iran capturing the headlines, the rally in metals became a symbol of some investors’ growing distrust of the US dollar.As metals’ upwards momentum drew more and more buyers, gold and silver fever gripped shoppers from China to Germany — in scenes reminiscent of 1979-1980, the only other time in modern history that the markets have seen such dramatic swings in price.“We are sold out in certain bar sizes, weeks in advance and people they still buy,” said Sperzel of Heraeus, who said his company is operating at maximum capacity to try to meet the demand. “People are queuing for hours in front of these shops in order to buy products.”The price moves have been most dramatic in silver, a relatively tiny market with annual supply worth just $98bn at current prices, compared with $787bn for gold.On Friday, iShares Silver Trust, the largest exchange-traded fund backed by silver known by its ticker SLV, recorded more than $40bn in turnover. That made it one of the most traded securities on the planet, when just months ago it would rarely see more than $2bn traded.Activity in options, which have become increasingly popular with retail traders in recent years, was similarly feverish.Seen by some investors as a cheap way to bet on market rallies, posts on the Reddit groups that had helped power previous retail surges into silver showed the gains of over 1,000% that could be made from betting on silver’s rapid climb. The biggest gold and silver ETFs each saw record open interest and trading volumes on call options in recent weeks, and the volume of call options on SLV exceeded that of the main ETF that tracks the Nasdaq 100 index of tech stocks.When there are many outstanding calls it sets the conditions for a squeeze, as dealers rush to hedge their positions by buying the underlying asset when prices start moving up, contributing to further price moves.“As we squeeze up, they have to mechanically keep buying more,” said Alexander Campbell, former head of commodities for Bridgewater Associates. “And that would explain why we go up so fast, and down so fast.”Trump’s comment that the under-pressure dollar was “doing great” on Tuesday night triggered a final frenzy of metals buying, pushing prices to new records. By Thursday, gold reached $5,595 an ounce, silver topped $121 and copper hit $14,527.50.The first sign of a reversal came later Thursday, when the dollar turned higher as US markets opened and gold suddenly plunged — at one point dropping more than $200 an ounce in about 10 minutes.Prices briefly stabilised, but then Bloomberg and other news organisations reported that Trump was planning to nominate Warsh as the next Fed chair. Where previously the Asian morning session had reliably driven prices higher — as bleary-eyed European traders watched on in astonishment — this time, Chinese investors took profits. The seeds of Friday’s dramatic crash were sown.“China sold and now we’re suffering the consequences,” Campbell said.What comes next may once again depend on China. Investors will be watching closely for when trading opens in Shanghai, to see whether Chinese demand for metals can be revived after the shock selloff. A 16-19% daily limit on price moves for various silver contracts on Chinese exchanges means Shanghai’s prices may need to play catch-up.Still, the pullback ahead of the Lunar New Year, a traditional buying season, may offer an entry point, with retail investors who had missed the rally waiting to step in.In Shuibei, a major bullion trading hub, tightness in silver has eased somewhat, with more selling than buying over the weekend, according to traders. But there are no signs of panic selling, and Shuibei silver prices are still trading at a premium to exchange contracts, they said.As retail interest simmers, several Chinese banks on Friday announced fresh measures to curb risks tied to retail gold accumulation products, following a series of similar moves over the past year.China Construction Bank said it will raise the minimum deposit amount from today and urged investors to heighten risk awareness, while Industrial and Commercial Bank of China said it will implement quota controls for its Ruyi Gold Savings service during holidays. Exchanges have also taken several steps that could rein in the broad rally in metal markets globally.“Gold is relatively strong; I see a lot of dip buyers coming in the past two days to purchase jewellery and bars before Lunar New Year,” said Liu Shunmin, head of risk at trader Shenzhen Guoxing Precious Metal. “Whereas for silver, there’s a strong inclination to stand on the sidelines.” - Bloomberg

KBN Holding Group, a leading diversified investment group headquartered in the State of Qatar, and Lai Sun Group, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate, today jointly announced strategic partnership designed to support China’s leading technology enterprises en route to the Gulf regions' market opportunities via Qatar. The platform will focus on sectors such as TMT, including AI, cloud solutions, fintech, and healthcare. Our objective is to provide local expertise and resources to support selected enterprises by offering capital investment, market access and localization, and business matching, with the Gulf regions as its primary focus market. The initiative is in line with the Gulf government's long-term economic diversification and industrial upgrade agenda.Hong Kong as Asia’s leading financial hub + Middle East a region under massive transformationKBN Holding Group is a Qatar-based diversified investment group with a long-standing presence across real estate development, hospitality, infrastructure, healthcare, and technology-related sectors. The Group maintains close and enduring relationships with government-related entities and major institutional partners. In recent years, KBN has progressively positioned technology and innovation-driven investment as a core strategic priority, in alignment with Qatar National Vision 2030 and the country’s long-term objectives in digital economy development, smart city initiatives, and industrial modernization.Lai Sun Group is a Hong Kong-based diversified conglomerate with business footprint across Greater China and selected international markets. Its core businesses encompass property development and investment, hospitality, media & entertainment, and alternative investment. The Group owns and operates a sizeable portfolio of institutional-quality assets in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and the United Kingdom and is widely recognized for its strong capabilities in long-term asset management, complex project development, and building ecosystems within the businesses.Statements from the Chairmen:Sheikh Abdulla bin Khalid Al Thani, Chairman of KBN Holding Group, commented:“This strategic partnership with Lai Sun Group represents a major milestone in KBN’s efforts in continued transformation from a traditional asset-focused investment company into a technology-driven company. The Gulf is currently at a stage of economic diversification and digitalization. Through this platform, we seek to introduce proven technology capabilities into the regions and to integrate them deeply with local industries, thereby creating sustainable, long-term industrial value. This initiative fully aligns with KBN's long-term strategic direction and contributes to the Qatar National Vision 2030.Dr. Peter Lam, Chairman of Lai Sun Group, commented:”Lai Sun Group has, for decades, been deeply engaged in the development of Greater China and has accumulated extensive experience in urban development, managed diverse business models, and capital allocation & investment. We are pleased to partner with KBN Holding Group, which possesses a solid track record and a clear strategic vision in the Gulf regions. We are excited to witness the region entering a new phase of growth driven by the local government and corporate initiatives. Through this platform, we look forward to supporting more of China’s leading technology enterprises in their global expansion, while creating a value-creation platform for the long-term economic and industrial development of the regions.”First Investment: Kyligence—a leading China AI enterprise application companyThe parties further confirm the first investment in Kyligence, a leading enterprise data intelligence and artificial intelligence company from China.Kyligence is a recognized leader in the field of “Data + AI for Enterprise”, providing enterprise-grade platforms covering data infrastructure, metrics systems (Metrics Store), and AI-driven decision intelligence. To date, the company has raised approximately USD 100+ million to date from a number of leading global institutional investors, including Coetue, Eight Road Venture, Shunwei Capital (backed by Xiaomi), Shanghai Pudong Development Bank International, and others. They are widely regarded as a late-stage, near-unicorn enterprise software and AI platform company in China’s AI enterprise technology sector.Kyligence had served hundreds of large enterprise customers, including Fortune Global 500 companies and leading bank, insurance, retail, manufacturing, and consumer companies. Its platforms are currently operating stably in PB-scale data environments and are widely deployed at the enterprise level for operational analysis, decision support, and AI scenarios.The company’s core technological strengths include:Big Data Platform and Manage— the semantic engine for AI-ready data to transform fragmented enterprise data into a unified, high-performance semantic layer, providing the trusted data foundation required for analytics and AI applications.Metrics Graph & Context Engine—an enterprise-grade platform to enrich governed data into business context, label it, and bring domain expertise on top of enterprise data to build AI-ready data assets.AI Agent for Frontier Managers—enable management users to interact with enterprise data through natural language, supporting automated analysis, root-cause diagnosis, and decision recommendations.In large-scale deployments across the financial services and retail sectors, Kyligence’s solutions have delivered substantial improvements in management efficiency and have significantly reduced the time and operating costs associated with data analysis and decision-making.Qatar First; Middle East Strategic DeploymentUnder this partnership, Kyligence will take the State of Qatar as its primary regional entry point to the Gulf regions, with an initial focus on government and semi-government entities, financial services institutions, retailers, and companies in support of their digital transformation and upgrading of enterprise governance.