PM greets new Chinese premier
QNA/Doha
HE the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor al-Thani has sent a cable of congratulations to Li Keqiang who was endorsed as the Prime Minister of China on Friday at the annual session of the 12th National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s top legislature.
Yesterday, China’s parliament named Wang Yi as the country’s new foreign minister.
Scientific forum for youth begins today
QNA/Doha
The first scientific forum for youth is to kick off in Doha today under the patronage of HE Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kuwari.
The three-day event is organised by the youth activities department at the ministry in co-operation with Qatar Scientific Club under the slogan, “Innovations of Our Children in Service of Our Country”.
Emir’s leadership will ensure Arab summit’s success: UAE envoy
QNA/Doha
The UAE’s ambassador to Qatar Juma’a Rashid al-Dhaheri has said that the leadership of HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani ensures the success of any Arab meeting or summit.
Speaking to Qatar News Agency (QNA), the ambassador expressed full confidence that the upcoming Arab Summit, due to be held in Doha later this month will be successful under the leadership of HH the Emir.
He pointed out that the 24th Arab Summit is extraordinary by all standards, being held at a very critical time due to the difficult conditions experienced by the Arab countries, especially the countries of the so-called “Arab Spring”.
He noted that the Syrian issue will be in the forefront of the topics listed on the agenda, in addition to the Palestinian issue which was and is still the central Arab cause.
The Ambassador also highlighted the Arab economic integration which he believed to be a very important item on the agenda that Arab leaders will discuss extensively.
The UAE ambassador hailed the close and excellent relations between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in all fields, noting the constant contact between leaders of the two countries, HH the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and President of the UAE Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
ExxonMobil to support Middle East turbomachinery symposium
ExxonMobil will support the Middle East Turbomachinery Symposium at the Qatar National Convention Centre from March 17 to 20.
Held under the patronage of HE the Minister of Energy and Industry, Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-Sada, the second edition of the symposium is hosted by Qatar Petroleum and organised by Texas A&M University’s turbomachinery laboratory.
The event will feature lectures, tutorials, case studies, discussion groups, and short courses that are on par with the high quality of the turbomachinery and ‘Pump Symposia’ held annually in Houston, Texas.
Additionally, the symposium exhibit hall will feature industry leading companies with exhibits of the latest services and full-sized equipment.
“Building on the success of the inaugural symposium, this year’s event is set to raise the bar with its robust and comprehensive technical programme and an impressive exhibition,” said ExxonMobil Qatar President and General Manager Bart Cahir.
“Qatar Petroleum and its partners have built one of the world’s most impressive turbomachinery asset bases, which make Qatar an ideal place to bring industry participants together to discuss challenges and opportunities in this field.”
The symposium seeks to promote professional development, technology transfers, international peer networking, and information exchange among industry professionals.
Enterprise Qatar to organise workshops, training sessions
Enterprise Qatar (EQ) will launch a series of workshop and training sessions that will be provided free to Qatari enterprises, SME owners and managerial teams to help them ensure their businesses’ success and long-term continuity.
The programme, it said, will help the trainees to develop “creative business plans” in addition to raise awareness on the available financing schemes in the local market such as Islamic Banking. The programme is provided in co-operation with KPMG, Deloitte, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Qinvest.
Noora al-Mannai, chief executive officer, Enterprise Qatar, said: “Enterprise Qatar exerts all possible efforts to help the country in creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem, in line with the Qatar National Vision 2030, in order to develop a versatile, knowledge-based and to create new job opportunities for the Qatari youth. We should focus our attention on start-ups and SMEs through such programmes.”
“The workshops will provide the necessary assistance to each party concerned in the managerial, financial, legal and accountability specialties. This programme is part of EQ’s continuous efforts to develop a healthy environment for SMEs,” al-Mannai said.
QCS stages peace
run in Mogadishu
QNA/Doha
Qatar Charitable Society (QCS) and the Somali Olympic Committee have organised a peace run in the Somali capital Mogadishu under the slogan “Day of Peace to the capital”.
As the stability of the Somali capital is rapidly improving Somali Olympic Committee (SOC) and Mogadishu authority have jointly organised the mile-long peace run to encourage its residents and to emphasise the importance of peace and its relationship to health.
The mayor of Mogadishu, SOC’s officials including the secretary general, athletes, students of various universities and schools, Qatar Charity’s orphans and hundreds of youth in the capital participated in Friday’s run which is the first of its kind in Somali capital and was widely welcomed by the residents of this war ravaged city who lined up the streets to cheer the initiative.
“I am pleased to share with you today here in Mogadishu that the first peace run event organised by Somali Olympic Committee and Mogadishu council has gone successfully. We are very grateful to the mayor of Mogadishu Mohamud Nur for his tireless support and understanding of peace promoting and national awareness initiatives such as this,” said the SOC secretary general Duran Farah who was addressing the crowd and the media at the finishing line of the run.
“The aim of the run was mainly to encourage the peace progress of the city and to promote sports activities within the country after such a lengthy time of insecurity and disorder and Somali Olympic Committee is very committed to play its role of raising the awareness and the hope of Mogadishu’s youth and children and to turn them away from taking part of violence and extremism,” he added.
For his part, former basketball player and mayor of Mogadishu Mohamud Ahmed Nur has thanked Somali Olympic Committee and the organisers for their “bright idea” and guaranteed the Mogadishu mile long peace run will continue in the years to come which he said will play a vital role to the peace development of the city, a press statement issued by QCS said.
“Mogadishu is recovering with its people from more than two decades of war which prevented all sport loving community to freely participate in sports competitions and activities and what you have witnessed today verifies that the people of Mogadishu are fully supportive of government’s efforts to promote peace and stability as well as the Somali Olympic Committee’s willingness to organise peace supporting sports activities in the town” said the mayor after completing the mile long run himself.
Mogadishu’s few sports facilities have been destroyed by the long civil war that devastated the whole city where just cracked streets are the only track available for Somali athletes who are eager to train and compete in national and international competitions.
Forum discusses effect of
social media on journalism
By Ayman Adly/Staff Reporter
Conventional journalism has been greatly influenced by the means of online social media and it has to upgrade its methods in order to be current and relevant, the Al Jazeera 7th Forum has stressed.
Such considerable and unavoidable development has made online resources valuable materials for the media as well as important platforms to voice different views. Further, online journalism has played a key role at covering the revolutions of the Arab Spring.
Al Jazeera Net was a pioneer in the Arab world to incorporate such new methods of media and invited people to share their photos, videos and views from the heart of the events. It was also pioneer in accepting to publish low quality images and videos taken by the mobiles of the people at the event to show a true image of the events, pointed out Dr Mohamed el-Amin Mosa, professor of communication at the College of Communication, Sharjah, at forum yesterday.
He was speaking at a session on the “Online journalism and social media”. He said that online forums have also become an important source of information for journalists and reporters, considering the tweets on Twitter as miniature press columns expressing very briefly the views of many people. Similarly, Facebook could be considered a fully developed paper with its photos, comments and news shared among its billions of users. He also recommended that journalists could further develop and investigate the stories and view that appear online by amateurs as they generally give a glimpse into the preferences of people and the hot issues for them.
“Social media has the most diverse audience and accessed by a vast majority of people, so conventional press has to target this and incorporate it as its way for reaching out a wider audience,” explained Basil Okoor, a Jordanian journalist and founder of a press website.
He said that online resources and social media have become inevitable for the press and it has to address it interactively, closely following all the things happening there as an essential source of information.