IN 2009 President Obama signed
a federal bias crimes law named
for the victims of two gruesome
1998 atrocities: the young gay
man who was tortured, lashed to
a fence and left to die; and the black
man chained to the back of a pickup
by white supremacists and dragged
until he was dismembered. The
Matthew Shepard and James Byrd
Jr.
THE biggest forum for sex
trafficking of underage girls
in the United States appears
to be a website called
Backpage.com. This emporium
for girls and women - some
underage or forced into prostitution
- is in turn owned by an
opaque private company called
Village Voice Media. Until now it
has .
HER Highness Sheikha Moza's
presence with the Emir His
Highness Sheikh Hamad bin
Khalifa al Thani on their state
visit to India is, according to
sources on both sides, set to add
"a complete new dimension to
Qatar ...
A BRIDAL gown worth QR55,000 by Hollywood designer Vera Wang and another exquisitely-designed gown by Pronovias worth more than QR58,000 are among the must-see items ...
QATAR National Bank (QNB), Qatar's largest lender by market value, said on Wednesday that first quarter net profit rose 17 percent to QR2 billion ($549 million) from QR1.70 billion in the year earlier, on strong loan ...
EL JAISH edged Qatar Sports Club 101-99 in a nerve-wracking Emir Cup basketball match that went into over-time, on Wednesday. The hero for the winner was Baker Mohammed who scored 31 and got 6 rebounds ...
BARELY a year and a half has passed since the release of Pink Friday, the platinum debut album by Nicki Minaj, but her style is well honed. She's a sparkling rapper with a gift for comic accents and unexpected turns of phrase. She's a ...
THE Gulf Helicopters on Wednesday donated QR10,000 to Qatar Academy (QA) for the completion of its sister school Eravur Educational Development Institute´s building project in Sri Lanka (EEDI). The EEDI is a long-term community school and service project which is funded by the Qatar Academy students. More than 200 students in Sri Lanka are attending English and IT classes for...
QATAR Charity (QC) has selected 80 schools to take part in its ´Ana Snafi´ (I´m Snafi) and ´Habbat Reeh´ (Gust of Wind) programmes. The programmes aim to promote good behaviour and strong values among the youth. Executive Director of QC´s Domestic Development Department Mohammed Ali al Ghamdi said that over 120 schools in the country had participated in the last month´s...
THE best way to come to grips with cancer is to live your life as normally as possible, and that a positive attitude is better than treatments at times. This is the message that comes from the Hayat Cancer Support Group, which is now becoming a movement across Qatar, inspiring cancer patients and their family members to adopt a positive thinking, along with medical treatment, to cope up with cancer. Amani Halawa, administrative coordinator for the group.
MAZAYA Qatar Real Estate Development Company may consider entering into community housing projects "if there is acute shortage of houses", on the lines of Barwa and Ezdan, its chairman has said. "At the moment we don´t see any shortage in supplies. It makes no sense to enter this market at this point of time," Mazaya Qatar Chairman Rashid Fahad al Naimi told reporters at a function, in Doha, on Wednesday. According to Naimi, the company would continue ...
RUSSIA´S Energy Ministry has outlined a new tax policy designed to attract tens of billions of dollars of investment into promising but challenging new oil provinces in Arctic offshore zones, government sources said on Wednesday. The world´s largest oil producer faces falling output in the Soviet-era oil heartland of Western Siberia and will need to open up its continental shelf to sustain output that, according to some forecasts, would otherwise peak later this ...
FEDERAL Reserve policymakers have backed away from the need for another round of monetary stimulus as the US economy gradually improves. Minutes of the central bank´s meeting published on Tuesday showed only two of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee´s 10 voting members saw the case for additional monetary stimulus. That was a big shift from January, when several officials thought economic conditions might warrant a ...
THE presence of eight riders who have won the Grand Prix World Championship once or more underlines the depth that the premier class grid has in the 2012 MotoGP. Led by Italian Valentino Rossi of Ducati, who has won seven out of his nine world titles in the MotoGP and 500cc class alone, the elite group comprises Jorge Lorenzo (3), Dani Pedrosa (3), Casey Stoner (2), Alvaro Bautista (1), Andrea Dovizioso (1), Stefan Bradl (1) and Nicky Hayden (1) ...
RICHARD Levi hit a 35-ball 50 to guide Mumbai Indians to an easy eight-wicket win over defending champion Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League (IPL) opening match on Wednesday. The South African, who smashed the fastest T20 century off 45 balls against New Zealand at Hamilton in February, cracked three sixes and six fours on his IPL debut as Mumbai surpassed Chennai´s total of 112 ...
LIONEL Messi swept holder Barcelona into the Champions League semi-finals for the fifth successive year on Tuesday while becoming the competition´s most prolific scorer in a single season. The Argentina forward scored a pair of first-half penalty kicks and Andres Iniesta added another goal after the break to give Barcelona a 3-1 victory over AC Milan following a 0-0 draw in Italy. Messi´s 14th Champions League goal this season surpassed Ruud van...
MOST people who undertake a home renovation will endure varying degrees of financial strain, not to mention the twisting of the stomach that happens when their dreams are slowly crushed by reality. Adi Tatarko, 39, and her husband, Alon Cohen, 40, experienced all of that, as well as the usual "War of the Roses"-type discord. But for them, the most difficult thing was communicating their ideas to an architect. After struggling to describe their vision, they ...
IF he hadn´t known better, Lionel Richie jokes that he might have felt insulted when initially sitting down with some of today´s top country stars to record his new album of duets, Tuskegee. "I pulled out the lyrics to the songs, and they were like, ´what´s that?´ "I said, ´here are the lyrics.´" Richie says with a mock look of astonishment, then smiles. "They said, ´Oh no, man. I know this. I´ve been singing it since 1983 or 1987´. Someone even said, ´I´ve been singing ...
MODEL-TURNED-ACTRESS Mugdha Godse reveals that she is a very religious person and believes in universal power. "I´m a very religious person," said Mugdha who was seen in films like Fashion and Jail. Commenting upon religion and conflicts over it in the country, she said: "I believe in universal power and positive energy. I´m a follower of Lord Shiva. I don´t follow any philosophy or a religious guru. Hinduism has the freedom to ...
FIERCE clashes in Syria killed at
least 18 people on Wednesday,
mostly in Homs, as regime forces
stormed and shelled villages in
fresh operations, monitors said.
Seven people were killed in the
central city of Homs — four rebels
who died in clashes with the regular
army in the neighbourhood of
Qussur and three civilians, including
a man and his son, the Syrian
Observatory of Human Rights
said.
QATAR National Bank (QNB),
Qatar’s largest lender by market
value, said on Wednesday that
first quarter net profit rose 17
percent to QR2 billion from
QR1.70 billion in the year earlier,
on strong loan growth and rising
customer deposits. The quarterly
result beat the QR1.93 billion
effort that analysts at EFG
Hermes had forecast, but was
short of the QR2.12 billion that
Global Investment House had
pencilled in.
THE Gulf Helicopters on Wednesday donated QR10,000 to Qatar Academy (QA) for the completion of its sister school Eravur Educational Development Institute´s building project in Sri Lanka (EEDI). The EEDI is a long-term community school and service project which is funded by the Qatar Academy students. More than 200 students in Sri Lanka are attending English and IT classes for...
QATAR Charity (QC) has selected 80 schools to take part in its ´Ana Snafi´ (I´m Snafi) and ´Habbat Reeh´ (Gust of Wind) programmes. The programmes aim to promote good behaviour and strong values among the youth. Executive Director of QC´s Domestic Development Department Mohammed Ali al Ghamdi said that over 120 schools in the country had participated in the last month´s... 
THE best way to come to grips with cancer is to live your life as normally as possible, and that a positive attitude is better than treatments at times. This is the message that comes from the Hayat Cancer Support Group, which is now becoming a movement across Qatar, inspiring cancer patients and their family members to adopt a positive thinking, along with medical treatment, to cope up with cancer. Amani Halawa, administrative coordinator for the group. 
MAZAYA Qatar Real Estate Development Company may consider entering into community housing projects "if there is acute shortage of houses", on the lines of Barwa and Ezdan, its chairman has said. "At the moment we don´t see any shortage in supplies. It makes no sense to enter this market at this point of time," Mazaya Qatar Chairman Rashid Fahad al Naimi told reporters at a function, in Doha, on Wednesday. According to Naimi, the company would continue ...
RUSSIA´S Energy Ministry has outlined a new tax policy designed to attract tens of billions of dollars of investment into promising but challenging new oil provinces in Arctic offshore zones, government sources said on Wednesday. The world´s largest oil producer faces falling output in the Soviet-era oil heartland of Western Siberia and will need to open up its continental shelf to sustain output that, according to some forecasts, would otherwise peak later this ... 
FEDERAL Reserve policymakers have backed away from the need for another round of monetary stimulus as the US economy gradually improves. Minutes of the central bank´s meeting published on Tuesday showed only two of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee´s 10 voting members saw the case for additional monetary stimulus. That was a big shift from January, when several officials thought economic conditions might warrant a ...
THE presence of eight riders who have won the Grand Prix World Championship once or more underlines the depth that the premier class grid has in the 2012 MotoGP. Led by Italian Valentino Rossi of Ducati, who has won seven out of his nine world titles in the MotoGP and 500cc class alone, the elite group comprises Jorge Lorenzo (3), Dani Pedrosa (3), Casey Stoner (2), Alvaro Bautista (1), Andrea Dovizioso (1), Stefan Bradl (1) and Nicky Hayden (1) ... 
RICHARD Levi hit a 35-ball 50 to guide Mumbai Indians to an easy eight-wicket win over defending champion Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League (IPL) opening match on Wednesday. The South African, who smashed the fastest T20 century off 45 balls against New Zealand at Hamilton in February, cracked three sixes and six fours on his IPL debut as Mumbai surpassed Chennai´s total of 112 ... 
LIONEL Messi swept holder Barcelona into the Champions League semi-finals for the fifth successive year on Tuesday while becoming the competition´s most prolific scorer in a single season. The Argentina forward scored a pair of first-half penalty kicks and Andres Iniesta added another goal after the break to give Barcelona a 3-1 victory over AC Milan following a 0-0 draw in Italy. Messi´s 14th Champions League goal this season surpassed Ruud van...
MOST people who undertake a home renovation will endure varying degrees of financial strain, not to mention the twisting of the stomach that happens when their dreams are slowly crushed by reality. Adi Tatarko, 39, and her husband, Alon Cohen, 40, experienced all of that, as well as the usual "War of the Roses"-type discord. But for them, the most difficult thing was communicating their ideas to an architect. After struggling to describe their vision, they ...
IF he hadn´t known better, Lionel Richie jokes that he might have felt insulted when initially sitting down with some of today´s top country stars to record his new album of duets, Tuskegee. "I pulled out the lyrics to the songs, and they were like, ´what´s that?´ "I said, ´here are the lyrics.´" Richie says with a mock look of astonishment, then smiles. "They said, ´Oh no, man. I know this. I´ve been singing it since 1983 or 1987´. Someone even said, ´I´ve been singing ...
MODEL-TURNED-ACTRESS Mugdha Godse reveals that she is a very religious person and believes in universal power. "I´m a very religious person," said Mugdha who was seen in films like Fashion and Jail. Commenting upon religion and conflicts over it in the country, she said: "I believe in universal power and positive energy. I´m a follower of Lord Shiva. I don´t follow any philosophy or a religious guru. Hinduism has the freedom to ... 
