Job Discussion Forums

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http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/231746-journalist%E2%80%99s-bounty-on-assad%E2%80%99s-head.html

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To keep up with events in Q just google

Al Jazeera English. Their articles are pretty good.

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http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/226401-popular-tea-shop-on-corniche-closed.html

This is a real shame - a place to buy a cheap cup of coffee (2 QR) after a jog or run on the Corniche. The only other place is an expensive Lebanese restaurant (with a great roof patio) but coffee costs 15 QR or more.

This place was a boon for the lower socio-economic groups. Some people think it was closed to discourage them from using the Corniche. They have nowhere else to go as every other public space is off limits to these guys.

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Qatar is where it's at if you like to laugh! Maybe some folk need to lighten up and laugh from the belly!

http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/231847-laughter-club-set-up.html


Laughter club set up
Friday, 05 April 2013

DOHA: In arguably a first, a laughter club has been set up in Doha and it is being inaugurated on April 15, the promoters of the novel initiative said in a release. 30 VIPs have been invited to the opening event on April 15 at the club�s premises in Najma. A similar event has been lined up on April 18 which will be open to the public.

Nicole van Hattem, Director and CEO of the �Art of Abundant Living�, the wellbeing company, said in the release: �Our health education will teach about laughter as the best medicine�.

After the April 18 event, classes comprising laughter exercises for stress release, will be held weekly at the club�s premises.

Laughing 100 times a day is equivalent to 10 minutes of hard rowing. A good, strong laugh for 10 to 15 minutes a day increases weekly energy consumption by up to 280 calories, the release said. Laughter yoga is a complete wellbeing workout. It has brought significant changes in the lives of people from all over the world with physical and even mental disabilities.

It has proven health benefits and promotes circulation and blood flow. A just one good hearty laugh burns up to four calories, said the release.

Laughter brings more oxygen to the body and brain. Laughter also releases endorphins, a chemical more powerful than the pain-relieving drug, morphine, adds the release.

The events are being organised in collaboration with Gabi Pezo, a certified laughter yoga leader and teacher. Gabi Pezo was quoted as saying:

�Doha is going to laugh like never before and everyone who joins us will be able to experience a stronger immune system, reduced stress, increased pain tolerance, and no side-effects supplement for weight loss and it could actually change your life if you are willing to laugh unconditionally, despite your circumstances�.

She further quotes her trainer and the creator of the Laughter Yoga Movement, Madan Kataria �Fast and powerful. No - Sweat Cardiovascular Workout. 10 minutes of Belly Laughter equals 30 minutes on the Rowing Machine.�

Nicole van Hattem added: �We want people to join in and see for themselves the powerful and immediate benefits of Laughter Yoga in terms of their mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. We want to show how scientifically laughter can be practiced as physical and behavioural exercise to relax muscles, bring smile, add confidence, hope and optimism in their everyday lives. Though it�s a new concept but we are expecting a lot of interest from people from all walks of life, nationality and age.�

There will be two inaugural sessions: Laughter Yoga session 1, which will take place on April 15 from 6 to 7 pm. It will be specifically for the corporate and individual clients of the company and media representatives.

Session 2 which will be held on April 18th from 10 to 11am in the morning is going to be a free session open to all public. All laughter yoga classes will be held at the wellbeing centre, situated on Najma street, off C ring road. The Laughter Yoga sessions will highlight the importance of laughter in mitigating tension and injecting exuberance and vivacity into the practicing individuals through different laughter, breathing and stretching exercises.

The Peninsula

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For those of us who live & work in the Magic Kingdom, we need our monthly R&R breaks. Normally most of us to to Manama but the recent problems and riots and getting stuck on the causeway unable to get back to work on time are too risky. So we come to Qatar and pay twice the price for hotels - food prices are higher than KSA and Bahrain but hotels are exhorbitant. Most of the old 2* places are gone and 3* costs what 4* does in Manama. You could even get some 5* rooms there there for what you'd pay for a 3* here. I like coming back now & then as I used to work here at QU more than 22 years ago but there are so many changes. The best place to hang out is Souk Waqef and Radisson Blu which I knew as the Ramada. Be prepared to spend!

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http://dohanews.co/post/52214971948/back-to-back-reports-highlight-qatars-millionaire

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Teaching the Limits of Media Freedom Is Tricky in the Gulf
By D. D. GUTTENPLAN
DOHA, QATAR � When Matt J. Duffy first got a job teaching journalism at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi in 2010, he was thrilled.

Besides teaching courses in storytelling, journalistic ethics, and media regulation at Zayed, Dr. Duffy, an enthusiastic blogger, became a frequent contributor to Gulf News, a Dubai newspaper. He also was chairman of a conference on the role of the media in the Arab Spring, started a student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and organized campus celebrations of World Press Freedom Day last May. Three months later, he was expelled from the United Arab Emirates without any explanation.
In Doha, the capital of the neighboring Gulf state of Qatar, students at Northwestern University�s campus there were discussing recently the relevance of the admonition by the investigative journalist I.F. Stone that �all governments lie� to a society whose leaders seldom feel the need to explain their actions. The classroom debate was as spirited and irreverent as it might be on any U.S. campus, and the students � a mix of Qataris, Gulf-based expatriates and foreigners � seemed adept at negotiating the contradictions between the uninhibited reporting on Al Jazeera, a network based in Doha and funded by the local government, and the fact that as one student put it, �If they don�t like what you say here, they can deport you.�
�Journalism in the Arab world is in the middle of a revolution. As a result, journalism education is also in a revolution,� Lawrence Pintak, the dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University, said by telephone. He said that before Al Jazeera started in 1996, television news was an �oxymoron.� �Now everyone in the Gulf gets their news on TV,� he said. �The Gulf in particular is rife with inherent contradictions,� Dr. Pintak added. �This is a society where women are second-class citizens, yet at the same time they poured millions of dollars into Education City, where the sexes mix and where women get a very hard-edged education. It�s a feudal society that is at the same time extremely modern.� The author of �The New Arab Journalist,� Dr. Pintak, a veteran Middle East correspondent who also directed a journalism program at The American University in Cairo, described himself as �a child of Watergate.� �My generation all wanted to bring down a president,� he said. �That sense of the possible is what I see in Arab students today.�
Dr. Pintak said that Al Jazeera�s widely respected reporting on the uprisings of the Arab Spring had been a major influence on �Arab students, who have grown up with all this and want to emulate that kind of reporting. They grew up in very controlled societies. And they want to speak truth to power.� At Northwestern in Qatar �students write stories about guest workers, sexuality issues, all kinds of controversial subjects,� said the dean, Everette E. Dennis, who described the effects of journalism education in the region as �incremental.� �At one level, what we do isn�t that different from how journalism is taught elsewhere,� he said. �Occasionally books are stopped at customs and we have to go to the authorities to explain why we need them. But most of the faculty here feel they can say what they want. And talk in the classrooms is pretty blunt.��When you are a guest in someone else�s country, what is your role?� Dr. Dennis asked. �We see ourselves as part of Qatar�s effort to transform itself from a society based on extractive industry to a knowledge-based economy. But there is not a tradition of freedom of the press in the Gulf � or in the Arab world generally.�
Shaun T. Schafer, the coordinator of the journalism program at Metropolitan State University in Denver, wrote his doctoral thesis on journalism education in the Middle East, drawing in part on his own experience teaching at Cairo University before the Arab Spring. �There were things you just knew to never write about,� he said by telephone. �And it wasn�t always political. For example you�d never write a business news feature, because if you mentioned a company by name, everyone would assume you�d been paid off.� The techniques taught in journalism classes may have been the same as in the West, but most of Dr. Schafer�s students saw no alternative to careers in state-controlled media. �I was teaching them how to conduct interviews, how to write a news story. But then they would go to work for Al Ahram or one of the government-connected conglomerates,� he said. �Since the Arab Spring, all that has started to open up.�


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/world/middleeast/22iht-educside22.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y 1


This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 23, 2013


An earlier version of this article said that Lawrence Pintak directed the journalism program at The American University in Cairo. He directed a broadcast journalism program.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/world/asia/taliban-peace-envoys-in-qatar-with-nothing-to-do.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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http://dohanews.co/post/46242178040/longtime-editor-defends-journalists-in-qatar


http://dohanews.co/post/48994420788/report-qatari-law-prevents-journalists-from-doing

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/world/middleeast/22iht-educside22.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

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Cybercrime draft law draws flak

DOHA: A draft cybercrime law approved by the State Cabinet late last week has kicked up a row, with Qatar�s media freedom watchdog severely criticising it for dealing with issues that concern freedom of expression on the Internet.
Upset over it, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has also raised the issue with the Qatari government, urging a review.
The Director of Doha Centre for Media Freedom (DCMF), Jan Keulen, told a popular local news website, Doha News, cybercrime is a separate issue from freedom of expression on the Internet. �This freedom (of expression) should be guaranteed. I don�t think it�s a good idea to mix the two things. I think those very general provisions and stipulations could be abused.�
�I think any attempt to regulate content on the Internet is bound to fail due to the worldwide nature of the Internet�.

The Washington Post published an Associated Press dispatch from Doha that said Qatar�s government had backed new Internet codes that widen controls over news websites and online commentary after similar clampdowns by other GCC countries. The CPJ has, on the other hand, shot off a communication to the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani, saying the cybercrime draft law approved by the Cabinet would restrict online expression on news websites and social media.
The CPJ urged the Premier to reconsider the draft law. �We ask you to postpone its (the bill or the draft) submission to the Advisory Council and consult media, legal and human rights representatives to ensure that its provisions do not infringe on freedom of expression.�
The CPJ said in its letter to the Premier that countries that throughout the Middle East and beyond look to Qatar as a media leader in recognition of its Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression and freedom of the press, and in light of Al Jazeera�s ambitious and expanding global reach.

�Qatar should affirm its position as a global leader by ensuring that the cybercrime bill does not impinge on a free and open Internet, which is a necessary condition for the exercise of press freedom and freedom of expression,� added the CPJ. Critics not wanting their names in print due to the sensitivity of the issue, meanwhile, said they were surprised why the draft was not discussed with those concerned before the Cabinet�s approval �Like the draft of the media law this bill should also have been circulated to the parties concerned for their opinion,� a critic said. Keulen said that in its capacity as a media watchdog for Qatar, the DCMF would �very much like to be consulted� on issues related to the law in the future.
To recall, the draft suggests punishment for publishing news, photos, audio or visual recordings on the Internet thereby violating the private and family life of an individual.
The draft goes on to add that such information or audio, video or visuals cannot be published about an individual even if it is true. Such acts are to be treated as slander and libel on the Internet or any other means of information technology, the draft said, Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported earlier.
�This is absurd. Does this mean one shouldn�t even talk about well-known figures like actors, political, social and religious leaders on the Internet,� said a critic not wanting his name in print due to the sensitivity of the issue. The issue seems to have angered many in the Qatari community as well, as evidenced from a barrage of tweets. �Can�t we talk about famous people as well? What happens if a famous actor divorces his wife or vice versa? Can�t we talk about it,� wondered a Qatari in remarks to this newspaper.



http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/239617-cybercrime-draft-law-draws-flak.html\
http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/239535-tweeters-meeting-to-discuss-concerns.html

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http://dohanews.co/post/52625181874/qatar-to-start-rolling-out-national-health-insurance

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http://dohanews.co/post/50338104851/survey-gulf-wide-nationalization-efforts-face-similar

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http://dohanews.co/post/52526103507/qatar-city-to-be-built-in-haiti-as-part-of-qatars

A great project!