Doha                                                                                                                                                                                                  03 September 2017

Thousands of Pakistani community members in a spectacular event at  the AlWakra Sports Stadium joined their voices singing a song in Urdu-Arabic Kulana Qatar' Kulana Tamim, paying tributes to Emir of State of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad AlThani, and showing their solidarity with the people of State of Qatar.

Pakistani community as part of Community Out-reaching program of Ministry of Interior collaboration with Ministry of Labour & Social Affairs organised Eid AlAdha celebration event at AlWakra Sports Stadium on 1st & 2nd day of Eid, i.e. 1-2 September 2017.

'Kulana Qatar'Kulana Tamim' (We are with Qatar' We are with Tamim), Arabic-Urdu song is written by Doha based Pakistani poet Shaukat Ali Naz and composed/sung by Pakistan based singer Shahid Ali. The song was an initiative of Janan Bangash and his team members Ashraf Siddiqui, Ajmal Chaudhary and Shiraz Orakzai.

Pakistani Community Welfare Attache at the Pakistan embassy along with other embassy officials attended the event on first day of Eid AlAdha.

Conveying his greeting to the expatriate communities on the occasion of Eid Al Adha, the MoI official mentioned the valuable contribution of expatriate communities in Qatar's national festivals, adding,"We also involve community schools in our National Day festival."

Brig. Abdullah Khalifa al Muftah, Director Public Relations Department, Ministry of Interior  extended Eid greetings to the community members and lauded their contributions in various national festivals. He said that MOI stresses on it's ties with expatriate communities in Qatar and joint Eid celebration events are part of it's Community Out-reaching program. Such occasions are an opportunity to remain in touch with the expatriate communities and engage them in healthy activities and to create social harmony.

Community leaders present on the occasion Janan Bangash, Ashraf Siddiqui and Mohammad Ajmal Chaudhary paid their gratitude to Ministry Interior and Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour & Social Affairs for their concern, care and arranging entertainments, providing an opportunity to the overseas workers for get-together and to enjoy  their religious event.

Eid festivities were held with fervour at various locations including Asian Town, Labour City, Barwa Baraha, Al Wakra Sports Club, Al Ahli Sports Club and Barwa Workers Recreation Complex in Al Khor.

Thousands of gifts were also distributed among participants along with water and beverages.

Indian, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan artists and popular Asian orchestra teams performed various cultural events in Asian Town, Labour City and Barwa Baraha (playground). Sri Lankan & Bangladeshi Community teams and artists from many Indian associations including BPQ, Bharathi, TPS, Birla Summer Camp, QTS, Sanskriti, Skills Development Center and Indian Cultural Centre along with popular Asian orchestra troupes displayed a number of spectacular shows. Thousands of workers from Asian communities were delighted with an array of colourful programs, songs and awareness thematic shows in different venues.

On the occasion, a number of short awareness programs were also organised to educate the workers about workers’ rights and different safety and security measures, traffic safety, drugs and on crimes prevention.

Different departments under the Ministry of Interior including Al Fazaa, General Directorate of Civil Defence, Community Police Department, Criminal Evidences and Investigation Department, General Directorate of Traffic, Human Rights Department along with international Work Relations Department at the Ministry of Administrative Development and Labour took part.

Renowned artists from Nepal including Rajesh Payel Rai, comedian Sandip Chhetri, Chanda Aryal, Pramila Shree Khanal and Amrita Limbu, local Nepalese community artists showcased various musical and cultural shows at Al Ahli Sports Club stadium on first and second days of Eid.

Artists from Pakistan including Shahid Ali Khan, Khalid Malek, Khwaja Masoud, Nadiya Gul, Deepa Kiran and Mariya Khan performed two days in Al Wakrah stadium.

Thousands of gifts from Ministry of Interior & Ministry of Labour & Social Affairs were distributed to the attendees in all venues.

Dignitaries from MOI and MOADLSA participated in the events. Brigadier Abdullah Khalifa Al Muftah, Director of Public Relations Department visited the venues along with many officers from different departments of MOI.

Khalid Abdullah Sultan Al Ghanem, Director of International Workers’ Relations Department at MOADLSA said that the cooperation between MOI and MOADLSA to organize cultural events for workers was a successful move that reflected the care of both ministries for the wellness of workers.

Colonel Ghanem Saad AL Khiyarain, head of External Branches at Community Policing Department said that such activities, in addition to the entertainment programs provided an important awareness mission to the members of the communities in the aspects of security and safety, as well as the introducing the customs and traditions of the Qatari community.

 

 

 

 

Doha                                                                                                                                                                                                    04 September 2017                                                                                                                                                                  (MOFA)

The State of Qatar condemned Monday the Israeli government's decision to allocate financial resources to establish a new settlement in Nablus in the West Bank.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today in a statement that the step was a severe violation of international resolution and an aggression against the rights of the Palestinian people. The statement said that the ongoing Israeli violations will undermine international efforts aiming to implement a two-state solution.

The statement called on the international community to assume their responsibility towards Israel by ending its settlement policy on occupied Palestinian land.

Beijing                                                                                                                                                                                                   31 Aug. 2017                                                                                                                                                                               (BRICS Media/Xinhua)

The New Development Bank (NDB), a multilateral financial institution set up by BRICS, is expected to offer loans totaling 2.5 billion U.S. dollars this year, according to a Chinese official Thursday.

While the NDB approved loans totaling 1.55 billion U.S. dollars last year to seven programs on sustainable development, more loans are expected to be approved later this year, said Zhou Qiangwu, director of the International Economics and Finance Institute, a think tank under the Ministry of Finance.

According to Zhou, the bank has made a lot of progress since it went into operation more than two years ago. For example, yuan-denominated green bonds with a value of 3 billion yuan (454.5 million U.S. dollars) were issued, while the Africa Regional Center of the NDB in Johannesburg was launched earlier this month.

"The NDB is like a baby of the five nations," Zhou said.

As leaders from the BRICS countries gather during the upcoming summit in China's southeastern coastal city of Xiamen from Sept. 3 to 5, the NDB is likely to see more progress, such as agreements to fund new projects in the five countries, Zhou said.

XIAMEN                                                                                                                                                                                             03 September 2017                                                                                                                                                                     (Xinhua)

Chinese President Xi Jinping said Sunday BRICS countries should uphold global peace and stability, stressing a vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security.

"We BRICS countries are committed to upholding global peace and contributing to the international security order," he said while delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum scheduled for Sept. 3-4 in the southeastern coastal city of Xiamen.

This year, the BRICS countries have held the Meeting of High Representatives for Security Issues and the Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and International Relations. The countries have put in place the regular meeting mechanism for permanent representatives to the multilateral institutions, and convened the Foreign Policy Planning Dialogue, the Meeting of Counter-Terrorism Working Group, the Meeting of Cybersecurity Working Group, and the Consultation on Peacekeeping Operations.

These efforts aim to strengthen consultation and coordination on major international and regional issues and build synergy among BRICS countries, Xi said.

"We should uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and basic norms governing international relations, firmly support multilateralism, work for greater democracy in international relations, and oppose hegemonism and power politics," he said.

He also called on BRICS countries to take a constructive part in the process of resolving geopolitical hotspot issues and make due contributions.

"I am convinced that as long as we take a holistic approach to fighting terrorism in all its forms, and address both its symptoms and root causes, terrorists will have no place to hide," he said.

When dialogue, consultation and negotiation are conducted to create conditions for achieving political settlement of issues such as Syria, Libya and the Palestine-Israel conflict, the flame of war can be put out, and displaced refugees will eventually return to their homes, he said.

Trabzon, Turkey                                                                                                                                                                           AlJazeera News                                                                                                                                                                               03 Sept 2017

Mahmoud al-Abbasi, a visitor from the Saudi city of Medina, looks relaxed as he sits facing the picturesque lake in Uzungol, a mountain village 100km southeast of Trabzon.

"It feels like home and it is relief from the weather in Saudi," he says of the village, exhaling the smoke from a water pipe. "The rain is amazing."

Abbasi is part of a wave of more than half a million Gulf tourists expected to descend on the slopes and valleys of Turkey's eastern Black Sea region by summer's end, despite the ongoing crisis pitting Gulf quartet Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain against Qatar, which is backed by Turkey.

Ankara recently made clear its support for Qatar by taking part in a major joint military exercise with Qatari forces and sending troops to a Turkish military base in Doha. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also sought to push for a negotiated solution by shuttling between Gulf leaders in July when he met various heads of state.

Abbasi, who would like to return to Uzungol in winter to experience the snow, says the current political climate is of little concern to him. "But I hope it can be solved soon," he says.

The dispute seems to have had little effect on the eastern Black Sea's now-booming tourism industry. In July, eight cities in Saudi Arabia launched direct flights to Trabzon, the regional hub, to meet demand from Saudi tourists. The UAE and Kuwait also offer direct flights, bypassing the need for tourists to travel through airports in Istanbul, where an attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) killed 45 people in June 2016.

The throngs of Arab tourists are a boon to a region that, in the past, was more focused on contending with mass migration to Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir in the west. Today, Gulf tourists are welcomed with open arms; their holidaying was worth more than $1.5bn to the local economy last year. Tour operators say that because Gulf visitors generally travel in groups of extended families and look for packages that include airport transfers, accommodation and local tours, they spend more than visitors from other parts of the world.

"Every year it has been getting busier and busier in June, July and August," says Sumeyah Salah, a receptionist at the Royal Uzungol Hotel, which opened in 2015 and charges from $250 a night. "Around 80 percent of our summer customers come from Gulf countries, and Saudi tourists make up the majority."

In the first five months of this year, more than 22,000 Arab tourists visited Uzungol, a village with a permanent residential population of fewer than 2,000 people, according to the Trabzon Chamber of Commerce. More than 70 hotels and apartments catering to arange of budgets have sprung up in the village in less than a decade.

It is a region that's easy to fall for. Above Uzungol in lush, green mountains rising two thousand metres above sea level, the spectacular sight of a paraglider slowly making his way down into the valley catches people's eyes. At any of a number of restaurants, fish for visitors' tables can be chosen from the adjacent outdoor ponds.

Locals have worked hard to draw tourists to an idyllic part of Turkey with a culture similar to the Arab world's. Arabic-language road signage and language courses have become commonplace in Trabzon. Nineteen new hotel projects were launched over the past 18 months in Trabzon alone, according to the Hoteliers Association of Turkey; and across the eastern Black Sea, seven $25m hotel resorts are set to be built specifically for the Arab tourist trade. A 2,600-km new highway dubbed the Green Road and built - in the words of a regional development authority - to attract Gulf tourists, is set to open next year.

But not everyone is happy. Conservationists say the Green Road, a project of the state-run Eastern Black Sea Regional Development Plan, will inflict untold damage to fauna and disrupt shepherds' access to mountain pastures.

The hotel association has warned that the growth of accommodation construction may result in hotel rooms lying empty in the months and years to come because the local tourist season is largely limited to summer months. Arab tourists buying apartments in Trabzon's city centre are thought to have been responsible for driving up housing prices.

 

And for local businesses specialising in serving Gulf tourists, the spectre of recent events in the peninsula hangs in the air. "It's impossible to ignore the crisis," says Mustafa Ahmad, who is from Syria and works as a translator for Vazelon Tours, a major Trabzon-based operator that caters to around 20,000 Arab tourists each year.

"There are less this year by about 7,000 people compared with 2016, probably because of the issues between the Gulf countries," he says. "But it is not an issue tourists who have already come here are worried about. It's up to God, but we think the situation will change soon. The Arab countries are brothers, in the end."

At Trabzon airport's departures terminal, a constant flow of Arabic-speaking couples and groups stream indoors towards check-in desks, bound for any of several Gulf destinations. Abdullah Abdelhamid, from the Jordanian capital Amman, had never been to the region before, though he is adamant he will return.

"It's amazing. The green scenery, the quiet atmosphere, and it is not hot here," he says from a seat in the departures lounge. He and his wife are among a tour group of 13 Jordanians who just returned from visiting the Sumela monastery high in the Pontic mountains.

Jordan has also been drawn into the crisis, and in June downgraded diplomatic ties with Qatar, expelled Doha's ambassador and closed Al Jazeera's offices in Jordan.

"I'm not here to talk about politics; I'm here to enjoy myself," Abdelhamid says. "But I don't see any problem coming back here."

Myanmar-Bangladesh    
AlJazeera News
03 September 2017

Nearly 75,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled violence in Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh, 
with aid officials warning relief camps are reaching full capacity as thousands continue to
pour in every day.

Vivian Tan, the regional spokeswoman for UNHCR, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that at least 
73,000 Rohingya crossed the border since violence erupted on August 25, with thousands more
expected.

"Most of the people coming in are completely exhausted, some of them say they haven't eaten
in days and some are completely traumatised by their experiences," she said.

"One woman arrived on her own after following a band of refugees across the border. When she
met with the UN she said her husband had been shot and her 18-month-old baby had been left 
with her in-laws.

"She has since lost contact with her family and is struggling to process what is happening,"
Tan added.

In recent days, tens of thousands of Rohingya have crossed into Bangladesh to escape mass
killings they say are being perpetrated by Myanmar forces.

Foreign governments and organisations fear Rohingya villages are being subject to collective
punishment after an armed group on August 25 attacked police posts and an army base in the 
western region of Rakhine.

Myanmar officials blame the group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) for the violence, 
but fleeing Rohingya civilians say a campaign of arson and killings by the Myanmar army is 
aimed at forcing them out of the country.

"We fled to Bangladesh to save our lives," said a man who paid a smuggler hundreds of 
dollars to flee the fighting.

"The military and extremist Rakhine [ARSA] are burning us, killing us, setting our village 
on fire," he told the AP news agency.

He said he paid 12,000 Bangladeshi taka, or about $150, for each of his family members to be
smuggled on a wooden boat to Bangladesh after soldiers killed 110 Rohingya in their village 
of Kunnapara, near the coastal town of Maungdaw.

"The military destroyed everything. After killing some Rohingya, the military burned their 
houses and shops," he said. "We have a baby who is eight days only, and an old woman who is
105."

Aid workers told the AP news agency that a large number of refugees required immediate
medical attention as they were suffering from respiratory diseases, infection and 
malnutrition.

The existing medical facilities in the border area were insufficient to cope up with the 
influx and more aid and paramedics were needed, they said.

Another aid official said on Saturday that more than 50 refugees had arrived with bullet 
injuries and were moved to hospitals in Cox's Bazar, on the border with Myanmar.

Refugees reaching the Bangladeshi fishing village of Shah Porir Dwip described bombs 
exploding near their homes and Rohingya being burned alive.

The UN believes the Myanmar government's response to the crisis may amount to ethnic 
cleansing and crimes against humanity.

Satellite imagery analysed by Human Rights Watch shows hundreds of buildings destroyed in 
at least 17 sites across Rakhine state, including some 700 structures that appeared to have
been burned down in just the village of Chein Khar Li.

Myanmar authorities say Rohingya "extremist terrorists" have been setting the fires during
fighting with government troops, while Rohingya have blamed soldiers who have been accused 
of carrying out extrajudicial killings.