07 Dec. 2017                                                                                                                                                                                  (The Wall Street Journal/                                                                                                                                                                 the guardian)

US government intelligence and a Middle East art-world figure familiar with the purchase say Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman used a proxy to purchase the 500 year old 'Salvator Mundi'.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is leading an austerity drive at home, is the bidder who paid a record $450.3 million for a Leonardo da Vinci portrait of Jesus Christ, settling one of the art world’s biggest mysteries.

'the guardian' reports

The saga of the only Leonardo Da Vinci painting in private hands has taken another twist with reports that US intelligence has identified the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, as the true buyer of the painting, which was sold for $450m at auction.

The claim will raise eyebrows, coming in the midst of a sweeping anti-corruption drive in the kingdom that has seen 159 business leaders including members of the royal family imprisoned in a five-star hotel over allegations of financial malfeasance.

The actual buyer of Salvator Mundi, a painting depicting Jesus Christ, was identified on Thursday as Prince Bader bin Abdullah, a little known Saudi prince who was appointed to a commission led by Bin Salman in July and appears to be an ally of the crown prince.

US intelligence assessments seen by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have identified Bin Salman, the powerful heir to the Saudi throne, as the true buyer of the painting, with Prince Bader acting as an intermediary.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi this week announced that the painting would be on display in the new museum, in a coup for the institution and its backers, the rulers of the United Arab Emirates, key allies of Bin Salman in a tumultuous time for the Gulf States.

The news further ties the saga of the painting to the intrigues in the kingdom, and may prove embarrassing to the Saudi leader due to the ongoing anti-corruption drive. Earlier this week, Saudi officials said 159 businessmen and princes had been detained at the Ritz-Carlton as part of the campaign, and the bank accounts of 376 people had been frozen.

Such an extravagant purchase, the most expensive in art history, during the crackdown would empower critics of the purge.

08 Dec 2017                                                                                                                                                                                      (Daily News)                                                                                                                                                                                    By Murat Yetkin

In the first official visit of a Turkish president to Greece’s capital in 65 years, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has taken off his gloves and caught the Greek leaders off guard by opening up a debate on the 94-year-old Treaty of Lausanne.

The debate took place live on TV when Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos opened up the subject during his reception of President Erdoğan, referring to an earlier interview his Turkish counterpart gave to the Greek media. In that interview, Erdoğan spoke about a debate in Greece over claims of violations of the Lausanne Treaty regarding the Aegean islands and said that Lausanne was not only about the Aegean but also covered the minority rights of Muslim Turks living in Greece, suggesting that perhaps the treaty should be revised.

When Pavlopoulos said a revision of the Treaty of Lausanne was out of question, Erdoğan insisted in front of the cameras that the treaty was not only between Turkey and Greece, but involved 11 countries, which could be changed and that it could be implemented in full and not partly.

The Treaty of Lausanne, signed on July 24, 1923, was the foundation treaty of Turkey, followed by the declaration of the republic later in the year on Oct. 29. The republic emerged after an independence war was fought against the invading Greek, British, French, Italian, Armenian and Georgian armies.

In the joint press conference, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras also said revising the treaty was out of question, and Erdoğan did not repeat his comments regarding its revision but urged the Greek leader to implement fully the minority rights of some 150,000 Muslim Turks. Inevitably, journalists asked him about the full implementation of the religious-minority rights of the Greek Orthodox minority living in Turkey. But Erdoğan had already made his point.

It wasn’t only the Greeks who were surprised by Erdoğan’s Lausanne move, Turks were too.

Erdoğan drew Turkey’s attention to the 90-year-old issue with Greece at a time when the world is occupied with another crisis: U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which Erdoğan warned about by saying the city was a “red line for Muslims.”

Today is the first Friday after Trump’s decision and millions of Muslims are expected to take to the streets across the world after Friday prayers by midday. One could expect Erdoğan to step up the tone of his reaction as a sign of putting pressure on the U.S. prior to the Islamic Cooperation Organization’s emergency meeting on Dec. 13 in Istanbul, which he called for as the term president, but instead he chose to focus on Lausanne, showing his mastery on how quick he could change the agenda.

Perhaps thanks to this maneuver he tried to maintain a degree of control over the potential anti-U.S. protests that would erupt - which should not go out of control to avoid unwanted consequences - and at the same time caught the Greeks off guard, unanticipated by them as they wanted to focus on migration cooperation and trade instead.

It seems that Erdoğan’s visit to Greece is likely to be discussed with many aspects in the near future, leaving aside the question on whether it will bring out any political results.

Bethlehem, Palestine                                                                                                                                                                     08 Dec 2017                                                                                                                                                                          (AlJazeera News)

A senior Palestinian official has said that US Vice President Mike Pence is not welcome in the occupied territories during his scheduled visit later this month.

"We will not receive him in the Palestinian territories," Jibril Rajoub said on Thursday, a day after US President Donald Trump formally recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and said he would start the process of moving its embassy there.

The controversial decision has sparked anger and protests throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, and drawn international condemnation from world leaders.

The embassy move breaks with decades of US policy and risks igniting a "powder keg" in the Middle East region, analysts say.

Pence is expected to visit Israel later this month, with a stop in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.

A US official, speaking to the Associated Press news agency on condition of anonymity, said that Pence still planned to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, noting it would be "counterproductive" to cancel.

Trump's embassy move has inflamed the Israel-Palestine conflict, in which the status of Jerusalem is a key issue. The Palestinians see occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

In announcing the embassy move, Trump said he remained "deeply committed" to finding a peace agreement, noting that the US "would support a two-state solution if agreed to by both sides".

Abbas recently met Jordan's King Abdullah II, after which they issued a joint statement noting that "any measure tampering with the legal and historical status of Jerusalem is invalid" and warning of the "dangerous" repercussions of the embassy move.

Doha                                                                                                                                                                                                  06 December, 2017                                                                                                                                                                        (HMC)

Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) welcomed a notable South Korean delegation to the second Qatar – Korea Medical Forum at HMC’s Medical Education Center for bilateral educational talks focusing on Hepatobiliary Surgery.

Members of the Asan Medical Center’s (AMC) Hepatobiliary team included a multi-disciplinary group of physicians and nurses led by Prof. Ki Hun Kim, Chief of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Liver Transplantation at AMC  joined by HMC clinicians from the respective surgical teams.

Dr. Abdullatif Al Khal, Deputy Chief Medical Officer and Director of Medical Education at HMC, explained that this is a continuation of collaboration between both healthcare systems, which began during the first successful Qatar-Korean medical forum which took place in November 2016.

“We are delighted to have moved forward with this partnership that has seen our two organizations explore areas of collaboration in medical care. Staff from HMC and the Asan Medical Center (AMC) have planned and performed complex surgical procedures together. We look forward to continuing to share ideas and developing more ways to improve the care we give to patients in Qatar,” said Dr. Al-Khal.

PARK Heung-kyeong, the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Qatar said: “I would like to say with appreciation that the second medical forum took place with the strong support from the Qatari side, particularly HE Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, Minister of Public Health and Managing Director of HMC. I hope this forum will provide a good momentum for further cooperation in professional training and patient treatment between Korea and Qatar, as the first forum brought about the full recognition of Korean specialist licenses by the Qatari government.”

HMC and AMC are renowned medical institutions and are committed to expanding the important field of transplantation. The collaboration between these two excellent healthcare organizations will benefit patients in both nations.

“We are grateful to PARK Heung-kyeong, the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Qatar, for his vision and interest in promoting bilateral ties between both healthcare providers and encouraging professional knowledge sharing,” Dr. Al-Khal lauded.

Doha                                                                                                                                                                                                    06 Dec 2017

Sheikh Abdulla Bin Saoud Al Thani, Governor of Qatar Central Bank, opened the second day of the event, outlining Qatar’s position of stability and strength after a tumultuous year, and the exciting potential opportunities that lie ahead.

“The country's economy has remained strong and inflation levels have remained stable. All infrastructure projects including roads, bridges, and stadiums, are being implemented according to plan and will be completed on time. The new state budget for the coming year 2018 supports economic diversification and there is also an increase in government expenditure on all projects and services,” said Sheikh Abdulla.

“Qatar’s financial sector remains strong. Total assets of commercial banks operating in Qatar during the first nine months of 2017 grew by 12.8 percent, compared to 2016. In terms of savings collection, customers' deposits with commercial banks increased by more than 17.5 percent over the same period in 2016. On the domestic level, credit facilities provided by commercial banks increased by 13 percent over the same period in 2016,” he added.

“Perhaps the most important lesson learned from the unjust embargo imposed on the State is self-reliance in order to achieve self-sufficiency in a number of goods and products and the settlement of services,” he concluded.

In the panel sessions that followed, experts discussed how private equity and capital can be deployed, and focused on the role of new financial technologies and the potential – and risk – they represent for Qatar’s economy.

Mohsin Mujtaba, Director of Product and Market Development, Qatar Stock Exchange; Sami Boujelben, Chief Advisor – Chief Executive Office, Qatar Financial Markets Authority; and Talal Samhouri, Head of Asset Management, Amwal LLC tackled the challenges of deploying capital in expensive markets during the first discussion.

Mujjtaba commented that “We need to look beyond 2022 and the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The infrastructure story will reach its conclusion, and Qatar will accelerate its progress towards its 2030 goal of becoming a knowledge-based economy, moving towards a technology-driven lifestyle and industry.”

While smartphones and digital lifestyle applications have significantly disrupted a whole range of industries over the past decade – including finance, retail and hospitality –artificial intelligence-led digital applications are likely to play an even more significant role in the future.

In a live poll of attendees taken during the event, a total of 61 percent felt that financial technology would cause significant disruption to traditional financial services over the next five years. Managing this disruption – and ultimately using it to advance Qatar’s financial sector – will require careful assessment of the risks, according to panellists.

Examining the role of FinTech, Bogdan Bilaus, President, CFA Society Doha, said: “The CFA Society Doha, as an association of investment professionals and member of the CFA Institute network, encourages and supports fintech solutions and innovation, but these should never happen at the expense of market integrity and investors' protection.”

“For this, we engage with policy makers to advocate for technology through agnostic regulation: if a service is regulated when delivered face-to-face by human investment advisers then it should be similarly regulated when delivered on the smartphone by an artificial intelligence algorithm. The need for investors protection is the same, if not greater in the second case,” he added.

Other speakers on the panel, including Houssam Itani, Partner, Financial Services Advisory MENA, FinTech Leader, EY and Ibrahim Mohammed Hassan, Executive Director of Investment, Qatar Development Bank agreed that the pace of change is accelerating due to financial technology.

A morning panel focused upon cyber security and the role of technology in regulation, featuring contributions from Khalid Al-Hashmi, Assistant Undersecretary, Cyber Security, QCERT; Sara Al-Khelaifi, Head of Cyber Security, Qatar Central Bank; and Dr. Ahmed Elmagarmid, Executive Director, Qatar Computer Research Institute

More than 600 international and national delegates attended The Euromoney Qatar Conference in 2017.

Victoria Behn, Director of Middle East and Africa at Euromoney Conferences, said: “This year’s Euromoney Qatar Conference has been a remarkable, watershed event, providing the most insightful commentary on the positioning of Qatar six months after the announcement of the blockade and outlining an exciting future path for development. We are very pleased with the quality of discussion and contribution and look forward to returning to Qatar next year.”

The Euromoney Qatar Conference is set to return to Doha in 2018.

Ankara, Turkey                                                                                                                                                                                06 December 2017

The defence of sanctity of Al Quds, the city of Prophets, where the sacred places of the three celestial religions coexist and where the Haram al-Sharif, our first kiblah, sheds heavenly light at its heart, and the preservation of its historic status are not just the duty of the Muslims but of all humanity.

The touchstone of the establishment and the maintenance of justice, tolerance and mutual respect in the whole world as well as in our region is to be able to protect Al Quds.

There are many examples of the sufferings experienced in the history when the special religious structure of Al Quds and its related intimacy were not respected.

Following the Second World War, a new and an everlasting tragedy began to occur in the region where Al Quds is at the centre.

Each step disregarding the rights of Palestine on Al Quds, recurrently confirmed by the UN Resolutions, is a major blow struck on the dream of the coexistence of people that belong to different religions.

It is certainly not possible to waive from the requisition of a sovereign and independent State of Palestine on 1967 borders with Al Quds as its capital, that we regard as the condition for peace and security in the region.

The decision of the United States of America to recognize al Quds as the capital of Israel is both contrary to the UN Resolutions and to the ancient character of al Quds extending to centuries.

Therefore, this step means disregarding the historical and social facts as well as the international law.

Just like the fact that Israel’s decision to annex Al Quds and its acts and practices therewith are never accepted, this statement is identically invalid in the face of conscience, law and history.

Peace for everyone can only be achieved when the Israeli occupation of East Al Quds, West Bank and Gaza Strip ends and the Palestinians can be free in their own homeland.

As the Summit Chair of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, I hereby call the whole world to protect peace and security for the future generations by opposing these and similar unlawful actions.

As for the countries, which have not recognized the State of Palestine yet, we believe that it has now become necessary to take this important step to ensure a balance that keeps the common sense and justice alive.

Today, it is the common duty of all people with common sense and conscince, from all religions, all nationalities and all beliefs to stand by the people of Palestine and Al Quds in their rightful cause.

In the capacity of the Summit Chair of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the President of the Republic of Turkey, I call upon the United States of America to withdraw from this step that will trigger the chaos in the region, and I call upon Israel to pursue policies that will contribute to peace and tranquillity.

Doha                                                                                                                                                                                                 07 Dec 2017                                                                                                                                                                                (Katara)

Celebrating 70th anniversary of the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights', Katara Cultural Village Foundation in collaboration of UN High Commission for Human Rights and National Human Rights Committee of Qatar, has arranged three days long diversified events and activities from 08-10 Dec. 2017.

The events cover a wide array of entertaining and informative segments suitable for all ages including Workshops for children, a series of games, a wall expressing human rights perspectives.

In addition, the Cultural Diversity Festival will organize traditional performances from China, Algeria, and Macedonia as well as Katara fine Art Symposium, which is sought to entail 20 artists from Qatari nationals and expatriates.

A concert will be held with the participation of Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra which is scheduled to take place on Sunday, the 10^th of December.

Dr. Khalid bin Ibrahim Al-Sulaiti, Director General, Katara Cultural Village Foundation said ' Katara will embrace this celebration which stems from its conscious vision of the close connection between culture and cases of rights and freedom. The Cultural Village also strongly believes that human cultural rights constitute an asset and a qualitative addition to human rights. In addition, Katara seeks to promote human rights awareness, the spirit of cooperation and tolerance, the culture of law, spread peace and freedom among peoples, and attain a unique cultural identity for each society.

Dr. AlSulaiti said that Katara through its diverse and continuous activities provide a vase array of opportunities for fruitful dialogue and useful cultural interaction, and provides a rich platform for human communication between peoples, in an atmosphere of freedom that is vital in cultural, artistic and creative activity.

Mrs. Maryam bint Abdullah Al-Attiyah, Secretary General, National Human Rights Committee said that the committee always seeks in its various activities to strengthen its partnerships and cooperate with them to achieve mutual goals. The celebration of the International Human Rights Day with Katara and the United Nations Office for Training and Documentation comes within the framework of a series of cooperation and abundant experiences in spreading and establishing a human rights culture in our social environment.

George Abu Al-Zulf, Director, United Nations Human Rights Training and Documentation Center for South-West Asia and the Arab Region, expressed his utmost happiness to hold the event in cooperation with the Cultural Village Foundation- Katara and National Human Rights Committee, which purely reflects the genuine interest of these institutions in the values contained in the universal declaration, which urges the promotion of the values of equality, justice, freedom and tolerance.

Abu Al Zulf also called on all citizens and residents of the State to visit Katara Amphitheatre open daily for the public for three days, from Friday, December 8  - 10, between 4 pm to 9 pm.

Ankara, Turkey                                                                                                                                                                                    06 Dec 2017                                                                                                                                                                                (Anadolu News)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Pakistani counterpart Mamnoon Hussain to discuss U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, according to the presidency.

The sources said the leaders emphasized the decision would negatively affect peace and stability in the Middle East.

Erdogan pointed out that there would be no lasting peace in the Middle East unless an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, with Eastern Jerusalem as capital under the borders of 1967, is formed.

He also discussed the issue with the leaders of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Malaysia, Tunisia and Sudan earlier on the day.

On Wednesday, the U.S. president announced his decision -- despite widespread opposition across the Middle East -- to formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The announcement sparked strong condemnation from around the world, including Turkey, the EU and the UN.

Jerusalem remains at the core of the Israel-Palestine conflict, with Palestinians hoping that East Jerusalem -- now occupied by Israel -- might eventually serve as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

During his election campaign last year, Trump repeatedly promised to relocate the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Doha                                                                                                                                                                                                  05 Dec 2017                                                                                                                                                                                  (MOFA)

The State of Qatar has totally rejected any measure calling for the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

An official source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement to Qatar News Agency (QNA) that such measures undermine the international efforts aiming at the implementation of the Two-State solution.

The source reiterated Qatar's firm position in support of the Palestinian cause and the rights of the brotherly Palestinian people, foremost of which is the establishment of an independent and sovereign state on the basis of the 4 June 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital.