Tragic images out of the Qatari capital Doha as families mourn the deaths of 19 people in a fire at an upscale mall, including 13 children. It seems the fire began in the Gympanzee nursery and fire fighters had to break through the roof to get it.

The dead include four teachers, two would-be rescue workers, and thirteen children from multiple nationalities including 2-year-old triplets from New Zealand.

The Qatari government has ordered  an immediate investigation into the incident. A Civil Defense official said at a press conference yesterday that the roof and staircase of the nursery had collapsed, forcing rescue workers to create an opening in the roof to take out the victims.

Eyewitness Christine Wigton told CNN "There were no sprinklers, and there was nothing that would tell somebody that something was wrong."

Qatari authorities insist that all buildings adhere to strict codes per civil defense.

Disturbingly, a Qatar expat forum flagged exactly this issue as far back as February 2009 in a post titled "Fire Hazard at Villagio", with photographs claiming to show padlocked fire exits at the Villagio Mall itself.  

CNN cannot confirm the accuracy of these photos or the information claimed:

Photo from Qatar Living expat forum from February 2009 claiming to be at Villagio Mall.

Photo from an expat forum in Qatar. CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of these photos, their location, or date.

An eerie comment posted over three years ago rings ominous on this tragic day...

A gathering is planned today at 5pm Doha time at nearby Aspire Park to commemorate the victims.

Posted by: Schams Elwazer
Filed under: Qatar

Photo: Crosnier/QTF. Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer kicked off the 2011 ATP World Tour season in Doha yesterday by hitting tennis balls on a court laid in the water of Doha Bay.

Photo: Crosnier/QTF

Photo: Crosnier/QTF

Posted by: IME Producer
Filed under: Qatar •Sports

Qatar has won the race to host the 2022 World Cup, and will become the first Middle Eastern country to hold the tournament.
For the tiny desert state, where summer temperatures soar over 40 C (104 F), it is a triumph of ambition and technology.

As recently as November, FIFA expressed concerns over the country's climate, which it said should be considered "a potential health risk for players, officials, the FIFA family and spectators."

But football's governing body seems to have been swayed by Qatar's plans to overcome the sweltering heat by building nine new fully air-conditioned open-air stadiums that work using solar power.

Solar thermal collectors and photovoltaic panels on the outside the stadiums and on their roofs will harness energy from the blazing Qatari sun.

It will be used to chill water, which in turn will cool air before it is blown through the stadium, keeping pitch temperatures below 27 C (80 F).

Qatar 2022's bid book director Yasir Al Jamal said it would be the first time these technologies have been combined to keep a stadium cool.

"Stadium seats will be cooled using air pumped at the spectator ankle zone at a temperature of 18 C," he said. Read more...

Posted by: IME Producer
Filed under: Qatar •Sports •Video

From the UAE newspaper The National
David Lepeska, Foreign Correspondent

DOHA (The National) – At two and a half years old, Iqbal al Assaad taught herself to count from one to 10 in Arabic and English. At five, she was in the second grade alongside seven-year-olds. At the age of nine she passed standardised ninth grade tests for 14-year-olds with flying colours.

“My father said every year we’re going to do this, you’re going to skip one grade and go to the upper one, and it worked out,” said Iqbal, as if it were as easy as skipping rope.

Today she is a 16-year-old medical student at one of the most prestigious medical schools in the region, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. “Maybe other students don’t have this motivation, but I like to study,” she said. “Since I was very young I would go up to my father and ask him to teach me something new.”

That curiosity and a preternatural focus have Iqbal poised to become one of the youngest Arab doctors in modern times.

“It is extremely impressive to have her in class, a student so young and at the same time so mature and capable in handling a very challenging curriculum,” said Prof Marco Ameduri, a Weill Cornell physics professor who taught Iqbal in two premed courses in 2008.

Iqbal grew up in Bakaa, Lebanon, the youngest of four children. Her father ran a covenience shop and her mother ran the house, where studying became a point of pride. Her eldest sister, 25, is married, but hopes to return to university. Her eldest brother, 23, is completing his studies as a mechanical engineer, while the other is writing his master’s thesis in physics, at 20 years old.

The real prodigy is Iqbal – but she has not done it on her own. To help her pass that ninth-grade standardised test, Lebanon’s education minister wrote a letter authorising her to take the test. Soon after, Iqbal fell ill and her parents took her to a local physician.

“He didn’t give me enough time, he didn’t give enough attention to what I wanted to tell him about my sickness,” Iqbal recalled. “It didn’t have such a big impact with me but maybe in other cases, like in cancer patients, where the psychological plays a big role, if the doctor doesn’t treat that patient very well, there’s going to be an impact on the patient – that’s what drove me to become a doctor.”

Hearing of her dream, the Lebanese education minister helped Iqbal again, requesting assistance from the Qatari first lady, Sheikha Mozah bin Nasser al Missned, who oversees the Qatar Foundation, which runs Education City. Sheikha Mozah granted Iqbal a full scholarship to an undergrad program at Weill Cornell, then helped her move to Qatar with her mother in January 2006. Only 12 years old, Iqbal was not intimidated by an unfamiliar country, the vast campus or her much older classmates. She has never known classmates her own age, yet they have never rejected or troubled her.

“I don’t feel that I’m younger than my fellow students – since I was five years old I’ve been with students that are older than me, so I’ve got used to it,” she said. “My classmates have always had the ability to accept me as one of them, and that’s what has happened here at Weill Cornell.” During a recent interview at her Education City campus, she responded to a reporter’s questions eloquently and without haste or apparent anxiety.

“Just observing her interactions with other students, you would not know that she was younger,” said Prof Ameduri, who is also the assistant dean for student affairs. “In fact, I saw her as a student leader, bringing students together, forming study groups and things like that.”

Yet she is up to a decade younger than most of her class, which is set to graduate in the spring of 2013. Iqbal, however, plans to take a gap year, or perform research for a year, before returning to Weill Cornell to graduate and become a doctor in 2014.

Thus she is no threat to become the world’s youngest doctor, widely believed to be Balamurali Ambati, an Indian who in 1995 graduated from Mount Sinai School of Medicine two months shy of his 18th birthday. Still, after three years of undergraduate and premed studies, Iqbal began medical school last fall. She completed her first term last week, which she said was “very good”.

She looked forward to anatomy and human structure classes, and, down the line, conducting physical exams and working with real patients. She plans to be a surgeon, maybe a neurosurgeon.

“I can predict and expect a very brilliant career for her,” Prof Ameduri said. “She will be very successful in clinical care of her patients and in research, and someday I hope to see her back here.”

He will probably get his wish. “I feel responsible towards this country, Qatar, and I want to come back after I finish [medical school] to pay this country back,” Iqbal said, thanking Sheikha Mozah, the university and the Qatar Foundation.

Before leaving for term break, she reflected on her accomplishments. “I’m an example: I’m a woman, but still I made it,” she said. “If you have the motivation and you have the abilities, no one’s going to stop you, whether you’re a woman or a man.”

Filed under: Lebanon •Qatar

Posted by: IME Producer
Filed under: Bahrain •Iran •Iraq •Qatar •Sports

Doha – The Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra (QPO) will perform the music of four contemporary Lebanese composers on June 20 at the Aspire Hall in Doha.

Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra with Lebanese musician Marcel Khalife at the opening of the Kennedy Center Arab Festival Arabesque in Washington on Feb 23. Photo: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

The evening’s guest conductor, Evelyne Aiello from France, is known for exploring symphonic music beyond its standard boundaries. She has worked with Ballet de l’Opera de Paris as well as numerous famous orchestras such as Orchestre National d’Ile de France and New Boston Orchestra.

Re-orchestrated in 2002 by Ghady and Oussama Rahbani, Jibal as Sawan (Mountains of Silex) Symphonic Suite by the Rahbani Brothers will commence the program. The arranged piece of the 1969 composition is a selection of sequences conveying the message of the young woman “Gherbe,” symbol of the resistance against the oppressor. The brothers Assi and Mansour’s fame started in the 1950’s when their artistic style combined the old with the new with a fine and elegant perspective.

Also on the programme will be Houtaf Khoury’s Mirror of Eternity, a piece in three movements depicting the Arab world, where society remains closed and entrenched, through the life of a person whose earlier and later stages are mirrored images of hopes, contradictions and lost opportunities.

Read full story in The Gulf Times

** Note from IME Producer: If you plan to attend this event, blog about it! Send us your videos, photos and thoughts and we'll share them on this blog.

Posted by: IME Producer
Filed under: Culture Calendar •Lebanon •Qatar

Qatar Super Grand Prix 2009 wraps up with exciting wins and new records set.

MARWAN NAAMANI/AFP/Getty Images.Kenya's Ezekiel Kemboi (R) and Paul Kipsiele Koech jump over a pool of water during the men's 3000m steeplechase race at the Qatar Super Grand Prix in Doha late on May 8, 2009. Kemboi clinched the first place while Koech came in second.

MARWAN NAAMANI/AFP/Getty Images. US two-time Olympic silver medalist and a two-time Athletics World Championship gold medalist Allyson Felix flashes a smile after winning the 400 meters race at the Qatar Super Grand Prix in Doha on May 08,2009. Amantle Montsho from Botswana came seciond and Shericka Williams of Jamaica took third place.

MARWAN NAAMANI/AFP/Getty Images. Blanka Vlasic of Croatia clears 2.05m to win the high jump competition at the Qatar Super Grand Prix in Doha on May 08,2009. Vlasic clinched a new tournament record but she failed to break her own personal best of 2.07m or set a new world record of 2.10m.

MARWAN NAAMANI/AFP/Getty Images. Blanka Vlasic of Croatia screams after clearing 2.05m to win the high jump competition at the Qatar Super Grand Prix in Doha on May 08, 2009. Vlasic clinched a new tournament record but failed to break her own personal best of 2.07m or set a new world record of 2.10m.

Posted by: IME Producer
Filed under: Qatar •Sports

CNN's Stan Grant takes a look at Qatar's newest liquefied natural gas venture, Qatargas 2.

Stan Grant reports. Click here to watch

Posted by: IME Producer
Filed under: CNN Coverage •Qatar •Video

The Shafallah Centre in Doha, Qatar is dedicated to unlocking the secrets of autism. CNN's Stan Grant reports.

Stan Grant reports. Click here to watch.

Posted by: IME Producer
Filed under: CNN Coverage •Qatar •Video