Quote of The Day
Brazil woke up stronger today. The size of yesterday’s demonstrations shows the energy of our democracy, the strength of the voice of the streets and the civility of our population.
Front Page News
Qatar University graduation
The Heir Apparent H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani honouring a student at Qatar University Graduation Ceremony — Class of 2013 at Qatar National Convention Center yesterday. Also present is University President Prof Sheikha Abdulla Al Misnad.
Three Nepalese workers die in minivan crash
The wall against which the mini van crashed on Salwa Road. (Picture: Shiraz Sithara) DOHA: Three Nepalese construction workers were killed and 13 injured when a minivan carrying them hit a side wall after a tyre burst on Salwa Road yesterday. The incident happened in the afternoon in a newly-opened tunnel on the road, it was learnt. The vehicle was carrying 16 workers. The driver was an Egyptian, and all other workers travelling in the van were Nepalese. They were returning from their worksite in Doha to their accommodation in Al Sailiya, one of the injured Nepalese workers told The Peninsula last evening. The dead have been identified as Krishna Raj Banshi, Paspal Dhamal and Brijnath Pandit, all between 35 and 40. “We were returning from our worksite in Bin Mahmoud around 4.30pm. After we entered the tunnel, a tyre burst and the driver lost control of the van, which then broke a steel divider on the road and hit the wall,” said the worker, who suffered minor injuries. The van took several turns on the highway, before hitting the wall. One of the dead was tossed out of the van and was probably run over by it. The other two died apparently after hitting the steel body and the bars of the van with severe force. All the others in the van were injured, at least five of them seriously. The victims included a foreman, besides the Egyptian driver. “The ambulance team arrived in 10 minutes and we were all taken to the Emergency Department (of the Hamad Medical Corporation). Six workers including me were discharged later and we are expecting another two to leave the hospital by tonight,” said the worker. He was speaking from his accommodation in Al Sailiya, where he was staying with some other workers involved in the accident. He came to Qatar last month to work as a mason with the company. The Peninsula
US officials to hold talks with Taliban in Doha
Qatar’s Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs H E Ali bin Fahad Al Hajri with Taliban officials at the opening of the group’s Doha office yesterday. WASHINGTON/KABUL: The United States will meet the Taliban this week in Doha for talks aimed at achieving peace in Afghanistan, US officials said yesterday. The Taliban opened an office in Doha yesterday to help restart talks and said it wanted a political solution that would bring about a just government and end foreign occupation of Afghanistan. A senior US official said the talks would start in Doha tomorrow, but President Barack Obama cautioned against expectations of quick progress, saying the peace process would not be easy or quick. US officials said the process could take many years and be subject to reversals. “This is an important first step towards reconciliation; although it’s a very early step,” Obama said after a G8 meeting in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. “We anticipate there will be a lot of bumps in the road.” US officials say they hope the meeting will open the way for the first official peace talks between the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban, which has waged a 12-year campaign to oust him and foreign troops. The Taliban have until now said they would not countenance talks with the government, which they consider a stooge of the United States and other Western states in the Nato coalition fighting in Afghanistan. In opening the Qatar office, the Taliban said it sought a political solution, but said no dates had been agreed for talks. Taliban representative Mohammed Naeem told a news briefing the group wanted good relations with “all of the world countries.” “But the Islamic emirate (Taliban) sees the independence of the nation from the current occupation as a national and religious obligation,” he said. US officials said that in the talks in Doha, the United States would stick to its insistence that the Taliban break ties with Al Qaeda, end violence, and accept the Afghan constitution, including protection for women and minorities. Karzai said yesterday his government would send a team to Qatar. REUTERS
Young Pakistanis struggle to find jobs in Qatar
By Azmat Haroon Doha: An increasing number of young Pakistanis are finding it hard to find jobs in Qatar, with many alleging discrimination while applying for jobs. Pakistanis with professional degrees, most of whom did not want to be identified, told this newspaper that they see ‘no future’ for themselves here after having gone through the job-hunt for as long as two years. Despite being born and raised in Qatar, many said they may have to leave the country soon because the sponsorship system does not allow them to continue living here unless a company hires them and offers them a work visa. According to law, any man above 25 cannot be under his father’s sponsorship. Work visas for Pakistanis, on the other hand, cost QR60,000 in the black market here, making it one of the most expensive ‘free visas’ for any nationality. Some claim that Pakistanis demand higher salaries compared with others, which is why even Pakistani companies do not want to hire them. A senior official of a Pakistani construction and contracting company, who requested anonymity, said that even their firm was not very keen to employ Pakistanis because people with similar qualifications among other nationalities could be hired at lower salaries. According to official estimates, there are approximately 95,000 to 100,000 Pakistanis here, of which some 15 to 25 percent live with their families. There is no official data available on how many of them are employed, an official of the Pakistan embassy said. Sohail Ismail sat through innumerable interviews before landing a job recently. He said a majority of Pakistanis born and schooled in Qatar seek admissions in universities in other countries because they cannot afford higher education here. “Once they come back to their families after completing a bachelor or masters level degree, they do not find jobs. Companies tell them they have no experience.” Ismail said that this was, in fact, not the real reason for not hiring Pakistanis because he often saw others being offered higher salary packages even without any experience. Truth was, in most cases, CVs of Pakistanis didn’t even reach the right people in most organisations. “It really just depends on the top management of the organisation. If it’s an Egyptian management, you will see a push to hire Egyptians, if it’s an Indian management, you will find a large majority of Indians working in the organisation,” Ismail said. He said, unfortunately, there are a very few Pakistanis on managerial positions in Qatar. Some also say there is discrimination, which was evident from job advertisements in newspapers that specified the nationality of employees companies sought. Incidentally, such advertisements never specify jobs for Pakistanis. Asked about the company policy on hiring individuals, an official from a prominent bank seeking anonymity said: “Banks now prefer to hire people from abroad, which is why they give contracts to recruitment firms. It’s a fact that people hired locally do not have the required qualification.” He also said that because of a big push for Qatarisation in banks, many expatriate communities were naturally affected. Maham Khalid, a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar (VCU-Q), said she did not leave a stone unturned during her hunt for a job in Qatar. “I applied for more than a dozen jobs, sat through several interviews, apart from the walk-in ones, but I never got a response from anywhere,” Khalid said, adding that she had high expectations after studying at the Education City. After over a year’s struggle, Khalid landed in a job with an architectural firm. “I was the first Pakistani employed by this firm in the last 15 years,” she said. Another Pakistani girl, a graduate of Stenden University Qatar, who did not want to be identified, said she was considering applying for a Masters degree because even after a year, she still had no job in sight. For hundreds of young Pakistani men, the only reasonable option left was to join the police or army. “You only need to be Qatar-born and know some Arabic. Pakistanis can still very easily find a job in one of the security forces departments here,” Ruman Rathore said. The Peninsula
New York Police sued over Muslim surveillance
NEW YORK: The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit yesterday against the New York Police Department over its surveillance of Muslim communities, accusing the police of trampling on religious freedoms and constitutional guarantees of equality. The surveillance by the NYPD’s intelligence division has extended beyond New York City’s five boroughs into neighboring New Jersey and other nearby states. The lawsuit is the latest skirmish in an ongoing battle between the NYPD and civil liberties advocates over the department’s aggressive policing tactics — including its stop-and-frisk practices, which are the subject of a separate federal lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn, seeks to put an end to the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslims and the destruction of all records on individuals created as a result of the programme. REUTERS
Putin blocks G8 push for Assad’s ouster
ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland: Russia’s Vladimir Putin derailed Barack Obama’s efforts to win backing for the downfall of Syrian leader Bashar Al Assad at a G8 summit yesterday, warning the West that arms supplied to the rebels could be used for attacks on European soil. After two days of intense talks that fell far short of what Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron had been hoping for, Putin fumed against Western moves to supply weapons to rebels while defending his own supplies of arms for Assad. “We are supplying weapons under legal contracts to the legal government. That is the government of President Assad. And if we are going to sign such contracts, we are going to deliver,” the Russian president said. Putin, isolated at the summit, repeatedly clashed with other leaders over the fate of Assad and resisted pressure to agree to anything that would imply Assad should step down. In the end, a G8 communique did not even mention Assad’s name. The summit in a secluded golf resort in Northern Ireland ended with G8 leaders calling for peace talks to be held as soon as possible to resolve the Syrian civil war. This has broadly been their position for months. No date was mentioned for a peace conference called by Moscow and Washington, which was supposed to take place next month but now appears to be on hold, after the United States announced last week that it would arm the rebels. A source at the summit said the peace conference would now be put off at least until August. Obama and his allies want Assad to cede power while Putin believes that would be disastrous at a time when no clear transition plan exists. REUTERS
Fighting Child Abuse: Taking care of our children
By Fazeena Saleem If you suspect a child is being harmed, reporting your suspicions may protect the child and get help for the family. Any person can report suspicions of child abuse and neglect by calling the hotline 919, and a social worker at the Qatar Foundation for Child and Woman Protection (QFCWP) would attend to the case. Sudden changes in the behaviour or school performance of a child should be given special attention by the parents as they could be the result of abuse, and it’s essential to seek professional help. “We attend to any type of abuse. Sexual abuse, beating or negligence -- we attend to any case we receive,” says Dr Salah Al Mannai, research expert at QFCWP. “A social worker will speak and take the information, and depending on the seriousness of the case, the social worker will call the police,” he added. The QFCWP receives complaints against Qataris and non Qataris. The majority of children are ill treated by their parents, friends or housemaids, or at school. “We follow up all cases that we receive. We follow up with the parents, relatives, police and the judge as some cases go to prosecution,” says Dr Al Mannai. Last year alone, QFCWP refereed 120 cases to Hamad General Hospital, and the centre has come across 566 cases at Hamad Medical Corporation of people seeking medical assistance. In all, QFCWP has received 714 cases of child abuse, most of them involving physical or sexual abuse. Incidents of psychological abuse of children are rarely reported, although such abuse can have a huge impact on a child’s life, according to Dr Al Mannai.Psychological abuse of children can seriously interfere with their cognitive, emotional, psychological and social development, and Dr Al Mannai urges parents to pay special attention to their children’s behaviour. Psychological abuse may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Some parents may emotionally and psychologically harm their children because of stress, poor parenting skills, social isolation and lack of available resources or inappropriate expectations from their children. They may also emotionally abuse their children because they themselves were emotionally abused in childhood. “If a child is abused psychologically or in any other form, it can later affect their life, their family and even society,” said Dr Al Mannai. “It’s very important parents should be aware about child abuse. They should focus on children and their behaviour. We can’t prevent child abuse by a rule, but people should be aware of it and about its dangers,” he added. As awareness can prevent child abuse, QFCWP has taken steps to break the silence about the phenomenon. It works to create awareness among parents, healthcare professionals and security officials, and in educational institutions, through lectures, workshops and training programmes. If a complaint is made on QFCWP’s hotline, a social worker refers the case to the police, Hamad Medical Corporation or for family consultation, according to the nature of the case. Later, a social worker interviews the victim to record information related to the case and the possible means to communicate with the people concerned. The QFCWP also provides legal assistance, if needed. It also provides shelter to female victims aged under 18 years and boys aged under 13 years if they are exposed to violence and there is no one to protect them. However, this requires approval from Public Prosecution. QFCWP has an office at Hamad Medical Corporation and it can be contacted on 44391443 and 55907056. Its office at the Capital Police Station can be contacted by calling 44521117 or 55597328. The Peninsula
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