Sambo attends Gas summit in Doha calls for fair price

Nigerian Vice-President Namadi Sambo joined other leaders of the world's biggest gas suppliers in an inaugural gas summit in Doha, Qatar on Tuesday by calling for a fair gas price. Meanwhile, Iran, whose president was absent from the ceremony, warned that Western taxation will derail the energy market.

The summit was opened by Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani who called for "innovative solutions" to the challenges facing the gas industry for the benefit of both consumers and producers.

According to organisers, the summit was to discuss "the priority of long-term contracts as the basis of security for exporters and consumers of natural gas."

It was also seek ways to establish a fair price for gas under a gas-to-oil indexation, with the aim of overcoming the disparity between crude oil and gas prices, organisers said.

The leaders would review cross investments and technological collaboration between GECF members.

Besides Oman which was admitted on Sunday, the GECF also comprises Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela. Kazakhstan, Norway and the Netherlands are observers.

Russia is the world's largest gas producer and sits on 30 percent of global reserves, while Qatar is the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter with a production capacity of 77 million tonnes a year.

GECF has been working for a fair gas price which its leaders say is the fastest growing energy source, but they deny it aims to control prices or become a cartel like the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

The producers want "a fair price for gas that is linked to an energy commodity, especially crude oil ... Gas prices are not yet in parity with oil," Qatar's Energy Minister Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada told reporters on Sunday.

 “Fair prices are determined by demand and production (supply). It is not the duty of this forum to determine prices," he said.

 "The summit wants to send a message (to the world) about reliable gas supplies," Sada said.

 Gas prices are currently determined either in long-term contracts between sellers and buyers, which some exporter’s index to oil, or on spot markets.

World gas demand dipped in the wake of the global financial crisis but the GECF says it rebounded last year, rising 7.3 percent, mainly due to Japan boosting LNG imports after its March tsunami and nuclear crisis.

The International Energy Agency estimated last month that around $10 trillion of investments would be needed in the gas industry until 2035, or about $400 billion a year.

Qatar leads Japan 2-1 in AFC Asian Cup

Qatar takes a 2-1 lead over Japan at the AFC Asian Cup with a goal from Fabio Cesar through a freekick after a Japanes player was giving the marching order his second yellow card.
Its 64 minutes of play at the Al Gharafa Stadium.

QTEL visits Malaga FC

Executive officials of Qatar Telecommunications, Qtel paid a visit to the La Rosadela Stadium home ground of Spanish La Liga side Malaga FC to see its facilities and learn about the club’s history.
The sixty delegates from Qtel were accompanied by the Club’s President, Sheikh Abdullahi al Thani who showed them round the club’s museum and a stadium tour, where they received an unexpected guest in Brazil’s Julio Baptista one of the new recruits of the Malaga side.
Qtel, the telecommunications company based in Qatar, operating in more than 70 countries, had the opportunity to sit in the Royal Box, enjoy a lunch at the PrimeraClase, the VIP area of La Rosaleda stadium, visit the locker room and the amazing scale model of La Rosaleda, and worked as journalists in the press conference room and jump into the pitch of 'La Bombonera'.
One of the most special moments for the Qatari group occurred in the Press Room of La Rosaleda. The Hispanic-Brazilian player Julio Baptista appeared by surprise in an impromptu press conference to the delight of those present, whose chants and applause graced the presence of new Málaga's signing, who did not hesitate to take pictures with everyone at the end of the act.
Once in the field, Qtel members made true one of their biggest dreams as a football fan when they jumped onto the field and watched the stadium from where the players usually do. Over there Dani, the goalkeeper of the Málaga Club de Fútbol junior team invited them to participate in a penalty goal round.
After completing the tour of the locker room, and the museum and the official store of the Málaga Football Club, executives and members of the telecommunications company Qtel staff leave the Málaga Club de Fútbol after thanking the hosting received and wishing Málaga C.F. the best luck for the second round of La Liga in which, from Qatar, they promised to follow and support the Málaga Football Club, "their" in La Liga.

Blogging Workshop In Qatar- Google provides solution to Arabic transliteration problem

Creating content in Arabic script requires either learning the Arabic keyboard layout or using onscreen keyboards, which are useful but limited by the speed at which one can click the mouse.

As a result, producing online content in Arabic script has mostly been limited to a small number of bloggers and commercial websites.

Google recently launched an exciting solution to the transliteration problem, from Roman into Arabic script.

Speaking to Media persons at the Supreme Council of Information & Communication Technology workshop on Saturday, head of Engineering Google Inc (MENA), Ahmad Hamzawi said, “Transliteration is a technique that is used to do phonetic mapping of words written in one script (e.g. Arabic) to another script (e.g. Roman).

While using Roman transliteration may be adequate for a lot of purposes (chatting), it leaves a lot to be desired from the perspective of people who prefer to read and write the language in its original script.

Jeramiah Owyang, a partner at Alimeter Group, opened the session with blogging strategy.

He said, “Humans beings are essentially social creatures.

We maintain our social networks through contacts, connections and affiliations.

A blog is a frequently updated, personal website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles on other websites.

Blogs range from the personal to political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.” Blogging is not very popular in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region because of the lack of Arabic content, he said.

There are 4000 blogs in Arabic language.

Arabic is the eighth most-used language on the Internet.

Nineteen percent of bloggers in the region are critical to terrorism.

Sixty-four percent people blog on domestic issues and news around the region.

Owyang said its important to integrate your blog with other social networks tools like facebook, twitter, delicious, dig etc.

Shabina Khatrisi, an American freelance Journalist in Doha, talked about her experience in starting as a professional and personal blogger.