News

Vodafone Qatar announced yesterday another milestone. Since the company’s launch of services in July this year, over 250,000 customers have joined to date.

Qatar University (QU) Student Services Department, in cooperation with Supreme Council of Health, began its seasonal anti- influenza immunisation campaign at the institution yesterday.

The American School of Doha (ASD) will represent Qatar in the ‘World Robot Olympiad’ (WRO) in South Korea next month after beating nine other participating schools in the gruelling third ‘Qatar National Robot Olympiad’ held at the Qatar Independent Technical School (QITS) on Sunday.

The average rents for villas have fallen 15-20% in the first two months of this year, while apartment rents have remained stable in Qatar, according to Doha Bank CEO R Seetharaman.

IATA is working hard to lobby for its case at the crucial Copenhagen climate Summit. The member airlines will exert pressure on their respective Ministries of Environment to push for their case at the December Global summit, a top official of the international air transport association said.

Preparations to implement the proposed railway network linking all the GCC countries have been progressing well, Abdul Aziz Al Ohaly, Deputy Minister of Transport of Saudi Arabia said yesterday.

A dinner with the stars of the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire will be one of the prizes auctioned at the Doha 21st Century Leaders Awards on Friday.

Serena Williams of the US beat Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova 7-6 (8-6), 7-5 at the Sony Ericsson Championships here yesterday. In the final match of the opening day at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex, the American second seed had a tough match against the Russian. “It was a difficult match against Svetlana. It was a difficult first set tie-breaker as I rolled over my ankle. I got just right after re-taping my ankle,” said Serena.

The Qatar Museum of Islamic Art (QMIA) has banned the parking of vehicles by the public at its premises for the next few days. The parking area would be closed at 2pm on October 29, 2009 and will re-open on November 2. http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=October2009&file=Local_News2009102871945.xml

RAS LAFFAN INDUSTRIAL CITY: The Emir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani yesterday inaugurated RasGas’ sixth natural gas liquefaction train which places Qatar in a position of undisputed leadership in world LNG.