Thousands of children celebrated Garangao last night across Qatar, visiting houses to recite traditional songs and collect nuts and sweets in return.

Barwa Real Estate CEO Yousef bin Rashid Al Khatar expressed his pleasure over the progress in the implementation of the Commercial Avenue and Barwa city’s projects. He inspected the projects yesterday.

While public opinion remains divided on the effectiveness of the price freeze for essential commodities introduced by the Ministry of Commerce and Trade ahead of Ramadan, the Consumer Protection Department at the Ministry has promised more practical steps in the next few days to check the prices from soaring.

Almost all the animals that survived a fire that ravaged Qatar Animal Welfare Society’s animal shelter (QAWS) on Thursday, have found foster homes.

While most schools in the country are set to reopen for the new academic year immediately after the Eid Al Fitr holidays, a number of parents have called on the authorities to put off the reopening as a precaution against swine flu.

Qatar will launch the much-anticipated community policing service in April next year. The first community policing department will be set up in the Shamal security division, a senior official of the Ministry of Interior has said.

The German School Doha (GSD) will today welcome around 20 new first grade students to the school following the summer break, and the school will be observing a German tradition as it does so.

According to the latest figures from the Statistics Authority, the population of Qatar has reached 1,597,552 based on data collected on August 31, 2009.