Omar Chatriwala
Writings and multimedia from a journalist based in the Middle East.
Learn more at omarc.me
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PHOTOS: The 2013 Qatar International Food Festival by Omar Chatriwala
Today is your last chance to check out the Qatar International Food Festival (renamed from the Doha Food Festival of previous years).
On at the Museum of Islamic Art Park, the grounds are sprawling compared to previous years, and between dining in the sky, snacking on the sea, walking through the numerous food stalls, or taking in the cooking and fitness demonstrations, it’s quite a spectacle.
Today’s hours are from 2pm-10pm. Vouchers are sold in QR40 increments, with a QR10 service charge - so make sure to buy more upfront if you think you’ll need them, to minimize service fees.
Also, parking at the MIA is limited, and has been closed off completely in the evenings. To avoid the hassle, park at one of the designated lots - at the Ministry of Interior building on the Corniche or a parking lot across from Al Sharq Village & Spa. A shuttle will transport you speedily to the festival. More tips here.
Thoughts?
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Dusty day in Doha, by Omar Chatriwala.
Captured last week from Katara’s rooftops.
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The flag is flying at half-mast at the Venezuelan embassy in Doha today after the country’s long-time president Hugo Chavez died last night.
Venezuela will have seven days of mourning to commemorate its late leader.
On its website, the embassy, which is located in Dafna, says:
With our deepest grief, the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the State of Qatar announces the opening of a Condolences Book due to the sad demise of Commander HUGO CHÁVEZ FRÍAS, President of Venezuela and one of the fundamental leaders of Latin America.
The Book of Condolences will be open from today, Wednesday, March 6, from 2:00 PM until 5:00 PM and on next Thursday and Sunday from 10:00 AM until 4:00 PM.
RIP Hugo Chavez.
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Bing’d!
Microsoft’s Bing.com search engine purchased my photo from Getty Images of the dovecotes at Katara Cultural Village in Qatar, and has been using it as their cover image.
(Very cool!)
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eL Seed in Doha, by Omar Chatriwala.
The French-Tunisian artist’s work in progress in Doha’s new Salwa Road tunnels. -
On the Corniche, by Omar Chatriwala.
In Doha, Qatar.
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VIDEO: BBC’s Fast Track on road thrills, taboos and Qatar’s heritage
In this Qatar special, a BBC team from travel news program Fast Track looks at Qatar’s unsafe road culture, government-funded projects to promote tourism and culture, discusses social taboos on ice with Irish-Qatari comedian Hamad al-Amari, and gets a good look at the camel track.
The package is part of a series of programs aired by the BBC in recent weeks called Qatar Direct, covering the country’s global ambitions, its embrace of world football, the fast-disappearing ”old Doha” and profiling some of those who live and work here.
For this video, the Fast Track team spent a week in town, during which I took them across Doha, out west to Shahaniya, up north to Al Khor, and south to the desert and the inland sea.
Here are some of my behind-the-scenes photos.
What do you think? Did they miss anything?
(Source: youtube.com, via dohanews)
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Photos by Omar Chatriwala
PHOTOS: Famed New York dessert shop Magnolia Bakery launches in Qatar
Magnolia Bakery, perhaps best known for its cupcakes and for appearing in the TV show Sex and the City, is opening its largest store in the world (so far) in Doha tomorrow.
Located at the new Dar Al Salam Mall in the Abu Hamour area, it is Magnolia Bakery’s fourth shop in the Middle East, starting with Dubai in 2010 and followed recently by back-to-back openings in Kuwait and Beirut last month.
“It’s an emerging market - a lot of the countries we’re going into are very interested in an American brand, but they’re also interested in quality brands, and our brand is all about quality and about consistency,” Bobbie Lloyd, Magnolia’s President and Operating Partner told Doha News at a media event earlier today.
News that the upscale bakery was coming to Qatar was first announced a year ago. The company also intends to expand into Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
The lineup of 160 rotating offerings at the Doha shop include American-style pies, old-fashion icebox cakes, banana pudding, and of course cupcakes.
Pricing is on the upper end - comparable with the likes of Red Velvet Cupcakery at Katara and Sugar and Spice at Lagoona Mall, with cupcakes at Magnolia going for 17-19 QR, and mini pies go up to 39 QR.
But Lloyd said she believes customers here will be happy to pay that price for a superior product. “Everything we bake is from scratch, we don’t start the day out and make a huge batch of something… it’s all being done in small batches,” she told Doha News.
On Wednesday, January 16, the bakery will host a opening reception from 6pm-8pm. Thereafter, Magnolia will be open daily from 8am-11pm.
Here are the event details:
Will you be visiting?
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We’ve launched our first Doha News publication!
Announcing Doha News | 2012 Year in Review - a publication of our most important stories of the year.
From the Villaggio fire to COP18 and the jailing of the poet Ibn Al-Dheeb, here we present the 10 stories and photo features of 2012 that resonated most in Qatar, and around the world.
Published via HP’s MagCloud service, the periodical is available on iPad app, Web Viewer and PDF download. You can even order a print version to anywhere in the world.
The magazine is 34 pages of advertisement-free journalism you won’t find anywhere else, including a 12-page spread on our extensive coverage of the Villaggio fire.
Proceeds from Doha News | 2012 Year in Review go toward supporting the work we do every day. (Full disclosure: The digital issue is priced at $3.99 and print at $9.99, but we’ll only make between $2.19-$2.79 per unit sold.)
If you want to get a look at all the stories featured, click through to MagCloud, and hit the “preview” button under the cover. It’ll let you flip through the whole publication, but will probably be too small for you to actually read.
Let us know what you think - would you like to see more of these publications? Would you want it available to purchase as a hard copy in book stores?
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Qatari poet Ibn Al-Dheeb granted appeal, arguments set for Jan. 27
With reporting from Layal Itawi
A Qatari court has granted an appeal for Mohammed Rashid al-Ajami, the poet sentenced to life in jail for attempting to overthrow the government, and set Jan. 27 as the date for arguments.
The Qatari national, who goes by the poetic name Mohammed Ibn Al-Dheeb, appeared at the Court of Appeals this morning in a blue prison outfit, surrounded by 10 armed Internal Security Force soldiers.
Court proceedings were short as his lawyer, Najeeb al-Nuaimi, presented a document of the irregularities during Al-Dheeb’s initial trial and asked for his client to be released on bail. Although the case was schedule to be the 10th heard this morning, the judge pushed it up to first due to the high security.
Three of Al Dheeb’s brothers were in attendance, and told Doha News that he was not guilty of the charges.
Private recitation
The lawyer Al-Nuaimi said that, despite the long list or irregularities in the initial trial, the biggest issue is the fact that Ibn Al Dheeb did not present his poem in public, which is a requirement for proving he “sought to overthrow the regime.”
While studying Arabic literature with a group of students in Cairo on Aug. 24, 2010, Al Dheeb was reportedly approached by another Qatari poet named Khalil al-Shabrami. His lawyer argues that Al-Shabrami provoked Al Dheeb into presenting a poem that was indirectly critical of the ruling family, and the exchange was secretly recorded.
That poem was then uploaded to YouTube, and spread on Twitter and Facebook.
“He doesn’t know how to use the [Internet], so he was not the one who released it,” Al-Nuaimi said. “Somebody was sitting there and released it. He mentioned to me, Mohammed, that it’s not the first time they secretly released it.”
A poem released about Tunisia and the Arab Spring has also been highlighted as contributing to Al Dheeb’s arrest in Nov. 2011, in which he criticizes Arab rulers by saying “we are all Tunisia in the face of the repressive elite.”
Credit: Photo courtesy of Lex Paulson
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I’m impressed #coffee #doha #qatar (at Farggi)
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#Corniche sitting, #Doha #Qatar #sea #sky
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HuffPost Live invited me to join a segment with host (and former colleague) Ahmed Shihab-Eldin to discuss the case of Qatari poet Mohammed al-Ajami, who was sentenced to life in prison last week for apparently seeking to overthrow the government through his poetry.
What I didn’t realize was that the show, in which I was joined by journalists Amber Lyon, Imran Garda and Shirin Sadeghi was actually focused on “Al Jazeera’s Hypocrisy” for how it covered the poet’s story.
Without a doubt Al Jazeera soft-balled its coverage of al-Ajami, who uses the poetic name Ibn Al-Dheeb (Son of the Wolf). As far as I know, there was no mention of him on either of Al Jazeera’s main news channels, and while a story was published in English on Aljazeera.com it was short and drew heavily from Reuters’ story, rather than on original reporting.
But is going soft on this not insignificant issue enough to completely undermine the credibility Al Jazeera has built story by story for years? Doesn’t seem like it to me.
Thoughts?
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Credit: Photos by Omar Chatriwala
Hundreds of people marched on the Corniche this morning in a coordinated public demonstration on the sidelines of the COP18 UN Climate Change conference being held in Doha.
Wielding signs promoting varied agendas, local and international participants chanted slogans together like “one world, one march” and “we are building our future.”
Local environmental group Doha Oasis co-organized the demonstration with the Climate Action Network as a government-sanctioned way for activists in town for the conference to have their concerns heard.
Fahad Bin Mohammed Al-Attiya, the Chairman of the Organising Sub-Committee of COP18/CMP8 Doha, told the crowd he was “very proud” of the march and that “history had been made.”
Speaking to journalists after, he defended the environmental record of Qatar, which has the world’s highest per capita carbon foot print:
“That’s because of a small population compared to the amount of industry [we have]. That isn’t because we consume that.”
”[But] of course it has to change, there is no choice.”
Those marching included solar energy promoters, anti-nuclear power advocates, and members of the World Wildlife Fund. Participants marched from Sheraton Park to Post Office Roundabout and back.
Amongst them was also a sizable contingent wearing masks of a migrant laborer named Bide and marching under the banner “Qatar Do The Right Thing: No World Cup Without Workers’ Rights.”
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DTFF launches 'Made in Qatar' film showcase on a revolutionary note
With deep beats echoing down the Katara Esplanade, a couple hundred 20- and 30-somethings crowded together last night, answering rapper Omar Offendum in one voice.
“If I asked you what’s Damascus like?” the Syrian American hip hop artist would sing. “It’s like a glimpse into the afterlife!” his audience would reply.
The bilingual performer shared the stage last night with Cairo trio Arabian Knightz, Lebanese “Queen of Arab Hip Hop” Malikah and Egyptian beat-boxer Farah in a concert centered on Arab Hip Hop.
The performances - part of the Doha Tribeca Film Festival’s ”Made in Qatar” program and co-organized by Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) - paid tribute to the evening’s films, which focused on reflection and revolution.
Entitled “New Hopes,” the lineup featured four locally-produced short films and the nearly-hour long documentary on hip hop in the Arabic Spring “Lyrics Revolt,” which was filmed and edited by four recent NU-Q grads.
DTFF will debut three more “Made in Qatar” showcases this week:
- “Through Their Eyes,” showing on Nov. 20 and 23, which includes 10 films about “a generation eager to express itself;”
- “Angel in June,” scheduled on Nov. 20, a standalone film of the same name; and
- “Thriller Night” on Nov. 21, featuring three Qatari-made films about madness and zombies.
As the NU-Q team traveled the Middle East, they learned how artists used music as a motivator, educator and a tool for change during the Arab Spring, explained Shannon Farhoud, one of the four filmmakers (and a former student of mine):
“We didn’t really know much about Arab hip hop but… [the artists] taught us a lot and they let us into their world. They really showed us the meaning of Arab hip hop and the role they played in the Arab revolutions.”
Lyrics Revolt took a deeper look at the Arab music scene, a year and a half after Farhoud and then third-year journalism students Ashlene Ramadan and Rana Khaled Al Khatib premiered the documentary “Broken Records - The Rise of Arab Hip-Hop” at Qatar Foundation’s Student Center with performances by some of the performers from the film, including Offendum.
Broken Records went on to win “Most Promising Film” at last year’s Al Jazeera Documentary Film Festival.
The other four films screened last night were “His Name,” “Hystoria,” “January 28,” and “Transient.”
In the four-minute film “His Name”, first-time director Hend Fakhroo focuses on her relationship with the man who cleans her street. As she explains, she’s waved to him for years, even had a conversation with him once, but never learned his name.
“Hystoria”, directed by Youssef Jabre, is a film inspired by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, and centers on a man who is trying dearly to concentrate on his book. But a fly buzzing around him continues to be a nuisance, and muted images of violence from the Arab Spring play across his TV.
The film “January 28” takes on the Egyptian revolution much more directly. The filmmaker, Sherif Milad Youssef, dedicated the film to those who died fighting for the ousting of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The six-minute film is oriented around a delivery boy arrested by Egyptian police for protesting, and asked to explain what he was doing in Tahrir Square.
“Transient” was the fourth locally-produced film in the showcase, and the only one by non-Arab directors. Filipino filmmakers Robert Arlou DeGuzman and Kennedy Somera said they hoped it would show that experiences in Doha are not that different wherever you come from. Opening with the Adhan and a prayer, “Transient” meshes dream-like scenery with narration and a forlorn expat reflecting on home and how time begins to lose meaning separated from your family and friends.
Were you at the show? What did you think of the films and the concert?
Credit: Photo of Omar Offendum by Omar Chatriwala, still from “His Name” courtesy of Doha Film Institute.
