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• South KoreanArmadillo car foldsup for easy parking
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• Asha to Ashes:Microsoft’s emergingmarket conundrum
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Sotheby’s will exhibit a selection of exquisite and precious objects exemplifying the artistic traditions of the Muslim world at Katara Cultural Village.
A SLICE OF
HISTORY
2 COVER STORYPLUS | SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2013
Sotheby’s will stage an important exhibition from September 12-14 at Building 19, Katara Cultural Village, featuring a selection of 24 highlights from the forthcoming ‘Arts of the
Islamic World’ sale – exquisite objects exemplifying the broad artistic traditions of the Muslim world, including ceramics, metalwork, manuscripts, jewel-lery, weapons and paintings.
The selection that will be on view in Doha has been chosen from a total of 281 objects to be offered for sale in Sotheby’s ‘Arts of the Islamic World’ and ‘Art of Imperial India’ sales in London. The pieces that will be on display in Doha represent the very best of what will be sold on October 9 at Sotheby’s New Bond Street in London, and provide fascinating insights into Muslim history and culture, encompass-ing almost 1,400 years of every kind of decorative art produced in lands under Islamic patronage from Spain to India. These highlights will be the focus of a series of accompanying gallery tours at Building 19, Katara Cultural Village, which will be led by Edward Gibbs, Chairman and Head of Sotheby’s Middle East Department. These tours will be held each evening at 8pm and are open to all.
Edward Gibbs, Chairman and Head of Sotheby’s Middle East Department, said: “We are delighted to follow our successful sale of Contemporary Art in Doha this April with an exhibition of art objects of superb quality and importance from our forthcom-ing ‘Arts of the Islamic World’ sale in London. We have chosen a range of items that is representative of the sale in its entirety, including pieces that have an immediate relevance to the audience in Doha and those visiting the exhibition from the wider region. Doha is an ideal audience as it is home to one of the world’s outstanding collections housed in the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA), and Sotheby’s is proud of its relationship with Doha which spans over two decades.”
A particularly noteworthy inclusion in the ‘Arts of the Islamic World’ exhibition in Doha is The Fall of Constantinople, an extremely rare and impor-tant late fifteenth/early sixteenth century Italian oil painting of the ancient city of Constantinople (mod-ern-day Istanbul) estimated at £180,000-220,000. This is probably the earliest known artistic depic-tion of Constantinople showing the city falling to the Ottoman army under Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror.
Artistic traditions ofthe Muslim world
Most of the items on display are extremely rare outside museums, yet, as is often the case with precious objects, they are carefully preserved
and in very good condition
What: A selection of objects from Sotheby’s ‘Arts of the Islamic World’ auctionWhere: Building 19, Katara Cultural VillageWhen: from September 12 till 14, 10am-10pmEntry: Open to all
3PLUS | SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2013
The painting is of the same period and context as the portrait of Mehmet Fatih (‘The Conqueror’), by the School of Gentile Bellini, in the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA), Doha.
Further highlights on view at the exhibition will include a pair of Ottoman wooden roundels with the names of two of the Righteous Caliphs ‘Abu Bakr’ and ‘Umar’ carved in gold taliq calligraphy, dating from the first half of the 19th century and estimated at £20,000-30,000.
Alongside these is a rare and beau-tiful large-scale Quran copied by the famous calligrapher Ahmed Nayrizi, with later illumination added for the Shah of Iran, Fath ‘Ali Shah, as well as a portrait of Rustam Khan Zand, signed by Muhammad Sadiq, Zand, Shiraz, circa 1779 (£300,000 - £500,000), an exquisite illustrated leaf ‘Four Young Scholars in Discussion’ signed by Muhammad Murad Samarqandi, Persia, Safavid, Bukhara, early 17th century (£400,000-600,000) and some fine examples of Iznik pottery and Islamic manuscripts, among other var-ied works of art.
In addition to the ‘Arts of the Islamic
World’ sale, Sotheby’s will be holding a dedicated auction of Indian art in London entitled ‘Art of Imperial India’ on October 9. The auction will offer collectors high-quality and beautiful paintings, as well as objects, textiles, weaponry and luxurious works of art from the courts of the Indian subconti-nent. Highlights of the ‘Art of Imperial India’ sale that will be on view in Doha will include a solid gold diamond-set enamelled gold tray and casket (pan-dan) dating from the 18th century and valued at £200,000-300,000. Items such as this are extremely rare outside museums, yet, as is often the case with precious objects, they are often care-fully preserved in very good condition, and this is absolutely pristine.
Other objects in the ‘Art of Imperial India’ sale include a gold and enam-elled diamond-set sarpech (turban brooch) valued at £35,000-45,000; a Mughal jade, gold and gem-set dagger estimated at £20,000-25,000; and an impressive 18th-century sword with a tiger-head pommel captured from Tipu Sultan’s fortress at Seringapatam, Mysore, in 1799, which is estimated at £80,000-120,000. The Peninsula
Highlights include a pair of Ottoman wooden roundels with the names of two of the Righteous Caliphs ‘Abu Bakr’ and ‘Umar’ carved in gold taliq calligraphy.
PLUS | SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 20134 CAMPUS / MARKETPLACE
College of Pharmacy students attend international meet
Qatar University’s College of Pharmacy (CPH) recently celebrated a number of student accomplishments at the 59th Annual International Pharmacy Student
Federation (IPSF) World Congress held in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
CPH official delegation comprised students Dalia Sattar, Shorouk Abdelkader, Nada Khudair and Qatar Pharmacy Undergraduate Society (QPhUS) president Ibtihal Abdallah. They joined pharmacy students from around the world in the 11-day confer-ence, attending lectures, workshops, general assem-blies and competitions.
During the event, Ibtihal was elected to the posi-tion of Regional Relations Officer for the Eastern Mediterranean Region of the IPSF. Commenting on her new role, she said: “I will coordinate the operations of IPSF projects at the regional level and work closely with the IPSF executive group. I will be promoting these important health and pharmacy projects and ensuring that countries from Algeria to Iraq have the support and content they need to undertake their own projects successfully. My role as QPhUS president and the support that my col-lege has given me over the past three years have prepared me for this challenging and important position”.
Fourth-year student Nada competed in the Patient Counselling Event (PCE) and advanced to the final round. “I am proud of my achievement and of the honourable mention I received alongside my coun-terparts from Canada and Australia”, she said, add-ing, “my intensive patient-focused training at the
College of Pharmacy gave me the confidence to com-pete internationally.” She noted that last year, CPH student Ghadeer Daghash won the competition.
Acting CPH Dean Sherief Khalifa said: “I am proud of the achievements of Abdallah and Khudair. We at the College of Pharmacy are continuing to prove to the world how capable our students are, and look forward to further recognition at the inter-national level, which bolsters our vision to be the leading pharmacy college in the region”.
Assistant Dean Banan Mukhalalati added: “It is important for QU students of pharmacy to have a voice in the region and a place on the international stage. We are the only pharmacy college from a GCC country that has successfully won an elected regional position. We are competing against well-established renowned pharmacy schools in these competitions and the only female-only college competing at the undergraduate level. We are doing remarkably well”.
The Peninsula
CPH delegates at the event.
Study Plus — an initiative of Score Plus — in partnership with Pearson Education is
bringing Indian mathematician and the man behind the Super-30 revolu-tion, Anand Kumar (pictured), for the first time to Doha for a seminar.
Limca Book of Records, Time mag-azine, Discovery Channel, New York
Times, and people from diverse fields have acknowledged his contribution to upgrading the standards of learning.
A veteran in the field of educa-tion and ardent trainer, Anand is an expert in cracking the code for the JEE, the qualifying exam for the premier institution, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). More than 85 percent of his students, most of whom come from extremely poor back-grounds, clear the IIT JEE each year.
Kumar’s financial hardships pre-vented him from studying in one of the world’s most prestigious univer-sities, the Cambridge University, but planted a desire in him to do some-thing for bright but underprivileged students who fade away without get-ting the right opportunities because
of their financial constraints. This gave birth to one of India’s most suc-cessful education initiatives — the Super 30 revolution. Super 30, which started as a silent social project, has been receiving appreciation from all over the world.
Kumar will be here to share his experiences of his journey to success and provide insights into construc-tive learning that will help students improve their output and prepare them for future challenges.
The seminar will be held at Birla Public school.
The Peninsula
Indian educationistto conduct seminar for students, teachers
Qatar National Bank (QNB) has announced the win-ner of its third cash prize
of QR100,000 which comes as part of its promotional campaign which started during Ramadan, involving cash prizes totalling QR600,000.
The winner of the third prize is Clarina Gail Ejida Mendoza, one of the customers, after she obtained a personal loan and a
credit card from QNB, which qualified her to enter the draw. Clarina expressed her happiness at winning the prize: “This is the first time to win such a big prize. I was speechless when the QNB team informed me about my win, and I am so grateful to the bank as the cash prize has made my life more joyful and easy.”
NBK Automobiles, the dealers of Mercedes-Benz in Qatar, announced the eight lucky
winners of its Ramadan promotion. Each winner walked away with a travel package including business class airline tickets and three nights’ accommodation for two people in a five star hotel.
NBK Automobiles’ customers who purchased any new or pre-owned vehicle during Ramadan were entered into a raffle receiving one coupon for every QR100,000 spent with the chance of winning a luxury break for two to a variety of destinations across the world. Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al Thani and Saud Al Emadi both won trips to Dubai, Ahmed Jassim Al Muhannadi won a trip to Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Ahmed bin Khalifa Al Thani to Muscat, Abdul Rahman Jassim Al Sulaiti to London, Khaled Hassan Al
Remaihi to Barcelona, Jawdat Ubaidah to the Maldives and Amira Shohdi to Bangkok.
Khalid Shaaban, General Manager,
NBK Automobiles said: “We are delighted to announce the winners of our Ramadan promotion. The Holy Month offers the perfect opportunity
for us to give back to our customers and we wish all eight winners a safe and enjoyable trip.”
The Peninsula
NBK officials with winners.
Riding high on signing Salman Khan (pic-tured) as the brand ambassador, Splash has unveiled the first leg of its hotly antici-pated Autumn Winter’13 campaign featur-
ing the Bollywood heart-throb in the season’s key trends. Revealing a new concept and moving forward from ‘Fashion 365’, Splash’s new brand campaign plays on the brand’s long standing affair with fashion and is titled ‘Love Splash’.
The campaign takes inspiration from the 20 years in love with fashion concept that was launched ear-lier this year as part of the on-going 20 year cel-ebrations at Splash. Building onto this concept, the new campaign will see the heart symbol, a specially designed logo used as a lifeline that runs across all new communication for the brand.
Talking about ‘Love Splash’, Raza Beig, CEO Splash & Iconic, said: “The new campaign reinforces our love affair with fashion and brings the entire brand experience of 20 years in love with fashion to life. With Salman at the forefront of our cam-paign we aim to connect with the sensibilities of the fashion-savvy Middle Eastern consumer and build a positive response.”
‘Love Splash’ comprises of three executions
with the first phase aiming to make the maximum impact. Brand imagery featuring Salman Khan in various moods expressing his love for fashion will appear across the Middle East in various out-door locations, in magazines, on online and social media platforms, and through direct marketing initiatives. Salman’s persona of style will moti-vate customers and fans alike to create their own memorable fashion moments and all at affordable prices.
The second phase will include strategic TV tie-ups with carefully selected Pan-Arab and Asians chan-nels and programs where a 30 second fashion film featuring Salman Khan will be played. The video will show Salman in various looks and moods enjoying his fashion choices.
‘Love Splash’ will also feature additional imagery with models wearing the collection and will be launched in the second and third phase of promo-tions. The entire campaign is built on the concept of simplicity and an essence of style, with each image highlighting key looks for the season and giving cus-tomers more room to experience, experiment and explore.
The Peninsula
Splash unveils new brand campaign
Jaidah Group’s ‘SeeMyDoha’ photography contest nets over 19,000 photos
Jaidah Group, organisers of the ‘SeeMyDoha’ photography competition, expects to receive
even more astonishing pictures after a record of over 19,000 photos have been submitted so far since the con-test began on the April 7.
The ‘SeeMyDoha’ photogra-phy competition is an offshoot of ‘SeeMyCity’ and has been adopted by Jaidah Group as the way forward to what is now its annual photography contest. It is a new concept that uses camera-enabled smartphones and the social media platform Instagram,
and runs up to September 30.As of July 31 , a total of 19,289
entries have been received, with nine entries – three each from every month’s varying themes – having been initially chosen by the competition’s expert panel of judges as ‘Winners of the Month’ for April, May and June. Nine more monthly winners are to be selected for the months of July, August and September before the top five entries throughout the competition are to be announced by Jaidah Group and through Instagram and social
media at an Exhibition and Award Ceremony scheduled in November. Uop prize winner receiving a surprise trip to a mystery destination.
Under the competition’s rules, entries are to be submitted only via Instagram using the hashtag #seemydoha, with only images that clearly reflect Qatar will be consid-ered for the competition. Full details of the terms and conditions of the competition can be found on www.seemydoha.com.
“We are very pleased and amazed at the huge response and
amazing artistic quality of images that this competition has gener-ated so far,” said Mohamad Jaidah, Group Executive Director of Jaidah Group. “Undoubtedly, the innate artistic skills of contestants were also further enhanced by the work-shop organized also by Jaidah Group which additionally taught them how to take photographs with maximum impact using a smartphone, as well as the simple and effective proce-dures for uploading and showcasing them via Instagram.
The Peninsula
PLUS | SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 20136 WHEELS
South Korean Armadillo car folds up for easy parking By Hyunjoo Jin
With a click on a smartphone, the experimental “Armadillo-T” electric car made in South Korea will park itself and fold nearly in half, free-ing up space in crowded cities. The quirky two-seater, named after
the animal whose shell it resembles, may never see production but it is part of a trend of developing environmentally friendly vehicles for urban spaces.
The car can travel 100km on a 10-minute charge and has a maximum speed of 60kmph. When it comes time to park, the rear of the vehicle folds over the front, almost halving its body length to just 1.65 metres (65 inches).
“They can be parked in every corner of the street and buildings, be it apart-ments, shopping malls or supermarkets,” said Suh In-soo, a professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology who led development of the car.
Suh did away with rear-view mirrors by adding tiny digital cameras that show the back and sides of the car on a flat screen on the dashboard. A Windows-based computer system communicates with the driver’s smartphone and enables self-parking.
The Armadillo-T cannot legally venture on to the road in South Korea because it does not meet certain mandatory criteria, such as withstanding crashes. Suh said South Korea should relax rules for micro cars, exempting them from crash requirements because of their relatively low speeds.
A video demonstrating the prototype has been viewed more than 780,000 times on YouTube. Reuters
On his first visit to the Peugeot dealership in Wuhan, China, Xu Zhongli spent hours asking questions and fiddling with cars. Over the next
month, he returned for another four marathon ses-sions and also made several visits to a Citroen show-room. Neither dealer showed any signs of impatience with him, Xu says.
“I needed time to look at the models and consider the colour,” said Xu, 41, a production supervisor, who finally settled on a 105,000 yuan ($17,000) sil-ver Peugeot 308, his first car. “I had to negotiate the price, too.”
While the time needed to make a sale would be considered excessive in the United States, it’s nor-mal for Chinese car dealers to entertain multiple visits from prospective customers, who often bring along relatives and friends to give opinions and hag-gle over the price. About half of all auto purchases in China are made by first-time buyers like Xu, who have limited knowledge about cars, according to researcher Nielsen Holdings.
Automakers and dealerships go out of their way to make these newcomers feel welcome, offering mani-cures, movies and free food to keep them in showrooms as salespeople explain features.
“They go through a different process from what you’d see in the US,” Nigel Harris, Ford Asia Pacific’s vice president of sales & service, said by phone. “Not only are they first- time car buyers, but their family hasn’t had the experience either.”
With more than 100 brands available in China,
dealers come up with creative ways to ensure return visits.
At a Ford showroom in Shanghai’s Pudong dis-trict, there’s an in-house manicurist and shoe-shiner. Singers perform at barbecues for customers, and peri-odically the dealer holds drawings for gifts such as iPads and TVs.
In Foshan, a city in southern Guangdong province, a Honda outlet holds talks on fengshui, shows recent hit films from Hollywood and Chinese studios, and offers massage chairs for relaxation.
The three-story Mercedes-Benz dealership in Shanghai’s Putuo district has a 12-seat theatre (often showing movies that feature Mercedes vehicles), a cigar room for repeat customers, a library, a fitness centre, and a game room that includes pool tables and driving games. At lunch, there’s a buffet with five dif-ferent meat and vegetable dishes, and a full-time tea artist brews various types of Chinese tea.
Once a buyer has paid and the keys are handed over, dealers often festoon the car with huge ribbons, light strings of firecrackers, and snap commemora-tive photos — all intended to make the customer feel important and respected.
Dealerships and automakers are willing to spend time and money to pamper first-time buyers and encourage repeat business and referrals, said Chin-Lim Ong, General Motors Co’s China director of vehi-cle sales, service and marketing.
“It’s crucial to make sure customers have an excep-tionally good experience” so they’ll recommend the
dealership and brand to others, Ong said by e-mail.Shanghai pub owner Yuan Guidi, 32, bought her
BMW 3i sedan for 330,000 yuan ($54,000) last year from the dealer that sold a friend the same model.
“My friend loaned me the car and I thought it was pretty good, so I decided to buy one,” said Yuan. “I didn’t bother much about the details because my friend had done her homework when she bought her car, and I trust her.”
Given China’s size and diversity, the country’s hun-dreds of auto shows have become an important forum where first-time buyers can kick the tires of many brands at once. And for customers who can’t make it to shows or showrooms, automakers will go to them. General Motors Co has mobile dealerships to bring in aspiring car owners, said Zhang Zhihong, director of brand planning at the automaker’s joint venture Shanghai GM. The mobile showrooms “make it very convenient for potential customers to experience our products and make deals,” Zhang said by e-mail.
For Wu Jianlin, 43, the service shown by the sales-people on her four visits to a GM dealership two years ago helped seal her decision to buy a Buick Lacrosse.
“They answered all my questions on fuel economy and features and were very patient,” said Wu, who works at an insurance company in Nantong, about 80 miles north of Shanghai. The day she took delivery of the car, dozens of friends and family gathered to admire the Buick. “I’m very proud to own a car,” she said. “It makes me look good in front of my colleagues, friends and relatives.” WP-Bloomberg
Chinese auto dealers pamper first-time customers
FITNESS/HEALTH 7
Iron supplements do not boost malaria risk: Report
Global health experts have warned against giving iron supplements in areas where malaria is rampant,
but a study found no rise in cases of the mosquito-borne disease among children who took iron.
However, hospital visits for severe diar-rhoea episodes were significantly higher among children in Ghana given extra iron, raising questions about its safety, experts said.
Malaria is a leading cause of death among children in sub-Saharan Africa, while iron deficiency is one of the area’s most common nutritional deficiencies.
Nearly 2,000 children, aged six months to almost three years old, were part of the ran-domised study led by Stanley Zlotkin of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Children who were given a micronutri-ent powder (MNP) containing iron for five months showed no higher incidence of malaria than those who did not get the sup-plements. All were given insecticide-treated bed nets.
The findings contrast with previous research that has suggested iron-deficiency anaemia may protect against malaria, and that iron supplements may make malaria more deadly.
“Children in the iron group experienced fewer malaria episodes, but more in this group were admitted to the hospital during the intervention period,” said the study.
In 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund(UNICEF) urged that in malaria-endemic areas, iron supplements be given only to children with anaemia and at risk of iron deficiency.
“The findings from the current study not only address a gap in the literature, but also have potentially important policy implications for countries like Ghana that have not imple-mented iron supplementation or fortification as part of anaemia control programs in part due to the joint recommendation from the WHO and Unicef.”
The WHO has recently updated its guide-lines to urge that in malaria-prone areas, iron be given along with measures to prevent and treat malaria.
The Ghana study also raised questions about the safety of iron supplements, how-ever, with its finding that hospital admissions were significantly higher in the iron group (156) than in the non-fortified group (128).
An accompanying editorial in JAMA by Andrew Prentice of the London School of Hygiene and colleagues suggested that the iron powder used in the study may not have been as effective as that used in previous stud-ies, and called for more research on safety.
“The conclusion that iron did not increase the risk of malaria may offer limited reas-surance and may be related to a lack of desired efficacy of the iron-containing MNP in respect to anemia resolution,” they wrote.
The rise in hospitalizations “adds further to the concerns about the safety of iron admin-istration in highly malaria-endemic envi-ronments,” and leaves global health policy makers with an “unresolved dilemma.”
AFP
By Kate Kelland
Poverty and the all-consuming fretting that comes with it require so much mental energy that
the poor have little brain power left to devote to other areas of life, according to the findings of an international study.
The mental strain could be costing poor people up to 13 IQ (intelligence quotient) points and means they are more likely to make mistakes and bad decisions that amplify and perpetuate their financial woes, researchers found.
“Our results suggest that when you are poor, money is not the only thing in short supply. Cognitive capacity is also stretched thin,” said Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan, part of an international team that conducted the study.
In a series of experiments, researchers from Harvard, Princeton and other universities in North America and from Britain’s University of Warwick found that pressing financial worries had an immediate impact on poor people’s ability to perform well in cognitive and logic tests.
Far from signalling that poor people are stupid, the results suggest those living on a tight budget have their effective brain power, or what the researchers called “mental bandwidth”, dramatically limited by the
stress of making ends meet. On average, someone weighed down by money woes showed a drop in cognitive function in one part of the study that was comparable to a 13 point dip in IQ, and similar to the performance deficit expected from someone who has missed a whole night’s sleep.
“Previous views of poverty have blamed (it) on personal failings, on an environment that is not conducive to success,” said Jiaying Zhao, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Canada.
“We are arguing that the lack of financial resources itself can lead to impaired cognitive function,” she said.
Eldar Shafir, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton who worked on the research team, said it was not stress in general, but financial worries in particular, that led to a reduced ability to make sound decisions.
“The poor are often highly effective at focusing on and dealing with pressing problems,” he said. “But they don’t have leftover bandwidth to devote to other tasks.
“So, if you live in poverty, you’re more error prone and errors cost you more dearly -- it’s hard to find a way out.”
The researchers studied two very different groups - shoppers at a mall in New Jersey in the
United States, and sugar cane farmers in rural India.
In the mall study, they gathered dozens of low and middle-income shoppers and subjected them to a battery of tests to measure IQ and impulse control.
Half of the participants were first asked to think about what they would do if their car broke down and the repair cost $1,500 - designed to kick off worries about money. It was among these people that performance dipped significantly.
In India, the researchers found that farmers had diminished cognitive performance before getting paid for their harvest compared to afterwards, when their coffers have been replenished.
“One month after the harvest, they’re pretty rich, but the month before - when the money has run out - they’re pretty poor,” Mullainathan said in a report of the research, which was published on Thursday in the journal Science.
“What we see is that IQ goes up, (when they are rich)... errors go way down, and response times go way down.”
He said the effect in India was about two-thirds the size of the effect in the mall study - equal to around nine or 10 IQ points difference from one month to the next.
Reuters
Poverty reduces Poverty reduces brain power: Studybrain power: Study
Swedish furniture giant IKEA isworking with the UNHCRto produce a flatpackrefugee shelter whichcan be rapidlyassembledin crisiszones
Assembly: Shelter set up infour hours. No tools required
Roof and walls:Made of lightweightsemi-hard plasticdesigned to last atleast three years –compared to sixmonths forconventionalrefugeetent
Solar panel:Powers built-inlamp andUSB port
Shade-net: Metallicfabric deflects
heat during dayand retains it
at night
Size: 17.5 sq metres –houses five people
Metal frame:Held together by
connectors and wires
Weight: 100kg
Cost: $1,000per unit once in
mass production
Roof and wall panelssnap onto metal frame andsecured by plastic fasteners
Windows
Curtains
Lamp
Plastic sheetflooring
11BOOKS PLUS | SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2013
by Mark Brown
There are a few clues to exercise the little grey cells: it will be set vaguely in the late 1920s, after the shocking French train
strangling business and before the well-timed fireworks at End House in
Cornwall; and there will be no Captain Hastings. It is bound to have a twist and it will certainly be the first and perhaps only Poirot book not written by Agatha Christie.
The author’s estate and publisher HarperCollins announced plans to fol-low the examples of James Bond and Sherlock Holmes by reviving one of British fiction’s most-loved characters in the hands of a new writer.
Sophie Hannah, the bestselling writer of contemporary psychologi-cal crime thrillers, is to write a Poirot novel 93 years after Christie intro-duced him in The Mysterious Affair at
Styles and 38 years after she killed him off in Curtain.
Hannah admitted some nerves. “Anyone who wasn’t daunted by a project like this would have to be insane,” she said.
“Agatha Christie is the greatest crime writer of all time and it is a huge, huge honour for me to be the person chosen to do this. I do have a sense of trepidation but I don’t think I’d be able to write the best possible book if I didn’t, if I was at all complacent about it. The fact I wake up every day know-ing I have this incredibly important mission to fulfil will hopefully make me write a better book.”
Hannah said she’d had a crime plot twist idea for about two years but had not been able to make it work in a con-temporary thriller - but it could work, she hoped, in a Poirot-esque detective novel.
She won approval after presenting a 100-page outline to the publishers and Christie estate; the book, yet to be titled, is to be released in September 2014. Mathew Prichard, Christie’s grandson, said it was not a decision the family had come to easily. They had watched Sebastian Faulks write a new Bond novel with interest but “we thought that wasn’t for us because,
apart from anything else, my grand-mother wrote a lot more books than people like Ian Fleming. We thought there wasn’t enough room in our canon.”
The estate has had a change of heart, though, won over by arguments that it will lift interest in the Christie list as a whole and, Prichard hopes, be “a huge shot in the arm for the whole detective
and mystery section”.Of course, it is impossible to know
how Christie would have felt about it. “All authors would rather write their own books themselves,” said Prichard. “But I hope the arguments would mol-lify her - she really did care that as many people as possible in as many countries as possible read her books.”
Hannah’s book will not feature Poirot’s best friend, Arthur Hastings, and will be set roughly between The
Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) and Peril at End House (1932).
Christie wrote 33 Poirot novels - the final one, Curtain, during the blitz and locked away in a bank vault to make sure there was a fitting end to the series. Curtain was published in 1975, shortly before her death. That adapta-tion is one of four still to come, with David Suchet taking on the role of the vain but brilliant Belgian detective for the final time.
Prichard said the estate and pub-lisher were not likely to follow the same path with Christie’s other detective, Miss Marple, nor would they neces-sarily commission more than one new Poirot. “I think we will advance cau-tiously in this particular field.”
Both he and Hannah hope that even diehard resisters will be won over. “I regard every word Agatha Christie ever wrote almost as a holy text, so I’m not going to be taking any liber-ties,” said Hannah. “He won’t be taking up rollerskating.
“I know some people will say, ‘Once a writer’s dead, leave their characters alone.’ But so many famous dead writ-ers are having this done - James Bond, Sherlock Holmes - it becomes a kind of weird omission if Agatha Christie doesn’t have that done for her. It almost feels it needs to be done. I think it is great that beloved characters from fiction don’t have to die.” The Guardian
Hercule Poirot gets new lease of lifeBelgian detective who met his end in Curtain
to follow in footsteps of Bond and Holmes after Agatha Christie estate commissions Sophie
Hannah to write new Poirot novel.
Never Go Backby Lee Child(Delacorte Press)
The quest begins with a phone call, and when Jack Reacher finally arrives in Washington
to meet the woman behind the intriguing voice from “61 Hours,” he discovers Maj Susan Turner has been imprisoned. Welcome to the relentless world of Jack Reacher and his impressive tendency to be in the wrong place at the right time in Lee Child’s Never Go
Back.Child has created an iconic
character that other thriller writers try to emulate but don’t come close to matching. He has a talent for taking material that in the hands of other authors
would be stale and cliched and making it seem fresh and origi-nal. This time, he takes a spin on his formula by waving a car-rot in front of Reacher’s face: a chance to settle down and stay in one place.
When Reacher asks about Turner, he finds himself accused of an assault from 16 years ago and slammed with news that he has a daughter from a rela-tionship around the same time. Reacher has no memory of the woman who supposedly gave birth to his child, but he does know the man he’s accused of assaulting. He immediately knows that he’s being set up,
but has no idea why. When Reacher demands to see Turner in prison, he’s told that she doesn’t want to see him under any circumstances.Reacher has walked into a
major conspiracy and the very powerful people behind it will not tolerate his meddling. How can he defeat an unseen enemy who anticipates his every move? For Reacher, the answer is to go into survival mode and fight back.
The novel is so tight and compelling that the abrupt and somewhat disappointing ending will jar readers. The payoff is great, but the aftermath would have been perfect if not for the apparent appearance of a reset button. Even so, Never Go Back is one of Child’s best novels.
AP
Never Go Back is tight and compelling
Review By Jeff Ayers
Sophie Hannah with Mathew Prichard
TECHNOLOGYPLUS | SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 201312
By Jeremy Wagstaff and Devidutta Tripathy
Microsoft Corp’s acquisition of Nokia’s handset busi-ness gives the software behemoth control of its
main Windows smartphone partner, but leaves a question mark over the bigger business it has bought: Nokia’s cheap and basic phones that still domi-nate emerging markets like India.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has said he sees such phones - of which Nokia shipped more than 50 million last quarter - as an entree to more expensive fare.
“We look at that as an excellent feeder system into the smartphone world and a way to touch people with our services even on much lower-end devices in many parts of the world,” he said in a conference call to analysts.
But analysts warn that’s easier said than done.
The problem, said Jayanth Kolla, partner at Convergence Catalyst, an India-based telecom research and advisory firm, is that Microsoft simply lacks Nokia’s retail and supply chain experience in the Finnish company’s most important markets.
“The devices business, especially the non-smartphones business in emerg-ing markets, is a completely different dynamic,” he said.
Kolla pointed to the need to man-age tight supply chains, distribution, and building brands through word-of-mouth. “Microsoft doesn’t have it in its DNA to run operations at this level,” he said.
India is a case in point. Nokia has been there since the mid 1990s and the country accounted for 7 percent of its 2012 revenue while the United States generated just 6 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data. Its India roots run deep: it has a presence in 200,000 outlets, 70,000 of which sell only its
devices. One of its biggest plants in the world is in the southern city of Chennai.
For sure, Nokia has slipped in India as elsewhere: After nearly two decades as the market leader it was unseated by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd in overall sales last quarter.
But it still sold more of its more basic feature phones.
As recently as last October, market research company Nielsen ranked it the top handset brand. The Economic
Times ranked it the country’s third most trusted brand.
Loyalty Runs Deep In a land of frequent power cuts and
rugged roads, the sturdiness and longer battery life of Nokia’s phones have won it a loyal fan base — some of whom have stayed loyal when trading up.
Take Sunil Sachdeva, a Delhi-based executive, who has stuck with Nokia since his first phone. He has just bought his fifth: an upgrade to the Nokia Lumia smartphone running Microsoft’s mobile operating system.
“Technology-wise they are still the best,” he said of Nokia.
But Microsoft can’t take such loy-alty for granted. Challenging it and Samsung are local players such as Karbonn and Micromax, which are churning out smartphones running Google Inc’s Android operating system for as little as $50.
Such players are also denting Nokia’s efforts to build its Asha brand, touchscreen devices perched some-where between a feature phone and a smartphone.
Nokia shipped 4.3 million Asha phones globally in the second quarter of this year, down from 5 million the previous quarter.
“The sales performance of the Asha line has been quite poor,” said Sameer Singh, Hyderabad-based analyst at BitChemy Ventures, an investor in
local startups. “With increasing com-petition from the low-end smartphone vendors, I’m unsure how long that business will last.”
That leaves the cheap seats. Singh estimates that the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa accounted for two-thirds of Nokia’s feature phone volumes in the last quarter, at an average selling price of between €25 to €30 ($32.99 to $39.59).
“I don’t see how Microsoft can really leverage this volume,” he said. “The market is extremely price sensitive and margins are racing into negative territory.”
Too Big To IgnoreThe quandary for Microsoft is that
while the basic phone market may be declining, it may simply be too big to ignore.
“If you look at markets like India and Indonesia, more than 70 percent of the volume comes from the feature phone business,” Anshul Gupta, prin-cipal research analyst at Gartner said. “It’s still a significant part of the over-all market.”
That means that if Microsoft wants to herd this market up the value chain to its Windows phones, it needs to keep the Nokia and Asha brands afloat — while also narrowing the price gap between its smartphones and the fea-ture phones and cheap smartphones.
Microsoft has hinted that lowering
prices of smartphones would be a prior-ity. The Windows Phone series includes the top-end Lumia 1020, which comes with a 41-megapixel camera, while it also sells simpler models such as the Lumia 610 and 620 aimed at first-time smartphone buyers.
“The lower price phone is a strategic initiative for the next Windows Phone release,” Terry Myerson, vice president of operating systems said on the same conference call, while declining to pro-vide details.
An option for Microsoft, analysts said, would be to shoe-horn services like Bing search, Outlook webmail and Skype, the Internet telephony and messaging application, into the lower-end phones as a way to drive traffic to those services and make the devices more appealing.
“So you can bundle services with these low-end products and that way you can reach a wider audience,” said Finland-based Nordea Markets analyst Sami Sarkamies.
But in the meantime Microsoft needs to brace for assault on all fronts as emerging market rivals see an opportunity to eat further into Nokia’s market share. In India, said Convergent Catalyst’s Kolla, cheap local Android brands have been held back by Nokia’s strong promotion of its mid-tier Asha brand.
“Now, I expect them to pounce,” he said. Reuters
Asha to Ashes:Microsoft’s emerging market conundrum
Call of Duty Strike Team (£4.99)There have been Call of Duty games for iOS before,
but this is Activision’s most ambitious yet. Partly with the graphics, which are very impressive, but mainly for its exploration of new gameplay for the first-person shooter series: the ability to switch to a third-person view to co-ordinate your squad at will. In-app purchases for virtual tokens are used on top of the initial download price, if you want to speed up access to new weapons and special abilities. iPhone / iPad
Charlie and Lola Me Books (£1.99)Aimed at a younger audience than Call of Duty,
it’s fair to say. This is a collection of digital Charlie
and Lola stories, based on the much-loved books by Lauren Child. One comes free with the download, and others are sold for £1.99 each via an in-app store. And like the existing Me Books app, one key feature here is the ability to draw “hot spots” on the screen and record you and/or your children’s narration and sound effects for each story. iPhone / iPad
Human Move 30 Minutes or More (Free)This is the latest fitness-tracking app, and like
Moves, it runs on your iPhone without needing an external gadget to track movement. The app records
walking, running and biking, with the aim of getting you moving for 30 minutes or more a day (hence the title), with activities tagged to maps, and served up as stats to show your progress. iPhone
Mobento (Free)Mobento is an educational app, but one for adults
rather than children. If offers “video learning” drawn from the likes of Ted, NASA, Kahn Academy, Stanford and Yale universities, letting you search by keyword to navigate through the thousands of video lessons available. If you sign up (which is optional), you can download videos to your device too. iPhone / iPad
Stuart DredgeThe Guardian
iOS apps for the day
COMICS & MORE 13
Hoy en la HistoriaSeptember 8, 1941
1930: U.S. engineer Richard Drew developed the first clear adhesive tape, known as Scotch tape or sellotape1999: Israel’s parliament approved an accord signed by prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestininan leader Yasser Arafat2006: A U.S. report found no evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda prior to the 2003 Iraq War2011: Twitter, launched in 2006, said it had over 100 million active users
The World War II Siege of Leningrad, which lasted 900 days and claimed the lives of almost one million civilians, began when German forces encircled the city
Note: = ç = ‘a’ in ‘agh’ when surprised, š = ‘sh’ as in ship, � = ‘j’ as in adjective
PLUS | SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2013
PLUS | SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2013
HYPER SUDOKU
CROSSWORD
CROSSWORDS
YESTERDAY’S ANSWER
How to play Hyper Sudoku:A Hyper Sudoku
Puzzle is solved
by filling the
numbers from 1
to 9 into the blank
cells. A Hyper
Sudoku has
unlike Sudoku
13 regions
(four regions
overlap with the
nine standard
regions). In all
regions the numbers from 1 to 9 can appear
only once. Otherwise, a Hyper Sudoku is
solved like a normal Sudoku.
ACROSS 1 Cavalry weapon 6 “And there it is!”10 Argue (with)14 Spasm15 Hollywood has some big
ones16 Summon17 Actor Norris, after
gaining weight?19 Attendee of the fictional
Lowood Institution for girls20 “… ___ quit!”21 Symbols of speed22 Flower part23 1993 Peace Nobelist25 Hankering26 What a tosspot
fantasizes the clouds would do?
30 Designed to pique interest, say
33 Toot34 Collar36 “Hurry!”37 Some makeup … or
a hint to 17-, 26-, 43- and 58-Across
39 Badlands feature40 Unite41 Whoosh!42 A bit questionable43 Thieves at an all-night
dance bash?47 Show some respect to
a judge48 All riled up52 Emo emotion54 Conceived56 Sugar ending57 Strike58 Someone responding to
a party R.S.V.P.?60 ___ Krabappel, Bart
Simpson’s teacher61 Boxer’s fare?62 Kind of glasses63 Dieter’s amount64 Paint swatch choice65 Common door sign
DOWN 1 Longtime senator
Thurmond 2 Now, in Nogales 3 Bobby Orr, notably
4 Impatient person’s wait, seemingly
5 Conan O’Brien, e.g. 6 Mideast capital 7 Bad fit 8 Entries in two Oscar
categories, slangily 9 “That’s all I ___”10 Address11 There used to be a lot
more of these on corners12 Indian tourist locale13 Country dance18 District of Colombia?22 Knock off24 Stalactite producer25 Knocks off27 Manhattan Project
result, informally28 Guitarist Paul29 Shipboard punishment30 Bar topic31 PC operator32 Items for baseball
scouts and highway patrol officers
35 Triple Crown winner Citation or Gallant Fox
37 Reason for an R rating38 Back of a public house,
maybe39 Get wrong41 Spice42 Where many Greeks are
found44 Outlooks45 Part that may be pinched46 Sufficiently, in poetry
49 Tribal figure50 Rhône tributary51 Put on again52 Jump on the ice53 Intersection point54 Western accessory55 N.F.L. broadcaster58 ___ in hand59 Subj. of a Wall Street
Journal story
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16
17 18 19
20 21 22
23 24 25
26 27 28 29
30 31 32 33 34 35
36 37 38 39
40 41 42
43 44 45 46
47 48 49 50 51
52 53 54 55 56
57 58 59
60 61 62
63 64 65
A V E S U S P S F O C A LB O R A S O D A A R U B AF I R S T C L A S S C A B I NA L O H A S H O T A D EB A R I S T A A L I G N E D
M E A N T I O NR E G I S T E R E D N U R S EA A A N E A B E GP R I O R I T Y S E A T I N G
W I S S E T T ES T E E P L E L E T S S E EH E S P A P A I T A L LE X P R E S S C H E C K O U TB A Y E R O T O E I N D OA S S T S M A I L T E E N
How to play Kakuro:The kakuro grid, unlike in sudoku, can be of any size. It has rows and columns, and dark cells like in a crossword. And, just like in a crossword, some of the dark cells will contain numbers. Some cells will contain two numbers.However, in a crossword the numbers reference clues. In a kakuro, the numbers are all you get! They denote the total of the digits in the row or column referenced by the number.Within each collection of cells - called a run
- any of the numbers 1 to 9 may be used but, like sudoku, each number may only be used once.
YESTERDAY’S ANSWER
14
EASY SUDOKUCartoon Arts International / The New York Times Syndicate
Easy Sudoku PuzzlesPlace a digit from 1 to 9 in each empty cell so everyrow, every column and every 3x3 box contains allthe digits 1 to 9.
CINEMA / TV LISTINGS 15
TEL: 444933989 444517001SHOWING AT VILLAGGIO & CITY CENTER
05:45 Brazil vs
Australia
07:30 Cycling - La
Vuelta
09:30 Omni Sport
10:00 London Irish vs
Saracens
11:45 London Wasps
vs Harlequins
13:30 UEFA
Champions
League
Magazine
14:00 Sports News
14:30 Burns vs Beltran
15:30 Football Asia
16:00 Golfing World
17:00 Cycling - La
Vuelta
21:30 Connecticut vs
Indiana
00:00 London Wasps
vs Harlequins
02:00 Leicester vs
Worcester
08:00 News
08:30 News
09:00 Black France
10:00 News
10:30 Inside Syria
11:00 News
11:30 NEWSHOUR
12:00 News
12:30 The Cure
13:00 NEWSHOUR
14:00 News
14:30 Inside Syria
15:00 Al Jazeera
World
16:00 NEWSHOUR
17:00 News
17:30 Listening Post
18:00 NEWSHOUR
19:00 News
19:30 101 East
20:00 News
20:30 Inside Story
21:00 NEWSHOUR
22:00 News
22:30 NEWSHOUR
23:00 Witness
13:45 Too Cute!
17:25 America's
Cutest Pets
18:20 Call Of The
Wildman
19:15 Austin Stevens
Adventures
21:05 Great White
Shark:
Uncaged
22:00 Animals' Guide
To Survival
22:55 Lion Man: One
World African
Safari
13:30 Ek Mutthi
Aasmaan
15:00 Pavitra Rishta
15:30 Sapne Suhane
Ladakpan Ke
16:00 Connected
Hum Tum
16:30 Qubool Hai
21:00 Qubool Hai
22:00 Punar Vivah
22:30 Do Dil Bandhe
Ek Dori Se
13:00 A.N.T. Farm
15:00 Austin And Ally
15:25 Gravity Falls
15:50 Jessie
17:00 Jessie
20:05 Shake It Up
20:30 Austin And Ally
21:40 Good Luck
Charlie
22:00 Shake It Up
22:25 A.N.T. Farm
22:50 Austin And Ally
10:00 Falling Star
12:00 Wayne's World
2
14:00 Today's Special
16:00 Falling Star
18:00 The Wish List
20:00 Rushmore
22:00 Slums Of
Beverly Hills
13:00 Fire In The Sky:
A Daily Planet
Special
14:45 The Tech Show
15:10 Curiosity
16:00 Engineering
Ground Zero
18:35 Bang Goes The
Theory
19:30 USA Memory
Championships
20:20 Human Nature
21:35 The Tech Show
22:00 USA Memory
Championships
13:00 Ellen DeGeneres
Show
16:00 Emmerdale
16:30 Coronation
Street
18:00 Necessary
Roughness
19:00 Psych
20:00 Top Gear (UK)
21:00 C.S.I.
22:00 Defiance
23:00 Smash
09:00 33 Postcards
11:00 The Amazing
Spider-Man
13:30 Thunderstruck
15:30 Katy Perry The
Movie: Part Of
Me
17:15 33 Postcards
19:00 Birdsong
21:45 Snow White
And The
Huntsman
13:00 Hey Arnold!
14:30 The Legend Of
Sasquatch
16:00 Kung Fu Panda 2
20:00 Tony Hawk:
Boom Boom
Sabotage
22:00 The Legend Of
Sasquatch
QF RADIO 91.7 FM ENGLISH PROGRAMME BRIEF
LIVE SHOWS Airing Time Programme Briefs
SPIRITUAL HOUR
6:00 - 7:00 AM A time of reflection, a deeper understanding of the teachings of Islam.
RISE 7:00 – 9:00 AM Rise is back!, a LIVE 2-hour morning show hosted by Scott Boyes. It focuses on a wide array of topics from Weather, News, Health tips, Sports News and interactive bits with the callers.
INTERNATIO-NAL NEWS
1:00 PM The latest news and events from around the world.
DRIVE 3:00 – 4:00 PM Drive is a daily afternoon show broadcast at peak travel time. It’s a light hearted show, full of news and information ranging from film, sports, music, books and the latest events and happenings. Hosted by Nabil Al Nashar.
STRAIGHT TALK
6:00 – 7:00 PM A 1-hour “LIVE” Political show hosted by Nabil Al Nashar. The show will host discussions and debates about the latest world political news/world issues/events on air.
Repeat Shows
LEGENDARY ARTISTS
10:00 – 11:00 AM The show tells the story of a celebrity artist that has reached unprecedented fame.
FASHION 12:00 – 1:00 PM A weekly show hosted and produced by Laura Finnerty. The show brings together the latest fashion trends along with exciting interviews with local and international designers.
INNOVATIONS 7:00 – 8:00 PM A weekly show hosted and produced by Scott Boyes. The show talks about all the newest and exciting advancements in the world of science and technology.
Editor-In-Chief Khalid Al Sayed Acting Managing Editor Hussain Ahmad Editorial Office The Peninsula Tel: 4455 7741, E-mail: [email protected] / [email protected]
IN FOCUS
An inside view of Al Zubara Fort.
by Cheryl Dolan
Send your photos to [email protected]. Mention where the photo was taken.
MEDIA SCAN A summary ofissues of the daydiscussed by the Qatari communityin the media.
• The authorities have been requested to install more lamp posts for adequate lighting of key streets, and maintain the existing ones.
• People are demanding that the authorities remove sand from the Bu Samra highway and plant palms and other local trees along it to stop sand being blown on to the road.
• Some people have objected to advertisements published in local newspapers offering cars for rent along with drivers for the use of companies and individuals, and they have urged the authorities to check whether it is legal to offer such services.
• There are complaints against some supermarkets for not storing the ‘Shafaf’ cooking gas cylinders. These cylinders are kept in a metal
cage outside supermarkets.• There is discussion about a
European Union parliamentary panel backing visa-free entry for citizens of the United Arab Emirates.
• There is talk on bids invited by Ashghal to demolish the zoo and rebuild it.
• There are demands that the authorities develop the old shoeshine joints scattered in Souq Al Ali. The outlets give a bad look to the place and cause traffic jams as they are set up randomly.
• Qatar Central Bank and other banks have been urged to install more ATMs on commercial streets and service roads and maintain the existing ones because some machines are broken for months together.
Minister of Finance H E Ali Sherif Al Emadi
He was appointed as Minister of Finance on June 26, 2013. He was Chief Executive of
Qatar National Bank Group since August 2005. He was also a Member of the Board of Directors of the Union of Arab Banks and also a Member of the Board of Directors of the Advisory Council for emerging markets of the International Finance Institute.Holds a BA in Financial Science -from University of Arizona, USA.
Who’s who
If you want your events featured here, mail details to [email protected]
A Selection of Objects from Sotheby’s ‘Arts of the IslamicWorld’ Auction When: September 12-14; 10am-10pmWhere: Katara–Building 19 What: An exhibition featuring a selection of 24 highlights from the forthcoming ‘Arts of the Islamic World’ sale – exquisite objects exemplifying the broad artistic traditions of the Muslim world, including ceramics, metalwork, manuscripts, jewellery, weapons and paintings.Entry: Free, open to all
Tom Jones live in QatarWhen: September 17, 9pm Where: InterContinental Hotel - Doha
What: The Legendary superstar with over 100 million records sold live in Qatar for the very first time. Tickets: QR250-QR500. Available at Intercontinental Hotel Doha or Virgin Megastore
Qatar National LibraryHeritage Collection When: Public tours on Sundays and Tuesdays from 10am until 11.30am. Where: Qatar National Library’s Heritage Collection What: Qatar National Library’s remarkable Heritage Collection is a rare trove of manuscripts, books, and artefacts documenting a wealth of Arab-Islamic civilization and human thought. Among its more than thousands of works, the collection contains an edition of Ptolemy’s Geographia, which was printed in Rome in 1478 and is the oldest printed map showing the name of Qatar or referred to in Latin as ‘Catara’. Free Entry
Omar Khalifa – “Infinite”When: Until Dec 15; 10am-10pmWhere: Katara Cultural Village What: This outdoor photography installation examines ‘the nature of being’. Using digital multiple exposure techniques, an image is crafted that gives us a sense of other-worldliness and depth of perspective through the human form. Free Entry