Qatari

Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite TV station that has drawn the ire of officials in Washington, is studying how to become a private company without subsidies from Qatar's government, a station spokesman said Sunday. Since its start in 1996, Al Jazeera has won a large following across the Arab world with a reputation as an independent voice in a region where most news media are state-controlled. U.S.

Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Europe's second-largest oil company, will build its first liquefied natural gas plant in Qatar for about $6 billion to help meet surging demand for the fuel, Qatargas Managing Director Faisal M. Suwaidi said Sunday. Under an agreement with state-run Qatar Liquefied Natural Gas Co., or Qatargas, the plant will chill natural gas for export in tankers, producing enough -- 7.8 million tons a year -- to power almost 8 million homes.

The Middle East may be on the precipice of another war. And this placid Persian Gulf emirate may be HQ for the mightiest army on the planet. But Thursday was a night for the opera. To the collective excitement of expatriates, a white-robed Qatari elite and restless war reporters, superstar tenor Luciano Pavarotti took the stage in a heavily chandeliered, sold-out concert hall and made his way steadily through Verdi, Puccini and Mascagni.

OPEC agreed Tuesday to keep production quotas in place while pledging to increase oil output as needed to avert shortages caused by a war with Iraq. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which pumps a third of world supply, will wait until a war starts before boosting shipments. After two increases this year, the group's quota is 24.5 million barrels a day.

A planned gathering of world trade ministers next month in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar might be moved to a location that is farther from the conflict in Afghanistan, trade officials said Sunday. Ministers attending a preparatory meeting in Singapore this weekend raised the possibility of changing the venue for the World Trade Organization conference, scheduled for Nov. 9-13 in the Qatari capital of Doha. No decision was made and no alternate site was chosen, according to a U.S.

DOHA, Qatar -- Just 10 miles north of a strategic command center where a U.S. general was orchestrating war games, a Persian Gulf War veteran reggae-rapped the night away here on a beachfront stage. "Hello, Qatar!" bellowed Jamaican American fusion artist Shaggy to more than 3,000 foreigners and a smattering of Qataris this month. "I was told by reliable sources that nobody party like Qatar party!"

CAIRO - Hands caked in plaster, hammers scattered at his side, Yousry Abdelaziz toils away almost forgotten in a workshop at the edge of a shantytown that echoes with gunshots and the hollers of boys peddling cabbages in the middle of the night. The car mechanic next door is faring no better, even with his new marketing gimmick, a sculpture of mufflers and silver pipes twisting like fingers into the sky. A man has to try something to call attention to his business as the inflation rate rises, the Egyptian pound tumbles and sparse ingredients make subsidized bread as thin as paper.

Iran, warning that deployment of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf would create instability, told Qatar that regional states must stand together and reject plans for a permanent Western military presence in the area. The Iranian news agency IRNA reported Monday that President Hashemi Rafsanjani made the call during talks with a visiting Qatari envoy.

Iraqi soldiers only knew they were going into last week's battle of Khafji the night before--when they each received a chicken to kill for dinner, their captors said. "Up to then, they were living on bread, water and tinned milk. They knew something was up when they got the chickens," said an Arab forces captain as he guided a group of reporters through the devastated town over the weekend.

Osama bin Laden's second-in-command criticized both sides of the Palestinian power struggle in a videotape aired Wednesday, calling the Palestinian president "America's man" but also lashing out at the Islamic group Hamas. Egyptian-born Ayman Zawahiri scoffed at the plan to hold early elections in the Palestinian territories, saying that voting would lead only to defeat and that the right policy was armed struggle. The footage was broadcast by Al Jazeera, the Qatari-based satellite channel.