Westerners care for animals, not pets?

Our most recent article is a piece about pets in Qatar.

In it Fiona Murray questions Qataris about why dogs - with the exception of Salukis - are considered dirty in Qatar, and takes a trip to the Qatar Animal Welfare Society, recently devestated by fire.

The idea for the article was sparked off by an conversation I had with a Qatar Sheikh I met in the falcon souq.

He was sitting there, a hooded bird perched on a thick glove.

He was a friendly gentleman, but got quite angry over the issue of animal rights, especially where it concerned hunting.

"You Westerners care more about animals than people," he complained. "When there are people starving to death all over the world, why are you fussing about a few animals?"

Like many people in Qatar, he can not understand Westerners' fuss over animals.

But does he have a point? Are we more concerned about animals than people?

Qatar 2022 - First Ad

This is the first ad of the Qatar 2022 bid (which I found on Naz Qatar's twitter feed.) You can also follow the bid team's effort on Twitter at (or should I say @) Qatar2022Bid.

Job Interviews: Just how useful are they?

Talking the Talk Versus Walking the Walk

We're currently interviewing interviewers about job interviews (I really wanted to say that!), and are coming up with lots of interesting material for our next website article. (Favourite interview questions in Qatar, for our Qatar jobs section!)

However, to me it seems there is a fundamental problem with interviews. Essentially, that you are always testing what people can say as opposed to what people can actually do.

Like me, you probably know people who can really talk the talk - people who sound like experts, but who are completely useless at their job.

You may also know people who aren't the best talkers, but who do quietly get on with their job - and produce really good work.

Personally, I am far more interested in what people can do than what people can say.

We only employ freelancers to work on the websites, but I recently chatted to one of these freelancers before giving her an assignment.

She really had absolutely nothing to say. She said so little, I barely knew she could speak English. She had, however, sent in a really good piece of work as an example, so I took her a risk and gave her a piece of writing to do.

She's done about eight articles for us since then, and they have all been excellent.

Which makes me wonder - just how useful are interviews?

Win a Ticket to the "After Shows Party"

I Love Qatar are running a competition to win two tickets to the After Shows Party on December 3rd in The Majlis Ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel Doha.

It's a competition with a difference, as to enter you have to suggest the theme of the next competition.

Check out The Competition Competition for details.

Do you interview people in Qatar?

Qatar Visitor is collecting popular job interview questions in Qatar.

We are also interested in whether different nationalities are looking for different things in interviews.

Essentially we want to know:

What are your favourite questions in an interview?
What are you looking for in an answer?
Your nationality.
Your company.

If you want to let us know please email us on admin [at] QatarVisitor.com, direct message us via twitter (@qatarvisitor) or leave a message on Facebook. We'll include a link to your company website with any interview questions/answers we publish.

A Test for England - and Qatar!

Also see: Qatar 2022 Bid on the website.

The football match between England and Brazil will be a test not just for England but for the tiny Gulf country of Qatar too.

It's the biggest match ever held here, and Qatar has no experience of England fans.

Journalists are here to cover the match, and are already impressed with the sporting infrastructure.

One wrote:

"This correspondent was left slack-jawed after being shown around one of its incredible sport development institutes earlier on Friday."

The country has also won praise for its sports academy.

From buying talent from abroad, Qatar has changed to recruiting the best talent, training and nurturing them, and returning them to their home country.

One thing Qatar can't do anything mcuh is the heat, at least outside the stadiums.

It's in the cool season, though unusually warm compared to previous years, yet Fabio has already joked that the best place to hold the match would be in an air-conditioned hotel.

There's also the reaction of the fans to consider when they realise they can only celebrate/commiserate the end of a match in expensive bars, where the price of a beer can sometimes approach ten pounds a pint!

She knew that they might take him!

The British community has been keenly following the heartbreaking case of the British mother whose son was abducted in Qatar.

Tricked into signing a custody form, she has now lost her young son to the family of her deceased husband.

One friend, who has lived in the Gulf for many years, tells me that the British embassy often warn British nationals seeking to get married of the possible consequences of divorce.

"You realise that if you ever separate, you may never see your child again," is the stark warning he said British nationals were given.

Unfortunately, when you are young and in love you are generally prepared to risk the consequences - if you can envision there will ever be any.

This case was slightly different, of course - it was not even the father claiming custody, but his family. Specifically, I believe, his grandmother.

Now one Qatari, though not wholly unsympathetic, writes:

"I think the mother is to be blamed. She was married to a Qatari for god sake. She knows our laws. She knew that they might take him."

You've been warned!