Qatar Airways Signs Over 3,700 Hotels into Loyalty Program

Qatar Airways' Privilege Club has signed agreements with several leading hotel companies, giving members of the loyalty program the chance to earn Qmiles at more than 3,700 properties worldwide. Marriott International, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Jumeirah Hotels & Resorts, Raffles Hotels & Resorts and Swissotel Hotels & Resorts have all signed up with the Doha-based carrier's frequent flyer program enabling members to earn Qmiles when the stay at these participation properties. 

The deals collectively give Prrivilege Club membeers a huge new rage of hotels to choose from during their business or leisure trips across the Middle East, Euprope, Asia Pacific and the Americas. The news comes after last month's official opening of Oryx Galleria -- a new Doha-bases boutique.

New Armored Vehicles to Strengthen Police

Bangladesh government has imported seventeen armored vehicles for police to tackle political clashes and protect law enforcers from brickbat-wielding unruly protesters and other violent elements. These vehicles are know as Armored personnel Carriers (APCs).

Bangladesh police forces have to cape with various kinds of violent protest launched by political parties from time to time such as harts, protest rallies, blockades and sieges. In recent times. police vehicles have been targeted and set ablaze by unruly demonstrators, injuring, and even killing, polices personnel.

The APCs are sturdier and safe, which will ensure safety of the police force while carrying out their duties. A source in Chittagong Part said that the vehicles were brought in by a special ship of the United Nations.

Seven Million New Voters to Enter Electoral Roll

Some seven million new name are likely to be added to the electoral roll when the voter list is updated after tow years. the updating of the voter list started on March 10, 2012.

The Election Commission officially predicts that more than 7.5 million new voters will be added to the updated electoral register for 2013 as more than two million youths cross the threshold of 18 years annually. 

The eligible persons, who earlier were dropped out of the list, and youths, whose age will have exceeded 18 years by January 1,2013 will be counted as new voters. Currently there are 85,557,243 voters in the country. The total cast of updating the voter list has been estimated at 800 million taka, which is almost three times higher compared to that of a previous update in 2099.

The commission has already appointed data collectors and supervisors and trained them. Voter registration forms were set to reach field level offices by March 8.

According to Section 11 of the Electoral Rolls Act 2009, the Election Commission is supposed to update the countrywide electoral roll during January 2-31 every year. But the immediate-past EC failed to update voter list in 2011 and 2012. The number of total voerts may cross 92 million once the current voter list is made up-to-dat.

First-ever Fashion and Beauty Summit Held in Dhaka

Arrival Go Brand organized the first even "Fashion and Beauty Summit 2012" titled "Fashion Innovation for Generation" on March 17. The Summit was all about the fashion and beauty industries and business related topics, issues, case studies, and trend. This was unique rendezvous of leading minds and think-tanks from various fashion arenas, and was the most innovative and incisive forum that brought together the top names in fashion and beauty. The discussants explained the current trends in Bangladesh's fashion industry and its prospects of getting international exposure.

During this one-day summit, Terence Tan, college director of Raffles Institute of Higher Education, Farah Anjum Bari, fashion designer and managing director of FID, Dr. Jahanara Khan, consultant of Laser Medical Center, Saibal Shaha, design consultant, Najib Tereque, artist and design consultant of Bangal, presented different issues, strategies, development processes and case studies related to national and international fashion trends.

The ordeal of rape victim Amina Filali has shocked Morocco

The ordeal of rape victim Amina Filali has shocked Morocco

Marrying the Molester: A Moroccan teenager committed suicide to escape the torment of being forced to marry her rapist.

The suicide of the 16-year-ood Moroccan girl has provoked outrage across social networking sites. Amina Filali was raped at the age of 15. instead of observing justice in the form of her attacker being imprisoned, she was forced to marry him.

In Morocco, as in Bangladesh until recently, one thing very noticeable is the lack of women out in public in the evening. You rarely see a woman in the street -- unless they are homeless and begging. And Morocco is in fact renowned for being one of the fairest of the Muslim countries for women's rights. 

In February 2004, King Muhammad VI introduced forms to the law, which raised the minimum age of marriage for women from fifteen to eighteen. Beforehand, men had been allowed to divorce women outside of court but mutual consent and a cort hearing are now required by law. 

The wifr's duty of obedience to her husband was also abolished and there could now be Pren-style agreements regarding assets in divorce, so they did not automatically belong to the husband. Inheritance and custody of children was no longer a male right and it was mandated that 10 percent of seats in the lower house of the Moroccan parliament be reserved for women. Though not banning polygamy, it is now massively restricted (it can be approved by judge under "special circumstances", as with other laws, including marriage under the age of 18).

Although this long overdue re-evaluation of Moroccan law might have gained King Muhammad VI a great deal of respect for attempting to bring equality into the country's legal system, one law which was left in, however, was Article 475. This allows rapists to marry their victim to escape prosecution. A

A woman losing her virginity outside of marriage is often reputed to bring families into dishonor, so the law is said to be enforced to allow a woman's virtue to be restored. The "special circumstances" in this case forced an underage girl to marry the man who sexually assaulted her. After months in a violent marriage with the man who should have been locked away so he could not repeat such a crime, Amina felt she had no other choice than to take rat poison to end her own live. 

An online Moroccan newspaper even reported her father as saying that it was the court officials who suggested marriage. A government study last year found that about 25 percent of Moroccan women had been sexually assaulted at least once. That is up to a quarter of women who would possibly have to make the choice between keeping their attack a secret, ior reporting the violent crime and rick facing a live married to their rapist.

Despite this, Morocco has a reasonably low rate of reported rape in comparison to other countries. In 2009, the UN revealed the there were 3.6 cases of rape reported per 100,000 women. This might indicate that may women are deciding against reporting their attack, as they face dishonor or forced marriage as a result.

Although the introduction of Mudawana (or "family code") in 2004 may have brought the African country leaps ahead in terms of women's rights, this tradition still prevails here and in many parts of the Middle East. 

Amina Filali is one tragic example of why the law needs to be abolished, but her legacy will draw global attention to the horrific choices women are still being forced to make.

Numbers as Letters

You are most likely familiar with numbers being used to imply letters, phrases or even symbols. In SMS (tesing) shortcuts, for instance, 2 can also be used for "to", 4 can mean "for" and the 8 spells "eat" gr8, meaning great. This is called SMSish or textese or simply SMS language.

When numbers instead of letters are used to spell a whole world it is called leet -- which, in leet, is written as 1337. Another example is n00b, a term for newbie. And so forth. Leet originated in the 1980s in realy chat services and on billeting boards. If you look at it for the first time, it might seem difficult to understand but you will be surprised how quickly you pick it up.

The Official Olympic Flag

Created by Pierre de Coubertin in 1914, the Olympic flag contains five interconnected rings on a white background. The five rings symbolize interconnected to symbolize the friendship to be gained from these international competitions. The rings, form left to right, are blue, yellow, black, green and red. The colors were chosen because at last one of them appeared on the flag of every country in the world. The Olympic flag was first flown during the 1920 Olympic Games.

Oldest Boats of the World

Oldest Boats

Rock drawings from the Red Sea site of Wadi Hammamat, dated to around 4000 BC, show the ancient Egyptian boats were made form papyrus and reeds. yet the world's earliest known plank-built ship, dated to 26000 BC, ws discovered next to the Great Pyramid in 1952. Reconstructed, the vessel was 142 feet long and 19 feet wide, displacing some 40 ton.

the World's olest surviving boat to 74000 BC. It was discovered in Pesse, Holland in the Netherlands. in 20025, an almost similarly aged 6.5 ft dugout was also unearthed at the Kuahuqiao ruins in Xiaoshan City, Zhejiang Province, China. In 2300 BC, the Egyptians created the world's first organized navy. Oar-powered ships were developed by the Sumerians in 3500 BC. Sails were first used by the Phoenicians around 2000 BC.

Perfume for Pope

An Italian perfumer Silviana Casoli, who previously worked with Sting, Madonna and King Juan Carlos of Spain, has now created a perfume for Pope Benedict XVI. Silvana had previously come up with two other colognes called "Water of Hope" and "Water of Faith", but they were for the use of the Roman Catholic Church in general whereas this one will be worn only by the Pope.

The scent will not be available to buy and is meant to reflect the German pontiff's love of the forests and animals in his native Bavaria. The perfume is also infused with lemon tree blossom, inspiring a sense of peace and tranquility. The perfumer said it was hard to come up with a scent that faithfully reflected the Pope's personality ad theological outlook, and she nearly pulled out of the project.

Relocating an Entire Nation

Relocating an Entire Nation

Anote Tong, president of the Kiribati nation, was in talks with Fijis military government to by up to 5,000 acres of freehold land on which his countrymen could be relocated. Currently, 113,000 people are crammed on to Tarawa, which is the administrative center of a chin of islets shaped like a horseshoe around a lagoon.

The migration is induced by climate-change when some of Kiribati's 32 pancake-flat coral atolls are disappearing beneath the waves. The islanders hold concerns about whether their culture would survive after the population moves, especially if those who leave first are mainly the young, A member of the Commonwealth, Kiribati was known as the Gilbert Islands until independence from Britain in 1979. The total land area is 313 square miles and more of the coral atolls rises more than a few feet above sea level.

Christians Need Not Wear Cross at Work

Two British women are going to seek their right to display the cross, while the ministers are going to fight in the European Court of Human Rights that it is not a requirement to wear the symbol of Christian faith at work. It is the first time that the government has been forced to state whether it backs the right of Christians to wear the cross at work.

British daily The Sunday Telegraph has reported that the ministers are likely to argue that employers can ban the wearing of the cross and sack workers who insist on doing so. The government's position received an angry response from prominent figures including Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. He accused ministers and the courts of "dictating" to Christians and said it was another example of Christianity becoming sidelined in official life.

Growing Outrage Over Kony 2012 in Uganda

It is a 30-minute video, Kony 2012, that was produced by three American videographers campaigning for greater efforts to capture Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA leader and his army of kidnapped child soldiers had fled Uganda six years ago and are now believed to be hiding in the jungles of neighboring countries.

Joseph Kony, a former church altar boy, has pursued an aimless war that has killed thousands of people and at one point forced hundreds of thousands form their homes.

The video, posted to YouTube and Vimeo, was viewed 32,600,000 times within four days of posting. There were criticisms that the film quoted only three Ugandans, two of them politicians, and that it spent more time showing the film-marker's 5-year-old song being told about Joseph Kony the explaining the root causes of the conflict.

Imran Refused to Speak in Rushdie's Presence

Imran Khan

Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan was scheduled to attend the India Today Conclave in New Delhi, but tthe visit was abruptly cancelled after it emerged that British author Salman Rushdie would speak at the same conference. It is beveled that Khan pulled out in a move to avoid raising further fears among liberals about his brand of polities.

A statement from his party said, "he could not even think of participating in any program that included Salman Rushdie, who has caused immeasurable hurt to Muslims across the globe." Organizers announced that Rushdie would speak at the conference, two mothers after dath threats forced him to withdraw from India's premier literature festival. Rushdie's 1988 novel The Satanic Verses is still banned in India and Pakistan for allegedly blaspheming Muslims.

More Phones Than Toilets in India

The figures collected in the 2011 census have revealed that more homes in the country of 1.2 billion people have a telephone than a toilet. What that means is that while the country may have gone way ahead with its communication revolution, basic sanitation is still scarce.

The data show that 47 percent of the country's 330 million households have toilet facilities, but 63 percent have telephone connections -- mostly mobiles. "Open defecation continues to be a big concern for the country as almost half of the population does it," said census commissioner c. Chandramouli. The census also revealed that  30 percent of homes have no electricity, 36 percent have no water connection, and only three percent have computers with Internet access. Some 63 percent of people use wood to cook, and television is the most popular mode of entertainment with 47 percent of homes owning a set.