- Old Coast, New Coast: Doha, Qatar (hakaimagazine.com)
In the Neolithic, 10,000 years ago, this entire shore would have been underwater. At that time, the coastline was two meters higher. This wet period brought the first known occupation of Qatar and archaeologists occasionally find the dark brown rock tools of the people who took advantage of this brief climactic window—and the concurrent flourishing of life—to spread across Arabia.
- World Report 2024: Qatar (hrw.org)
Qatar hosted the 2022 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup between November and December 2022. Qatari authorities and FIFA failed to provide compensation to migrant workers for widespread abuses, including wage theft and the unexplained deaths of workers who prepared and delivered the tournament. Migrant workers faced new forms of exploitation, highlighting the inadequacies of Qatar’s labor reforms and the shameful human rights legacy of the 2022 World Cup. Qatari laws also continue to discriminate against women due to abusive male guardianship policies and against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals.
- National People’s Congress (Wikipedia)
The National People’s Congress (NPC) is the highest organ of state power of the People’s Republic of China. The NPC is the only branch of government in China, and per the principle of unified power, all state organs from the State Council to the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) are subservient to it. With 2,977 members in 2023, it is the largest legislative body in the world. The NPC is elected for a term of five years. It holds annual sessions every spring, usually lasting from 10 to 14 days, in the Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
- Qatar (Wikipedia)
Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares its sole land border with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its territory surrounded by the Persian Gulf. The Gulf of Bahrain, an inlet of the Persian Gulf, separates Qatar from nearby Bahrain. The capital is Doha, home to over 80% of the country’s inhabitants, and the land area is mostly made up of flat, low-lying desert.
