DOHA: National museum of Qatar is opening for the public from today. The 560,000-square-foot Museum is designed by Jean Nouvel.

Sheikha Amna bint Abdulaziz bin Jassim Al Thani, director of the National Museum of Qatar said, “We believed we had the potential to go beyond even the most exciting existing museum displays and develop something truly immersive. And we believed the substance of those experiences ought to come from the Qatari people themselves.”

A mile-long path through the museum’s alien, spacecraft-like discs starts where it all began—literally. A film rushes through 700 million years of life on Earth, with fossils and animal models on display. The succeeding galleries move on to human life on the Qatari peninsula, with films and artifacts about life in the desert and the once-lucrative pearling trade.

It’s the second half of the museum that brings the history of Qatar, tracing the tribal conflicts that culminated with the rise of the Al Thani ruling family. Then it’s on to oil and gas, and the discoveries that dramatically transformed what was historically an obscure desert peninsula into indispensable cog in global energy security.

“To construct a building 350 meters long, with its great big inward-curving disks, and its intersections and cantilevered elements—all the things that conjure up a desert rose—we had to meet enormous technical challenges,” said the building’s architect, Jean Nouvel, in a statement. “This building is at the cutting-edge of technology, like Qatar itself.”

(Agencies)

BEIJING: A significant number of Chines people are studying abroad. According to the Ministry of Education, the number of Chinese people studying overseas reached 662,100 last year, 53,700 more than that of 2017.

Among those, 65,800 were sponsored by public funding while 596,300 were self-funded.

Nearly 5.86 million Chinese studied overseas from 1978 to the end of 2018, it said. Among them, over 1.53 million are still in the process of studying and conducting research overseas, over 4.32 million have already completed their studies, and more than 3.65 million chose to pursue a job in China after completing their studies overseas.

(Agencies)

JAMMU: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is starting his electoral campaign today and would visit the state of Jammu and Kashmir on the first day.

Commenting on successful testing of ASAT capability of India, the BJP general secretary Ram Madhav said that achievement of space scientist is phenomenal and there shouldn’t be any politics on the issue.

“We have achieved the capability of targeting low earth orbit satellites. India has joined the elite club of countries. It’s our scientist who has achieved it and let’s not make it a political discourse,” he said.

In 2014, BJP had won the state’s three parliamentary seats – Jammu, Udhampur, and Ladakh – out of six. Jammu and Kashmir will vote for the Lok Sabha elections in five phases – April 11, 18, 23, 29 and May 6. Counting of votes will take place on May 23.

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis will visit the African countries of Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius from Sept. 4-10, the Vatican announced. Francis will visit the capitals: Maputo in Mozambique, Antananarivo in Madagascar and Port Louis in Mauritius.The Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said in a national address on Wednesday that the pope’s visit would be “an inspiration and an encouragement” to help “rebuild a prosperous, united and peaceful” nation.

BEIJING: China said it will prosecute former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei for graft after investigations found he was suspected of taking bribes and breaking discipline rules, local media said.

The ruling Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog said it has expelled Meng from the party.

The Interpol, the France-based global police coordination organization, last year said Meng resigned as its president after French authorities said he had been reported missing by his wife after traveling to his home country. (Agencies)

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday announced India is the fourth nation in the world to officially enter the elite space power club with the successful targeting of a live satellite with an anti-satellite weapon, A-SAT.

In an address to the nation today, PM Modi said even as Mission Shakti operation was a difficult target to achieve, it was completed successfully within three minutes of launch today.”

He said India has successfully taken down a low-earth orbit satellite at the height of 300 km in just 3 minutes, Indian media said.

With this success, he said India has become the 4th nation after US, Russia and China to have a satellite which can take down enemy satellite weapons.

He said this mission does not violate any international norms or laws of security. “This aims to bolster India’s national security, and is a step in ensuring peace,” he said in his address. (Agencies)

BANGKOK: Thailand’s Pheu Thai party claimed on Wednesday it formed a “democratic front” with six other parties after a disputed election.

The party claimed that the opposition alliance had won a majority in the lower house of parliament hence has the right to form a government.

The coalition, however, is likely fall short of electing a prime minister since it requires a combined vote with the upper house of parliament. The Senate, upper house, is entirely appointed by the military junta.

The opposition alliance’s move is likely to lead to a political deadlock in Thailand. (Agencies)

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is addressing the nation this afternoon, local media said.

Modi tweeted saying that he would be addressing the nation with an important message. He gave no details. (Agencies)

UNITED NATIONS: Seven people were killed and eight others sustained injuries in an airstrike that targeted a hospital in a rural area of northwest Yemen Tuesday, Save the Children said.

The international aid organization, which supports the hospital, said in a statement sent to the Associated Press that four of those killed were children and two adults are unaccounted for.

Save The Children said a missile struck a petrol station near the entrance to Kitaf rural hospital, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the city of Saada at 9:30 a.m. local time on Tuesday.

“The missile was said to have landed within 50 meters of the facility’s main building,” it said.

The organization said the hospital had been open for half an hour and many patients and staff were arriving on a busy morning.

Among the dead were a health worker and the worker’s two children and a security guard, it said.

Save the Children, which reported earlier this week that 37 Yemeni children a month had been killed or injured by foreign bombs in the last year, demanded an urgent investigation into the attack.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the organization’s chief executive, said: “We are shocked and appalled by this outrageous attack.”

“Innocent children and health workers have lost their lives in what appears to been an indiscriminate attack on a hospital in a densely populated civilian area,” she said. “Attacks like these are a breach of international law.”

Thorning-Schmidt said the hospital is one of many Save the Children supports in Yemen, “but time after time, we see a complete disregard by all warring parties in Yemen for the basic rules of war.”

The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, by Iranian-backed Houthi Shiite rebels, who toppled the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

A Saudi-led coalition allied with Hadi’s internationally recognized government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015.

Saudi-led airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties and killed thousands of Yemeni civilians. The Houthis have fired long-range missiles into Saudi Arabia and targeted vessels in the Red Sea.

The fighting in the Arab world’s poorest country has killed thousands of civilians, left millions suffering from food and medical shortages, and pushed the country to the brink of famine.

NEW YORK: Despite report findings, almost half of American think that President Donald Trump worked with Russia to interfere in the 2016 Presidential elections.

According to a national opinion poll released on Tuesday, 43 percent of Americans think Trump worked in cahoots with Russia to influence the presidential elections while 53 percent believe that Trump tried to stop investigations into Russian influence on his administration.

Special Council Rubert Mueller, a former FBI director, submitted his report after 22-month investigation on March 22, exonerating Trump from charges of election-related allegations.

However, U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s four-page summary of Mueller’s investigation did little to quench the public’s appetite to learn more about the president’s alleged ties to Russia.

Public opinion was split sharply along party lines, with Democrats much more likely than Republicans to believe that Trump colluded with Russia and obstructed justice.

The public opinion is based on the national poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos after Special Counsel Mueller cleared Trump of that allegation.