Liverpool lands 1st world title, Qatar passes pre-2022 test

DOHA, Qatar — After tens of billions of dollars spent on infrastructure, and skepticism over this tiny gas-rich nation’s suitability as a sporting host, a World Cup has finally been handed out in Qatar.

It was Liverpool lifting FIFA’s lesser-regarded Club World Cup trophy on Saturday night. In three years, the biggest prize in soccer will be handed out in a stadium yet to be completed.

The Club World Cup, which ended Saturday with Roberto Firmino sealing Liverpool’s 1-0 victory over Flamengo in extra time, has been the first major international footballing test of Qatar’s readiness.

With a 45,000-strong crowd packed into Khalifa Stadium, Qatar has shown it can fill a venue with sports fans —- unlike at the track and field world championships earlier this year.

“Everybody was for different reasons on the edge pretty much but I saw so many sensationally good performances and I’m really happy of course for our supporters,” Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp said. “The atmosphere in the stadium was great.”

But it is a stadium touched by the welfare concerns that have dogged Qatar’s building work since being awarded the main 32-team World Cup in 2010 by FIFA. A British worker plunged to his death during the construction phase in conditions later deemed to be dangerous.

This was a Club World Cup trip also tinged in tragedy for the losing finalists from Brazil. When fire engulfed a dormitory at Flamengo’s academy in Brazil in February, 10 players — all between 14 and 16 years old — died.

“It was a very sad moment in Flamengo’s history and, I believe, in Brazilian football as well,” midfielder Everton Ribeiro said in Doha. “Lives were lost, dreams were lost.”

Flamengo was ordered by a Rio de Janeiro judge earlier this month to pay the equivalent of $2,500 a month to the families of 10 victims and three injured players. Flamengo, which appealed the decision, is already paying families about $1,200 a month.

“If the situation is settled with the families, as soon as possible, including the support that Flamengo is already giving, it will be better for everybody,” Ribeiro said.

Flamengo’s grief was followed by success not achieved by a Brazilian side since Pele’s Santos in 1963.


The Brazilian championship was won in November, 24 hours after clinching a first Copa Libertadores title since 1981 in a continental triumph which earned a reunion with Liverpool.

When the European champions and South American champions met in a single-game version of the Club World Cup 38 years ago, Flamengo beat Liverpool 3-0.

Since the 1981 Intercontinental Cup, football has tilted in Europe’s favor over South America but the very staging of this seven-team Club World Cup in the Persian Gulf shows where so much of the wealth now comes from in the sport.

And it was a Brazilian player prized away from his homeland to Europe as a 19-year-old, initially by Hoffenheim in Germany, who settled this final for Liverpool in the 99th minute.

Firmino was still inside his own half when captain Jordan Henderson launched the defense-splitting pass that set Liverpool on the path to glory. As Firmino raced through Flamengo territory unchallenged, Sadio Mane held up the ball received from Henderson. When Firmino reached the penalty area, Mane squared to the Brazilian, who took three touches to control the ball past defender Rodrigo Caio before knocking it into the net.

Firmino also struck in the semifinal victory over Monterrey on Wednesday, giving him two goals in as many games in the Khalifa Stadium, having only netted once in the previous 16 games for Liverpool in all competitions.

“I couldn’t be more happy for him that he could score that goal because … (of) what this competition means to Brazil, to South American people,” Klopp said.

After netting the World Cup winner, Firmino raced away in celebration, ripping off his jersey and leaping into the air.

Firmino and his teammates will have to wait some time to attach FIFA’s gold Champions Badge to their jerseys. Liverpool anticipates it will only be allowed to be worn in the Champions League, which resumes in February, rather than weekly in the Premier League.

It may have to settle with lifting the Premier League trophy in May for the first time.


As Liverpool added the world title to its sixth European Cup collected in June, back in England its pursuit of the Premier League was helped by Leicester losing to Manchester City.

A domestic title drought stretching back to 1990 for the 18-time English champions is well-placed to end with Liverpool holding a 10-point lead over Leicester ahead of Thursday’s game against its second-place rival.

“Liverpool are enjoying their best time in their decade,” Flamengo coach Jorge Jesus said. “They played a tremendous match and Flamengo were excellent also.

“We were a match for Liverpool. I’m fully pleased with what Flamengo have done. Brazilian clubs in future will be contenders to European clubs and we have exhibited that today.”

source: sports.inquirer.net

Qatar will pull out of OPEC amid tension with Saudi Arabia

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The tiny, energy-rich Arab nation of Qatar announced on Monday it would withdraw from OPEC, mixing its aspirations to increase production outside of the cartel’s constraints with the politics of slighting the Saudi-dominated group amid the kingdom’s boycott of Doha.

The surprise announcement from Qatar’s minister of state for energy affairs, Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, again throws into question the role of the cartel after needing non-members to push through a production cut in 2016 after prices crashed below $30 a barrel.

It also marks the first time a Mideast nation has left the cartel since its founding in 1960.

In a statement, al-Kaabi said Qatar, the world’s largest exporter of liquified natural gas, planned to increase its exports from 77 million tons of gas per year to 110 million tons. He also said Qatar wants to raise its oil production from 4.8 million barrels of oil equivalent a day to 6.5 million barrels.

“In light of such efforts and plans, and in our pursuit to strengthen Qatar’s position as a reliable and trustworthy energy supplier across the globe, we had to take steps to review Qatar’s role and contributions on the international energy scene,” al-Kaabi said in a statement.

There was no immediate comment from Vienna-based OPEC, which is to meet this month and discuss possible production cuts.

Qatar, a country of 2.6 million people where citizens make up over 10 percent of the population, discovered the offshore North Field in 1971, the same year it became independent.

It took years for engineers to discover the field’s vast reserves, which shot Qatar to No. 3 in world rankings, behind Russia and Iran, with which it shares the North Field. It’s also made the country fantastically wealthy, sparking its successful bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Qatar’s wealth also has seen it take on a larger importance in international politics. Its political stances have drawn the ire of its neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest exporter.

In June 2017, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates began a boycott of Qatar in a political dispute that continues to this day. /atm

source: business.inquirer.net

2 Pinoys among 12 dead in Qatar restaurant gas explosion

DOHA - Twelve people including two Filipinos and two children were killed on Thursday when a gas tank exploded at a Turkish restaurant in the Qatari capital Doha, authorities in the Gulf Arab state reported.

About 30 others, including two Filipinos, were injured in the blast at the Istanbul Restaurant that one security source said was accidental.

Qatar officials have also ruled out terrorism in the blast, radio dzBB's Qatar stringer Manny Flores reported early Friday.

The report cited information from the Philippine Overseas Labor Office indicating one of the fatalities was a worker in a grocery store.

Both Filipino fatalities' bodies remained at a morgue as of Friday, the report said.

The two wounded are in the intensive care unit of Hamad Hospital, the report added.

On the other hand, the report also said one of the wounded asked Philippine officials not to notify relatives at home as the Philippine national's mother has a medical condition.

Citing initial reports, Flores said authorities have yet to determine if the two Filipino fatalities were inside the restaurant or were just passing by when the explosion occurred.

The two wounded Filipinos were reportedly just passing by the area and were hit by debris.

Major General Saad bin Jassim al-Khalifi, Qatar's head of public security, said non-Qatari Arabs, Asians and one Qatari were among the dead and wounded.

Another security source at the scene said two Asian children were among the dead.

Preliminary investigation suggested a gas tank exploded, setting off a fire and causing part of the building to collapse, he told a news conference. But investigations were continuing to discover why the gas tank exploded.

"It was a very big blast," he said. "It blew away cars and shrapnel was scattered 50 to 100 meters away."

Chunks of masonry, metal debris and shattered glass lay outside the restaurant in a northwestern district of the city. Cars nearby were apparently crumpled by the explosion.

The incident was the deadliest in Qatar since May 2012, when at least 19 foreign nationals, including 13 children, were killed by a fire in an upscale shopping mall.

In a separate incident on Thursday, medics and security sources at the Hamad medical city in Doha said dozens of people were hurt in the afternoon due to a gas leak at a chemical plant in an industrial area near Doha.

They gave no figures or details on their condition, but said helicopters were dispatched to fly victims of the leak to the Hamad medical centre quickly as ambulances had been caught in heavy traffic caused by the restaurant incident.

The gas- and oil-rich Gulf Arab state with an estimated national population of at least 200,000 has one of the highest standards of living in the world. The bulk of the 2 million population of Qatar are foreigners.

The restaurant is on the outskirts of the capital near Landmark mall, a well-known shopping complex usually busy with families.

"I was eating in a restaurant close by and suddenly heard a big (blast) and everything around me exploded," Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Kareem, an Indian driver, told Reuters at Hamad hospital. "I have too much damage now, my legs are broken and my head is (wounded)." — with Reuters/ELR, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com

MERS virus found in Qatar camels, linked to human spread

DOHA/LONDON - Scientists have found cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in camels in Qatar, health officials said on Thursday, fuelling speculation that camels might be the animal reservoir that allowed the virus to infect and kill humans.

The SARS-like coronavirus, which emerged in the Middle East last year and has killed almost 40 percent of the around 170 people so far infected, was found in three camels in a herd in a barn also linked to two human cases of MERS infection.

"The three camels were investigated among a herd of 14 camels, and the samples were collected as part of the epidemiological investigation," Qatar's Supreme Council of Health said in a statement.

It added that the two confirmed human cases linked to the barn had since recovered. Scientists around the world have been seeking to pin down the animal source of MERS virus infections since the first human cases were confirmed.

British researchers who conducted some of the very first genetic analyses on MERS last September said the virus, which is from the same family as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, was also related to a virus found in bats.

Confirming and commenting on the virus being found in camels in Qatar, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said there was still insufficient evidence to say for sure what the source of the human MERS infections was.

"Neither camels nor bats can yet be said to be reservoir of MERS," he said on the networking site Twitter.

Ab Osterhaus, a professor of virology at the Erasmus Medical Centre in The Netherlands that worked on the camel study, told Reuters the results were confirmed by a range of tests including sequencing and antibody testing.

Dutch scientists said in August they had found strong evidence that the MERS virus is widespread among one-humped dromedary camels in the Middle East - suggesting people who become infected may be catching it from camels used for meat, milk, transport and racing.

Saudi officials said this month that a camel there had tested positive for MERS a few days after its owner was confirmed to have the virus.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said in its latest MERS update on Nov. 22 that of the 176 laboratory-confirmed and probable reported human cases to date, 69 people had died.

Human cases of MERS, which can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia, have so far been reported in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Tunisia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Britain.

Osterhaus, whose team worked with Qatar's Health and Environment Ministries on the study, said that, at this stage, "no more details can be disclosed" about the findings since a scientific paper was in the process of being prepared and submitted for peer review and publication.

The Qatari health council said, however, as a precaution, the elderly and people with underlying health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and respiratory illnesses should avoid any close animal contact when visiting farms and markets.  — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com