Not much to say about Qatar, isn't it? Apart from the fact that this is the only land whose name begins with a Q, what does the average person know about Qatar?

Let me start with quoting an excerpt from my Travel Bible, the Onion “Our Dumb World”:

“CLIMATE:

November – March:Sandstorms, April – October: Sandshowers

IMPORTS: Grass

EXPORTS: Radio waves

SUFFRAGE:Anyone over 18 allowed to vote for the Emir

SPORTS: Right after this break”

But the most welcome particularity of Qatar is that since 2011 it is the richest country in the world. It has the highest GDP in the world and in 2010 its economy grew by a stunning 19,4%, unimaginable in any European or other emerging country. But lying on some of the largest oil reserves in the world has a downside as well: the country has had the highest per-capita carbon dioxide emissions for the past 18 years. Not that anyone seems to care though: when I visited, there was construction everywhere, related to the 2022 (!) FIFA World Cup! A brand new city is built for that purpose, yet the fact that during the tournament months the average temperature in the country is 40 degrees Celsius seems to cause no worry.The country is also bidding for the 2020 summer Olympics...

Qataris are just 20% of the country's population (+/- 1,7 million). The rest are mostly labor force from India, Nepal and the Philippines, carrying out 94% of the labor in the country.

Qatar imposes no income tax. With a Gross Domestic Product of circa $88,000 per capita (roughly $7,000 per month per capita, untaxed) this is probably the only reason to try your chance in Qatar, a country with a climate best compared to a furnace for most of the year. Yet another reason for a European would be that premium petrol costs just 0,23€ in Qatar! There was public outcry when in January 2012 a 25% increase at fuel price was imposed, yet all I can think is how low it was before the increase...(0,17€). People wrote in blogs asking for the government to follow Dubai's example and subsidize food! It does seem like another world, even more so when one thinks that water in Qatar costs 25% more than fuel...

Al Jazeera (“The island”) is also headquartered in Qatar. With its head office in a place as huge as a European village, it broadcasts nowadays in many languages and employs many British journalists that were fired by the currently penny-counting BBC... I'd liked to have visited the premises, but unfortunately this was not possible.

I did not stay long enough to form a more solid opinion on Qatar, but I could not help noticing that this is a country where news are mostly good for the locals, as opposed to Europe, where news are mostly ominous and the future seems bleak and worrying.