The Four Seasons Tea Room
Willing to bet this article didn't make the Gulf Times. :)
http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/dohas-four-seasons-hote...
No one at the Tea Lounge in Doha's Four Seasons Hotel seems to have come to Qatar to take in the sights. An exiled Somali shuffles documents back and forth to the man across from him, dominating the conversation with quick talk. An Australian businessman whispers his order to a waitress, then begins to speak in hushed tones on his mobile phone.
"I don't dare go outside," says a woman with a nervous giggle into her phone, as a pall of cigar smoke envelops several men deep in discussion at another table. "All of the meetings are inside the hotel."
Last year, the opponents of Muammar Qaddafi were said to have plotted and planned in the Tea Lounge and nearby lobby. These days, many of the people on its stiff, Victorian-style chairs and couches are Syrian.
An assortment of opposition leaders and businessmen are passing through Doha, hoping to attract Qatar's arsenal of quickly-deployed cash and considerable diplomatic clout to their cause.
The stakes are higher than ever. Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, has denied reports that his country is providing weapons to the opposition in Syria - but few here doubt that his country is providing financial backing and non-lethal aid.
Security sources in Doha say that could mean everything from cash and military trainers to incentives for leading Syrian officials thought to be considering whether to defect. Another highly sought prize for any aspiring opposition leader is an appearance on Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite television station.
Last year, the Syrian National Council (SNC), the opposition coalition based in Istanbul, enjoyed Qatar's "most favoured" status. But it has failed to win broad-based international support and so the Tea Lounge and lobbies of Doha's five-star hotels are once again bustling crossroads for opponents of president Bashar Al Assad - and the diplomats and scholars who scurry to meet them.
Year 2014 they will be discussing Turkey...
Why aren't they meeting in dark alleys around shady hotels?
What a daft article. The Australian and the giggling woman are bit players in the overall scheming and planning at the tea rooms.
Then we get sidetracked to the inability of the factions to come together etc etc.
Ah, I found it interesting.
And I would have bet that noone would be interested in reading the article either.
Really like this quote from further down the article:
"Amid mixed messages from the world's power capitals, the mood at the Tea Lounge is almost aggrieved. Patrons shift in their chairs in the most painful kind of exile: seated in luxury watching hell unfold in Syria."
it's a pretty well written piece.