The automobile industry will be transformed more by the self-driving or autonomous technology than the electrification of vehicles, Volkswagen (VW) CEO Herbert Diess said.

Doha - Arab and Latin American leaders gathered in Doha, Qatar on Tuesday to boost economic ties, but it was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, long the darling of the Arab world for his defiance of the United States and his stances during Israel's wars in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, who grabbed the headlines.

Doha - Egyptian Minister of State for Legal Affairs Mufid Shehab, representing his country at an Arab League summit in Qatar in lieu of President Hosny Mubarak, on Monday called on Arab media to "abide by the truth."

"Egypt can let go of any minor disputes," Shehab said. "But that does not give others the right to engage in underhanded attacks."

Doha - Leaders from the Arab world were meeting in Qatar on Monday for the 21st regular Arab League Summit where the issue of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was expected to dominate.

Al-Bashir, who is the subject of an international arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity, was among the first to arrive in the Qatari capital Doha.

In all, some 17 out of the 22 Arab leaders and among others United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon were due to participate in discussion on a range of issues.

Doha  - There was incredulous murmuring among experts at first when the Arab Gulf states announced ambitious plans for art museums.

The sheikhs, of all people, wanted to join the international elite of art connoisseurs and collectors in just a few years?

The very people who, swimming in petrodollars, had turned their villas and palaces into monuments of kitsch with gold faucets and walls hung with embroideries of Koranic suras and oil paintings of Arabian horses? What hubris to think artistic judgment can be bought!

Doha, Qatar  - Any self-respecting family in the oil-rich Arab Gulf monarchies sends its children to study in Britain or the United States and conservative ones send their sons only. Some progressive clans also give their daughters a chance - always in the hope that after four semesters in the "sinful" West, the young women will still be marriageable back home.

As most Gulf Arabs prefer to have their daughters nearby or at least in an Islamic environment, female students outnumber males in many places in the Gulf states. At state-run Qatar University, for example, there are currently about 6,000 female students as opposed to
3,000 male students.