News snippets

• The National Human Rights Committee is expecting a change in the sponsorship system. This was discussed publicly a few months ago, but I never heard anything after one prominent minister dissed the plan, so I'm very pleased to hear it's still on track.
  
  
• The Industrial Area in Doha is apparently a "hotbed of crime": "[C]rimes which are flourishing there are alcohol consumption, and adultery. Murder and rapes also take place." I'm glad we have our priorities straight. Alcohol consumption! Adultery!! And, oh yeah, some murder and rape and stuff.
  
  
• My friend Qatar Cat, who recently moved to Dubai, was just escorted out of a mall by police officers after absentmindedly drinking out of a drinking fountain during daylight hours. Public eating and drinking during Ramadan is banned here in Qatar, too, though I've never heard of anyone getting in trouble for failing to fast.

A pound the world around...

As some of you know, the Qatari riyal -- like the other Gulf Cooperation Council currencies -- is pegged to the dollar. A riyal is, by definition, 27 cents; it never varies. An Emirati dirham is the same; a Saudi riyal is a smidgen less. I don't think I've ever heard a historic explanation for this, but I suppose it's because oil is always sold in dollars, so the GCC economies are effectively tied to the dollar no matter what.

However, the dollar is doing abysmally lately, which isn't very good for the countries that are (effectively) using it as their currency. In a bid to reduce inflation, Kuwait depegged from the dollar earlier this year, leading to rampant speculation about whether the other GCC countries would follow suit. Qatar denies plans to depeg, but of course that doesn't tell us anything, since depegging can't be announced in advance.

Yesterday, as you probably know, the Fed cut interest rates -- and Saudi Arabia notably did not. That seems to be a sign that Saudi is going to depeg, too. I wonder what that will mean for the Qatari riyal?