The Qatargate Files | Hacker News Reader

The Qatargate Files

politico.eu

76 pointsjruohonen30 comments

Thankfully in the US Academia's case there's not even an attempt to hide it:

"The numbers are staggering. According to a 2022 study from the National Association of Scholars, Qatar today is the largest foreign donor to American universities. The study found that between 2001 and 2021, the petrostate donated a whopping $4.7 billion to U.S. colleges."

https://www.thefp.com/p/qatars-war-for-young-american-minds

Well, that's what happens when the government retreats from financing science - a very sad and disturbing trend.

Qatar was not financing science. It was compromising humanities and social sciences departments with their divisive agenda.

The Qataris were primarily funding humanities and social sciences.

One might expect that scholarly institutions that have benefited from this autocracy’s money would rethink their partnership after Qatar’s foreign minister said...

Surely a scholarly institution changing their policies based on what someone says would be wokist deplatforming cancel culture and not supported at all by such a libertarian bastion.

What always surprises me is the small sums involved in corruptions in EU. > Their suspected paymasters in Qatar, Morocco and Mauritania spent around €4 million for the work

A lot of people or companies could afford that...

Don't worry they do and it sometimes just take a few well placed gifts to the right person to get a shift in your direction. Brussels is filled to the brim with lobbyists from all kind of companies or "trade associations". I don't know about the U.S. way to do that but I pretty much expect them to not be far from politicians either.

From the US perspective I remember being mildly shocked Sarkozy went down over "just" ~20mil. But here, 4! At these prices a big chunk of HN could own an MEP.

They should learn from US: it's not corruption, it's lobby.

EU-skeptic politicians are regularly accused of being antidemocratic… I suppose that is true if you define the demos as Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani?

Do you have any examples of this to hand? The opposite is true in the UK in my experience. One of the main arguments proposed for leaving the EU was that the EU is undemocratic.

Somebody help me. Do I rhyme Qatar with guitar or udder?

Neither, but closer to guitar, just with a much shorter a sound

Bless you.

The way I heard them pronounce it on Qatar air was the words "cat" and "are" together - cat are. Qatar.

Khatar

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/qa...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/21/sports/world-...

However you want to. I've heard a thousand people say it both ways.

4 million from 3 countries? That’s laughable in the context of trying to influence EU.

As there is FIMI, is this DIMI?

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