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MONDAY 7 APRIL 2014 • [email protected] • www.thepeninsulaqatar.com • 4455 7741 inside Jude Law CAMPUS explodes in Dom • HEC Paris holds meeting with investment Hemingway management guru P | 4 P | 8-9 COMMUNITY • Indian Women’s Association holds Spring Fiesta 2014 P | 6 FOOD • How to make the best Cheese Crisps P | 7 HEALTH • Stress in pregnancy linked to children’s asthma risk P | 11 REFUGE FOR THE TECHNOLOGY • Retailers push into crowded mobile HYPERSENSITIVE payment market P | 12 No smoking, no perfume, no mobile phone use -- the list of rules at a newly opened apartment Learn Arabic building in Zurich is long. The structure has been • Learn commonly purpose built for people who say exposure to used Arabic words products like perfume or wireless devices make and their meanings them so sick they cannot function. P | 13 2 PLUS | MONDAY 7 APRIL 2014 COVER STORY Swiss building provides refuge for o smoking, no perfume, no mobile phone use — the list the hypersensitive of rules at a newly opened Napartment building on the outskirts of Zurich is long. For a reason: the structure has been Twelve of the 15 apartments in the purpose built for people who say expo- earth-coloured building in a remote sure to everyday products like perfume, part of Leimbach, on the outskirts hand lotion or wireless devices make of Switzerland’s largest city, have them so sick they cannot function. already been rented since it opened “I have been suffering since I was in December. a child. This will really move my life Many occupants also suffer from in another direction,” said Christian electromagnetic hypersensitivity, in Schifferle, the 59-year-old head of the which electrical circuits and radiation Healthy Life and Living Foundation from wireless equipment make them (www.stiftung-glw.com), the prime equally ill. driver behind the project. “It makes me weak, anxious, I can’t Schifferle and the other resi- breath, my lungs hurt, and I get dizzy,” dents suffer from Multiple Chemical says Schifferle, who suffers from both Sensitivity (MCS), a chronic condition conditions. not broadly recognised by the medi- While living in the building will cal community. Those afflicted, how- not cure Schifferle or others, it aims ever, believe it is sparked by low-level to make daily lives more comfortable exposure to chemicals in things such for people whose conditions have often as cigarette smoke, pesticides, scented left them isolated and unable to hold products and paint fumes. jobs. PLUS | MONDAY 7 APRIL 2014 3 ‘Only half alive’ Schifferle, who first felt sick from the fumes in his parents’ furniture fac- tory when he was three or four, has lived most of his adult life in a trailer in the pristine Swiss Alps. It was not until he was 35 and stum- bled across an American book on MCS that he realised he was not alone, but it was another decade before he found a doctor who took him seriously. “All my life it has been like I was only half alive,” he said. The new building is the first of its kind in Europe, according to officials in Zurich who decided to play a pioneer- ing role in helping people with what they called “a very harmful problem”. They estimate about 5,000 people in Switzerland alone suffer from MCS. The city made available the land and provided interest-free loans to help finance the 6.1m Swiss-franc ($6.9m) project. “We wanted to help these people to have a calm home where they hopefully will be less sick,” said Zurich housing office spokeswoman Lydia Trueb. With a mask covering his nose and mouth, Schifferle proudly shows off the 0.0 reading on a handheld electricity- measuring instrument with a triangu- where there are no antennas, no radia- lar, green antenna. tion from cell phones, which is getting “This room is very good, because we more and more difficult,” said Stirum. have almost no electricity,” he said, The condition is difficult to pin down, nodding around a large common area and sufferers are often dismissed as equipped with a big carbon filter to hypochondriacs. purify the air. But a growing body of research sug- Anyone entering the building is gests an initial chemical exposure can expected to switch off their mobile spark an “allergic reaction” in some phones, which in any case do not func- people when they later confront even tion inside. But there are landlines for very low levels of a range of chemicals. telephone and Internet communication “These patients are really suffering,” in the building. said Stirum, who is urging medical rec- Near the entrance, the only clean- ognition of the condition. ing and personal hygiene products resi- The Zurich building was constructed dents are allowed to use in the building with special materials, by purpose- are on prominent display. trained builders banned from smoking onion “so that the deeper you enter before getting to the “cleanest” rooms: or using scented products like cologne the apartment, the cleaner the rooms the living room and bedroom. Only isolation helps as they worked. It has a ventilation get,” he said. A special “net” has also been built “Avoiding the environmental bur- system aimed at sucking out all odours. The building’s most “contaminated” into the facade and roof to pro- dens is really the only thing that helps “I think a good example for the whole parts are the common areas, main tect inhabitants from electromag- most of these patients,” said John van thing is the plaster on the wall,” said hallway, stairwell and elevator in the netic or electrostatic waves or fields, Limburg Stirum, an internist special- architect Andreas Zimmermann, who centre. Zimmermann said. ised in environmental medicine who designed it. “It doesn’t smell, and that From there, residents enter their Despite all the efforts, Schifferle has treated Schifferle and other MCS is very important for these people,” he apartments, moving through a hall- still only spends a few days a week in patients at the Seegarten Klinik near added, saying he searched for months way where they can remove “polluted” his new apartment. More ventilation Zurich. for a completely odourless plaster. clothing, the bathroom and kitchen is needed, he said, until all traces and “They have to find shelter somewhere The floor plan is layered like an or other technically equipped rooms, scents of the builders are gone. AFP 4 PLUS | MONDAY 7 APRIL 2014 CAMPUS QSLP celebrates first PhD scholar atar Science Leadership Program (QSLP), a Meanwhile, Abushaikha is now preparing to join constituent of Qatar Foundation Research Stanford University in the US through the QSLP and Development (QF R&D), has cel- Research Postdoctoral track. He eventually plans ebrated the graduation of its first PhD to return to Qatar and continue his research in col- Q pictured scholar. Ahmad Abushaikha ( ), who was laboration with the Qatar Environment & Energy recently awarded a PhD in Petroleum Engineering Research Institute. from Imperial College London, joined QSLP upon its “Qatar Foundation is working hard to support launch in 2008. scientific research, and help young people enter Regarding his accomplishment Abushaikha said: this field,” he added. “The country is undergoing “I am so proud and honoured to be the first PhD great scientific progress, which is evident in the graduate within this programme and hope to see immense activity at Qatar Foundation and its dif- more young people join QSLP so that they can be a ferent research and development institutes. This is part of the scientific renaissance underway in Qatar.” why QSLP is the perfect opportunity for budding The 33-year-old began his scholarly journey as an researchers to realise their dreams.” intern at the Total Scientific and Technological Centre Dr Wyatt Hume, Executive Director of Education, for Exploration and Production, in the French city of Training and Development at QF R&D, expressed Pau, where he earned his Master’s degree. Abushaikha his pride in QSLP’s first PhD scholar to graduate then decided to join QSLP shortly after graduation. and said: “This is a great moment for Ahmad, for “I believe QSLP is the only programme that offers the QSLP programme, and for Qatar.” education in some of the top universities around the “Ahmed’s success should serve as motivation for world while providing participants with the stability all talented young Qataris interested in a career in and moral support to be creative and excel in their scientific research,” he added. “QSLP provides an respective research.” opportunity for them to step forward and achieve Abushaikha’s investigation focussed on uncovering their scientific ambitions, and to take an active role new numerical methods to model the flow of fluids in Qatar’s development by being part of its new gen- in oil and gas fields. These methods could eventually eration of young scientists.” help energy companies in Qatar make precise predic- To date, 15 students have graduated from the pro- tions about the extraction of oil and gas. gramme while a further 100 participants continue In recent years, he has developed two promising to pursue their studies in various fields. More than numerical methods, the first of which was exhib- 83 per cent of programme participants are Qatari. ited at the Europec/EAGE Annual Conference in The remaining researchers enrolled on the various Copenhagen in 2012. The second is due to be presented QSLP tracks comprise expatriates who have gradu- at the 6th European Conference on Computational ated from Qatari universities. Fluid Dynamics later this year in Spain. The Peninsula HEC Paris holds meeting with investment management guru EC Paris School of most prominent HEC Paris alumnus Management provided its as he unravelled his thoughts on a Halumni community with a wide range of topics.

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