On Thursday evening Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, who combines the roles of Qatar's prime minister and foreign minister, stood with the Duke of York and mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to watch the inauguration of the Shard. As blue and green lasers, accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, lit up a London skyline now dominated by the 310m skyscraper, the performance was streamed live around the world.
If the opening of western Europe's tallest building – presided over by Hamad, whose country's sovereign wealth fund owns 95% of the development – was a demonstration of Qatar's rapidly growing global visibility and influence, a few days before, in an equally vast but older building, that influence was being exercised far more discreetly. The building was the UN's Palais des Nations in Geneva, where last Saturday Hamad met the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and other foreign ministers to press his country's case for firmer international action over Syria.
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