In his analysis of the "Flotilla Incident" - the name that has quickly calcified around Israel's recent lethal raid on activists' ships bearing aid to blockaded Palestinians in Gaza - George Packer of the New Yorker takes the sensible view that, no matter how the facts emerge, the pro-Palestinian activists have already succeeded in their primary aim: drawing negative public attention to Israel's blockade of Gaza.
And public attention, many agree, is the all-important variable. "Sunday night's incident showed again that the most powerful force in international relations today is neither standing armies nor diplomatic councils, but public opinion as shaped by media," Packer wrote.
In one of the week's other major stories, the Boston Globe ran a series of photographs depicting sea birds smothered in a heavy brown sludge from the BP oil spill. Analysts expected the images to spark a long- delayed outbreak of public anger.
It wasn't until the photos came out, wrote Michael Calderone, "that the spill's devastating effect on wildlife truly reverberated across media platforms, from Twitter to blogs, cable news to the daily paper." The photos inspired much talk of the power of images in the "digital age".
But in this digital, transnational era, how exactly does the public wield its power? Every now and then, in addition to my normal online diet of publications and blogs, I like to visit one of the internet's scrappier outposts, a website called PetitionOnline.com. Its home page - a quaint relic from the early days of web design - offers a snapshot of the 10 most active online petition campaigns on the web.
This week, in fairly typical fashion, a few of the site's top-ranked petitions mirrored the week's headlines in a way that was both maddening and clarifying - by reducing them to simple, duelling propositions. Of the top five petitions, three pertained to the Flotilla Incident. As many astute observers have pointed out, the two sides to the dispute are now engaged in a propaganda war over public perception of the incident.
On PetitionOnline, however, they are engaged in something more brute and direct: a signature war. "Show your solidarity with Gaza Flotilla victims and Palestine" was the title of one petition that had, at press time, garnered 9,185 signatures. "Support Israel in the Gaza flotilla incident" - which demanded "an immediate public apology to Israel" - was running close behind with 7,834. The third - "Strip Israel of UN membership" - weighed in behind them at 4,286.
On the other hand, the other petitions that completed the top five departed wildly from the day's top news stories - but revealed perhaps even deeper veins of concern. One of them beseeched the American TV network ABC not to cancel a programme called FlashForward; the other implored Britain not to deport an Iranian lesbian named Kiana Firouz back to her home country.
Those two petitions may seem like trifling campaigns next to the media-saturating flotilla story - but they have garnered a whopping 35,240 and 43,560 signatures, respectively.
Still, one wonders in all these cases: do such campaigns ever work? PetitionOnline - like so many of the internet's stateless domains - offers direct democracy in the absence of any social contract; grass roots with no soil. Perhaps as a consequence, and not surprisingly, most petitions fail.
Nevertheless, disenfranchised people flock to the site. "People normally turn to a petition when the normal channels have been exhausted," says Kevin Matthews, the site's founder, "or when there are no channels."
Millions of people visit the site every month, posting 30,000 signatures a day, rallying their assent. They are all trying to channel the vast public power whose effect is everywhere in evidence, but whose machinery is, for the most part, entirely invisible.
* John Gravois
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
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- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
COMPANY PROFILE
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Started: 2021
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