Float through any social event with M's fast facts. This week Rick Arthur ponders the mystery of Amelia Earhart as the search is renewed for the plane in which she vanished.
THE BASICS Amelia Earhart was the world's most famous female aviator. Guided by her publicist (and later, husband), George Putnam, she drove the public perfervid over aviation. She disappeared in 1937 in the Pacific on her bid to become the first woman to fly around the world.
THE FIRST "FLIGHT" Earhart was born into wealth on July 24, 1897, in the US state of Kansas. In 1904 she put a ramp atop the family's tool shed to mimic the roller coaster she had ridden at the St Louis World's Fair. She climbed out of the broken wooden box she had used as a sled with a bruised lip and torn clothes, and shouted to her sister: "Pidge, it's just like flying!"
THE FIRST REAL FLIGHT Earhart quit Columbia University and joined her parents in California in 1920. Fascinated after she and her father went to an "aerial meet", the next day she paid $10 to ride in an open-cockpit biplane for 10 minutes over Los Angeles. "As soon as we left the ground I knew I myself had to fly!" she said later.
LADY LUGGAGE Earhart bought a second-hand yellow Kinner Airster biplane and named it "The Canary". By 1927 she had 500 hours in the air and celebrity status, and promoters asked her to be the first woman to be flown across the Atlantic. "I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes," she said of the 1928 flight from Newfoundland to Wales.
LADY LINDY The pilot left for Paris from Newfoundland in her single-engine Lockheed Vega 5b on May 21, 1932, to match Charles Lindbergh's 1927 trans-Atlantic solo. After 14 hours, 56 minutes, she landed in a pasture in Culmore, Northern Ireland. Global renown was hers.
THE ENDURING MYSTERY Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, took off from Oakland, California, on May 21, 1937, on their second attempt to fly around the world. Going west to east, by July 1 they had reached New Guinea. The next day they left for tiny Howland Island, but never arrived. The likeliest explanation is that storms and equipment problems forced their Lockheed 10E Electra to use up its fuel and ditch into the sea. But conspiracy theories abound.
THE RENEWED SEARCH Ric Gillespie, executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, will head a 10-day search for Earhart's plane in July. He told CBS News recently that a newly enhanced photo taken three months after the pilot's disappearance could show the landing gear of her plane sitting in the water near the remote island of Nikumaroro, from which distress calls were heard shortly after the disappearance.
THE ENDURING ICON Earhart is cited in dozens of pop culture references. Among them: Amelia Earhart's Last Flight, by the "Yodelling Cowboy" Red River Dave McEnery, is thought to be the first song ever performed on commercial television, at the 1939 New York World's Fair; she is depicted as one of many humans abducted by aliens in 1937, and found in cryo-stasis on a planet on the other side of the galaxy, in the Star Trek: Voyager television episode The 37's (first aired in 1995); and Hilary Swank plays Earhart in the 2009 biopic Amelia.
THE DISSENTING OPINION Many of Earhart's contemporaries, along with aviation experts and veteran flyers in the years since, sniff that she was an intelligent, competent but hardly brilliant pilot, whose many mishaps were her own fault rather than the result of flaws in early planes and instruments. Ah, the price of fame!
Six other famous flyers
FLORENCE "PANCHO" BARNES (1901-1975) Flew in air shows and as a Hollywood stunt pilot. In 1935 founded the Happy Bottom Riding Club, a California dude ranch that was the hangout for such test pilots as Chuck Yeager, Jimmy Doolittle and Buzz Aldrin.
BESSIE COLEMAN (1892-1926) Earned first International Pilot's Licence issued to an African-American woman, in France in 1921. Back in US, "Queen Bess" was thrown to her death as her plane went into a spin.
JACQUELINE COCHRAN (1906-1980) Earhart's main rival. Formed the Women's Air Force Service Pilots (Wasps). First woman to top Mach 1, the "sound barrier", in 1953.
HELENE KRASNER (1886-1918) Self-styled "Baroness de Laroche" of France was first woman to fly, in 1909. Suffered three near-fatal accidents.
AMY JOHNSON (1903-1941) Britain's most famous female pilot. First woman to fly solo to Australia. Crashed into and was drowned in the Thames estuary in Air Transport Auxiliary service in 1941.
HARRIET QUIMBY (1875-1912) First female licensed pilot in the US, in 1911. Fell to her death out of a plane in an aviation fair at Boston Harbor.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Sheer grandeur
The Owo building is 14 storeys high, seven of which are below ground, with the 30,000 square feet of amenities located subterranean, including a 16-seat private cinema, seven lounges, a gym, games room, treatment suites and bicycle storage.
A clear distinction between the residences and the Raffles hotel with the amenities operated separately.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl turbo
Power: 201hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 320Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 6-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 8.7L/100km
Price: Dh133,900
On sale: now
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
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.”
Results
Men's finals
45kg:Duc Le Hoang (VIE) beat Zolfi Amirhossein (IRI) points 29-28. 48kg: Naruephon Chittra (THA) beat Joseph Vanlalhruaia (IND) TKO round 2.
51kg: Sakchai Chamchit (THA) beat Salam Al Suwaid (IRQ) TKO round 1. 54kg: Veerasak Senanue (THA) beat Huynh Hoang Phi (VIE) 30-25.
57kg: Almaz Sarsembekov (KAZ) beat Tak Chuen Suen (MAC) RSC round 3. 60kg: Yerkanat Ospan (KAZ) beat Ibrahim Bilal (UAE) 30-27.
63.5kg: Abil Galiyev (KAZ) beat Nouredine Samir (UAE) 29-28. 67kg: Narin Wonglakhon (THA) beat Mohammed Mardi (UAE) 29-28.
71kg: Amine El Moatassime (UAE) w/o Shaker Al Tekreeti (IRQ). 75kg: Youssef Abboud (LBN) w/o Ayoob Saki (IRI).
81kg: Ilyass Habibali (UAE) beat Khaled Tarraf (LBN) 29-28. 86kg: Ali Takaloo (IRI) beat Emil Umayev (KAZ) 30-27.
91kg: Hamid Reza Kordabadi (IRI) beat Mohamad Osaily (LBN) RSC round 1. 91-plus kg: Mohammadrezapoor Shirmohammad (IRI) beat Abdulla Hasan (IRQ) 30-27.
Women's finals
45kg: Somruethai Siripathum (THA) beat Ha Huu Huynh (VIE) 30-27. 48kg: Thanawan Thongduang (THA) beat Colleen Saddi (PHI) 30-27.
51kg: Wansawang Srila Or (THA) beat Thuy Phuong Trieu (VIE) 29-28. 54kg: Ruchira Wongsriwo (THA) beat Zeinab Khatoun (LBN) 30-26.
57kg: Sara Idriss (LBN) beat Zahra Nasiri Bargh (IRI) 30-27. 60kg: Kaewrudee Kamtakrapoom (THA) beat Sedigheh Hajivand (IRI) TKO round 2.
63.5kg: Nadiya Moghaddam (IRI) w/o Reem Al Issa (JOR).
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Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
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