There has to be something unique about a nation that has hosted one of the world's three biggest international sporting events (the Cricket World Cup) and doesn't have a single traffic light. In many ways, the twin-island federation of St Kitts and Nevis, one of a wildly diverse chain of small islands in the eastern Caribbean, is the West Indies the way it used to be, before mass tourism and its inevitable impact altered the character and way of life of much of the region.
I've lived between St Kitts and Canada for the better part of two decades, and our twin islands are places I love when I'm there and miss desperately when I'm not: for the laughter and warmth of its people; the unspoiled beaches you can often have all to yourself; the year-round sunshine; the reggae and calypso that are the soundtrack to life in much of the English-speaking Caribbean; and the feeling that you're somewhere that's rather special and distinct.
Given their size - St Kitts is 168 square kilometres, Nevis 93 - the accommodation options are more than reasonable, ranging from locally run guest houses to a Marriott in St Kitts and a Four Seasons hotel, which is due to reopen in Nevis later this year after suffering extensive damage at the hands of Hurricane Omar in 2008. But you would expect to find something different in these unique islands, and six plantation inns live up to that expectation nicely. The six - Ottley's (www.ottleys.com) and Rawlins (www.rawlinsplantation.com) in St Kitts, Nisbet (www.nisbetplantation.com), Montpelier (www.montpeliernevis.com), Hermitage (www.hermitagenevis.com) and Golden Rock (www.golden-rock.com ) in Nevis - are all distinctly upmarket and are steeped in history. Britain's Admiral Nelson, who was on a tour of duty in the Caribbean as a young captain, married Fanny Nisbet at Montpelier in 1787, while the Hermitage was built around one of the oldest wooden houses in the western hemisphere. Prices are cheapest in summer and highest in winter. A double room at Rawlins Plantation Inn costs from US$221 (Dh812), including breakfast, afternoon tea and taxes. A double room at Nisbet Plantation Beach Club costs from $438 (Dh1,608) including breakfast, afternoon tea, dinner and taxes.
Getting around either St Kitts or Nevis is easy - as long as you have a car or "trans", in the local vernacular. Many of the big international rental companies have outlets. Driving is on the left-hand side of the road, and expect the unexpected - it's not unusual for a couple of motorists to stop for a chat on a roundabout. Island tours by taxi can be the best way to both see all the things you should see on either St Kitts or Nevis and and also to get a handle on what's where. There aren't many roads on either island, and it should not take long to get your bearings. Visitors to St Kitts can also take a spectacular tour of the island on the Scenic Railway (www.stkittsscenicrailway.com), the only one of its kind in the Caribbean. The train leaves from a station adjacent to the Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw International Airport, just outside the capital of Basseterre, and the 48-kilometre circular route takes it through many beautiful and remote parts of the island often inaccessible by car.
Given that there aren't all that many of them (the population of St Kitts is about 30,000; Nevis is around 10,000), it's reasonably easy to strike up a conversation with Kittitians and Nevisians. Many small local grocery stores double as "rum shops" - institutions throughout the English-speaking Caribbean - where a lively crowd will congregate to "lime" and discuss the issues of the day, ranging from island politics to international affairs, from local gossip to the fortunes of the West Indies' cricket team. If you happen to be on either St Kitts and Nevis when there's a cricket match being played - the sport is a passion throughout the region - it's well worth catching, even if the game is a mystery to you. The locals will be more than happy to tell you what's going on. St Kitts, whose refurbished Warner Park ground in Basseterre was one of the venues for the Cricket World Cup in 2007, will be hosting its second full international Test match starting on June 18, when the West Indies play the No 2 ranked South Africans, and a day in the "party stand" - where food, drink, music and dancing compete with the cricket for the crowd's attention - is about as West Indian an experience as you're likely to find.
Eating by the ocean is a special treat in the Caribbean, and both islands have beach restaurants ranging from cheap and cheerful, where you can wrap yourself around a juicy fishburger with your feet in the sand, to the downright sumptuous, with innovative menus and prices to match. Among my personal favourites are Sunshine's (www.sunshinenevis.com) on Pinney's Beach in Nevis, where specialties such as local lobster for about $25 (Dh92) and freshly caught fish $15 (Dh55) are accompanied by big-name people watching (Beyoncé, the cast of the Sopranos and Whitney Houston, to name just a few), and the Spice Mill (www.spicemillrestaurant.com) and Reggae Beach Bar (www.reggaebeachbar.com) on St Kitts's Cockleshell Beach, the former leaning toward an adventurous international menu in luxurious surroundings, the latter decidedly more funky and offering local delicacies such as conch fritters.
St Kitts and Nevis is not exactly a shop-'til-you-drop destination. That said, you can find attractive local crafts and clothes at stalls at St Kitts's Port Zante, and distinctive local pottery at Nevis's Newcastle Pottery, near the airport.
St. Kitts and Nevis's tourist industry is nowhere near big enough to have spawned any genuine tourist traps, although the dozens of duty-free jewellery shops in Port Zante are best avoided if you're looking for something that's actually from the Caribbean.
Brimstone Hill, a magnificent fortress, built in the 1700s when Britain and France were slugging it out for control of St Kitts. The views are spectacular - and, most of all, it is a living monument to the resilience of the African slaves who built it for the Brits. The small museum is crammed with artifacts from a bygone era, when postings to the Caribbean - the fever islands, as they were known - were regarded as a death sentence for colonial soldiers. gsteckles@thenational.ae
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
More on Palestine-Israeli relations
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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.”
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
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
SPECS
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Monster
Directed by: Anthony Mandler
Starring: Kelvin Harrison Jr., John David Washington
3/5
Five films to watch
Castle in the Sky (1986)
Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Only Yesterday (1991)
Pom Poki (1994)
The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)
The specs
Engine: 8.0-litre, quad-turbo 16-cylinder
Transmission: 7-speed auto
0-100kmh 2.3 seconds
0-200kmh 5.5 seconds
0-300kmh 11.6 seconds
Power: 1500hp
Torque: 1600Nm
Price: Dh13,400,000
On sale: now
