After more than two years in Abu Dhabi, I can't help reflecting upon the stories I have covered as a reporter here. None stand out more than the deaths of Dood Khashen and Raja Muhammad Azeem Khan in December. I watched from the street as their bodies, wrapped in white, were lifted from their top-floor flat with a crane.
The two men died in a residential apartment fire in the Tourist Club area. The day after Azeem Khan's death, I spoke with his cousin Mohammed Sohrab as he waited to receive his kinsman's body to ship back home to Pakistan.
@body arnhem:Mr Sohrab was responsible for informing Azeem Khan's wife and four daughters about his death. Of course, they were upset. That was only natural. But I still remember Mr Sohrab's moving words about the tragedy.
"You have to compromise. What else can you do?" Mr Sohrab said. "If you take everything with anger, maybe it will hurt you, too."
He handled the death of his cousin with a beautiful and terrible grace. Unfortunately I don't have that gift of handling the injustices of the world with such equanimity. All I could see was the landlord who failed to maintain the apartment, allowing garbage and junk to pile up in empty rooms and in the abandoned, broken shops on the street.
The lift hadn't worked in over two years. There were no fire exits, no sprinklers and no alarms. Dozens of residents, who were living five bachelors to a room, escaped the blaze by jumping from balconies.
Once the fire engines had pulled away and the police tape was taken down, no one stayed behind to help the victims. Some had broken legs and wrists jumping from their flats and were sleeping on the street.
Because some did not have bank accounts, they had lost their meagre savings in the blaze. They were sleeping on friends' floors in other overcrowded apartment blocks.
Last week, I spoke with one of the victims of that fire. It took him more than a month to find new accommodations. All his clothing, his furniture and appliances were lost. As one might expect for a man who could only afford to share a single room, he did not have insurance to fall back on.
Since the fire, the Government has drafted a law that should ensure new buildings are fitted out with basic fire safety equipment. However, the rules won't apply to the capital's older buildings, where fires are too common and more deadly due to poor design and age.
Last week, I was sent to the scene of another fire. This one was a smaller blaze in a residential building on Al Falah street. Most of the residents were praying when the fire started. Although it consumed five flats, no one died. But 80 were left homeless. Some slept in cars and on the street.
As my colleague Kathryn Lewis reported a few days ago, some are still searching for new housing.
And again, there was no one to hand out blankets or offer financial help. Although many had been unable to retrieve wallets left inside their flats for days, no agency was present to offer simple things like food or tea. There were no shelters for them to go to, nor a spare change of clothes.
The victims relied upon themselves, their friends and neighbours, many of whom were left to clean the soot-stained walls of their flats.
Several months ago, I sat in on a discussion with Antonio Guterres, the UN High Comissioner for Refugees. Mr Guterres said the UAE has a sterling reputation for helping those afflicted by tragedy abroad. Through actions that are both obvious and discrete, the country helps hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
Yet it would take little for us to help the victims of tragedy at home. What little effort would it be to install fire alarms in older buildings, or outfit balconies with emergency rope ladders. Or to be present with a little food, money or shelter when dire circumstance requires it.
Minding the waterlogged garbage and picking my way through the blackened hallways of these apartment complexes, it is hard for me to overlook these failures.
Witnessing problems I cannot fix angers me. And according to the gentle words of Mr Sohrab, this is probably unhealthy. The anger will hurt me too.
"Everybody has to die. You have to die, I have to die," Mr Sohrab said to me in his shop. "God is responsible for everybody."
I respect his faith, but I wish we could be more responsible for each other as well.
@Email:jgerson@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
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
The five new places of worship
Church of South Indian Parish
St Andrew's Church Mussaffah branch
St Andrew's Church Al Ain branch
St John's Baptist Church, Ruwais
Church of the Virgin Mary and St Paul the Apostle, Ruwais
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
Brolliology: A History of the Umbrella in Life and Literature
By Marion Rankine
Melville House
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
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Honeymoonish
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NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
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.”
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5