Two Vietnamese men who cut the leg off a live camel to see what it would taste like have been sentenced to 45 days in prison.
The workers crept on to a farm in Saudi Arabia and beat the animal unconscious with a bar, before removing the leg.
According to court reports, the men wanted "to taste camel meat". The camel's owner is seeking 450,000 Saudi riyals (Dh441,000) in damages.
Cops tweet before they shoot
The chief constable of Manchester, England, says an experiment that involved getting his officers to tweet their emergency calls for 24 hours is "the future" of policing.
Among the tweets recorded during the experiment were "suspicious men carrying a snake", a report of "loose cows in Atherton" and an incident "of man holding baby over bridge - police immediately attended and it was man carrying dog that doesn't like bridges".
Bad costume choice
A teenager who dressed as a breathalyser unit for Halloween was arrested for drink driving.
Matthew Nieven, 18, from Lincoln, in the midwestern US state of Nebraska, was pulled over by police on his way home from a fancy dress party.
Nieven was wearing a costume designed to look exactly like the mobile breathalyser he was then asked to blow into. He was charged with driving under the influence and being a minor in possession of alcohol.
A matter of grave concern
A Sicilian gangster known as the bandit king may have faked his own death as a skeleton exhumed from his grave turned out to be too short.
Salvatore Giuliano was long rumoured to have fled to the United States and buried a lookalike in his place. Giuliano, whose life inspired Mario Puzo's The Sicilian, led a gang and won a reputation as a modern Robin Hood who stole from the rich and gave to the poor.
It was claimed he was murdered by a trusted lieutenant 60 years ago.
Relatives say he was at least five-feet nine-inch tall, but the body in the grave was barely five feet and two inches.
If alive, Giuliano would be 88. An Italian coroner has ordered further investigation.
A runner from underground
A Chilean miner, trapped underground for 69 days, will attempt the New York Marathon after training underground during his ordeal.
Edison Pena was one of 33 men rescued from the gold and copper mine after they were hauled to safety last month.
Mr Pena says he ran up to 18km a day along the underground gallery to get in shape after deciding he wanted to run in a marathon to celebrate his freedom and to draw attention to workplace safety.
Organisers of the New York event issued an invitation when they learnt of his ambition.
Another of the freed miners said: "We would rest and he would keep running. And then in the afternoon, he would go out and run again. He also would exercise and run with weight. He really did prepare."
Money isn't everything
Describing their good fortune as a "big headache", a couple from Canada have revealed they gave a lottery win worth C$11.5 million (Dh42m) to charity and local hospitals.
Allen and Violet Large, who are both in their seventies, say they decided against blowing the win on a spending spree and instead decided to give it all away.
The money was divided between organisations such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army, with the lion's share going to hospitals in Nova Scotia, where the couple live.
Mrs Large, who has been treated for cancer, said: "The money that we won was nothing. We have each other."
She added: "What you've never had, you never miss."
jlangton@thenational.ae
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup – Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
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.”
Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
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
