ISTANBUL // A nine-year-old boy in the Netherlands is at the centre of a row between Turkey and European countries over non-Muslims fostering Muslim children and eroding their "moral values and religious beliefs".
Yunus, a Dutch citizen of Turkish origin, was removed from his Turkish parents as a four-month-old by Dutch authorities over suspicions of child abuse and neglect. He was given to lesbian foster parents who have raised him ever since.
Several court rulings have confirmed that Yunus's biological parents were unfit to care for him, a Dutch official said last week. He said the boy had not been adopted by his foster parents.
The case has become the focal point of a campaign by the Turkish government to prevent Muslim children of Turkish families in European countries from being raised by non-Muslim or homosexual foster parents.
"If a child is given to a homosexual family, then this runs counter to general moral values and religious beliefs of [Turkish] society," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a visit to the Netherlands this month.
At the core of the row lies Ankara's view that the about four million Turkish citizens and people of Turkish descent in European countries are exposed to threats to their cultural or religious identity - and that Turkey has the right, and the duty, to act.
Mr Erdogan suggested that cooperation between the Turkish and Dutch governments could prevent similar problems in the future and said Turkish non-government organisations in the Netherlands could also help.
Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, dismissed the idea of any Turkish intervention, saying the case was a domestic issue.
Mr Erdogan's government regards itself as responsible for the welfare of Turks abroad, even if they have foreign passports. But this clashes with Europeans' view of their sovereignty and ideas of integration, as well as with the continent's more liberal values.
Bekir Bozdag, a Turkish deputy prime minister who oversees Turkish expatriates, told parliament late last year that there were about 4,000 cases of children who had been forcibly taken away from Muslim-Turkish families in Europe and given to non-Muslim foster parents.
He suggested that religious reasons were behind the trend, but offered no proof to back up the accusation.
"These children are really Christianised," Mr Bozdag said. "We are faced with a big tragedy."
Mr Bozdag called on European countries to have Turkish children raised by Turkish families if possible and promised that his government would do everything to "save our little ones".
Faruk Sen, chairman of the German-Turkish Foundation for Education and Scientific Research and an expert on the Turkish community in western Europe, said the Turkish government was partly to blame.
"There are 700,000 Turkish families in Germany, but not enough come forward to take children" as foster families, Mr Sen said last week. He said Turkey's diplomatic missions in Europe had failed to provide authorities with lists of potential Turkish foster parents.
Referring to local, parliamentary and presidential elections coming up next year and in 2015, Mr Sen said efforts to please the conservative voter base of the Erdogan government were also shaping Ankara's position on the issue. "They want to tell voters at home: 'I am making sure that no Muslim child is raised by a Christian family'."
A lack of Muslim foster families had also been an issue in the case of Yunus in the Netherlands, the Dutch official said.
"He was initially placed in a foster home and given to the couple after a while," the official said. He also said that the biological parents of the boy had tried and failed to get Yunus back through the courts.
As the case became public, the lesbian couple in the Netherlands went into hiding with Yunus. Dutch officials said there had been no specific threats, but the move to "another address" had been organised as a precaution.
The Turkish family has turned to the Turkish government for help. Following Mr Erdogan's visit to the Netherlands, Nurgul Azeroglu, Yunus's biological mother, praised the stance taken by Ankara.
"Our prime minister's statement took a weight off my mind," she told the Turkish Cihan news agency. "Now I have new hope that I can embrace Yunus again after nine years."
Ms Azeroglu appeared on Turkish television this month and called on Mr Erdogan to intervene in the case. She said she accidentally dropped the child from a poorly fastened carrying bag once - part of the reason he was removed from her care.
Dutch news reports said the authorities in the Netherlands decided in 2008 to remove two of Yunus's siblings from the Azeroglu family and place them in the same family with the boy, but that the children had been sent to Turkey by their family before the decision was implemented.
tseibert@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting by Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
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On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
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EA Sports FC 25
Developer: EA Vancouver, EA Romania
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4&5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
UAE jiu-jitsu squad
Men: Hamad Nawad and Khalid Al Balushi (56kg), Omar Al Fadhli and Saeed Al Mazroui (62kg), Taleb Al Kirbi and Humaid Al Kaabi (69kg), Mohammed Al Qubaisi and Saud Al Hammadi (70kg), Khalfan Belhol and Mohammad Haitham Radhi (85kg), Faisal Al Ketbi and Zayed Al Kaabi (94kg)
Women: Wadima Al Yafei and Mahra Al Hanaei (49kg), Bashayer Al Matrooshi and Hessa Al Shamsi (62kg)
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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
Recipe
Garlicky shrimp in olive oil
Gambas Al Ajillo
Preparation time: 5 to 10 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Serves 4
Ingredients
180ml extra virgin olive oil; 4 to 5 large cloves of garlic, minced or pureed (or 3 to 4 garlic scapes, roughly chopped); 1 or 2 small hot red chillies, dried (or ¼ teaspoon dried red chilli flakes); 400g raw prawns, deveined, heads removed and tails left intact; a generous splash of sweet chilli vinegar; sea salt flakes for seasoning; a small handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
Method
▶ Heat the oil in a terracotta dish or frying pan. Once the oil is sizzling hot, add the garlic and chilli, stirring continuously for about 10 seconds until golden and aromatic.
▶ Add a splash of sweet chilli vinegar and as it vigorously simmers, releasing perfumed aromas, add the prawns and cook, stirring a few times.
▶ Once the prawns turn pink, after 1 or 2 minutes of cooking, remove from the heat and season with sea salt flakes.
▶ Once the prawns are cool enough to eat, scatter with parsley and serve with small forks or toothpicks as the perfect sharing starter. Finish off with crusty bread to soak up all that flavour-infused olive oil.
Griselda
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Ticket prices
General admission Dh295 (under-three free)
Buy a four-person Family & Friends ticket and pay for only three tickets, so the fourth family member is free
Buy tickets at: wbworldabudhabi.com/en/tickets
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
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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.”
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
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Past winners of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
2016 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
2015 Nico Rosberg (Mercedes-GP)
2014 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
2013 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
2012 Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus)
2011 Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
2010 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
2009 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
Fifa%20World%20Cup%20Qatar%202022%20
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Ant-Man and the Wasp
Director: Peyton Reed
Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas
Three stars
WWE Super ShowDown results
Seth Rollins beat Baron Corbin to retain his WWE Universal title
Finn Balor defeated Andrade to stay WWE Intercontinental Championship
Shane McMahon defeated Roman Reigns
Lars Sullivan won by disqualification against Lucha House Party
Randy Orton beats Triple H
Braun Strowman beats Bobby Lashley
Kofi Kingston wins against Dolph Zigggler to retain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship
Mansoor Al Shehail won the 50-man Battle Royal
The Undertaker beat Goldberg
UAE%20Warriors%2045%20Results
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5 of the most-popular Airbnb locations in Dubai
Bobby Grudziecki, chief operating officer of Frank Porter, identifies the five most popular areas in Dubai for those looking to make the most out of their properties and the rates owners can secure:
• Dubai Marina
The Marina and Jumeirah Beach Residence are popular locations, says Mr Grudziecki, due to their closeness to the beach, restaurants and hotels.
Frank Porter’s average Airbnb rent:
One bedroom: Dh482 to Dh739
Two bedroom: Dh627 to Dh960
Three bedroom: Dh721 to Dh1,104
• Downtown
Within walking distance of the Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifa and the famous fountains, this location combines business and leisure. “Sure it’s for tourists,” says Mr Grudziecki. “Though Downtown [still caters to business people] because it’s close to Dubai International Financial Centre."
Frank Porter’s average Airbnb rent:
One bedroom: Dh497 to Dh772
Two bedroom: Dh646 to Dh1,003
Three bedroom: Dh743 to Dh1,154
• City Walk
The rising star of the Dubai property market, this area is lined with pristine sidewalks, boutiques and cafes and close to the new entertainment venue Coca Cola Arena. “Downtown and Marina are pretty much the same prices,” Mr Grudziecki says, “but City Walk is higher.”
Frank Porter’s average Airbnb rent:
One bedroom: Dh524 to Dh809
Two bedroom: Dh682 to Dh1,052
Three bedroom: Dh784 to Dh1,210
• Jumeirah Lake Towers
Dubai Marina’s little brother JLT resides on the other side of Sheikh Zayed road but is still close enough to beachside outlets and attractions. The big selling point for Airbnb renters, however, is that “it’s cheaper than Dubai Marina”, Mr Grudziecki says.
Frank Porter’s average Airbnb rent:
One bedroom: Dh422 to Dh629
Two bedroom: Dh549 to Dh818
Three bedroom: Dh631 to Dh941
• Palm Jumeirah
Palm Jumeirah's proximity to luxury resorts is attractive, especially for big families, says Mr Grudziecki, as Airbnb renters can secure competitive rates on one of the world’s most famous tourist destinations.
Frank Porter’s average Airbnb rent:
One bedroom: Dh503 to Dh770
Two bedroom: Dh654 to Dh1,002
Three bedroom: Dh752 to Dh1,152
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
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Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
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Name: Peter Dicce
Title: Assistant dean of students and director of athletics
Favourite sport: soccer
Favourite team: Bayern Munich
Favourite player: Franz Beckenbauer
Favourite activity in Abu Dhabi: scuba diving in the Northern Emirates
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
