A very important exchange took place between a top-level official from a Gulf state and the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a recent meeting in Tehran, reported Abdul Rahman al Rashed, a columnist with the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al Awsat.
"How come you believe that we are intending to build a nuclear bomb? We are not that stupid," the writer quoted the Iranian president as saying, citing a reliable source. "Were we to strike Israel with a nuclear weapon, more Palestinians than Israelis would likely get killed."
"This is remarkable statement," the columnist claimed. "It reflects a great deal of logic and political wisdom. But we all know that intentions are not measured by statements, and that talk does not match fact in Iran."
The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been cautious so far in its handling of Iran's nuclear programme so as not to fall victim to political cross-interests, announced last week that there was new evidence that Iran is moving towards building a nuclear weapon.
The agency may be wrong, and it may be seeking to please the Americans. So to make way for a decisive conclusion, Iran must open its nuclear facilities for hands-on inspection.
"We are not afraid of Iran's nuclear bomb, but we are concerned about the mentality of the current regime in Tehran."
The Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak has yet again made incendiary statements, and yet again every single phrase he said needs thorough parsing, wrote Saad Mehio, a columnist with the UAE newspaper Al Khaleej.
Earlier this month, the highest-ranking military official in Israel said: "No peace with Syria could mean war." And now, before the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organisations in Jerusalem, Ehud Barak elucidated his idea of peace when he referred to the Syrian president: "Bashar Assad must sit at the negotiating table as soon as possible, and we all know what's there on the table. The time is now.
"That wasn't a slip of the tongue of course; it rather was a plain message, unequivocal and sharp," the columnist wrote. The message sums up Israel's demands: a full peace deal like the one sealed under the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, whereby the latter had to pull his country out of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israel seemed to have decided that it was high time it offered Damascus one of two choices: either join the axis composed of Israel, the US and the moderate Arab states or form a liable and explicit front with Tehran.
This second choice would give Israel the chance to use Syria as a gateway to a regional war in the Middle East to reset its strategic balance.
The murder of the Hamas commander Mahmoud al Mabhouh last month in Dubai has suddenly turned from a triumphant stealth hit trumpeted by the Israeli media to a scandal exposing the failings of the Israeli secret service right after the Dubai police made public a detailed reconstitution of the assassination last week, wrote Galal Aref in the Emirati newspaper Al Bayan.
The myth of Mossad's success was indeed uncovered, leading those same voices that sung of the dexterity of the Israeli secret services to call for the dismissal of the head of Mossad. The Israeli disgrace actually turned into an international scandal after it was found that the members of the hit squad entered Dubai using genuine British, Irish, French and German passports.
"This is very serious because it means that Israel has received those passports as part of collaborative operations with European secret services that knew, without doubt, they weren't going to be used for tourism."
The sequel to the murder became more dramatic still after the European passports turned out to belong to actual Israeli citizens who had nothing to do with the crime. Some of them have never seen Dubai or travelled outside Israel in the past couple of years.
"Mohamed ElBaradei is not likely to run for president in next year's Egyptian elections, and even if he decides to do so, amendments that have been introduced to the Egyptian constitution preclude the likelihood of his candidacy anyway," wrote Mazen Hammad in the comment section of the Qatari newspaper Al Watan. "In sum, he doesn't embody the official criteria that make him eligible to vie for the president's chair."
Early this year, only a few days before his mandate as director of the International Atomic Energy Agency expired, Mr ElBaradei declared that he will consider running for president only if there were guarantees that the elections would be free, under the aegis of the judiciary and in the presence of international observers. But the Egyptian authorities have already rejected all these criteria.
Moreover, Mr ElBararadei, who spent most of his professional life in Europe, does not belong to any political party, while Egyptian elections law stipulates that candidates for the presidency must be members of one of the nationally recognised parties and their membership must be effective for at least one year prior to the elections. Thus, the ElBaradei phenomenon, which has a lot of Egyptians dreaming, is doomed to vanish in the real world.
* Digest compiled by Achraf A El Bahi
@Email:aelbahi@thenational.ae
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THE BIO
Age: 33
Favourite quote: “If you’re going through hell, keep going” Winston Churchill
Favourite breed of dog: All of them. I can’t possibly pick a favourite.
Favourite place in the UAE: The Stray Dogs Centre in Umm Al Quwain. It sounds predictable, but it honestly is my favourite place to spend time. Surrounded by hundreds of dogs that love you - what could possibly be better than that?
Favourite colour: All the colours that dogs come in
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Sinopharm vaccine explained
The Sinopharm vaccine was created using techniques that have been around for decades.
“This is an inactivated vaccine. Simply what it means is that the virus is taken, cultured and inactivated," said Dr Nawal Al Kaabi, chair of the UAE's National Covid-19 Clinical Management Committee.
"What is left is a skeleton of the virus so it looks like a virus, but it is not live."
This is then injected into the body.
"The body will recognise it and form antibodies but because it is inactive, we will need more than one dose. The body will not develop immunity with one dose," she said.
"You have to be exposed more than one time to what we call the antigen."
The vaccine should offer protection for at least months, but no one knows how long beyond that.
Dr Al Kaabi said early vaccine volunteers in China were given shots last spring and still have antibodies today.
“Since it is inactivated, it will not last forever," she said.
'THE WORST THING YOU CAN EAT'
Trans fat is typically found in fried and baked goods, but you may be consuming more than you think.
Powdered coffee creamer, microwave popcorn and virtually anything processed with a crust is likely to contain it, as this guide from Mayo Clinic outlines:
Baked goods - Most cakes, cookies, pie crusts and crackers contain shortening, which is usually made from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Ready-made frosting is another source of trans fat.
Snacks - Potato, corn and tortilla chips often contain trans fat. And while popcorn can be a healthy snack, many types of packaged or microwave popcorn use trans fat to help cook or flavour the popcorn.
Fried food - Foods that require deep frying — french fries, doughnuts and fried chicken — can contain trans fat from the oil used in the cooking process.
Refrigerator dough - Products such as canned biscuits and cinnamon rolls often contain trans fat, as do frozen pizza crusts.
Creamer and margarine - Nondairy coffee creamer and stick margarines also may contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
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Related
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.”
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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