WASHINGTON // Barack Obama, the US president, may feel he has had as good an end to the year as possible after the November mid-term election defeat suffered by his Democratic Party.
In the space of two December weeks, he managed to push through a lame-duck Congress a tax law that no one seemed to like and which included significant unemployment benefits.
He had the nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia ratified despite stiff opposition from Republicans.
And the administration made history with the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" law, allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.
But Mr Obama faces a new year with a hostile House of Representatives and only the slimmest of majorities in the Senate and the challenges are piling up. His third year in office, traditionally also the beginning of a sitting president's re-election campaign, promises to be his hardest yet. It could also signal a transitional year in which foreign policy begins to take a front seat.
This mostly depends on the US economy, where signs of recovery remain fragile. This week, it emerged that house prices fell across America, signalling that the housing market recovery had stalled.
The news bucked a trend in recent weeks that suggested the US economy was on the verge of strong, sustainable growth. Retail sales have returned to pre-recession levels, the manufacturing industry has shown growth and exports are back to 2007 levels.
Of most concern to the Obama administration, however, will be joblessness. One million jobs were added to the labour market last year, but unemployment still hovers at 9.8 per cent. Reducing that number will be the main short-term priority for the administration and its success in doing so will determine the direction the White House will take over the next two years.
"As long as the economy underperforms, domestic policy will continue to dominate the administration's agenda," said Stefan Halper, director of American Studies at Britain's Cambridge University and senior fellow at the Nixon Centre in Washington. Mr Halper also served in the White House and state department in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations.
But the economy is on "the right track", he said, and predictions of America's decline were very much exaggerated. The country's response to the most serious economic downturn since the 1930s rather showed, he said, America's "immense power".
And should the economy stop being the "topic of conversation around the breakfast table", Mr Halper said, "we should see increased attention to global affairs".
Such a transition would suit the administration, which is likely to encounter legislative deadlock in the next few years. An early indication of what kind of opposition the administration is likely to meet in Congress will come in February when the administration presents its 2012 budget.
While there are areas where cross-party consensus might be found, on education or renewable energy, prospects for bipartisan co-operation in 2011 "are not bright," according to Thomas Mann, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institute, a Washington think tank.
"We will learn quickly whether Republicans are willing to shut down government and delay a necessary increase in the debt ceiling in order to achieve sharp reductions in domestic spending," Mr Mann said in an e-mail. "Congress will be more an arena for staging disagreements and arguments leading up to the 2012 elections than for enacting new law. Energy in the federal government over the next two years will perforce come from a president acting more on his own authority and initiative within the executive than is desirable."
And it is on foreign policy that Mr Obama has the greatest discretion to act. He should start, said Mr Halper, by formulating a foreign policy "based on some coherent, strategic notion of American objectives" that domestic pressures have so far left the administration unable to draw up.
"What we have had is a generally reactive but moderate foreign policy with a dramatic change in tone, but not in the broader objectives of America's global posture."
The new year will see significant developments on the global arena. The US is scheduled to pull its last troops from Iraq by the end of 2011, and though some are likely to stay pending agreement with the newly formed Iraqi coalition government, a war that has already dramatically receded from public attention in the US is likely to be all but forgotten.
In Afghanistan, US troops are also scheduled to begin their withdrawal, though there the picture remains more complicated and any pull-back remains at the mercy of the perceived or real progress of Afghan security forces and co-operation with Pakistan's military.
The main challenges for US foreign policy, however, are China and the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, said Mr Halper. The first, representing the rise of successful state capitalism, is an "ideational" challenge.
"China represents a form of governance based on ideas that are antithetical to our own," said Mr Halper. "We are being challenged now by nations that have very high rates of growth and at the same time have managed to maintain stability and, further, leave their populations with the view that the future is bright … we're entering a period in which we have to revitalise the presentation of democratic, pluralist government."
The second is as much a domestic as a foreign policy challenge. The peace process is frozen and the administration seems to have run out of ideas for how to move ahead. Strong bi-partisan support for Israel, furthermore, would likely stymie any attempts at significant change in US policy, but Mr Halper suggested it was time for the US to reconsider its options.
"We cannot and should not allow the continued building of Israeli settlements in Palestinian land. We have been pushed to the point where we've been embarrassed, been made to look incompetent and none of that should have come our way."
"[The US] has tried hard to preserve the security and integrity of Israel because we feel we have a moral obligation stemming from World War II. But we've also allowed that sense of moral obligation to cloud the geo-political dimension of our policy and it's not been helpful."
okarmi@thenational.ae
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
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Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
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THE SPECS
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2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
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
The specs: 2018 GMC Terrain
Price, base / as tested: Dh94,600 / Dh159,700
Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
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At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
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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.”
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
THREE
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Traits of Chinese zodiac animals
Tiger:independent, successful, volatile
Rat:witty, creative, charming
Ox:diligent, perseverent, conservative
Rabbit:gracious, considerate, sensitive
Dragon:prosperous, brave, rash
Snake:calm, thoughtful, stubborn
Horse:faithful, energetic, carefree
Sheep:easy-going, peacemaker, curious
Monkey:family-orientated, clever, playful
Rooster:honest, confident, pompous
Dog:loyal, kind, perfectionist
Boar:loving, tolerant, indulgent