The question of whether or not Saudi Arabia and Qatar should be banned from the Beijing Olympics next month, for not allowing their female athletes to compete, was posed by Huffington Post blogger David Wallechinsky.
As he notes, the United Arab Emirates this year is sending two female athletes to Beijing, the daughters of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and Oman is sending a 16-year-old female athlete.
Several of his readers voice doubts about whether banning any country from the Olympics is such a good thing after all. "We shouldn't ban anyone from Olympics," said one reader. "And anyone talking about it should be embarrassed for misrepresenting the letter and spirit of the modern Olympic movement to suit some political preoccupation or other."
In related Olympic news: Iraq was finally cleared to compete in the Summer Games after being banned last week because of perceived political interference in its national Olympic committee. Unfortunately, due to various deadlines having past, only two athletes from Iraq will be able to compete in track events.
Meanwhile, as athletes from around the world battle it out on the playing fields in Beijing, foreign journalists will find their internet use restricted by the Chinese government, according to the BBC: "Chinese officials say foreign journalists covering the Beijing Olympic Games will not have completely uncensored access to the internet.
"A top spokesman said sites relating to spiritual movement Falun Gong would be blocked. Another said other unspecified sites would also be unavailable."
Although China promised that it would give foreign journalists unfettered access to the internet when it was bidding for the 2008 Olympics, it has obviously reneged on its pledge. This is not very surprising as the Chinese have some of the most restricted access to the internet in the world due to government censors blocking sites deemed undesirable.
In the ongoing battle between Israel's Supreme Court and the Israeli Government over the path of the barrier wall being built in the West Bank, allegedly to protect Israel from Palestinian attacks, the Israeli defense ministry said it would dismantle a section of the wall in order to ease access of Palestinian farmers to their farmland.
Palestinians have been complaining that the wall does not always follow the Green Line, which marks the boundary that separates Israel from the West Bank, and that it often encroaches into Palestinian land and farms.
In a not very surprising study, Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group, says that both the Fatah and Hamas political groups use torture on each other in their ongoing feud. "The group estimated between 20 per cent to 30 per cent of detainees suffered torture, including severe beatings and being tied up in painful positions, said al-Haq director Shawan Jabarin," reported the BBC.
A US Government auditor is calling for an end to American funding of Iraq's rebuilding effort because of the rising oil revenue that is filling Iraq's coffers. The Los Angeles Times reports from Washington that the auditor projects Iraq's oil revenues to exceed US$70 billion this year alone, compared to earlier estimates of US$30 billion.
An Iraqi official has already said that Iraq is capable of funding its development projects with its own money, but the article points out that the Iraqi Government was having a hard time spending all of the money in its annual budgets, though this has been improving over the last several years:
"The audit emphasizes, however, that the Iraqi government continues to struggle to spend the money it is accumulating. Because of government inexperience and bureaucratic bottlenecks, the Iraqi government had spent only 2.7 per cent of its capital budget by March 2008, the latest figures available.
"The report notes that the Iraqi government has improved in this regard, spending 63 per cent of its capital budget last year, compared with 22 per cent in 2006. But Bowen said the US should focus its reconstruction efforts on helping the Iraqis improve those rates."
Fed up with ongoing links between Pakistan's spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, the US dispatched a top Central Intelligence Agency official this month to Islamabad to confront top Pakistani officials with new information about links between the ISI and militant groups in Pakistan's tribal areas, according to the New York Times.
Whether this confrontation will get the Pakistanis to change their behaviour remains to be seen. Although there is no direct link between Pakistani officials and al Qa' eda, they have defended interaction with other militant groups in the country as a way of gathering intelligence.
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What is hepatitis?
Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver, which can lead to fibrosis (scarring), cirrhosis or liver cancer.
There are 5 main hepatitis viruses, referred to as types A, B, C, D and E.
Hepatitis C is mostly transmitted through exposure to infective blood. This can occur through blood transfusions, contaminated injections during medical procedures, and through injecting drugs. Sexual transmission is also possible, but is much less common.
People infected with hepatitis C experience few or no symptoms, meaning they can live with the virus for years without being diagnosed. This delay in treatment can increase the risk of significant liver damage.
There are an estimated 170 million carriers of Hepatitis C around the world.
The virus causes approximately 399,000 fatalities each year worldwide, according to WHO.
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.
The%20specs
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TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Rating: 3/5
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Race card
6.30pm: Maiden (TB) Dh 82,500 (Dirt) 1.600m
7.05pm: Maiden (TB) Dh 82,500 (D) 2,000m
7.50pm: Handicap (TB) Dh 82,500 (D) 1,600m
8.15pm: The Garhoud Sprint Listed (TB) Dh 132,500 (D) 1,200m
8.50pm: The Entisar Listed (TB) Dh 132,500 (D) 2,000m
9.25pm: Conditions (TB) Dh 120,000 (D) 1,400m
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
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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.
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Cry Macho
Director: Clint Eastwood
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Dwight Yoakam
Rating:**
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Lampedusa: Gateway to Europe
Pietro Bartolo and Lidia Tilotta
Quercus
About Takalam
Date started: early 2020
Founders: Khawla Hammad and Inas Abu Shashieh
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech and wellness
Number of staff: 4
Funding to date: Bootstrapped
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.”