TYRE, LEBANON // Russia on Friday announced a second 24-hour extension to a unilateral ceasefire in eastern Aleppo and blamed extremist rebels for preventing the safe evacuation of the ill and wounded.
Moscow announced an extension of the “humanitarian pause” in eastern Aleppo until 1600 GMT (7pm UAE time) on Saturday, at the request of the UN and other international organisations to allow civilians and militants to leave the besieged city, where food is running low. But the United Nations was forced to cancel a four-day evacuation plan because of a lack of security.
Senior military official Sergei Rudskoi said extremists were “doing everything” to prevent safe departures and using the ceasefire to regroup.
“We are seeing them massing around Aleppo and preparing for another breakthrough into the city’s eastern neighbourhoods,” he said. They numbered more than 1,200 including more than 30 suicide bombers, he added. Eight injured fighters from the Islamist group Ahrar Al Sham had left the city with seven civilians via the humanitarian corridors on the first day of the pause in hostilities, he said.
But a contributor to The National based in eastern Aleppo said that civilians trying to cross into government territory on Friday were turned back by sniper fire. Fighters from the rebel Free Syrian Army continued advising civilians not to try to cross the line, as it was too dangerous.
While many of the estimated 275,000 civilians trapped in eastern Aleppo are eager to leave after living under a total siege for more than a month, they are still waiting for a safe way to do so.
The head of the UN’s humanitarian task force for Syria, Jan Egeland, said on Thursday that the agency was confident of securing “green lights” from the Syrian government, Russia and rebel groups to go ahead with medical evacuations. Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations humanitarian office Ocha described the evacuations as “an astronomically difficult operation whereby we need the security assurances from all sides to be there and to be adhered to, plus the facilitation from all parties”.
The plan involved two days of evacuations to west Aleppo, rebel-held Idlib or Turkey, followed by two days of delivering aid to eastern Aleppo and more evacuations. But as the violence continued on Friday Mr Laerke was forced to admit they were not happening.
Russia and Syria have blamed the rebels for obstructing the objectives of the ceasefire. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told US secretary of state John Kerry on Thursday that rebels were violating the truce and “preventing the evacuation of the population”.
Syria’s representative to the UN Bashar Al Jaafari on Friday accused “terrorist organisations” – primarily the former Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Fatah Al Sham and the Islamist Ahrar Al Sham – of attacking the humanitarian corridors and hindering the passage of civilians and fighters out of eastern Aleppo.
However, the continued failure of the truce has only stoked further international criticism of Russia and the Syrian government.
UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein lashed out against rebel shelling of civilian neighbourhoods of western Aleppo and indiscriminate air strikes by Russian and Syrian government forces in eastern Aleppo. However, the “overwhelming majority” of civilian casualties were being caused by the regime and Russia, he said.
“These violations constitute war crimes,” he said. “And if knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against civilians, they constitute crimes against humanity.”
The situation in northern Syria became even more complicated late on Thursday with the Damascus vowing to shoot down any Turkish warplanes in Syria’s airspace. The threat came after Turkey claimed to have killed between 160 and 200 Kurdish YPG fighters north of Aleppo, though the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the number much lower and the Syrian government referred to “150 innocent civilians” dying in the Turkish strikes.
Turkey entered Syria’s war in late August, backing Syrian rebel groups against ISIL and Kurdish YPG forces near its borders. While the YPG has clashed with Syrian government forces and its leaders regularly speak out against the government, the US-allied Kurdish group now finds itself standing between Turkey-backed rebels and Syrian government troops enforcing the siege of eastern Aleppo. While the Turkish-backed rebel forces in the area have so far limited their actions to battling the YPG and ISIL, they have recently shown a desire to help their comrades in Aleppo.
jwood@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting by Zouhir Al Shimale in Aleppo, Reuters and Agence France-Presse
Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
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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.”
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Emergency phone numbers in the UAE
Estijaba – 8001717 – number to call to request coronavirus testing
Ministry of Health and Prevention – 80011111
Dubai Health Authority – 800342 – The number to book a free video or voice consultation with a doctor or connect to a local health centre
Emirates airline – 600555555
Etihad Airways – 600555666
Ambulance – 998
Knowledge and Human Development Authority – 8005432 ext. 4 for Covid-19 queries