Beirut // US-backed Syrian fighters broke into western Raqqa on Saturday, opening up a second front against ISIL in its stronghold in northern Syria.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) entered the city for the first time last week from the east, backed by US-led coalition air strikes, and captured the Al Meshleb neighbourhood.
SDF fighters entered and captured the western half of Al Sabahiya neighbourhood and were reinforcing their positions there, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.
“They then advanced north to the adjacent district of Al Romaniya and are fighting ISIL there,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
The SDF said it was locked in “fierce fighting” inside Al Romaniya.
Held by ISIL since 2014, Raqqa has been a key hub for the extremist group’s self-declared “caliphate” in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
The SDF, which was formed in 2015, launched its campaign to capture Raqqa in November and chipped away at ISIL territory around the city’s north, west, and east. But the force has struggled to advance from the city’s north, where IS holds a military complex known as Division 17.
“ISIL reinforced the northern approach to Raqqa much more, thinking that’s how the SDF would try to advance on the city,” Mr Abdel Rahman said.
“The western and eastern entrances to the city were much less fortified,” he said.
In Iraq, where ISIL has been driven from all but a few districts in the northern city of Mosul, its last urban stronghold, the group launched an attack on a town that left more than 30 military and civilians dead and 40 more wounded.
About a dozen ISIL fighters were also killed in the attack on Shirqat, south of Mosul, which began in the early hours of Saturday and ended around midday, security sources said.
ISIL lost Shirqat to US-backed Iraqi government forces and tribal fighters last year. Its fall paved the way for the offensive on Mosul, the militants’ de facto capital in Iraq.
All of Mosul has been retaken by Iraqi government forces except an enclave by the western bank of the Tigris river.
The militants continue to control pockets south and west of Mosul, as well as swathes of territory near the border with Syria.
* Agence France-Presse and Reuters
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BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
Starring: Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Jenny Ortega
Director: Tim Burton
Rating: 3/5
The story in numbers
18
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee
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Match info
UAE v Bolivia, Friday, 6.25pm, Maktoum bin Rashid Stadium, Dubai
SERIE A FIXTURES
Saturday Spezia v Lazio (6pm), Juventus v Torino (9pm), Inter Milan v Bologna (7.45pm)
Sunday Verona v Cagliari (3.30pm), Parma v Benevento, AS Roma v Sassuolo, Udinese v Atalanta (all 6pm), Crotone v Napoli (9pm), Sampdoria v AC Milan (11.45pm)
Monday Fiorentina v Genoa (11.45pm)
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.
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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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
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The Perfect Couple
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
Rating: 3/5
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Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
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Bookshops: A Reader's History by Jorge Carrión (translated from the Spanish by Peter Bush),
Biblioasis
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