The Diana Chronicles Tina Brown Arrow Dh35 Despite the furore that greeted its hardback publication, this is a book whose heart has always been bound between soft covers. For all that it both fans and damps down the controversy that continues to blaze around Diana's life and death, it is first and foremost an audaciously readable study of the "people's princess". Yes, it's full of slyly spot-on observations about celebrity, class and the media, but it moves at the same page-turning pace that its jacket promises.
Brown has an ear for a telling quotes and an eagle eye for era-capturing - and frequently label-toting - detail. And then there's her contacts book, which has yielded interviews with previously untapped sources; from Charles' ex-girlfriends to John Travolta, who reminisces about his 1985 turn on the White House dance floor. As a former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, Brown is also uniquely positioned to tell the story of Diana as a media construct, which is precisely how she sees her.
Stripping away the already studied innocence of the 19-year-old bride, Brown reveals a determined young woman who set out to bag Charles' title and met him for two prenuptial trysts aboard the royal train. Yet her big relationship, Brown suggests, was not with Charles and the House of Windsor but with the media. Hobbled by a scheming grandmother, a mother who was a kind of aristocratic Desperate Housewife, a stepmother she loathed, a mother-in-law who happened to be the Queen, and a famously crowded marriage, Diana fled the palace gates for the world of red carpets and flashbulbs. Wooing the paparazzi, she found her own power, little intuiting that this same force would later turn on her with such catastrophic results. From "Shy Di" to "Diana the Hunted," Fleet Street photographers "lived for - and on - Diana's smile."
Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, says that her infatuation with the camera began in childhood. After their parents' bitter divorce, their father won custody but found that his only way of showing his children affection was by photographing and filming them. As Brown puts it, "Diana grew up associating the camera with love." It may have been Diana's eating disorders that drove Charles back into the arms of Camilla Parker Bowles, but neither the Prince nor his mistress - nor anyone else, for that matter - emerges from this biography unscathed. Charles, for instance, is depicted as a "toxic bachelor". As for the woman who would eventually become his second wife: "If you slapped an Edwardian-style picture hat on the head of Camilla Parker Bowles, you would be struck by her resemblance to Prince Charles' adored nanny," Brown assures us.
Yet for all its cheek, this is a book that delves beyond the stereotypes, even managing to peer past Prince Philip's boorish public persona to glimpse a deeper, more sympathetic man. As for Diana's romance with Dodi Al-Fayed, Brown depicts it as a kind of "relapse" intended primarily to irk the Royals. In the long-term, she suggests, the 37-year-old had her heart set on a fresh start in America with Theodore J Forstmann, the billionaire former owner of Gulfstream.
Back in 1985, Brown wrote a Tatler cover story on Diana entitled The Mouse that Roared. While other biographies of the past decade have tended to cast her subject as either saintly victim or vindictive sinner, intent on toppling the monarchy, she manages to pick her way through these warring camps and find a woman who was neurotic and calculating, yet human all the same. She never quite loses sight of the mousy, bereft child who grew up to become a fairy-tale princess. Tartly told, this sad, tinselly story reads like a compelling modern morality tale.
Abdul Jabar Qahraman was meeting supporters in his campaign office in the southern Afghan province of Helmand when a bomb hidden under a sofa exploded on Wednesday.
The blast in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah killed the Afghan election candidate and at least another three people, Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak told reporters. Another three were wounded, while three suspects were detained, he said.
The Taliban – which controls much of Helmand and has vowed to disrupt the October 20 parliamentary elections – claimed responsibility for the attack.
Mr Qahraman was at least the 10th candidate killed so far during the campaign season, and the second from Lashkar Gah this month. Another candidate, Saleh Mohammad Asikzai, was among eight people killed in a suicide attack last week. Most of the slain candidates were murdered in targeted assassinations, including Avtar Singh Khalsa, the first Afghan Sikh to run for the lower house of the parliament.
The same week the Taliban warned candidates to withdraw from the elections. On Wednesday the group issued fresh warnings, calling on educational workers to stop schools from being used as polling centres.
Mission%3A%20Impossible%20-%20Dead%20Reckoning%20Part%20One
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Christopher%20McQuarrie%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Tom%20Cruise%2C%20Hayley%20Atwell%2C%20Pom%20Klementieff%2C%20Simon%20Pegg%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Analysis
Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more
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.”
