Former Palestinian PM and negotiator Ahmed Qurei dies aged 85

Former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qurei, also known as Abu Al Alaa, died on Wednesday. He was 85.

Sources close to Mr Qurei's family said he recently suffered from infections that required hospital treatment. He received intravenous antibiotics, but his condition deteriorated overnight.

“With great sadness, we mourn the death of the national leader, Ahmed Qurei, ‘Abu Al Alaa’, who passed away. We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return. May his soul RIP,” Palestinian Authority official Hussein Al Sheikh said on Twitter.

Mr Qurei held positions in the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Fatah movement, serving on the PLO Executive Committee, and led the Palestinian Authority team that negotiated with Israel.

As a member of the Fatah Central Committee, Mr Qurei played an important role in the negotiations leading to the 1993 Oslo Accords.

From 1994 to 1996, he served as Minister of Economy and Trade and Minister of Industry in the first Palestinian government.

In 2000, he took part in negotiations at Camp David in the US with Ehud Barak, Israeli prime minister at the time.

Ahmed Qurei, bottom right, sits alongside senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and opposite Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, during peace talks in May 2008.

Mr Qurei served as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority for two terms between 2003 and 2006.

In 2010, Israel revoked his diplomatic privileges after he suggested the PA would have to use violence if the peace talks failed.

Israeli police arrested him in 2013 at the entrance to the Maaleh Adumim settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described Mr Qurei as a "great patriotic fighter" before a ceremony to honour him at the presidential headquarters in Ramallah.

"Abu Al Alaa spent his life as a solid fighter defending Palestine, its cause, its people and its independent national decision," Mr Abbas said.

Mr Qurei's body will be taken from Ramallah to his home village of Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem, where he will be laid to rest after the asr prayer.

If you go

The flights

There are direct flights from Dubai to Sofia with FlyDubai (www.flydubai.com) and Wizz Air (www.wizzair.com), from Dh1,164 and Dh822 return including taxes, respectively.

The trip

Plovdiv is 150km from Sofia, with an hourly bus service taking around 2 hours and costing $16 (Dh58). The Rhodopes can be reached from Sofia in between 2-4hours.

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Al Ain: Caio (5', 73'), El Shahat (10'), Berg (65'), Khalil (83'), Al Ahbabi (90' 2)

Mubalada World Tennis Championship 2018 schedule

Thursday December 27

Men's quarter-finals

Kevin Anderson v Hyeon Chung 4pm

Dominic Thiem v Karen Khachanov 6pm

Women's exhibition

Serena Williams v Venus Williams 8pm

Friday December 28

5th place play-off 3pm

Men's semi-finals

Rafael Nadal v Anderson/Chung 5pm

Novak Djokovic v Thiem/Khachanov 7pm

Saturday December 29

3rd place play-off 5pm

Men's final 7pm

LAST-16 EUROPA LEAGUE FIXTURES

Wednesday (Kick-offs UAE)

FC Copenhagen (0) v Istanbul Basaksehir (1) 8.55pm

Shakhtar Donetsk (2) v Wolfsburg (1) 8.55pm

Inter Milan v Getafe (one leg only) 11pm

Manchester United (5) v LASK (0) 11pm

Thursday

Bayer Leverkusen (3) v Rangers (1) 8.55pm

Sevilla v Roma (one leg only) 8.55pm

FC Basel (3) v Eintracht Frankfurt (0) 11pm

Wolves (1) Olympiakos (1) 11pm

MATCH INFO

Schalke 0

Werder Bremen 1 (Bittencourt 32')

Man of the match Leonardo Bittencourt (Werder Bremen)

WHAT ARE NFTs?

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are tokens that represent ownership of unique items. They allow the tokenisation of things such as art, collectibles and even real estate.

An NFT can have only one official owner at one time. And since they're minted and secured on the Ethereum blockchain, no one can modify the record of ownership, not even copy-paste it into a new one.

This means NFTs are not interchangeable and cannot be exchanged with other items. In contrast, fungible items, such as fiat currencies, can be exchanged because their value defines them rather than their unique properties.

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.”

MATCH INFO

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Liverpool 2-1 Brighton
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Southampton v Watford (late)