Christians in the Holy Land marked Good Friday this year amid signs of an easing in the coronavirus crisis, with religious sites open to limited numbers of faithful but none of the mass pilgrimages usually seen in the week leading up to Easter.
The virus is still raging in the Philippines, France, Brazil and other predominantly Christian countries, where worshippers are celebrating a second annual holy week under various movement restrictions because of outbreaks fanned by more contagious strains.
Last year, Jerusalem was under a strict lockdown, with sacred rites observed by small groups of priests, often behind closed doors. It was a stark departure from past years, when tens of thousands of pilgrims would descend on the city's holy sites.
This year, Franciscan friars in brown robes led hundreds of worshippers down the Via Dolorosa, retracing what tradition holds were Jesus's final steps, while reciting prayers through loudspeakers at the Stations of the Cross. Another group carried a wooden cross along the route through the Old City, singing hymns and pausing to offer prayers.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, died and rose from the dead, was open to visitors with masks and social distancing required.
“Things are open, but cautiously and gradually," said Wadie Abunassar, an adviser to church leaders in the Holy Land. “In regular years we urge people to come out. Last year we told people to stay at home ... this year we are somehow silent.”
Israel has launched one of the world's most successful vaccination campaigns, allowing it to reopen restaurants, hotels and religious sites. But air travel is still limited by quarantine and other restrictions, keeping away the foreign pilgrims who usually throng Jerusalem during holy week.
The main holy sites are in the Old City in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank in the 1967 war. Israel annexed East Jerusalem and considers the entire city its unified capital, while the Palestinians want both territories for their future state.
Israel included Palestinian residents of Jerusalem in its vaccination campaign, but has provided only a small number of vaccines to those in the occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority imported tens of thousands of doses for a population of more than 2.5 million.
Israeli authorities said up to 5,000 Christian Palestinians from the West Bank would be permitted to enter for Easter celebrations. Mr Abunassar said he was not aware of any large tour groups from the West Bank planning to enter, as in years past, probably reflecting concerns about the virus.
Pope Francis began Good Friday with a visit to the Vatican's Covid-19 vaccination centre, where volunteers spent the past week administering about 1,200 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to poor and disadvantaged people in Rome.
The Vatican City State bought its own doses to vaccinate Holy See employees and their families, and has been giving away surplus supplies to homeless people. A masked Francis posed for photos with some of the volunteers and recipients in the Vatican audience hall.
Francis was scheduled to preside over the Way of the Cross procession later on Friday in a nearly empty St Peter’s Square, instead of the popular torchlit ritual he usually celebrates at the Colosseum.
In France, a nationwide 7pm curfew forced parishes to move Good Friday ceremonies forward in the day, as the traditional Catholic night processions were drastically scaled back or cancelled. Nineteen departments in France are on localised lockdowns, where parishioners can attend daytime Mass if they sign the government’s “travel certificate”.
Although a third lockdown “light” is being imposed on Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron wavered on a travel ban for the Easter weekend, allowing the French to drive between regions to meet up with family on Friday.
The fire-ravaged Notre Dame cathedral is not holding a Good Friday mass this year, but the cathedral’s Crown of Thorns will be venerated by the cathedral’s clergy at its new temporary liturgical centre in the nearby church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois.
In the Philippines, streets were eerily quiet and religious gatherings were prohibited in the capital, Manila, and four outlying provinces. The government placed the bustling region of more than 25 million people back under lockdown this week as it scrambled to contain an alarming surge in Covid-19 cases, with a record 15,310 new cases reported on Friday.
The Philippines had started to reopen in hopes of stemming a severe economic crisis, but infections surged last month, apparently because of more contagious strains, increased public mobility and complacency.
ASSASSIN'S%20CREED%20MIRAGE
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Brief scores
Day 1
Toss England, chose to bat
England, 1st innings 357-5 (87 overs): Root 184 not out, Moeen 61 not out, Stokes 56; Philander 3-46
The%20specs
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%201.8-litre%204-cyl%20turbo%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E190hp%20at%205%2C200rpm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20320Nm%20from%201%2C800-5%2C000rpm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESeven-speed%20dual-clutch%20auto%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFuel%20consumption%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%206.7L%2F100km%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20From%20Dh111%2C195%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENow%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Where to apply
Applicants should send their completed applications - CV, covering letter, sample(s) of your work, letter of recommendation - to Nick March, Assistant Editor in Chief at The National and UAE programme administrator for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism, by 5pm on April 30, 2020.
Please send applications to nmarch@thenational.ae and please mark the subject line as “Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism (UAE programme application)”.
The local advisory board will consider all applications and will interview a short list of candidates in Abu Dhabi in June 2020. Successful candidates will be informed before July 30, 2020.
Scorline
Iraq 1-0 UAE
Iraq Hussein 28’
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.”
The specs
Price: From Dh180,000 (estimate)
Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged and supercharged in-line four-cylinder
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 320hp @ 5,700rpm
Torque: 400Nm @ 2,200rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 9.7L / 100km
Game Of Thrones Season Seven: A Bluffers Guide
Want to sound on message about the biggest show on television without actually watching it? Best not to get locked into the labyrinthine tales of revenge and royalty: as Isaac Hempstead Wright put it, all you really need to know from now on is that there’s going to be a huge fight between humans and the armies of undead White Walkers.
The season ended with a dragon captured by the Night King blowing apart the huge wall of ice that separates the human world from its less appealing counterpart. Not that some of the humans in Westeros have been particularly appealing, either.
Anyway, the White Walkers are now free to cause any kind of havoc they wish, and as Liam Cunningham told us: “Westeros may be zombie land after the Night King has finished.” If the various human factions don’t put aside their differences in season 8, we could be looking at The Walking Dead: The Medieval Years.
