Gabe Norwood of the Philippines reacts during their loss to New Zealand on Wednesday night in the Fiba Olympics qualifying tournament in Manila. Mark R Cristino / EPA / July 6, 2016
Gabe Norwood of the Philippines reacts during their loss to New Zealand on Wednesday night in the Fiba Olympics qualifying tournament in Manila. Mark R Cristino / EPA / July 6, 2016
Philippines basketball’s Olympic dreams dashed by New Zealand in Manila
The Philippines unravelled late and were beaten 89-80 by New Zealand on Wednesday night, ending their hopes of advancing to Rio from the Olympic qualifying tournament.
The Philippines basketball team’s Olympic dreams were denied on Wednesday, as they unravelled late against New Zealand in an 89-80 loss in Manila.
The Filipinos, hosting one of three six-team tournaments to decide the final three spots at Rio 2016, were eliminated with Wednesday’s result and their opening defeat to France. The French and the “Tall Blacks” will face off to determine who will win the three-team group and play the second-placed team from Group A, either Senegal or Turkey. The loser will play Group A winners Canada.
The Philippines ran into a familiar problem against New Zealand, namely a size disadvantage. Their three-point heavy attack was reasonably successful, as they converted 11-of-27 (41 per cent) of attempts, with naturalised big man Andray Blatche providing 30 points and seven rebounds as he shot 4-of-7 from distance.
Point guards Jayson Castro, with 13 points and 3-of-5 three-point shooting, and Jeffrei Chan (11, 2-of-4 from three) were also effective.
But the Gilas Pilipinas simply could not stop the bigger guards of New Zealand, who took advantage of size mismatches with easy post points and burned them repeatedly on unimpeded cuts into open space under the rim for lay-ups and dunks.
Tai Webster, a US university-level player at Nebraska, scored 25 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. His older brother Corey scored 23 and Turkey-based Thomas Abercrombie had 13 points and seven rebounds.
Blatche, with his silky-smooth head fake-drive combos and three-point marksmanship, often kept the Philippines in the game, along with some admirable muscling inside by fellow big man June Mar Fajardo (11 points, four rebounds, 3-of-4 shooting).
The Philippines were down by as many as 13 in the third quarter and entered the fourth with an eight-point disadvantage. But they closed within two early in the final period thanks to Blatche, before Tai Webster and Abercrombie spurred New Zealand to a 16-5 run to reestablish the 13-point lead. The pair accounted for 12 points in a five-minute span.
The Philippines went 2-for-11 in the same span, their shot abandoning them at the worst possible time. It was a similar story to the France loss, which saw the Gilas fighting late into the game before they were ultimately overwhelmed.
It will be counted a disappointing outcome for the Philippines, who reached the final at the 2015 Fiba Asia Championships last year and were optimistic about their hopes of qualifying with a number of bright young talents like Fajardo, Terrence Romeo, Bobby Ray Parks and Troy Rosario earning their place in the national side.
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$1,000 award for 1,000 days on madrasa portal
Daily cash awards of $1,000 dollars will sweeten the Madrasa e-learning project by tempting more pupils to an education portal to deepen their understanding of math and sciences.
School children are required to watch an educational video each day and answer a question related to it. They then enter into a raffle draw for the $1,000 prize.
“We are targeting everyone who wants to learn. This will be $1,000 for 1,000 days so there will be a winner every day for 1,000 days,” said Sara Al Nuaimi, project manager of the Madrasa e-learning platform that was launched on Tuesday by the Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, to reach Arab pupils from kindergarten to grade 12 with educational videos.
“The objective of the Madrasa is to become the number one reference for all Arab students in the world. The 5,000 videos we have online is just the beginning, we have big ambitions. Today in the Arab world there are 50 million students. We want to reach everyone who is willing to learn.”
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Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021
Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.
“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.
“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.
“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.
“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”
Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.
There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.
“There are 25 stations in total,” Mr Al Daraji said.
“We added new technology and equipment used for the first time for the detection of heavy metals.
“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”
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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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