FUJAIRAH // Down a dirt track off the Dibba highway, municipality lorries disappear into the mountains. Plumes of smoke rise into the air.
Almost invisible from the highway, the track leads to a scorched landscape, with pools of sewage and pits of smouldering household waste. Orange flames flicker from black pits of charred rubbish. Every half hour, the lorries dump another load onto the pile.
The scene is not unique. At least four similar areas can be found between Dibba Fujairah and Masafi, sites a half-hour apart where municipalities dump their waste behind the closest mountain and burn it. Often, this is just a few hundred metres from residential areas and farms.
Dr Sultan al Moadhen, a Federal National Council member from Fujairah, has campaigned for years against the burning of waste in the emirate.
"They burn at night because nobody can see the smoke," he said. "The sky's full of smoke over the whole area, for maybe 10 or 15 kilometres.
"Twenty-four hours a day you will see this," he said, pointing to smoking piles of rubbish in the landfill.
Closer to the road, burnt waste was covered with industrial waste. "They tell companies to put it here to cover what's underneath," Dr al Moadhen said.
"There are houses that are four kilometres away. Every hour, you see them dumping. In summer it's worse because of the heat. You can feel it until the next morning, when we go to the mosque to pray.
"I've heard for many years that they will bring a company to take care of it, but they don't."
Fatma Abdulla, the principal at Al Maasa School in Dibba Fujairah, said the situation had not changed in more than seven years.
"The municipality promised us they would solve this problem, she said. "It's not good for the people's breathing, especially people who have asthma."
Khawla al Mehrezi, 21, a student from Masafi, said people did not complain because they also burned waste on their farms.
"The smell comes and bothers us very much but I think in Masafi nobody complains because all of them do this," she said. "Many of them are old people who don't search for alternatives."
In Al Ghub, a village a few kilometres from the Dibba dumping site, residents say the burning must stop. "Burning is half the problem," said a mother of five. "All the children have problems breathing. My baby, Abadi, he has asthma."
"And me too," said her sister, Nabila al Shehhi, 24, a mathematics graduate from UAE University.
Three of their brother's five children have asthma. "Here, the ministry does not take care, because our village is very far from the city," said Ms al Shehhi.
Burnt household waste releases particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, lead and mercury, and is linked to asthma, emphysema and other respiratory illnesses. It can damage the kidneys, the nervous system, the reproductive system and the liver.
The sewage that was dumped could contaminate the water supply, said Christophe Tourenq, the sciences and research manager of Emirates Wildlife Society, which works with the World Wide Fund for Nature.
"If you have an accumulation of these sites the area of impact depends on the wind and it can have an impact on populated areas.
"We are more and more aware that our individual actions, accumulated with others, has an impact on others and climate change," he said.
The situation has deteriorated as residential areas have grown. Dibba has seen a building boom on the outskirts of the city towards the dump.
As the population increases, more rubbish piles up and more smoke fills the air. In 2009, the Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme offered 3,530 housing grants and loans in Fujairah. There had been just 759 in 2008 and 555 from 2005 to 2007.
"When this village comes here it will be a big problem," said Umm Ahmed al Yamahi, 35, a mother of four who lives near the Dibba dump. "People will see it in their house.
"There's a big problem with asthma now. A lot of people suffer from this pollution, there's so much. When the season changes, we are all coughing."
A solution to Fujairah's need to burn rubbish on dumps is in sight. The municipality announced this week that it was finalising plans to build a new disposal centre.
The contract is likely to be awarded to a German company, and the new facility would open in about 18 months. It would take waste from across the emirate, including Dibba, Al Tawain, Siji and Fujairah city. The plant, to be built in Masafi, would use the heat generated by incinerating waste, a cleaner burning process, to power steam turbines that generate electricity.
This should help to address Fujairah's chronic power shortage, which has led to frequent blackouts and brownouts, especially in the summer months.
"This has been my project since I've been the director," said Mohamed al Afkham, the general manager of Fujairah Municipality. "Things slowed down due to the recession but we are moving ahead."
Rubbish at the current dumping sites will be cleared. "We are trying to control it, to fence it off and not allow anybody to go near it because of the smoke," said Mr al Afkham. "These areas will be very clean so they can be used for something else."
azacharias@thenational.ae
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
How Voiss turns words to speech
The device has a screen reader or software that monitors what happens on the screen
The screen reader sends the text to the speech synthesiser
This converts to audio whatever it receives from screen reader, so the person can hear what is happening on the screen
A VOISS computer costs between $200 and $250 depending on memory card capacity that ranges from 32GB to 128GB
The speech synthesisers VOISS develops are free
Subsequent computer versions will include improvements such as wireless keyboards
Arabic voice in affordable talking computer to be added next year to English, Portuguese, and Spanish synthesiser
Partnerships planned during Expo 2020 Dubai to add more languages
At least 2.2 billion people globally have a vision impairment or blindness
More than 90 per cent live in developing countries
The Long-term aim of VOISS to reach the technology to people in poor countries with workshops that teach them to build their own device
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.”
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
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