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Follow the money



When Salah Ezzedine's alleged pyramid scheme collapsed, it left thousands of Lebanese Shia with empty bank accounts - and presented Hizbollah with a crisis of authenticity. Joshua Hersh reports from Beirut. In retrospect, there were plenty of signs that Salah Ezzedine's investment operation did not entirely make sense. The promised rates of return - 40 per cent, 60 per cent, 80 per cent - would later get the most attention, but surely the paperwork ought to have set off alarm bells as well. By nearly all accounts, the sole record that Ezzedine provided to his many clients in Lebanon's mainly Shia south was a cheque for exactly the amount they had invested with him. No quarterly statements, no balance sheets with pie charts and annuities and APRs. So long as they enjoyed collecting regular payments on their investment, all Ezzedine's clients had to do was keep that cheque safely tucked away in their wallets. If they ever wanted out, they could take it down to the bank, and the money was theirs. Of course, that was assuming there even was paperwork. Ezzedine, who was arrested in August for allegedly defrauding thousands of individuals, was so trusted in South Lebanon that, especially towards the end, few of his customers bothered to ask for anything like a receipt, or, for that matter, where the money was being invested. When they did, the answers he is said to have offered were as varied as they were suspect: steel, diamonds, titanium, zirconium, gold mines and petrol in Iran, oil in Eastern Europe, oil in Africa, iron in the Gambia, shoes and leather in China, defective clothing (for resale as fabric), old ships (for resale as scrap metal), construction in the Gulf, poultry in Brazil. Then again, the dividends had always arrived on time. "When he said the money would be in your hands in 200 days, it would be there," one investor told me. "Not 201 days, not 202." Among a certain portion of Shia society, Ezzedine earned renown as a patron, a father figure; he was "Haj Salah" - "an angel" in the words of one investor, "close to perfection," according to another. The whole South, it seemed, was benefiting from Ezzedine's largesse, and not just through the donations he frequently made to local charities or the medical supplies he provided for the ill. As the mayor of Maaroub, the southern village where Ezzedine was born, told me last autumn, it seemed for a time like everyone in town was trading in their beat-up sedans for brand-new BMW X-5s or Cadillac Escalades. The Shia of South Lebanon have long been defined by their poverty and squalor, and so the great wealth that Ezzedine brought to his corner of the country may have seemed like another sign that something was amiss. But the riches that Ezzedine showered on his investors were only one part of a prevailing trend: the South was changing, and Lebanon's formerly-poor Shia had been rising steadily toward prosperity. Once the poorest sect in the country, their ranks now included some of the richest individuals in Lebanon, Ezzedine, evidently, among them. This being South Lebanon, no entity was more closely tied to this shifting economic reality - as both catalyst and beneficiary - than Hizbollah. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that when Ezzedine's business dealings suddenly went sour all eyes turned to the party. According to residents of the South, and several people affiliated with Hizbollah, Ezzedine went missing in August. In a fit of desperation, he had called up a wealthy Lebanese friend and asked to borrow several million dollars, promising to pay it back in 10 days, and then disappeared. His friends and family worried that he had been kidnapped. Around the same time, a Hizbollah member of parliament named Hussein Hajj Hassan decided to cash out his investment with Ezzedine. He took his cheque, for $200,000, to the bank, and received an unwelcome surprise: the account was empty. Ezzedine was broke. Hizbollah then took the lead in the search for Ezzedine. According to party and legal sources, Ezzedine tried to throw off his pursuers by placing mobile phone calls from his hiding place in Beirut using foreign SIM cards. Finally, Ezzedine's driver gave him up to Hizbollah, and the party videotaped the capture and held Ezzedine for several days, hoping to learn what he had done with the money, before turning him, and the videotape, over to the police. When the dust settled, some 10,000 Lebanese Shia had been bilked, collectively, out of approximately $300 million. (Initial news reports put the figure as high as $1 billion, but that calculation included the loss of non-existent "earnings".) In many cases, the sums amounted to an entire life's savings, and more. I met one southern merchant who told me he had sold two apartments he owned in Beirut and ploughed the profits - plus his other savings - into an account with Ezzedine; he lost $500,000. "I'm willing to die," he said. "But just give me back the money, so I can give it to my children." In the press, Ezzedine became "the Lebanese Bernie Madoff" - a reference to the New York financier who defrauded an array of high-profile investors out of $50 billion - but it was his apparent links to Hizbollah that proved irresistible to the media. In addition to the news that MP Hassan had been one of his investors, there were reports that Ezzedine had a close relationship with party leaders. It was said that he could arrange a meeting with Hizbollah's secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, "within a few minutes" (although this was something that, if true, would not be unique among major businessmen in the South). Meanwhile, investor after investor told reporters they decided to entrust Ezzedine with their money because they believed him, correctly or not, to be backed by Hizbollah. The implication, savoured in the Western media and certain portions of the Lebanese press, was that Hizbollah may have played a role in facilitating Ezzedine's business - and could thus be considered complicit in whatever corrupt dealings he had. As the Financial Times wrote, the saga "threatened to embarrass Hizbollah," which "prides itself on its austere religious image." NOW Lebanon, a news website backed by figures close to the governing March 14 alliance, put it more succinctly: "Ezzedine Shows Hizbollah's Moral Bankruptcy."

Hizbollah vigorously denied the reports of an official relationship with Ezzedine, and in the months that have passed since the scandal broke, no convincing evidence of one has emerged. (In fact, very little about Ezzedine's operation has been determined - it is still not known, even to prosecutors, whether Ezzedine was corrupt from the outset or, as he claims, merely the victim of bearish markets and business dealings gone bad.) But the party was clearly concerned about the fallout from the episode. Early news reports from the South indicated that, no matter who turned out to be at fault, victims of Ezzedine's scheme were determined to hold Hizbollah accountable for their losses. The party formed a "crisis network" to help investors who had lost their savings and started a fund to get people back on their feet, although they limited their aid in an attempt to avoid the appearance of accepting responsibility for the losses. Hizbollah's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who is typically more comfortable above the fray, addressed the controversy twice in the weeks after Ezzedine was arrested, taking pains to argue that Hizbollah was as much a victim as anyone else. If Hizbollah seemed to be on the defensive, it was not without cause. The Ezzedine scandal may not have reflected directly on Hizbollah, but it had clearly revealed both a fissure in the party's carefully cultivated image and a threat to its unity - one that was directly related to the South's growing prosperity and the party's concomitant move toward the political mainstream.

Since 1992, when Hizbollah decided to enter electoral politics in Lebanon, the party had undergone a subtle transformation from within. As the country's civil war came to an end, Hizbollah was the only major combatant to retain its weapons, doing so in the name of resistance against Israel, which still occupied portions of South Lebanon. But the party also needed to retain its claim as the voice of the voiceless - another key to the legitimacy of a party whose roots lay in the political mobilisation of poor Shia in the 1970s. But while normalisation and immersion into mainstream politics has not led to Hizbollah's disarming - a point of great contention in Lebanon and beyond - it did mean that top officials in the party increasingly encountered the trappings of political power, and a new class of elite Shia emerged. For Hizbollah's supporters, this has raised a fundamental question, which the Ezzedine scandal cast in a new light: As Hizbollah transitioned toward the centre of political and economic power, and away from its origins as a radical militant organisation, could it be assured of maintaining the loyalty of its supporters - particularly those, like Ezzedine's victims, who have been left behind? In 1999, a Lebanese-American academic named Lara Deeb met a prominent Hizbollah figure for an interview. "He was thin and young," she recalled recently. "He didn't seem to care much about his appearance." She described him as having "that Revolutionary look" - meaning the Iranian Revolution - with a trimmed beard and nondescript clothes. When Deeb, who wrote a book on Lebanon's Shia, met the same official seven or eight years later, he had risen in the party establishment - and it showed. "He looked totally different," Deeb said. "He wore Diesel jeans and a designer watch and was smoking a big Cohiba. The transformation was amazing." In the aftermath of the Ezzedine scandal, transformations like this were the subject of a lot of discussion in Beirut. People would point out that the party's MPs (of which there are now 10) drive around town in BMWs and Range Rovers, and dine at fancy restaurants. More than one concerned Hizbollah supporter told me that in the Dahiyeh - the southern suburbs of Beirut mostly inhabited by Hizbollah backers - many Shia women had taken to wearing designer-label headscarves worth $300. In early October, Ibrahim al Amin, the CEO of the generally pro-"resistance" newspaper al Akhbar, suggested that the scandal was "a warning" for Hizbollah: "It is extremely odd that this society", al Amin wrote, referring to Hizbollah's supporters, "which had for generations followed an ascetic lifestyle, suddenly decided to switch to one that entails living beyond its means - [one] that is incompatible with the principles of asceticism and self-sacrifice for a cause that calls for sacrifice in human life and human blood." Soon others piled on. In the pages of al Akhbar, a series of op-eds debated whether, in acceding to the capitalist impulses of modern society, the movement was losing sight of first principles. In its most extreme formulation, as the al Akhbar reporter Amal Khalil, a resident of South Lebanon, expressed it to me this autumn, "There is a worry that if [some members] live this luxury life, they won't be anymore willing to fight or struggle or die."

A few weeks after the Salah Ezzedine news broke, I drove into South Lebanon to survey the damage. My first stop was the village of Sh'hur, just below a bend in the Litani River, where I met Ali Zain, the town's ebullient mayor, who I had been told knew Ezzedine personally. Zain works out of a spacious office in Sh'hur's municipal building, which he had decorated himself in what might be called upscale bachelor pad chic: black leather couches, copious communications equipment (mobile phones, landlines, radios), a variety of samurai swords. Since arriving in town, I been struck by the place's surprising affluence. Sh'hur is not your ordinary southern village, or at least, it's not what you'd ordinarily expect to find in Lebanon's mainly agricultural South. The streets are wide and neatly paved, with high curbs and evenly spaced trash bins and public benches, all outfitted with a certain civic uniformity. "You don't see this in the southern villages," my translator, a Lebanese journalist named Moe Ali Nayel, remarked as we drove through town. "This is totally new to me." It was evident that the economic condition of Lebanon's Shia had changed substantially. For decades, they were considered "the garbage collectors of Lebanon," the nation's "despised stepchildren", and cursed as mitweleh - a derogatory racial slur. As Lebanon's most dispossessed caste, they were also primed for political mobilisation, which is what Hizbollah did in the early 1980s, when it introduced itself as not merely as an Islamic resistance movement against Israeli occupation, but as a voice for "the downtrodden in Lebanon and the world." Part of the long-standing promise, and appeal, of Hizbollah was that it would help the Shia fight a system that had chronically neglected them. But by 2008, when the UNDP and the Lebanese Ministry of Social Affairs looked at the economic situation across Lebanon, the Shia were no longer the poorest sect. Instead, the report determined that the country's largely Sunni North now had even higher rates of poverty.

What had happened was not the end of Shia poverty, but the arrival of the Shia millionaire. (That same UNDP study found 42 per cent of the South living in poverty.) Lebanon's Shia had been moving abroad in search of economic opportunities for almost a century to places like Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Chile and Australia - a migration whose pace quickened beginning in the 1970s as Lebanon's civil war exploded. Although some took part in unsavory businesses like oil or diamonds, many found untapped potential to make a living in mundane businesses: generator sales, plastic chair manufacturing, supermarkets. In fact, in many cases, they made not just a living, but a killing. One banker told me that a young person from the South with the right connections could go to Africa today and become a millionaire within a couple of years. "And not just one or two million," he said. "We're talking many millions." Salah Ezzedine's life, as various acquaintances and news accounts have sketched it, appears to mirror this rise. Ezzedine was born in 1962 in Maaroub, a village a few kilometres from Sh'hur, to an upwardly mobile family. His father owned property and a business - a fabrics shop - in downtown Beirut, and the family spent much of their time away from the South. When he was a teenager, residents in Maaroub recall, Ezzedine was as ambitious as he was industrious, and he would often spend his free time working at his father's shop. When his father travelled abroad to buy wholesale, Ezzedine would run the shop himself. Ezzedine's family is thought to have made some of its money in Latin America - people in Maaroub told me they believe members of his family had fled to Santiago, Chile, after the arrest. Ezzedine's own international connections are harder to pinpoint, but his ambitions have always laid outside Lebanon. His first commercial enterprise, which he started in the 1980s, was a travel agency that led haj expeditions to Mecca. He had a partner in that initial business, and sometime later split off to form his own haj initiative, which he called Bab Salaam - the Door to Peace. Bab Salaam hajjs were five-star affairs, famous around the South for their extravagance. "Ezzeddine's style was everything had to be the newest, the best," a Maaroub resident named Abu Islam told me. "For transportation, he'd have a brand new bus, with zero mileage. The hotel they are staying in, he would book it for the whole year." It was also, apparently, a money-losing venture, but the haj business served a second purpose: it helped Ezzedine establish close ties with both the Hizbollah political establishment and the local villagers, who would become his future clientele. He became, in the words of one Lebanese Shia, "Not just haj himself, but master of the haj." In the aftermath of Ezzedine's fall, the word "greed" could be heard across the south, in a widespread fit of self-recrimination, but a surer truth was that stories like Ezzedine's had helped create the impression that only a bit of good fortune separated poor and rich Shia - though in actuality the gulf was larger than ever. Near-instant wealth seemed not just possible but probable, and the South was ripe for a get-rich-quick scheme. "Being a successful businessman, and religious, that played into this image that we can trust him," Ali Zain told me when we met in his office. "His haj business helped a lot in creating this. That was one of the best in Lebanon. Maybe a bit more expensive, a bit of luxury - people felt good, they came back and said good things, and it played well to his image." "There's a saying in the South: 'Your money is your soul,'" Zain told me. "When people handed [Ezzedine] their money, it was handing him a piece of their soul. It's logical - whatever you achieve in life, it equals your life. For people to give up everything they earned and worked for, it means they had no hesitation." And when the people lost their money with Ezzedine, "It was as though they had lost their souls."

The obvious question is whether the party is at risk of losing its own "soul" - in this case, the staunch and unwavering support of its Shia constituents in the south - in the process of moving from the armed periphery to the governing centre. Analysts have waged fierce debates about whether Hizbollah's recent governing responsibilities will move its agenda in a more moderate direction. Whether the financial perquisites of power might precipitate a similar shift - and, in turn, separate the party's leaders from its supporters - is anyone's guess. Critics and allies alike note a certain cognitive dissonance that exists between the ascetic image the party prefers to project, and the practical realities of its proximity to power. Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Lebanese academic who is close to Hizbollah's political element, calls this "the Nasrallah effect". "People look at Hizbollah through the prism of [Nasrallah], and he represents austerity. This is a guy who lives underground, he doesn't see the light of day, he's a Sheikh, he doesn't wear fashionable clothes, he sacrificed his son to martyrdom. You expect everybody to be like him, and when you see a discrepancy, you feel there is something wrong going on." The result is what Khaled Saghieh, the editor of al Akhbar calls "a problem of identity". That is, a party member might find himself saying, "I identify with Nasrallah, but so does Salah Ezzedine. How can that be?" But does this sense of alienation exist among the party rank-and-file? Thanassis Cambanis, a journalist whose book about the Shia allegiance to Hizbollah, A Privilege to Die, comes out this fall, told me he has never encountered this sentiment in the South, although he acknowledges that it would not be inconceivable. "If you start to see party members all driving great big SUVs while everyone else has normal cars - or if Hassan Nasrallah started living in luxury," he says, "that would start to compromise Hizbollah's appeal." One Hezbollah supporter told me in dismay that he had heard reports that the daughter of Imad Mughniyeh, the Hizbollah military commander assassinated by Israel in 2008, had been spotted dining at an upscale restaurant in Verdun, a trendy Beirut neighbourhood. "I was horrified!" he said. Hizbollah figures, for their part, contend that there is no contradiction. When I spoke to Ibrahim Moussawi, the party's spokesman, he told me that wealth was not a concern for Hizbollah. "There's no problem with enriching yourself as long as it does not involve anything haram," he said. "Even during the Prophet's time there has been rich people and poor people. Khadijah" - the Prophet Mohammad's first wife - "was a rich woman actually, a merchant. In fact it's said that had it not been for Khadijah's money, a lot of the work of the Prophet never would have happened." This, of course, is true for Hizbollah as well - were it not for the wealthy members, and wealthy patrons, Hizbollah would have a hard time carrying out social-services projects, let alone arming its militias. Considerable sums also flow to Hizbollah from Iran - some say up to $100 million a year - but Nasrallah himself, in a 2006 speech, felt the need to assert the piety of these funds, referring to Iran's contributions as "pure money". Ali Fayyad, a newly elected Hezbollah MP, also defended the righteousness of wealth accumulation. "We hate poverty," Fayyad told me. "Imam Ali, he said, 'If poverty were a man, I would kill him.'" But, Fayyad continued, "Hizbollah, it is not a small party anymore, a minority, it is a whole society. It is the party of the poor people, yes, but at the same time there are a lot of businessmen in the party, we have a lot of rich people, some elite class. This is normal, because Hizbollah has become one of the biggest parties in Lebanon." Internally, however, there is evidence that party figures have grown concerned about the appearance of great disparities in wealth among their ranks. Describing the aftermath of the Ezzedine scandal, Amal Saad-Ghorayeb noted, "there was a lot of - not soul searching, per se - but I would say they're more conscious of the image they project." After Ezzedine was arrested, according to a rumor that made the rounds in Beirut last year, Hassan Nasrallah was so concerned about the effects of conspicuous wealth on party unity that he called in the wives of the party's MPs and demanded to know how much their headscarves cost. When I asked Fayyad about this rumor, he dismissed it with a laugh. "Our party," he then said, "took some procedures after Ezzedine's problem to prevent any similar phenomenon, and to prevent any bad side effects." He declined to specify what precisely those procedures had been. Cambanis thinks that the Ezzedine scandal, far from revealing some weakness within Hizbollah, may actually demonstrate the party's resilience. "If all those revelations came out, and that doesn't shake public support," he said, "it argues for the case that Hizbollah has succeeded in building a big tent party."

For now, much remains unknown about Ezzedine's story, and it seems doomed to remain that way. Since his arrest, Ezzedine has been in Roumieh prison, while the government undertakes the slow process of investigating his actions. For a while, prosecutors appeared to have set aside the criminal case to focus on determining whether Ezzedine has any assets that could be liquidated in order to repay his investors. This week, however, the judge investigating the Hizbollah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan's claims against Ezzedine found cause to bring the case to trial, and recommended that Ezzedine be sentenced to three years in prison. Ezzedine has yet to speak publicly about the case, and has apparently discouraged his supporters from doing so as well. (His lawyer, Ali Achi, declined to speak to me for this article, or make Ezzedine available to answer questions.) Kamal Haidar, an attorney who is suing Ezzedine on behalf of a dozen investors, told me that he does not expect to recoup any of his clients' losses. "There is no hope," he said. "Maybe I will get back five or 10 per cent for my clients. But not now - not for three or four years. There is no money." Meanwhile, Ezzedine's investors in the South are left to sift through the rubble of yet another catastrophe, and wonder whether they were duped, or just unlucky. Hassan Fneish, the mayor of Maaroub, told me in the fall that he has a hard time believing that Ezzedine was a fraud, but he doesn't discount the possibility. He knew Ezzedine as a generous, and anonymous, donor who helped Maaroub rebuild its sports stadium and mosque after the 2006 war. "In different circumstances, you might think the guy is playing a role, just acting this way," Fneish told me. "But he didn't even ask people to invest. They wanted to get rich off him. And for a while, they did."
Joshua Hersh is a journalist living in Beirut whose work has appeared in the New Yorker and the New Republic.

'HIJRAH%3A%20IN%20THE%20FOOTSTEPS%20OF%20THE%20PROPHET'
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEdited%20by%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Idries%20Trevathan%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPages%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20240%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPublisher%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Hirmer%20Publishers%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EAvailable%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Now%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Turning%20waste%20into%20fuel
%3Cp%3EAverage%20amount%20of%20biofuel%20produced%20at%20DIC%20factory%20every%20month%3A%20%3Cstrong%3EApproximately%20106%2C000%20litres%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EAmount%20of%20biofuel%20produced%20from%201%20litre%20of%20used%20cooking%20oil%3A%20%3Cstrong%3E920ml%20(92%25)%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ETime%20required%20for%20one%20full%20cycle%20of%20production%20from%20used%20cooking%20oil%20to%20biofuel%3A%20%3Cstrong%3EOne%20day%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EEnergy%20requirements%20for%20one%20cycle%20of%20production%20from%201%2C000%20litres%20of%20used%20cooking%20oil%3A%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3E%E2%96%AA%20Electricity%20-%201.1904%20units%3Cbr%3E%E2%96%AA%20Water-%2031%20litres%3Cbr%3E%E2%96%AA%20Diesel%20%E2%80%93%2026.275%20litres%3C%2Fstrong%3E%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

How has net migration to UK changed?

The figure was broadly flat immediately before the Covid-19 pandemic, standing at 216,000 in the year to June 2018 and 224,000 in the year to June 2019.

It then dropped to an estimated 111,000 in the year to June 2020 when restrictions introduced during the pandemic limited travel and movement.

The total rose to 254,000 in the year to June 2021, followed by steep jumps to 634,000 in the year to June 2022 and 906,000 in the year to June 2023.

The latest available figure of 728,000 for the 12 months to June 2024 suggests levels are starting to decrease.

At a glance

Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.

 

Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year

 

Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month

 

Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30 

 

Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse

 

Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth

 

Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances

Director: Laxman Utekar

Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna

Rating: 1/5

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. 

What is the FNC?

The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning. 
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval. 
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
 

GOODBYE%20JULIA
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How to increase your savings
  • Have a plan for your savings.
  • Decide on your emergency fund target and once that's achieved, assign your savings to another financial goal such as saving for a house or investing for retirement.
  • Decide on a financial goal that is important to you and put your savings to work for you.
  • It's important to have a purpose for your savings as it helps to keep you motivated to continue while also reducing the temptation to spend your savings. 

- Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching

 

 

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
 
Started: 2021
 
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
 
Based: Tunisia 
 
Sector: Water technology 
 
Number of staff: 22 
 
Investment raised: $4 million 
Suggested picnic spots

Abu Dhabi
Umm Al Emarat Park
Yas Gateway Park
Delma Park
Al Bateen beach
Saadiyaat beach
The Corniche
Zayed Sports City
 
Dubai
Kite Beach
Zabeel Park
Al Nahda Pond Park
Mushrif Park
Safa Park
Al Mamzar Beach Park
Al Qudrah Lakes 

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Brief scores:

​​​​​​Toss: Pakhtunkhwa Zalmi, chose to field

​Environment Agency: 193-3 (20 ov)
Ikhlaq 76 not out, Khaliya 58, Ahsan 55

Pakhtunkhwa Zalmi: 194-2 (18.3 ov)
Afridi 95 not out, Sajid 55, Rizwan 36 not out

Result: Pakhtunkhwa won by 8 wickets

Another way to earn air miles

In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.

An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.

“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.

SPEC%20SHEET%3A%20APPLE%20M3%20MACBOOK%20AIR%20(13%22)
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Ain Issa camp:
  • Established in 2016
  • Houses 13,309 people, 2,092 families, 62 per cent children
  • Of the adult population, 49 per cent men, 51 per cent women (not including foreigners annexe)
  • Most from Deir Ezzor and Raqqa
  • 950 foreigners linked to ISIS and their families
  • NGO Blumont runs camp management for the UN
  • One of the nine official (UN recognised) camps in the region

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.”

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The team

Photographer: Mateusz Stefanowski at Art Factory 
Videographer: Jear Valasquez 
Fashion director: Sarah Maisey
Make-up: Gulum Erzincan at Art Factory 
Model: Randa at Art Factory Videographer’s assistant: Zanong Magat 
Photographer’s assistant: Sophia Shlykova 
With thanks to Jubail Mangrove Park, Jubail Island, Abu Dhabi 

 
if you go

The flights Fly Dubai, Air Arabia, Emirates, Etihad, and Royal Jordanian all offer direct, three-and-a-half-hour flights from the UAE to the Jordanian capital Amman. Alternatively, from June Fly Dubai will offer a new direct service from Dubai to Aqaba in the south of the country. See the airlines’ respective sites for varying prices or search on reliable price-comparison site Skyscanner.

The trip 

Jamie Lafferty was a guest of the Jordan Tourist Board. For more information on adventure tourism in Jordan see Visit Jordan. A number of new and established tour companies offer the chance to go caving, rock-climbing, canyoning, and mountaineering in Jordan. Prices vary depending on how many activities you want to do and how many days you plan to stay in the country. Among the leaders are Terhaal, who offer a two-day canyoning trip from Dh845 per person. If you really want to push your limits, contact the Stronger Team. For a more trek-focused trip, KE Adventure offers an eight-day trip from Dh5,300 per person.

LIVING IN...

This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.

Skewed figures

In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458. 

UK's plans to cut net migration

Under the UK government’s proposals, migrants will have to spend 10 years in the UK before being able to apply for citizenship.

Skilled worker visas will require a university degree, and there will be tighter restrictions on recruitment for jobs with skills shortages.

But what are described as "high-contributing" individuals such as doctors and nurses could be fast-tracked through the system.

Language requirements will be increased for all immigration routes to ensure a higher level of English.

Rules will also be laid out for adult dependants, meaning they will have to demonstrate a basic understanding of the language.

The plans also call for stricter tests for colleges and universities offering places to foreign students and a reduction in the time graduates can remain in the UK after their studies from two years to 18 months.

Greatest Royal Rumble results

John Cena pinned Triple H in a singles match

Cedric Alexander retained the WWE Cruiserweight title against Kalisto

Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt win the Raw Tag Team titles against Cesaro and Sheamus

Jeff Hardy retained the United States title against Jinder Mahal

Bludgeon Brothers retain the SmackDown Tag Team titles against the Usos

Seth Rollins retains the Intercontinental title against The Miz, Finn Balor and Samoa Joe

AJ Styles remains WWE World Heavyweight champion after he and Shinsuke Nakamura are both counted out

The Undertaker beats Rusev in a casket match

Brock Lesnar retains the WWE Universal title against Roman Reigns in a steel cage match

Braun Strowman won the 50-man Royal Rumble by eliminating Big Cass last

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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Other acts on the Jazz Garden bill

Sharrie Williams
The American singer is hugely respected in blues circles due to her passionate vocals and songwriting. Born and raised in Michigan, Williams began recording and touring as a teenage gospel singer. Her career took off with the blues band The Wiseguys. Such was the acclaim of their live shows that they toured throughout Europe and in Africa. As a solo artist, Williams has also collaborated with the likes of the late Dizzy Gillespie, Van Morrison and Mavis Staples.
Lin Rountree
An accomplished smooth jazz artist who blends his chilled approach with R‘n’B. Trained at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC, Rountree formed his own band in 2004. He has also recorded with the likes of Kem, Dwele and Conya Doss. He comes to Dubai on the back of his new single Pass The Groove, from his forthcoming 2018 album Stronger Still, which may follow his five previous solo albums in cracking the top 10 of the US jazz charts.
Anita Williams
Dubai-based singer Anita Williams will open the night with a set of covers and swing, jazz and blues standards that made her an in-demand singer across the emirate. The Irish singer has been performing in Dubai since 2008 at venues such as MusicHall and Voda Bar. Her Jazz Garden appearance is career highlight as she will use the event to perform the original song Big Blue Eyes, the single from her debut solo album, due for release soon.

The five pillars of Islam

1. Fasting

2. Prayer

3. Hajj

4. Shahada

5. Zakat 

JAPAN SQUAD

Goalkeepers: Masaaki Higashiguchi, Shuichi Gonda, Daniel Schmidt
Defenders: Yuto Nagatomo, Tomoaki Makino, Maya Yoshida, Sho Sasaki, Hiroki Sakai, Sei Muroya, Genta Miura, Takehiro Tomiyasu
Midfielders: Toshihiro Aoyama, Genki Haraguchi, Gaku Shibasaki, Wataru Endo, Junya Ito, Shoya Nakajima, Takumi Minamino, Hidemasa Morita, Ritsu Doan
Forwards: Yuya Osako, Takuma Asano, Koya Kitagawa

What are the main cyber security threats?

Cyber crime - This includes fraud, impersonation, scams and deepfake technology, tactics that are increasingly targeting infrastructure and exploiting human vulnerabilities.
Cyber terrorism - Social media platforms are used to spread radical ideologies, misinformation and disinformation, often with the aim of disrupting critical infrastructure such as power grids.
Cyber warfare - Shaped by geopolitical tension, hostile actors seek to infiltrate and compromise national infrastructure, using one country’s systems as a springboard to launch attacks on others.

The Settlers

Director: Louis Theroux

Starring: Daniella Weiss, Ari Abramowitz

Rating: 5/5

The years Ramadan fell in May

1987

1954

1921

1888

UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

The Pope's itinerary

Sunday, February 3, 2019 - Rome to Abu Dhabi
1pm: departure by plane from Rome / Fiumicino to Abu Dhabi
10pm: arrival at Abu Dhabi Presidential Airport


Monday, February 4
12pm: welcome ceremony at the main entrance of the Presidential Palace
12.20pm: visit Abu Dhabi Crown Prince at Presidential Palace
5pm: private meeting with Muslim Council of Elders at Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
6.10pm: Inter-religious in the Founder's Memorial


Tuesday, February 5 - Abu Dhabi to Rome
9.15am: private visit to undisclosed cathedral
10.30am: public mass at Zayed Sports City – with a homily by Pope Francis
12.40pm: farewell at Abu Dhabi Presidential Airport
1pm: departure by plane to Rome
5pm: arrival at the Rome / Ciampino International Airport

The National's picks

4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young

BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES

SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities

Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails

Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies

Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments

Our family matters legal consultant

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

MATCH INFO

Uefa Champions League last-16, second leg:

Real Madrid 1 (Asensio 70'), Ajax 4 (Ziyech 7', Neres 18', Tadic 62', Schone 72')

Ajax win 5-3 on aggregate

The bio

Favourite book: Peter Rabbit. I used to read it to my three children and still read it myself. If I am feeling down it brings back good memories.

Best thing about your job: Getting to help people. My mum always told me never to pass up an opportunity to do a good deed.

Best part of life in the UAE: The weather. The constant sunshine is amazing and there is always something to do, you have so many options when it comes to how to spend your day.

Favourite holiday destination: Malaysia. I went there for my honeymoon and ended up volunteering to teach local children for a few hours each day. It is such a special place and I plan to retire there one day.

House-hunting

Top 10 locations for inquiries from US house hunters, according to Rightmove

  1. Edinburgh, Scotland 
  2. Westminster, London 
  3. Camden, London 
  4. Glasgow, Scotland 
  5. Islington, London 
  6. Kensington and Chelsea, London 
  7. Highlands, Scotland 
  8. Argyll and Bute, Scotland 
  9. Fife, Scotland 
  10. Tower Hamlets, London