In Beirut, a rescued pelican becomes symbol of hope in crisis-stricken Lebanon

Three times a day a large white pelican waddles up to a seaside restaurant on Beirut’s Corniche for a snack of fresh fish, its wellbeing closely guarded by locals and the fishermen who found him dying in the open sea last February.

In a country reeling from multiple crises, the fate of the gentle pelican brings joy and hope to customers who watch him as he is hand-fed several kilograms of fresh fish every day.

“He struts in like a lady and eats and checks everybody out,” laughed Ali Bazzi, 65, a regular at Abou Mounir restaurant. “When he doesn’t like the fish, he throws it to the floor.”

Lebanon has been sinking deeper into its worst economic crisis over the last year and there is no end in sight. The general feeling of despair has been compounded by the coronavirus pandemic and the explosion in early August of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate at Beirut port.

At least 190 people died as a result of the blast and the local authorities said that the chemicals had been stored unsafely for seven years. On Thursday, a little more than a month later, a massive fire erupted at the port, stoking fears that hazardous materials were still being stored there without proper security measures. More explosives were later discovered there.

Amid the daily news reports of economic hardship and social unrest, videos of the pelican have gone viral.

"So I was having a bite with a couple of friends by the Corniche when this fella wanders in," tweeted Beirut-based Bloomberg journalist Lin Noueihed on Wednesday. "And for a few minutes, the world was beautiful again. #Beirut".

After the pelican was found last winter, he was nursed back to health by the owners of Abou Mounir restaurant with the help of Lebanese Wildlife, a group that rescues wild animals in Lebanon.

Omar Al Aoud, the 17-year-old son of one of the restaurant’s managers and a passionate advocate of animal rights, nicknamed the pelican Ovi.

“It comes from oviraptor, because birds descend directly from dinosaurs,” he said.

Ovi now lives a few metres away from the restaurant in a fishermen’s bay, and enjoys swimming close to their boats.

“This is the most ideal situation. It would be abusive to put him in a cage,” said Alexandra Youssef of Lebanese Wildlife.

But the pelican’s newfound popularity worries Omar.

“I have mixed feelings about it. I don’t want too many people knowing about him. I don’t want him to get stressed,” he said.

Clients are not allowed to touch Ovi, who likes being scratched on the back and chest by restaurant staff but shies away from people he does not know.

“One client tried to force his beak open to put a fish in it. I kind of had a small problem with that,” said Omar.

The pelican is particularly afraid of children, because they have attacked him in the past with sticks.

But Omar and his father, Ali, 54, feel that his presence is also helping locals better respect wildlife in a country where three million birds are hunted illegally every year.

“We told them not to pat him; he’s not a dog, or cat. They understand. The fishermen love him and feed him too,” said Ali Al Oud. “Everyone here takes care of him. He’s become the symbol of this place.”

“Hopefully, he won’t become domestic and will migrate again. We want him to have a life that a pelican should have,” said Ali.

But Ali’s hopes will probably never materialise, warned Ms Youssef.

Ovi’s flight wings had been clipped when he was found. That means that he was probably captured for sale for up to $300 (Dh1,100) as a pet or for taxidermy on the black market, she said.

A pelican’s wings take six months to a year to regrow. But during this time, Ovi will have become used to humans, meaning that he can never be return to the wild. “He might fall in the wrong hands,” Ms Youssef said.

Hundreds of thousands of birds suffer similar fates to Ovi's and are killed or captured every year as they fly the dangerous route between Europe and Africa.
"Lebanon is the second most important route of bird migration in the world, and one of the worst countries for hunting, along with Italy, Egypt, and Syria," Ms Youssef said.

“A lot of people here treat animals brutally,” Mr Bazzi said.

“Look, we had a war for 15 years,” he continued, referring to the 1975-1990 civil war. “This became a culture for people. And then successive governments didn’t address the problem. Maybe they built real estate, but the people were not taken care of.”

“We are still suffering, but you find good people who love animals, nature and the environment. They want life,” he said.

“But some don’t. They are still in the fabric of war, 15 years of war. Nothing happened to teach them something new."

Quoting a song by famed Syrian-Egyptian singer Farid Al Atrash, Mr Bazzi said that "life is beautiful if we understand it".

"Life is birds, animals, fish, trees, the sea, and the river. That’s life. And we have to understand it to live," he said.

In numbers: China in Dubai

The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000

Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000

Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000

Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000

Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent

RACE CARD

6.30pm Al Maktoum Challenge Round-1 Group 1 (PA) Dh119,373 (Dirt) 1,600m

7.05pm Handicap (TB) Dh102,500 (D) 1,200m

7.40pm Handicap (TB) Dh105,000 (Turf) 1,800m

8.15pm UAE 1000 Guineas Trial (TB) Dh183,650 (D) 1,400m

9.50pm Handicap (TB) Dh105,000 (D) 1,600m

9.25pm Handicap (TB) Dh95,000 (T) 1,000m

Dr Amal Khalid Alias revealed a recent case of a woman with daughters, who specifically wanted a boy.

A semen analysis of the father showed abnormal sperm so the couple required IVF.

Out of 21 eggs collected, six were unused leaving 15 suitable for IVF.

A specific procedure was used, called intracytoplasmic sperm injection where a single sperm cell is inserted into the egg.

On day three of the process, 14 embryos were biopsied for gender selection.

The next day, a pre-implantation genetic report revealed four normal male embryos, three female and seven abnormal samples.

Day five of the treatment saw two male embryos transferred to the patient.

The woman recorded a positive pregnancy test two weeks later.

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Pox that threatens the Middle East's native species

Camelpox

Caused by a virus related to the one that causes human smallpox, camelpox typically causes fever, swelling of lymph nodes and skin lesions in camels aged over three, but the animal usually recovers after a month or so. Younger animals may develop a more acute form that causes internal lesions and diarrhoea, and is often fatal, especially when secondary infections result. It is found across the Middle East as well as in parts of Asia, Africa, Russia and India.

Falconpox

Falconpox can cause a variety of types of lesions, which can affect, for example, the eyelids, feet and the areas above and below the beak. It is a problem among captive falcons and is one of many types of avian pox or avipox diseases that together affect dozens of bird species across the world. Among the other forms are pigeonpox, turkeypox, starlingpox and canarypox. Avipox viruses are spread by mosquitoes and direct bird-to-bird contact.

Houbarapox

Houbarapox is, like falconpox, one of the many forms of avipox diseases. It exists in various forms, with a type that causes skin lesions being least likely to result in death. Other forms cause more severe lesions, including internal lesions, and are more likely to kill the bird, often because secondary infections develop. This summer the CVRL reported an outbreak of pox in houbaras after rains in spring led to an increase in mosquito numbers.

U19 WORLD CUP, WEST INDIES

UAE group fixtures (all in St Kitts)

Saturday 15 January: UAE beat Canada by 49 runs
Thursday 20 January: v England
Saturday 22 January: v Bangladesh

UAE squad:

Alishan Sharafu (captain), Shival Bawa, Jash Giyanani, Sailles
Jaishankar, Nilansh Keswani, Aayan Khan, Punya Mehra, Ali Naseer, Ronak Panoly,
Dhruv Parashar, Vinayak Raghavan, Soorya Sathish, Aryansh Sharma, Adithya
Shetty, Kai Smith

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

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.”