Israel to pull out from Lebanese border village: report



JERUSALEM // Israel is planning withdraw its troops from part of a disputed village on the Lebanese border and hand over control to the United Nations peacekeeping force deployed there, Israeli media reported on Sunday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will inform UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about the planned move when the two meet in New York on Monday, a government official told the Haaretz newspaper.

Plans to withdraw from the northern sector of Ghajar village were recently discussed with senior officials from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, which is deployed along the border to keep the peace between the two sides.

The village, which has around 2,200 residents, lies on the borders of Lebanon, Syria and the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in 1981 in a move never recognised by the international community.

Netanyahu is planning to present the proposal to his political-security cabinet when he returns to Israel following his five-day trip to the United States.

An Israeli pullout from the northern half of the village would complete its withdrawal from Lebanon as called for in UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbollah.

The northern part of Ghajar is in Lebanon and the rest lies in the Golan Heights.

The villagers were Syrian nationals when Israel occupied the region, but they took Israeli nationality when the Golan was annexed.

In 2000, when the United Nations demarcated the border, Ghajar's northern half was allocated to Lebanese control, but it was retaken by Israel during the 2006 war.

Most Ghajar villagers are against repartitioning the village, which would leave 1,700 people in the Lebanese part and 500 on the Israeli side.

Syria has always demanded the full return of the strategic Golan Heights in any peace deal.

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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.”