Members of the French gendarmerie intervention forces arrive at the scene of a hostage taking at an industrial zone in Dammartin-en-Goele, north-east of Paris. The two main suspects were sighted and at least one person had been taken hostage. Christian Hartmann / Reuters
Members of the French gendarmerie intervention forces arrive at the scene of a hostage taking at an industrial zone in Dammartin-en-Goele, north-east of Paris. The two main suspects were sighted and aShow more

Second hostage crisis emerges in eastern Paris



PARIS // French elite forces surrounded two brothers suspected of slaughtering 12 people in the terrorist attack at Charlie Hebdo as a fresh shooting and hostage drama erupted at a kosher supermarket Friday in eastern Paris.

Snipers were deployed on roofs and helicopters swooped low over a small printing business in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele, only 12 kilometres from Paris’s main Charles de Gaulle airport.

And in the east of the French capital, a man and a woman already suspected of gunning down a policewoman on Thursday was thought to be behind a new attack on the kosher grocery store.

Police sources said one person was seriously wounded in the stand-off at the grocery store, while the interior ministry denied earlier reports that two people had been killed.

The attackers were identified as Amedy Coulibaly, 32, and Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, and are considered “armed and dangerous”.

The Porte de Vincennes area in eastern Paris was locked down with people told to stay indoors and police streaming into the streets.

Police sources said there was a “connection” between Coulibaly, and the brothers accused of carrying out France’s bloodiest massacre in half a century at the Charlie Hebdo offices.

The massive manhunt for the two brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, appeared to be approaching a dramatic climax as security forces laid siege to the CDT printing business in Dammartin-en-Goele.

Ahead of the stand-off, police had already exchanged fire with the pair in a high-speed car chase. Prosecutors said there had been “no casualties reported” in the immediate aftermath of the shoot-out.

One witness described coming face-to-face at the printer’s with one of the suspects, dressed in black, wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying what looked like a Kalashnikov.

The witness told France Info radio that the man said: “’Leave, we don’t kill civilians anyhow’.”

Schools nearby Dammartin-en-Goele were evacuated and residents barricaded themselves indoors as the hostage drama unfolded.

One 60-year-old choked back tears as she said how elite forces burst into the shop where her daughter works and ordered them to take cover.

“My daughter told me: ‘Don’t be scared mummy, we’re well protected. She was calm but me, I’m scared. I’m really scared,” said the woman.

Before the stand-off, the suspects had hijacked a Peugeot 206 nearby from a woman who said she recognised them as the brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, accused of killing 12 people in Wednesday's attack on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, which repeatedly lampooned the Prophet Mohammed.

President Francois Hollande rushed to the interior meeting to be briefed on the situation as prime minister Manuel Valls declared that France was at “war” with terrorism, but “not in a war against religion.”

“It will without doubt be necessary to take measures” to respond to the terrorist “threat,” he said.

Two Air France planes were forced to abort their landing at Paris’s main Charles-de-Gaulle airport and go around again ‘due to the presence of helicopters ... flying over the zone at low-altitude,” the airline said.

The spectacular endgame came as it emerged the brothers had been on a US terror watch list “for years”.

And as fears spread after the attack, the head of Britain’s domestic spy agency MI5 warned that militants were planning other “mass casualty attacks against the West” and that intelligence services may be powerless to stop them.

Wednesday's bloodbath at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris has sparked a global chorus of outrage, with impromptu and poignant rallies around the world in support of press freedom under the banner "jesuischarlie".

US President Barack Obama was the latest to sign a book of condolence in Washington with the message “Vive la France!” as thousands gathered in Paris on a day of national mourning Thursday, and the Eiffel Tower dimmed its lights to honour the dead.

And as a politically divided and crisis-hit France sought to pull together after the tragedy, the head of the country’s Muslim community — the largest in Europe — urged imams to condemn terrorism at Friday prayers.

In a highly unusual step, President Francois Hollande was due to meet far-right leader Marine Le Pen at the Elysee Palace later Friday, as France geared up for a “Republican march” on Sunday expected to draw hundreds of thousands.

French authorities raised the security alert to the highest possible level in the region of Picardy, to the north-east of Paris, as forces tightened their noose on the brothers, Cherif Kouachi, 32 and Said, 34.

Around 24 hours into the manhunt, the brothers were identified after holding up a petrol station 80 kilometres from Paris.

Helicopters buzzed overhead during the night and paramilitary forces were preparing to step up their house-to-house searches.

As heavily armed crack units swarmed through the normally tranquil countryside villages, residents voiced their nervousness.

“I don’t understand: the police are dressed like Robocops in the streets, but they let us move about freely. What if we came face-to-face with them, what do we do?” asked one woman, who gave her name as Carole.

Mr Cazeneuve announced that a total of 88,000 security forces were mobilised across the country and that an international meeting on terrorism would take place in Paris on Sunday.

Nine people had already been detained as part of the operation, he said.

* Agence France-Presse

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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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Round 1: Beat Leolia Jeanjean 6-1, 6-2
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Confirmed bouts (more to be added)

Cory Sandhagen v Umar Nurmagomedov
Nick Diaz v Vicente Luque
Michael Chiesa v Tony Ferguson
Deiveson Figueiredo v Marlon Vera
Mackenzie Dern v Loopy Godinez

Tickets for the August 3 Fight Night, held in partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi, went on sale earlier this month, through www.etihadarena.ae and www.ticketmaster.ae.

Company profile

Company name: Fasset
Started: 2019
Founders: Mohammad Raafi Hossain, Daniel Ahmed
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: $2.45 million
Current number of staff: 86
Investment stage: Pre-series B
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Creators:

Lockheed Martin was originally granted the contract to develop the system in 1992. Defence company Raytheon sub-contracts to develop other major parts of the system, such as ground-based radar.

UAE and THAAD:

In 2011, the UAE became the first country outside of the US to buy two THAAD missile defence systems. It then stationed them in 2016, becoming the first Gulf country to do so.

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Saturday April 27: Awards ceremony, 4pm and 8pm

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