Police break the window of the apartment of of James Holmes, the suspect of a shooting in a movie theater in Aurora, outside of Denver, Colorado.
Police break the window of the apartment of of James Holmes, the suspect of a shooting in a movie theater in Aurora, outside of Denver, Colorado.

Booby-trap bomb defused after Batman rampage



AURORA, Colorado // Bomb-squad technicians yesterday removed a trip wire and defused an explosive booby-trap in the apartment of the man accused of killing 12 people in a gun rampage in a cinema.

The trip wire "clearly was intended to kill", said local police sergeant Cassidee Carlson. "This is serious stuff."

James Holmes, 24, has been in custody since he was arrested in the car park of the Aurora cinema outside Denver, Colorado, after the gun attack early on Friday at a packed midnight premiere of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.

Twelve people were killed and 58 injured in the attack. Some were hurt in the chaos that ensued as the audience tried to flee the smoke-filled cinema in a panicked dash for the doors. Among the injured, 11 are in a critical condition.

The four weapons recovered after the attack were bought legally by Mr Holmes in the past two months.

"All the weapons that he possessed, he possessed legally," Aurora police chief Dan Oates said. "And all the clips that he possessed, he possessed legally. And all the ammunition that he possessed, he possessed legally."

A spokesman for a Denver gun shop said they had sold a shotgun and a Glock pistol to Mr Holmes. "Background checks, as required by federal law, were properly conducted, and he was approved."

Mr Oates said the gunman used a military-style semi-automatic rifle, a shotgun and a pistol, and had also recently bought 6,000 rounds of ammunition over the internet. Mr Holmes had enrolled last year in a neuroscience doctoral programme at the University of Colorado-Denver, though he left the programme last month for unknown reasons. In academic achievement, "he was at the top of the top", said Timothy P White chancellor at the University of California, Riverside, where Mr Holmes earned his undergraduate degree before attending the Denver school.

Mr Holmes's stellar academic record, shy demeanour and lack of a criminal background made the attack even more difficult to fathom.

Nor is it known why he chose a cinema to stage the assault, or whether he intended some twisted, symbolic link to the film itself.

The new Batman movie, the last in the trilogy starring Christian Bale, opened worldwide on Friday with midnight showings in the US. The plot has the villain Bane facing Bale's Caped Crusader with a nuclear weapon that could destroy all of fictional Gotham.

In reaction to the shooting Hollywood studios aligned in a rare show of solidarity to give their weekend box-office reporting a rest. Sony, Fox, Disney and Universal joined the distributor Warner Bros in withholding their box-office numbers for the weekend. Warner said on Friday it would forgo the usual revenue reports until Monday out of respect for the victims and their families.

Warner Bros also cancelled appearances in Mexico by the cast and filmmakers.

Near the entrance to the cinema car park, a makeshift memorial of 12 candles sat in a row near piles of flowers yesterday.

Tanner Coon, a 17-year-old Aurora resident who was watching the film with two friends, said he first thought the gunshots were firecrackers. When he realised what was happening, he ducked between the seats and waited for the shooter to say what he wanted.

The shooting was the worst in the US since the attack on November 5, 2009, at Fort Hood, Texas. An army psychiatrist was charged with killing 13 soldiers and civilians and wounding more than two dozen others. It was the deadliest in Colorado since the 1999 attack at Columbine High School, where two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 26 others before killing themselves.

* With additional reporting by Reuters and Agence France-Presse

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Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
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Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia

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MATCH INFO

Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg

Tottenham 0-1 Ajax, Tuesday

Second leg

Ajax v Tottenham, Wednesday, May 8, 11pm

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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.”