Sudan's Rapid Support Forces says its fighters have seized Zalingi, the second Darfur city in less than a week to fall into the hands of the paramilitary fighting the army in a war that began April.
News of the capture of Zalingi, which could not be independently verified, broke as RSF and army representatives were engaged in talks sponsored by Saudi Arabia and the United States to reach a truce that would allow humanitarian aid to reach millions of Sudanese affected by the six-month-old conflict.
The fall of Zalingi, in East Darfur State, followed last week's takeover of Nyala, Sudan's second largest city after the capital Khartoum which is virtually controlled by the RSF.
In a statement announcing Zalingi's capture, the RSF said its men have taken prisoner the commander of the local garrison housing the army's 21st Infantry Division, along with 50 other officers and hundreds of troops.
The army had no immediate comment on the claim.
A video shared online by the RSF showed a local paramilitary commander purportedly inside the garrison announcing its fall in the early hours of Tuesday.
The latest win by the RSF gives it control over an oilfield and an associated airstrip which has recently been also used by the army's jet fighters to bomb the paramilitary's positions.
The oilfield and the strip are located across the nearby state border of West Kordofan.
Workers at the oilfield, which produces 10,000 to 12,000 barrels per day, said they were evacuated on Sunday night due to the attack on nearby Zalingi, but an RSF statement on Tuesday sought to reassure them of their safety.
“We would like to assure the company operating the Belila oilfield that our forces … will have nothing to do with the oilfield or the airport and that employees should continue to work for the benefit of the Sudanese people,” the statement read.
The war in Sudan broke out over differences in the implementation of the democratic transition between army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and RSF commander Gen Mohamed Dagalo which boiled over to become a struggle for military and political supremacy.
The conflict has to date displaced nearly six million of Sudan's estimated 48 million population, killed thousands and destroyed much of the infrastructure in the vast and impoverished Afro-Arab nation. It has also plunged in to deep uncertainty the democratic transition the nation embarked on after the ouster of dictator Omar Al Bashir's 29-year regime in 2019.
Past mediations by Saudi Arabia and the United States had produced a series of ceasefires, all of which collapsed or were not diligently observed. This prompted the US and Saudi Arabia to suspend the process this summer. The negotiations resumed last week in Jeddah, but are yet to produce tangible results.
The army and the RSF have been mainly battling each other in Khartoum, but the conflict later spread to the west, firstly to west Darfur where the paramilitary and its local allies killed hundreds in ethnically-driven attacks that forced thousands to flee to neighbouring Chad.
Fighting between the two sides is now under way in other parts of western Sudan, including in and around the cities of El Obeid and El Fasher.
The RSF's forerunner is the notorious Darfur-based Janjaweed militia, which is accused by the International Criminal Court of committing war crimes during the civil war in the 2000s. Back then it fought on the government's side against ethnic African rebels demanding an end to the monopoly on power by the Muslim and Arabised north.
The ICC is investigating the ethnically-driven killings by the RSF and its allies in Darfur which took place this summer.
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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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COMPANY PROFILE
● Company: Bidzi
● Started: 2024
● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid
● Based: Dubai, UAE
● Industry: M&A
● Funding size: Bootstrapped
● No of employees: Nine
The Bloomberg Billionaire Index in full
1 Jeff Bezos $140 billion
2 Bill Gates $98.3 billion
3 Bernard Arnault $83.1 billion
4 Warren Buffett $83 billion
5 Amancio Ortega $67.9 billion
6 Mark Zuckerberg $67.3 billion
7 Larry Page $56.8 billion
8 Larry Ellison $56.1 billion
9 Sergey Brin $55.2 billion
10 Carlos Slim $55.2 billion
Asia Cup 2018 Qualifier
Sunday's results:
- UAE beat Malaysia by eight wickets
- Nepal beat Singapore by four wickets
- Oman v Hong Kong, no result
Tuesday fixtures:
- Malaysia v Singapore
- UAE v Oman
- Nepal v Hong Kong
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The Buckingham Murders
Starring: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ash Tandon, Prabhleen Sandhu
Director: Hansal Mehta
Rating: 4 / 5
UAE Falcons
Carly Lewis (captain), Emily Fensome, Kelly Loy, Isabel Affley, Jessica Cronin, Jemma Eley, Jenna Guy, Kate Lewis, Megan Polley, Charlie Preston, Becki Quigley and Sophie Siffre. Deb Jones and Lucia Sdao – coach and assistant coach.
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
WRESTLING HIGHLIGHTS
