Princess Iman of Jordan married Jameel Thermiotis on Sunday in a ceremony on the outskirts of Amman in the first wedding of a busy year for the Hashemite royal family.
The princess, 26, is the eldest daughter of King Abdullah II and Queen Rania, who hosted the wedding at their palace in the Dabouq neighbourhood west of Amman.
She is the first of King Abdullah's four children to be married.
Crown Prince Hussein, the king's eldest son, is due to marry fiancee Rajwa Al Saif, from Saudi Arabia, on June 1.
Wearing a white dress with a long train and a lace veil, Princess Iman was escorted to the ceremony through the palace gardens by Crown Prince Hussein.
She also wore a diamond tiara reportedly owned by her grandmother, Princess Muna Al Hussein, mother of King Abdullah and second wife of the late King Hussein, who ruled from 1952 to 1999.
The wedding, parts of which were broadcast live on state television, was a rare occasion when most members of the Hashemite family were seen in public.
Under Jordan's constitution, all significant powers in the country are with the monarch, who has to be male.
At the ceremony, Princess Iman sat with Mr Thermiotis, a Venezuelan, and King Abdullah in front of a green Quran placed on a table as a palace cleric recounted how marriage is an exalted virtue in Islam.
The king, the princess and Mr Thermiotis then signed the marriage document, which declared the couple husband and wife.
The couple then walked under spears carried by Royal Honour Guards, who usually greet foreign leaders when they come on official visits to the kingdom. They jointly used an Arab sword to cut a six-layer wedding cake.
Among the first guests to arrive was Prince Hasan, the only living brother of the the late king Hussein, who is seen as an elder statesman in Jordan, and his wife, the Calcutta-born Princess Sarvath.
Queen Rania sat in the front row, along with members of the Hashemite family and Mr Thermiotis's parents and siblings. Ms Al Saif was also in attendance.
Guests included Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed, member of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council and chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Office, as well as Sheikh Issa, son of Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad, and Intisar and Aya El Sisi, the wife and daughter of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, as well as members of Al Sabah ruling family of Kuwait.
The guests arrived at the palace to tunes played by a Jordanian army band and sat in a garden courtyard, where the brief ceremony took place.
Another band wearing white robes from the southern Jordanian city of Maan recited traditional wedding songs.
The engagement of the couple was announced by the Royal Hashemite Court in July last year.
Mr Thermiotis was born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1994, and is of Greek descent. He holds a bachelor's degree in business administration and works in finance in New York.
Last week, Queen Rania shared photos from her daughter’s pre-wedding henna party.
“So much love in one room! With friends and family at Iman’s henna party yesterday,” she said.
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
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The biog
Name: Salvador Toriano Jr
Age: 59
From: Laguna, The Philippines
Favourite dish: Seabass or Fish and Chips
Hobbies: When he’s not in the restaurant, he still likes to cook, along with walking and meeting up with friends.
Building boom turning to bust as Turkey's economy slows
Deep in a provincial region of northwestern Turkey, it looks like a mirage - hundreds of luxury houses built in neat rows, their pointed towers somewhere between French chateau and Disney castle.
Meant to provide luxurious accommodations for foreign buyers, the houses are however standing empty in what is anything but a fairytale for their investors.
The ambitious development has been hit by regional turmoil as well as the slump in the Turkish construction industry - a key sector - as the country's economy heads towards what could be a hard landing in an intensifying downturn.
After a long period of solid growth, Turkey's economy contracted 1.1 per cent in the third quarter, and many economists expect it will enter into recession this year.
The country has been hit by high inflation and a currency crisis in August. The lira lost 28 per cent of its value against the dollar in 2018 and markets are still unconvinced by the readiness of the government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to tackle underlying economic issues.
The villas close to the town centre of Mudurnu in the Bolu region are intended to resemble European architecture and are part of the Sarot Group's Burj Al Babas project.
But the development of 732 villas and a shopping centre - which began in 2014 - is now in limbo as Sarot Group has sought bankruptcy protection.
It is one of hundreds of Turkish companies that have done so as they seek cover from creditors and to restructure their debts.
LIVERPOOL SQUAD
Alisson Becker, Virgil van Dijk, Georginio Wijnaldum, James Milner, Naby Keita, Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah, Joe Gomez, Adrian, Jordan Henderson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Adam Lallana, Andy Lonergan, Xherdan Shaqiri, Andy Robertson, Divock Origi, Curtis Jones, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Neco Williams
Blonde
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COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
2018 ICC World Twenty20 Asian Western Regional Qualifier
The top three teams progress to the Asia Qualifier
Final: UAE beat Qatar by nine wickets
Third-place play-off: Kuwait beat Saudi Arabia by five runs
Table
1 UAE 5 5 0 10
2 Qatar 5 4 1 8
3 Saudi 5 3 2 6
4 Kuwait 5 2 3 4
5 Bahrain 5 1 4 2
6 Maldives 5 0 5 0
The years Ramadan fell in May
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl, 48V hybrid
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 325bhp
Torque: 450Nm
Price: Dh359,000
On sale: now
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The Old Slave and the Mastiff
Patrick Chamoiseau
Translated from the French and Creole by Linda Coverdale
What drives subscription retailing?
Once the domain of newspaper home deliveries, subscription model retailing has combined with e-commerce to permeate myriad products and services.
The concept has grown tremendously around the world and is forecast to thrive further, according to UnivDatos Market Insights’ report on recent and predicted trends in the sector.
The global subscription e-commerce market was valued at $13.2 billion (Dh48.5bn) in 2018. It is forecast to touch $478.2bn in 2025, and include the entertainment, fitness, food, cosmetics, baby care and fashion sectors.
The report says subscription-based services currently constitute “a small trend within e-commerce”. The US hosts almost 70 per cent of recurring plan firms, including leaders Dollar Shave Club, Hello Fresh and Netflix. Walmart and Sephora are among longer established retailers entering the space.
UnivDatos cites younger and affluent urbanites as prime subscription targets, with women currently the largest share of end-users.
That’s expected to remain unchanged until 2025, when women will represent a $246.6bn market share, owing to increasing numbers of start-ups targeting women.
Personal care and beauty occupy the largest chunk of the worldwide subscription e-commerce market, with changing lifestyles, work schedules, customisation and convenience among the chief future drivers.
Other workplace saving schemes
- The UAE government announced a retirement savings plan for private and free zone sector employees in 2023.
- Dubai’s savings retirement scheme for foreign employees working in the emirate’s government and public sector came into effect in 2022.
- National Bonds unveiled a Golden Pension Scheme in 2022 to help private-sector foreign employees with their financial planning.
- In April 2021, Hayah Insurance unveiled a workplace savings plan to help UAE employees save for their retirement.
- Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
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