It is difficult to imagine that someone will create a hit rap musical around Germany’s veteran Chancellor Angela Merkel. But her historical reputation stands now in parallel to Alexander Hamilton.
The American revolutionary war hero and the founding US treasury secretary has undergone something of a revival in recent years. The hottest stage play of the past decade has brought his legacy to Broadway and beyond. While it is delivered in rap and most of the cast members are people of colour,Hamilton: An American Musical is, in fact, a prolonged civics lesson. It is also a study in moral courage.
Which is why it is salient to the role played by Mrs Merkel last week in forging a €750 billion rescue package for the eurozone economies. It is something that puts Europe back in the top league of global economic influencers.
FILE - In this June 12, 2016 file photo, Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of "Hamilton" perform at the Tony Awards in New York. Next year, you'll be able to see the original Broadway cast of “Hamilton†perform the musical smash from the comfort of a movie theater. The Walt Disney Company said Monday, Feb. 3, 2020, it will distribute a live capture of Lin-Manuel Miranda's show in the United States and Canada on Oct. 15, 2021. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
It also puts a stop on the clamour for a break-up of the European Union – a 27-member bloc – because the paymaster powers have been given to the executive commission in Brussels. Mrs Merkel bore the heavy burden of getting the whole edifice to this point. And nothing fits her so well than the manner in which she is positioned leave the job that she has held since 2005.
By dint of longevity and the powerful forces shaping Europe, she has, in the words of former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing, finally surpassed her mentor. Helmut Kohl, the German leader who mentored the East German scientist and pastor’s daughter amid the melee of the Communist collapse, is the man who guided reunification and built the euro from its foundations.
Mr d’Estaing said Mrs Merkel had become the historical centre of gravity of Europe by responding to the crisis with appropriate boldness. “It is rare for a personality to perform functions desired and expected by the population,” he wrote last week. “This is the case, for Germany.”
The German leader, 66, has shown courage before. There was the 2008 financial crisis when the Europeans collectively saw the weakest nations through the debt crisis. She acted alone and with foresight in 2015 to declare a "willkommen" – or welcoming – policy for more than one million Syrians and Iraqis.
Accommodation provided to refugees at the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin, as Germany tried to cope with a massive influx of people fleeing the Syrian civil war. AFP
Through it all, there have been plenty of detractors who picked the resentments caused by her policies and highlighted the black marks. There have been plenty of half-measures throughout her career. Coalition politics have essentially seen her government vacillate between centre-left and centre-right policies. For much of the time, there has been not much to make an exciting musical subplot.
She is not running for re-election next year but the baggage of Germany’s militaristic past has not been tackled. For all its manufacturing prowess and enormous wealth, Germany remains a diplomatic middleweight. It makes no choices that aren't either forged by conventional wisdom or forced on it. Unwilling to cause waves, it actively seeks the path of least resistance. Its massive resources are not employed to stand up a military capable of force projection, never mind provide regional leadership.
However, the working out of the bailout fund has required Hamiltonian determination.
Investment grade bond sales could top $1.9 trillion this year, far outweighing the $1.3 trillion record set for issuance in 2017, according to investment manager Doubleline Group's Monica Erickson. Bloomberg
Hamilton was one of America's founding fathers who helped forge the union of states. But until he found a way to absorb the debt borne by the American War of Independence from 1775 to 1783, the balance was decidedly against the federal governments. Once the power of the chequebook resided in the national government, the US as a world power was born.
It took courage because the instincts of the federal fathers lay with the states' right to supremacy. But with external financial events pressing in 1790, including foreign debt, Hamilton took the necessary leap.
The ideas behind the EU deal were alien to Mrs Merkel as recently as April, when the French President Emmanuel Macron began lobbying for the rich European states to fund the recovery of the most fragile members.
Emmanuel Macron, left, will be hoping to take Angela Merkel's mantle in the European power pyramid whenever she steps down as German Chancellor. AFP
The deal itself terms it 'New Generation EU' and has been launched on a solid economic platform. Angela Merkel can take a bow
The "Frugals", a group within the EU comprising Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden, bitterly opposed the idea of guaranteeing debts that would be handed over to Rome and Madrid without reform conditions. Mark Rutte, the Netherlands Prime Minister and the second-longest-serving European leader after Mrs Merkel, added more demands about the member states' compliance with European basic principles, such as the rule of law. This amounted to a position of trimming the amount on offer, adding external scrutiny and forcing concessions from countries that were on their knees.
It was the way that business was done after 2008, which stoked up much of the populist political crisis engulfing Europe since then. Mrs Merkel therefore fought doughtily against this over five days and nights in Brussels, occasionally losing her temper, but always in tandem with Mr Macron. Since he hopes to take her mantle in the European power pyramid when she goes, it is to be hoped that Mr Macron learned from the masterclass across the meeting rooms.
The deal itself terms it “New Generation EU” and has been launched on a solid economic platform. Mrs Merkel can take a bow.
Damien McElroy is the London bureau chief of The National
T20 WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS
Qualifier A, Muscat
(All matches to be streamed live on icc.tv)
Fixtures
Friday, February 18: 10am Oman v Nepal, Canada v Philippines; 2pm Ireland v UAE, Germany v Bahrain
Saturday, February 19: 10am Oman v Canada, Nepal v Philippines; 2pm UAE v Germany, Ireland v Bahrain
Monday, February 21: 10am Ireland v Germany, UAE v Bahrain; 2pm Nepal v Canada, Oman v Philippines
Tuesday, February 22: 2pm Semi-finals
Thursday, February 24: 2pm Final
UAE squad:Ahmed Raza(captain), Muhammad Waseem, Chirag Suri, Vriitya Aravind, Rohan Mustafa, Kashif Daud, Zahoor Khan, Alishan Sharafu, Raja Akifullah, Karthik Meiyappan, Junaid Siddique, Basil Hameed, Zafar Farid, Mohammed Boota, Mohammed Usman, Rahul Bhatia
What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.
CAF Champions League semi-finals first-leg fixtures
Tuesday:
Primeiro Agosto (ANG) v Esperance (TUN) (8pm UAE)
Al Ahly (EGY) v Entente Setif (ALG) (11PM)
Second legs:
October 23
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.”
