BEIRUT // A Kuwaiti man kidnapped in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley region on Saturday was released late on Monday night after spending two days being held hostage by unknown abductors.
Essam Al Houti, who is believed to be in his fifties, was taken from his car by a group of gunmen near the town of Howsh Al Ghanem on Saturday.
The abduction came just days after Kuwait, the UAE and several other Gulf states warned their nationals to leave Lebanon, amid heightened tensions in the country over the crisis in Syria.
Lebanese and Kuwaiti officials had stressed that Mr Al Houti's abduction - in an area where there have been a number of recent kidnappings by criminal gangs for ransom - was neither politically motivated nor linked to the Syrian conflict.
After his release, however, Mr Al Houti said his kidnappers had accused him of involvement in the 17-month uprising against the regime of the Syrian president, Bashar Al Assad.
"They accused me of terrorism and that I am a commander of the terrorist Free [Syrian] Army," he said. "I told them I have nothing to do with politics."
Mr Al Houti's statement could exacerbate the sharp political rifts that his kidnapping exposed in Kuwait.
Those tensions - and the fears that other Gulf citizens may be in greater danger as the civil war in Syria spills into neighbouring countries - are likely to escalate.
"The kidnapping brought the Syrian conflict a lot closer to home," said Fouad Al Obaid, a columnist for the Kuwait Times. "It has raised a lot of concerns about Syria and Iran, and the implications on Kuwait."
Kuwait has maintained a tentative policy toward Syria so far, standing with other Gulf states in support of the Syrian opposition, but still friendly with Mr Al Assad's biggest supporter, Iran.
Mr Al Houti's kidnapping seems to have thrown off that balancing act.
"Unfortunately, the kidnapping was used to raise sectarian grudges," said Abdullah Al Shayji, the head of the political science department at Kuwait University.
Just hours after Mr Al Houti was kidnapped, accusations of foul play began to swirl at home. An engineer who works with Kuwait's state oil company, he comes from a prominent Sunni family and the local media carried lengthy speculation about an Iranian-linked Hizbollah conspiracy to abduct him.
Walid Al Tabtabae, a Kuwaiti MP and a member of the Salafi bloc, had said Kuwait's public works minister, Fadhel Safar, one of the few Shia in the highest ranks of the government, should be sacked if Mr Al Houti was not immediately released.
A fellow Salafi MP, Khalid Al Sultan Ben Essa, suggested that Kuwait should expel all Lebanese expatriates residing there if Mr Al Houti was not freed.
In initial reports, the local press also incorrectly reported that Mr Al Houti's car had a Qatari license plate, which might have put him at risk to would-be kidnappers looking for retribution for Doha's backing of Syrian rebels.
Several MPs, including the liberal Mohammed Al Saqer, criticised the sectarian accusations over the weekend and the two Salafi MPs have since qualified their statements.
The public attention, however, did not fade. "Kuwait is a small country and when someone is kidnapped, it raises a lot of awareness," said Al Obaid.
Mr Al Shayji said the Kuwaiti emir had personally intervened to assist the foreign ministry's efforts.
Michel Suleiman, Lebanon's president, yesterday said he hoped that the incident would not have a negative impact on the relationship between Kuwait and his country and stressed that those responsible would be held accountable.
Mr Al Houti, who is married to a Lebanese woman, had recently arrived in Lebanon on holiday, according to relatives. He was believed to have returned to Kuwait yesterday afternoon.
His kidnapping followed a spate of abductions in Lebanon this month. More than 20 Syrians and a Turkish national were taken hostage by the Moqdad clan in retaliation for the capture of a relative in Syria. Many of the Syrians have been released.
zconstantine@thenational.ae
Retirement funds heavily invested in equities at a risky time
Pension funds in growing economies in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East have a sharply higher percentage of assets parked in stocks, just at a time when trade tensions threaten to derail markets.
Retirement money managers in 14 geographies now allocate 40 per cent of their assets to equities, an 8 percentage-point climb over the past five years, according to a Mercer survey released last week that canvassed government, corporate and mandatory pension funds with almost $5 trillion in assets under management. That compares with about 25 per cent for pension funds in Europe.
The escalating trade spat between the US and China has heightened fears that stocks are ripe for a downturn. With tensions mounting and outcomes driven more by politics than economics, the S&P 500 Index will be on course for a “full-scale bear market” without Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts, Citigroup’s global macro strategy team said earlier this week.
The increased allocation to equities by growth-market pension funds has come at the expense of fixed-income investments, which declined 11 percentage points over the five years, according to the survey.
Hong Kong funds have the highest exposure to equities at 66 per cent, although that’s been relatively stable over the period. Japan’s equity allocation jumped 13 percentage points while South Korea’s increased 8 percentage points.
The money managers are also directing a higher portion of their funds to assets outside of their home countries. On average, foreign stocks now account for 49 per cent of respondents’ equity investments, 4 percentage points higher than five years ago, while foreign fixed-income exposure climbed 7 percentage points to 23 per cent. Funds in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan are among those seeking greater diversification in stocks and fixed income.
• Bloomberg
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Coming soon
Torno Subito by Massimo Bottura
When the W Dubai – The Palm hotel opens at the end of this year, one of the highlights will be Massimo Bottura’s new restaurant, Torno Subito, which promises “to take guests on a journey back to 1960s Italy”. It is the three Michelinstarred chef’s first venture in Dubai and should be every bit as ambitious as you would expect from the man whose restaurant in Italy, Osteria Francescana, was crowned number one in this year’s list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
Akira Back Dubai
Another exciting opening at the W Dubai – The Palm hotel is South Korean chef Akira Back’s new restaurant, which will continue to showcase some of the finest Asian food in the world. Back, whose Seoul restaurant, Dosa, won a Michelin star last year, describes his menu as, “an innovative Japanese cuisine prepared with a Korean accent”.
Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
The highly experimental chef, whose dishes are as much about spectacle as taste, opens his first restaurant in Dubai next year. Housed at The Royal Atlantis Resort & Residences, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal will feature contemporary twists on recipes that date back to the 1300s, including goats’ milk cheesecake. Always remember with a Blumenthal dish: nothing is quite as it seems.
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The specs
Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Power: 620hp from 5,750-7,500rpm
Torque: 760Nm from 3,000-5,750rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch auto
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh1.05 million ($286,000)
Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Milkman by Anna Burns
Ordinary People by Diana Evans
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Circe by Madeline Miller
Read more from Aya Iskandarani
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THE BIO: Mohammed Ashiq Ali
Proudest achievement: “I came to a new country and started this shop”
Favourite TV programme: the news
Favourite place in Dubai: Al Fahidi. “They started the metro in 2009 and I didn’t take it yet.”
Family: six sons in Dubai and a daughter in Faisalabad
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Ferrari
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MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, last-16, second leg (first-leg scores in brackets):
PSG (2) v Manchester United (0)
Midnight (Thursday), BeIN Sports
Japan 30-10 Russia
Tries: Matsushima (3), Labuschange | Golosnitsky
Conversions: Tamura, Matsuda | Kushnarev
Penalties: Tamura (2) | Kushnarev
Company%20profile
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T20 World Cup Qualifier
October 18 – November 2
Opening fixtures
Friday, October 18
ICC Academy: 10am, Scotland v Singapore, 2.10pm, Netherlands v Kenya
Zayed Cricket Stadium: 2.10pm, Hong Kong v Ireland, 7.30pm, Oman v UAE
UAE squad
Ahmed Raza (captain), Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Rameez Shahzad, Darius D’Silva, Mohammed Usman, Mohammed Boota, Zawar Farid, Ghulam Shabber, Junaid Siddique, Sultan Ahmed, Imran Haider, Waheed Ahmed, Chirag Suri, Zahoor Khan
Players out: Mohammed Naveed, Shaiman Anwar, Qadeer Ahmed
Players in: Junaid Siddique, Darius D’Silva, Waheed Ahmed
Most wanted allegations
- Benjamin Macann, 32: involvement in cocaine smuggling gang.
- Jack Mayle, 30: sold drugs from a phone line called the Flavour Quest.
- Callum Halpin, 27: over the 2018 murder of a rival drug dealer.
- Asim Naveed, 29: accused of being the leader of a gang that imported cocaine.
- Calvin Parris, 32: accused of buying cocaine from Naveed and selling it on.
- John James Jones, 31: allegedly stabbed two people causing serious injuries.
- Callum Michael Allan, 23: alleged drug dealing and assaulting an emergency worker.
- Dean Garforth, 29: part of a crime gang that sold drugs and guns.
- Joshua Dillon Hendry, 30: accused of trafficking heroin and crack cocain.
- Mark Francis Roberts, 28: grievous bodily harm after a bungled attempt to steal a £60,000 watch.
- James ‘Jamie’ Stevenson, 56: for arson and over the seizure of a tonne of cocaine.
- Nana Oppong, 41: shot a man eight times in a suspected gangland reprisal attack.
Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
'The Batman'
Stars:Robert Pattinson
Director:Matt Reeves
Rating: 5/5
ADCC AFC Women’s Champions League Group A fixtures
October 3: v Wuhan Jiangda Women’s FC
October 6: v Hyundai Steel Red Angels Women’s FC
October 9: v Sabah FA
