It had been a long flight and the airport in Canada's capital was quiet, empty, large and boring. Tired and a little jaded, I slouched waiting for my baggage when I was drawn to one of the large TV screens on the wall. CBC, the state-owned news channel, had a breaking story. There had been an earthquake in Quebec. Oh, how interesting, I said to myself, not giving it much thought. A small tremor in a neighbouring province is bound to make headlines here because, well, without wanting to sound rude, not much of anything huge happens in Canada most days. Compared with the countries I'd visited in the past two months - Egypt, India, Iraq - Canada enjoys political stability, life is ordered and people are happy.
Like most western countries, it is very safe and health-conscious. That is why I assumed a slight rumble was no big deal. Then I left the airport. Met with a warm welcome by my family, I was told that my nieces were waiting for me at home. "Aren't they supposed to be in school?" I asked. "They were evacuated," my sister replied. Evacuated? Apparently the quake I was quick to dismiss had measured 5.5 on the Richter scale and was the biggest to hit Canada since 1982. People were rattled.
My sister told me that the children in the school were first ordered to get under their desks and then told to file out quickly and to sit in the park until their parents could fetch them. No buildings had fallen down, but fine cracks had begun to show up in schools and older buildings, and inspectors were being sent in. My sisters were in the shopping mall when it struck and described it vividly. A shake, a loud boom, and then the ground felt like it was about to split. Shoppers began to shout and in the confusion people started dashing to the doors. The mall's glass ceiling shook with force but didn't shatter. My friend told me she was bewildered at first, having never experienced an earthquake before. Then she felt very scared. She made a joke of it, saying it reminded her of an episode of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air in which Will Smith said he wanted to get out of California and go somewhere normal where the ground stays still and people move.
Another friend was really upset because she had lived through the Turkish earthquake of 1992. It brought back memories of breaking glass, buildings falling to the ground and people being crushed. The Ottawa quake might not have been devastating but it made people feel vulnerable. My mother was quiet, going through the motions of the day. But she kept saying that the tremor had made her feel that anything could happen at any moment and that no one would be prepared.
The last time I felt this type of vulnerability in my fellow Ottawa citizens was in 1998 when I was getting ready to graduate from high school and there was a devastating ice storm. Schools were shut down and we had to shower at the YMCA because there was no power in our city. It was an inconvenience but an adventure and no one felt like they were going to die. During the tremor, though, my family and friends had felt that for a few seconds they were not in control of their lives, a feeling very foreign to them.
I couldn't help but compare this with the people with whom I have been working and living lately. In Baghdad, children play within blast walls, journalists check under their cars for sticky bombs before leaving for work and the sight of heavily armed tanks crawling down the road is just a daily nuisance. In Cairo, poverty forces those in the slums to live day to day, not knowing if there will be food in their stomach when they turn in for the night.
While a violent tremor is a short-lived shock for the people of Canada, political instability in the third world means millions of people never have the luxury of feeling in control of their lives. For them the uncertainty rumbles on continuously. Hadeel al Shalchi is a writer for the Associated Press, based in Cairo
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Voy!%20Voy!%20Voy!
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The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Milestones on the road to union
1970
October 26: Bahrain withdraws from a proposal to create a federation of nine with the seven Trucial States and Qatar.
December: Ahmed Al Suwaidi visits New York to discuss potential UN membership.
1971
March 1: Alex Douglas Hume, Conservative foreign secretary confirms that Britain will leave the Gulf and “strongly supports” the creation of a Union of Arab Emirates.
July 12: Historic meeting at which Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid make a binding agreement to create what will become the UAE.
July 18: It is announced that the UAE will be formed from six emirates, with a proposed constitution signed. RAK is not yet part of the agreement.
August 6: The fifth anniversary of Sheikh Zayed becoming Ruler of Abu Dhabi, with official celebrations deferred until later in the year.
August 15: Bahrain becomes independent.
September 3: Qatar becomes independent.
November 23-25: Meeting with Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid and senior British officials to fix December 2 as date of creation of the UAE.
November 29: At 5.30pm Iranian forces seize the Greater and Lesser Tunbs by force.
November 30: Despite a power sharing agreement, Tehran takes full control of Abu Musa.
November 31: UK officials visit all six participating Emirates to formally end the Trucial States treaties
December 2: 11am, Dubai. New Supreme Council formally elects Sheikh Zayed as President. Treaty of Friendship signed with the UK. 11.30am. Flag raising ceremony at Union House and Al Manhal Palace in Abu Dhabi witnessed by Sheikh Khalifa, then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.
December 6: Arab League formally admits the UAE. The first British Ambassador presents his credentials to Sheikh Zayed.
December 9: UAE joins the United Nations.
The Lost Letters of William Woolf
Helen Cullen, Graydon House
Yuki Means Happiness
Alison Jean Lester
John Murray
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If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
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Disclaimer
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville
Rating: 4/5
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Wicked
Director: Jon M Chu
Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
India squad
Virat Kohli (captain), Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, K.L. Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant, Shivam Dube, Kedar Jadhav, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Deepak Chahar, Mohammed Shami, Shardul Thakur.
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
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ESSENTIALS
The flights
Fly Etihad or Emirates from the UAE to Moscow from 2,763 return per person return including taxes.
Where to stay
Trips on the Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian cost from US$16,995 (Dh62,414) per person, based on two sharing.
if you go
The flights
Etihad and Emirates fly direct from the UAE to Seoul from Dh3,775 return, including taxes
The package
Ski Safari offers a seven-night ski package to Korea, including five nights at the Dragon Valley Hotel in Yongpyong and two nights at Seoul CenterMark hotel, from £720 (Dh3,488) per person, including transfers, based on two travelling in January
The info
Visit www.gokorea.co.uk
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.”
MATCH INFO
Quarter-finals
Saturday (all times UAE)
England v Australia, 11.15am
New Zealand v Ireland, 2.15pm
Sunday
Wales v France, 11.15am
Japan v South Africa, 2.15pm
More Iraq election coverage:
START-UPS%20IN%20BATCH%204%20OF%20SANABIL%20500'S%20ACCELERATOR%20PROGRAMME
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How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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