1 Top 100 Arab tycoons amass $174 bn (Issac John in
Khaleej Times) Unfazed by the plunge in oil prices, the world’s top 100 Arab
tycoons continued to build their fortunes, amassing a combined wealth of
$174.37 billion, an $8.3 billion increase on 2014.
Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud,
with an estimated fortune of $22.6 billion, once again ranks top in the line-up
of the 100 super rich Arabs on the planet, Forbes Middle East revealed. Joseph
Safra, descendent of a banking family that hails from Syria, who is also the
world’s richest banker, occupies second spot with $17.3 billion. The top 10
this year included members of the UAE’s Al Ghurair family and Egypt’s Mansour
and Sawiris.
The full line-up of Forbes global billionaires,
comprising a total of 1,826 names, account for an aggregate net worth of $7.05
trillion. “Bill Gates presides over the ranking this year, with $79.2 billion,
up $3.2 billion from last year, a position he has held for 16 out of the past
21 years.”
The veteran billionaire is joined by a total of 46
billionaires under the age of 40 this year, with the 24-year old founder-CEO of
Snapchat, Evan Spiegel, counting as the youngest. Gates’ fellow veteran of the
billionaire scene, Warren Buffet, increased his wealth by $14.5 billion this
year to $72.7 billion, making him the world’s biggest gainer of 2015.
The number of Arab billionaires has risen to 49 this
time around -- four more than last year -- with shared wealth of $155.1
billion, up $7.4 billion on the previous year. In the Middle East, 23 Arab
names have witnessed a drop this year too — dollars by the billion are falling
through the cracks in a region where privacy reigns.
2 State of Syrian refugee camp ‘beyond inhumane’
(San Francisco Chronicle) Palestinian fighters clashed with Islamic State
militants in a heavily contested Palestinian refugee camp in the Syrian capital
on Monday as a United Nations official described the situation in the embattled
camp as "beyond inhumane."
The fighting in Yarmouk began Wednesday after the
Islamic State group muscled into the camp, marking the extremists' deepest
foray yet into Damascus. The heavy clashes that have raged since then have
added yet another layer of misery for up to 18,000 Yarmouk residents who have
already endured desperate conditions marked by a lack of basic food, medicine
and water.
The UN Security Council condemned "the grave
crimes" committed by the Islamic State group and al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra
against civilians in Yarmouk, and said their crimes must not go unpunished. The
fighting inside the camp has largely pitted the Islamic State group against
Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, a Palestinian faction opposed to Syrian President Bashar
Assad. Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman estimated that the Islamic State
group now controls as much as 90 percent of Yarmouk, slowly squeezing out Aknaf
Beit al-Maqdis.
The United Nations says the civilians trapped in
Yarmouk include a large number of children. The camp has been under government
siege for nearly two years, leading to starvation and illnesses. The camp also
has witnessed several rounds of ferocious and deadly fighting between
government forces and anti-Assad militants.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/UN-official-State-of-Syrian-refugee-camp-beyond-6180903.php
3 Britain’s diminished global stature (Jonathan Eyal
in Straits Times) Since the beginning of this decade, Britain's footprint on
world affairs has rapidly declined, and whoever wins the British general
elections a month from now on May 7 will face the same existential question
which every London-based government since World War II confronted but failed to
address: what could or should be Britain's world role?
On paper, most British officials remain committed to
the idea that their country is a global player. One of the first things the
current government led by Prime Minister David Cameron did when it came to
office in 2010 was to commission a Strategic Defence and Security Review which
came to the bold conclusion that the nation "has always had global
responsibilities and global ambitions" and vowed to "have no less ambition
in the decades to come".
The 2010 governmental strategic review pencilled in
a cut of 8 per cent in Britain's defence expenditure; that turned out to be
closer to 25 per cent in real spending terms, pushing Britain down to sixth
place in the rankings of global defence spenders. For the first time in modern
history, the British Parliament rejected in 2013 a government motion to
authorise the use of force in Syria, a decision which not only inflicted deep
damage on Britain's standing in the Middle East, but also curtailed the British
government's ability to undertake future overseas military operations.
Britain claims to be leading by example in the fight
against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria terrorists in the Middle
East. But in hardware terms, this consists of precisely eight jets which, on
average, undertake one bombing mission a day.
A variety of explanations exists for this decline. A
national backlash against a decade of frequent military interventions ordered
by former premier Tony Blair in the Balkans, Africa and Iraq has certainly
reduced appetite for foreign adventures. The financial crisis which struck
Britain also took its toll. But Britain is still one of Europe's powerhouses;
London has the highest concentration of security think-tanks on the continent,
and they provide a constant flow of excellent analysis.
"Write Britain off at your peril," wrote
Professor Brendan Simms of Cambridge University, an authority on international
relations. Perhaps he's right. Still, it may take a while before the country
regains confidence in itself, and elects a prime minister who defines his or
her mission as something a bit more than just clinging to power by avoiding all
the hard choices.
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