MUMBAI: Lavish wedding celebrations for the son of Asia’s richest man resumed Saturday with a star-studded guestlist including Hollywood celebrities, global business leaders and two former British prime ministers.
Billionaire tycoon Mukesh Ambani’s youngest son Anant and fiancee Radhika Merchant, both 29, are tying the knot over the weekend in the financial capital Mumbai following months of pre-marriage parties that have set a new benchmark in matrimonial extravagance.
Saturday will see a blessing ceremony during which the world’s rich and famous will greet and pay their respects to the couple at the wedding venue, a 16,000-capacity convention center owned by the Ambani family’s conglomerate.
It follows a formal ceremony and party the previous evening attended by the likes of socialite Kim Kardashian, actor John Cena and former British leaders Tony Blair and Boris Johnson.
Kardashian shared videos on Instagram showing the professional influencer and her sister Khloe preparing for Friday night’s festivities adorned in traditional Indian dresses and ornate jewelry.
Footage shared by the hosts showed hundreds of revellers dancing enthusiastically inside the venue wearing traditional Indian dress.
FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and Samsung chairman Jay Y. Lee were among the hundreds of other famous figures from the business, sporting and entertainment worlds to make an appearance.
“Great wedding!” China’s ambassador to India Xu Feihong wrote on social media platform X along with footage of the couple from inside the venue.
“Best wishes to the new couple and double happiness!“
This weekend’s celebrations end Sunday with a reception party and cap months of extravagant pre-wedding parties.
Earlier events this year included a party at the Ambanis’ ancestral home where a purpose-built Hindu temple was unveiled, and private performances by R&B star Rihanna and Canada’s Justin Bieber.
Guests at that gala included Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and former US president Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, along with a who’s who of India’s sporting and entertainment worlds.
In June, the couple embarked on a four-day Mediterranean cruise along with 1,200 guests, with singer Katy Perry performing at a masquerade ball at a French chateau in Cannes.
The Backstreet Boys, US rapper Pitbull and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli also provided entertainment.
Anant’s father Mukesh is chairman of Reliance Industries, a family-founded conglomerate that has grown into India’s biggest company by market cap.
The patriarch is the world’s 11th richest person with a fortune of more than $123 billion, according to Forbes, and is no stranger to making a statement when it comes to family marriages.
He held the most expensive wedding in India to date for his daughter in 2018, which reportedly cost $100 million and saw US singer Beyonce perform.
The family’s lucrative interests include retail partnerships with Armani and other luxury brands, more than 40 percent of India’s mobile phone market and an Indian Premier League cricket team.
His 27-floor family home Antilia is one of Mumbai’s most prominent landmarks, reportedly costing more than $1 billion to build and with a permanent staff of 600 servants.
Merchant is the daughter of well-known pharmaceutical moguls.
Wedding party resumes for son of Asia’s richest man
https://arab.news/9q3bg
Wedding party resumes for son of Asia’s richest man
- It follows a formal ceremony and party the previous evening attended by the likes of socialite Kim Kardashian, Tony Blair and John Cena
Hottest oceans in 400 years endanger Great Barrier Reef, scientists say
- Ocean temperatures that were stable for hundreds of years began to rise from 1900 onwards as a result of human influence
- Since 2016, the reef has experienced five summers of mass coral bleaching, when large sections of the reef turn white due to heat stress
SYDNEY: Water temperatures in and around Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have risen to their warmest in 400 years over the past decade, placing the world’s largest reef under threat, according to research published on Thursday.
The reef, the world’s largest living ecosystem, stretches for some 2,400 km off the coast of the northern state of Queensland. The research is rare in putting the effects of man-made climate change into historical context, as other surveys on damage to the reef have a shorter time frame.
A group of scientists at universities across Australia drilled cores into the coral and, much like counting the rings on a tree, analyzed the samples to measure summer ocean temperatures going back to 1618.
Combined with ship and satellite data going back around a hundred years, the results show ocean temperatures that were stable for hundreds of years begin to rise from 1900 onwards as a result of human influence, the research concluded.
From 1960 to 2024, the study’s authors observed an average annual warming for January to March of 0.12°C (0.22°F) per decade.
Since 2016, the reef has experienced five summers of mass coral bleaching, when large sections of the reef turn white due to heat stress, putting them at greater risk of death.
These summers were during five of the six warmest years in the last four centuries, the study showed.
“The world is losing one of its icons,” said Benjamin Henley, an academic at the University of Melbourne and one of the study’s co-authors.
“I find that to be an absolute tragedy. It’s hard to understand how that can happen on our watch in our lifetime. So it’s very, very sad.”
The last temperature data point, from January to March of this year, was the highest on record and “head and shoulders” above any other year, Henley said.
Coral reefs protect shorelines from erosion, are home to thousands of species of fish, and are an important source of tourism revenue in many countries.
At least 54 countries and regions have experienced mass bleaching of their reefs since February 2023 as climate change warms the ocean’s surface waters, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said.
The Great Barrier Reef is not currently on UNESCO’s list of world heritage sites that are in danger, though the UN recommends it should be added.
Australia has lobbied for years to keep the reef — which contributes A$6.4 billion ($4.2 billion) to the economy annually — off the endangered list, as it could damage tourism.
Lissa Schindler, Great Barrier Reef campaign manager at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said the research showed Australia needed to do more to reduce its emissions.
“Australia must increase its ambition, action and commitments to battle climate change and protect our greatest natural asset,” she said.
Muslim ice cream man gives ‘free cones for cops’ after UK riots
- “We just thought we’d show them a little bit of love,” Mr.Tee, whose real name is Ashiq, said
- Mr Tee said most of the praise for his video came from non-Muslims who value their community
LONDON: A British Muslim social media star who travels around the country in his ice cream van has thanked police officers trying to control racist and anti-immigration riots by handing out free cones.
Mr Tee, King of Desserts, posted a TikTok video taken in the English city of Sunderland that amassed over 2.6 million views, in which he offered a police van full of officers ice creams, with the theme tune to 1980s hit TV show ‘The A-Team’ blaring.
“We just thought we’d show them a little bit of love,” Mr.Tee, whose real name is Ashiq, told Reuters.
The two-minute clip — in which one policeman asked for a special birthday ice cream for a colleague — struck a chord with the British public, the vast majority of whom think the riots are unjustified, according to a recent YouGov poll.
“This is brill — remember under the uniforms there is a dad, husband, uncle brother, human,” said commenter sayithowitis1970.
Riots have erupted at anti-immigration protests in towns and cities across Britain in the last week, with attacks by far-right groups on hotels housing asylum seekers and on mosques.
Mr Tee said most of the praise for his video came from non-Muslims who value their community.
“It’s just a very small minority that are unfortunately (not) feeling in this way,” Mr.Tee said.
Based in the northern Welsh town of Wrexham, Mr.Tee said he would take a week off to let the tensions around the country die down.
“Some people are scared to leave the house, ladies especially, they don’t want to be seen walking about with their hijabs,” he said.
But Mr.Tee pointed to the reaction to his video as a reason for hope.
“It just showed the genuine true colors of Great Britain and the people that live here, and obviously the welcoming side of the people here.”
‘Bluey’ coins worth $400,000 stolen by Australian warehouse worker, police say
SYDNEY: An Australian man is set to appear in court on Wednesday after being arrested for the alleged theft of more than A$600,000 ($393,000) worth of commemorative coins linked to the popular children’s television show “Bluey,” police said.
The 47-year-old is accused of stealing 64,000 unreleased, limited-edition A$1 coins from a warehouse in the Sydney suburb of Wetherill Park in June, according to “Strike Force Bandit,” a special unit police set up to investigate the theft.
One of last year’s most streamed television shows in the United States, the Australian animated show targeted at children is widely loved by adults and was the 14th highest rated show of all time, the movie tracker website IMDB.com shows.
The coins, produced by the Australian mint, look like A$1 coins and would be legal tender. Police say they are selling online for ten times their face value.
A similar run of special commemorative coins sell for A$20 each on the mint’s website. One eBay seller was charging almost A$600 for a pack of three.
Detective Superintendent Joseph Doueihi told reporters at a news conference he was not initially aware of the show’s popularity.
“The theft of these coins have deprived a lot of young children and members of the community from having access to these coins, so we’re doing our absolute best to try to recover these coins and put them back into circulation.”
Police say the man worked at the warehouse and stole the coins, which weighed 500 kilograms (1102 lb), from the back of a truck, before selling them online within hours. Police are looking for two male accomplices.
A raid on a Sydney house in June recovered 189 coins and Doueihi said the vast bulk of coins are already in circulation. Those who receive one do not need to surrender it to police, he added.
He appealed for anyone with information about large stashes of coins to contact the police. ($1=1.5267 Australian dollars)
Paris restaurant apologizes to Serena Williams, says was fully booked
- Williams was one of the Olympic flame’s torchbearers during the Paris Games’ opening ceremony
- The Peninsula Paris has a five-star hotel whose gourmet restaurant offers a view of the Eiffel tower
PARIS: A luxury Parisian hotel has apologized to tennis great Serena Williams after she complained, in a social media post seen by millions, that she and her family were turned away from its restaurant on Monday.
“Yikes @peninsulaparis I’ve been denied access to rooftop to eat in a empty restaurant of nicer places but never with my kids. Always a first,” Williams said on X.
Williams, a four-times Olympic gold medalist, was one of the Olympic flame’s torchbearers during the Paris Games’ opening ceremony. She is also among celebrities who have come out to see US gymnastics star Simone Biles compete in the Games.
Her post was seen by more than 4 million viewers.
The Peninsula Paris, a five-star hotel whose gourmet restaurant offers a view of the Eiffel tower, swiftly responded: “Dear Mrs. Williams, Please accept our deepest apologies for the disappointment you encountered tonight. Unfortunately, our rooftop bar was indeed fully booked and the only unoccupied tables you saw belonged to our gourmet restaurant, L’Oiseau Blanc, which was fully reserved.”
A second message followed, saying: “We have always been honored to welcome you and will always be to welcome you again.”
Some of the responses to William’s post were supportive, saying it was unacceptable that the restaurant didn’t make room for her, others said that celebrities have no more right to a fully booked restaurant than anyone else.
Williams was much more positive after the Games’ July 26 opening ceremony, saying on X: “Have you ever had an unforgettable moment? That was yesterday for me. Truly unforgettable. From being part of an amazing Open Ceremony at the Paris Olympics — to riding in the boat in the rain — and it was pouring! So much so my lashes came right on off. Unforgettable!”
Climate activists target Messi’s mansion in Spain’s Ibiza
MADRID: Climate activists on Tuesday spray-painted a mansion on the Spanish holiday island of Ibiza belonging to Argentina football star Lionel Messi to highlight the “responsibility of the rich for the climate crisis.”
Campaigners from the group Futuro Vegetal released a video showing two members standing in front of the house near the cove of Cala Tarida on Ibiza’s western coast holding a banner that read: “Help the Planet — Eat the Rich — Abolish the Police.”
The activists then sprayed the white facade of the building with red and black paint.
In a statement, the group said they wanted to show “the responsibility of the rich for the climate crisis” by targeting the mansion which they said was an “illegal construction.”
Futuro Vegetal cited a 2023 Oxfam report that found that the richest one percent of the world’s population generated the same amount of carbon emissions in 2019 as the poorest two thirds of humanity, despite the fact that the most vulnerable communities are the ones suffering the “worst consequences” of this crisis.
Messi, who currently plays for Inter Miami in the US, reportedly bought the property on the Mediterranean island — which includes a spa with a sauna and a cinema room — in 2022 from a Swiss businessman for around 11 million euros ($12 million).
But the mansion lacked a certificate of occupancy, a document issued by a local government agency certifying it is in a liveable condition, due the construction of several rooms in the property without a license, according to Spanish media reports.
Futuro Vegetal, which is linked to similar groups internationally, has staged dozens of similar protests, including one in 2022 where they glued their hands to frames of paintings by Spanish master Francisco de Goya at Madrid’s Prado museum.
Last year activists from the group spray-painted a superyacht moored in Ibiza with red and black paint that reportedly belonged to Nancy Walton Laurie, the billionaire heiress of US retail giant Walmart.
Spanish police in January said they had arrested 22 members of the Futuro Vegetal, including the two who staged the protest at the Prado as well as the group’s top three leaders.
