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A30 world news
Diasabra 14 Mei 2022

UAE’s long-ailing leader Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed dies at 73

normalized relations in 2020. ing Russia amid its war in Ukraine.
Messages of condolences also poured
The UAE announced a 40-day period in from around the region and the
of mourning and a three-day suspen- world, foremost from leaders of Arab
sion of work across the government countries supported by Abu Dhabi.
and private sector, including flags to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency
be flown at half-staff. said the country’s foreign minister,
Hossein Amirabdollahian, also ex-
There was no immediate announce- pressed condolences.
ment on a successor, although Sheikh
Mohammed bin Zayed is anticipat- Sheikh Khalifa was the eldest son of
ed to claim the presidency at a time Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan,
of high oil prices, which boost the widely revered by Emiratis as the
UAE’s spending power. country’s founding father. The fed-
eration recently marked its 50th an-
“The UAE has lost a loyal son, and niversary.
the leader of its blessed empower-
ment journey,” Sheikh Mohammed Though he had been out of public
bin Zayed wrote on Twitter after sight since his stroke, Sheikh Khal-
his brother’s death was officially an- ifa’s image was ubiquitous, gracing
nounced on state media. “Khalifa bin every hotel lobby and major govern-
(AP) — The United Arab Emir- 2014, a decade after becoming presi- Zayed, my brother, supporter and ment office across the country. On
ates’ long-ailing ruler and presi- dent, he ceased having any involve- mentor, may Allah Almighty grant occasion, Emirati state media pub-
dent, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed ment in the day-to-day affairs of rul- you eternal peace.” lished rare photographs and videos of
Al Nahyan, died Friday, the gov- ing the country. Sheikh Khalifa.
ernment announced in a brief In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State
statement. He was 73. The last several years of his life saw Anthony Blinken described Sheikh The president holds the most power-
his half-brother Abu Dhabi Crown Khalifa “as a true friend of the United ful position among the seven semi-
Sheikh Khalifa oversaw much of the Prince Mohammed bin Zayed rise to States,” adding that the U.S. remains autonomous city-states of the UAE,
country’s blistering economic growth become the de-facto ruler and deci- committed to its steadfast friendship which stretches along the shores
and his name was immortalized on sion-maker of major foreign policy and cooperation with the UAE. Vice of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of
the world’s tallest building, the Burj decisions, such as joining a Saudi-led President Kamala Harris also ex- Oman. Historically, the president
Khalifa, after bailing out debt-crip- war in Yemen and spearheading an pressed her condolences. is from Abu Dhabi, the largest and
pled Dubai during its financial crisis embargo on neighboring Qatar in re- richest of the seven emirates. The
over a decade ago. cent years. The crown prince, also the Ties have been strained between the vice president and prime minister is
deputy supreme commander of the Biden administration and the leaders from Dubai, titles currently held by
However, after suffering a stroke and armed forces, shepherded the UAE’s of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al
undergoing emergency surgery in budding ties with Israel after the two have not joined U.S. efforts in isolat- Maktoum.

UN humanitarian official urges attention to drought in Kenya

(AP) — A top United Na- as part of efforts to draw at- drought conditions are af-
tions humanitarian official tention to the humanitarian The U.N. warned earlier this fecting pastoral and farming Somalia is seen as particularly
has raised concern about challenge stemming from the year that an estimated 13 mil- communities. vulnerable. About 250,000
people going hungry in a re- drought. lion people are facing severe people there died from hun-
mote part of northern Kenya, hunger in the wider Horn Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya ger in 2011, when the U.N.
joining calls for the interna- “Lomoputh deserves our at- of Africa region as a result face the driest conditions re- declared a famine in some
tional community to commit tention,” Griffiths said, not- of persistent drought con- corded since 1981, the U.N. parts of the country. Half of
more resources to address the ing that children scavenging ditions. Malnutrition rates World Food Program report- them were children.
wider region’s drought crisis. for fruit to eat need help “to are high in the region, and ed in February.
have the slightest possibility
Martin Griffiths, the U.N. to survive to the next day.”
under-secretary-general for
humanitarian affairs, said he Kenyan President Uhuru Ke-
saw families in Kenya’s Tur- nyatta declared the drought
kana region that have nothing conditions a national disaster
left after their animals starved in September 2021.
to death. Turkana is an epi-
center of the drought affect- Some residents of Lomoputh
ing parts of the East African spoke to The Associated
country. Press of their desperate need
for food aid.
“The world’s attention is
elsewhere, and we know “I have not received any help,
that,” Griffiths said during and this child has not eaten
a visit to the region Thurs- anything since yesterday,” Je-
day. “And the world’s misery cinta Maluk, a mother of five
has not left Turkana, and the children, said. “This is the
world’s rains have not come main problem.”
to Turkana, and we’ve seen
four successive failures of the The extreme drought in Ke-
rains.” nya, where 3.5 million people
are affected by severe food
Griffiths and other humani- insecurity and acute malnu-
tarian representatives visited trition, has excacerbated the
a pastoralist community in factors causing people to go
Turkana’s Lomuputh area hungry.