The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
Latest: Sheikh Mohamed's childhood teacher leads birthday wishes as past pupil turns 60
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed celebrates his 60th birthday on March 11.
It can be said the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces has lived his entire life in the service of his country, from the earliest age.
He was born in Al Ain, the third son of Sheikh Zayed, at the time the Ruler's Representative in the Eastern Region.
It was an important moment, not just as the birth of the future Crown Prince. He was delivered at the new Oasis Hospital, the first in the emirate, and set up only that year by American missionaries at the invitation of Sheikh Zayed.
The realisation that the ruling family were among the first to trust these new doctors undoubtedly gave others the confidence to have their babies delivered at the hospital.
This greatly reduced the toll of death in childbirth and infant mortality, that until then had been all too common.
As Abu Dhabi became part of the UAE in December 1971, Sheikh Mohamed had already turned 10.
With their father now the country’s founding President, his sons found themselves increasingly in the public eye, seen through the rapid growth of television, newspapers and magazines.
Several of the photographs seen here, in a unique collection assembled from the UAE’s National Archives, show the childhood of the future Crown Prince.
One of the earliest photographs is from 1970, when Sheikh Mohamed was just nine.
It is an intimate family portrait of Sheikh Zayed with sons Sheikh Mohamed, Sheikh Hamdan and Sheikh Hazza. Sheikh Zayed looks at Sheikh Mohamed, smartly at attention in his uniform, as a loving father.
Another image from the same time shows Sheikh Zayed with his arms around the two younger boys as Sheikh Mohamed shares the same sofa.
In others we see him enjoying the simple pleasures of childhood, playing on a swing with his brother Sheikh Hazza or joyously riding a bicycle, taken in the 1960s, and another from the same period, sitting proudly on his horse.
By then Sheikh Mohamed was beginning his education, enrolled at Al Kindi Primary School where we see him serious, sitting at a desk with his books and writing on the classroom blackboard just before his eighth birthday in 1969.
A little later, Sheikh Mohamed was beginning to assume public duties, given the responsibility of presenting the opening of the school’s first annual exhibition, in April 1971.
Watched by his teacher, Mohamed Al Tamimi, we see Sheikh Mohamed being greeted by the guest of honour that day, the President of the UAE – but also a proud father.
By 1979, Sheikh Mohamed had graduated from the prestigious Sandhurst Military Academy in the UK, greeted on his return to Abu Dhabi by Sheikh Zayed, the moment captured in a photograph from Alittihad newspaper.
That same year, now an officer in the UAE Armed Forces, Sheikh Mohamed accompanied Sheikh Zayed to Saudi Arabia for the country’s annual military manoeuvres. A photograph shows him in his uniform, smiling behind his father and King Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
Several images show him carrying out military duties. The earliest photo of the Crown Prince in uniform is from the 1960s, a portrait of a serious young boy in the cap of the Abu Dhabi Defence Force and the insignia of a lieutenant on his shoulders. Another, from the 1970s, shows him training in Al Ain.
Many years later we see Sheikh Mohamed, now a lieutenant general, inspecting the UAE Armed Forces in Kuwait, in March 2003. From that same year we see Sheikh Mohamed with Sheikh Zayed at a wedding in Al Ain and, in uniform again, with his father at the Idex defence exhibition in Abu Dhabi.
Sheikh Zayed passed away the following year. With his older brother Sheikh Khalifa now President, Sheikh Mohamed became Crown Prince, along with the position of Deputy Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. In 2005 he was promoted to the rank of general.
Since then, Sheikh Mohamed has been a familiar figure on the world stage. His long association with the British royal family is illustrated with images of a banquet hosted by the British ambassador to the UAE for Prince Charles in 1989, greeting the Prince of Wales again at Abu Dhabi International Airport in 2014, and with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, UAE Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, as Queen Elizabeth II began her second state visit to the UAE in 2010.
Two contrasting photographs show first Sheikh Mohamed being presented with the Order of Muhammad First Class by King Mohammed VI of Morocco in 2015 and then dressed as a simple pilgrim performing Umrah in Makkah, with Sheikh Zayed and the Ruler of Umm Al Quwain, Sheikh Rashid bin Ahmad Al Mu'alla.
From January 2008 we see Sheikh Mohamed welcoming US President George W Bush at his tent in Sweihan. The Crown Prince is introducing the president to a falcon, an echo of two much earlier photographs, one at the Falconers Club in Abu Dhabi, and the other, as a smiling teenager, holding a falcon aloft on a trip to Pakistan.
They are a reminder that, at heart, Sheikh Mohamed is a true son of the desert.
First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus
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.”
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
Match info
Uefa Champions League Group H
Juventus v Valencia, Tuesday, midnight (UAE)
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
Gender pay parity on track in the UAE
The UAE has a good record on gender pay parity, according to Mercer's Total Remuneration Study.
"In some of the lower levels of jobs women tend to be paid more than men, primarily because men are employed in blue collar jobs and women tend to be employed in white collar jobs which pay better," said Ted Raffoul, career products leader, Mena at Mercer. "I am yet to see a company in the UAE – particularly when you are looking at a blue chip multinationals or some of the bigger local companies – that actively discriminates when it comes to gender on pay."
Mr Raffoul said most gender issues are actually due to the cultural class, as the population is dominated by Asian and Arab cultures where men are generally expected to work and earn whereas women are meant to start a family.
"For that reason, we see a different gender gap. There are less women in senior roles because women tend to focus less on this but that’s not due to any companies having a policy penalising women for any reasons – it’s a cultural thing," he said.
As a result, Mr Raffoul said many companies in the UAE are coming up with benefit package programmes to help working mothers and the career development of women in general.
Sri Lanka's T20I squad
Thisara Perera (captain), Dilshan Munaweera, Danushka Gunathilaka, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Ashan Priyanjan, Mahela Udawatte, Dasun Shanaka, Sachith Pathirana, Vikum Sanjaya, Lahiru Gamage, Seekkuge Prasanna, Vishwa Fernando, Isuru Udana, Jeffrey Vandersay and Chathuranga de Silva.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
SUE%20GRAY'S%20FINDINGS
%3Cp%3E%22Whatever%20the%20initial%20intent%2C%20what%20took%20place%20at%20many%20of%20these%20gatherings%20and%20the%3Cbr%3Eway%20in%20which%20they%20developed%20was%20not%20in%20line%20with%20Covid%20guidance%20at%20the%20time.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%22Many%20of%20these%20events%20should%20not%20have%20been%20allowed%20to%20happen.%20It%20is%20also%20the%20case%20that%20some%20of%20the%3Cbr%3Emore%20junior%20civil%20servants%20believed%20that%20their%20involvement%20in%20some%20of%20these%20events%20was%20permitted%20given%20the%20attendance%20of%20senior%20leaders.%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%22The%20senior%20leadership%20at%20the%20centre%2C%20both%20political%20and%20official%2C%20must%20bear%20responsibility%20for%20this%20culture.%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%22I%20found%20that%20some%20staff%20had%20witnessed%20or%20been%20subjected%20to%20behaviours%20at%20work%20which%20they%20had%20felt%20concerned%20about%20but%20at%20times%20felt%20unable%20to%20raise%20properly.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%22I%20was%20made%20aware%20of%20multiple%20examples%20of%20a%20lack%20of%20respect%20and%20poor%20treatment%20of%20security%20and%20cleaning%20staff.%20This%20was%20unacceptable.%22%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs
Engine: 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6
Power: 380hp at 5,800rpm
Torque: 530Nm at 1,300-4,500rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Price: From Dh299,000 ($81,415)
On sale: Now
SQUADS
UAE
Mohammed Naveed (captain), Mohamed Usman (vice-captain), Ashfaq Ahmed, Chirag Suri, Shaiman Anwar, Mohammed Boota, Ghulam Shabber, Imran Haider, Tahir Mughal, Amir Hayat, Zahoor Khan, Qadeer Ahmed, Fahad Nawaz, Abdul Shakoor, Sultan Ahmed, CP Rizwan
Nepal
Paras Khadka (captain), Gyanendra Malla, Dipendra Singh Airee, Pradeep Airee, Binod Bhandari, Avinash Bohara, Sundeep Jora, Sompal Kami, Karan KC, Rohit Paudel, Sandeep Lamichhane, Lalit Rajbanshi, Basant Regmi, Pawan Sarraf, Bhim Sharki, Aarif Sheikh
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Barcelona v Liverpool, Wednesday, 11pm (UAE).
Second leg
Liverpool v Barcelona, Tuesday, May 7, 11pm
Games on BeIN Sports
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre V8 twin-turbocharged and three electric motors
Power: Combined output 920hp
Torque: 730Nm at 4,000-7,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel consumption: 11.2L/100km
On sale: Now, deliveries expected later in 2025
Price: expected to start at Dh1,432,000
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
