After months of carefully worded statements and media speculation, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sat down with Oprah Winfrey for a tell-all interview detailing their split from the UK royal family, which showed in the US on Sunday night.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex confirmed that “no subject was off limits” for the interview and, as expected, the couple shared many revelations.
Here are five of the most shocking things we learnt from the interview:
Concerns over Archie’s skin colour
Members of the royal family expressed concerns to Prince Harry about how dark his son, Archie's, skin colour would be ahead of his birth, the duchess told Winfrey during one of the interview's most shocking moments.
Revealing she was told when pregnant that her son would not receive a royal title, and therefore the same level of protection as other members of the family, she said: "The first member of colour in this family not being titled in the same way that other grandchildren were…
"We were very scared having to offer up our baby, knowing they weren't going to be kept safe," she added.
"In those months when I was pregnant, all around the same time ... So we have in tandem the conversation of, he won't be given security, he's not going to be given a title. And also, concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born."
"What? Who is having that conversation with you?" Winfrey asked. "There's a conversation with you ...? Hold up. There's a conversation?"
There are several conversations ... with Harry," Meghan said.
"With how dark your baby is going to be?" Winfrey asked.
"Potentially. And what that would mean or look like," Meghan said.
"And you're not going to tell me who had that conversation?" Winfrey said.
"I think that it would be very damaging to them," Meghan answered. "That was relayed to me from Harry. Those were conversations that family had with him."
Meghan says Kate made her cry
The relationship between Meghan and Kate Middleton, wives of brothers Prince Harry and Prince William, was the subject of much media speculation ahead of Markle’s 2018 wedding and in the years since.
Addressing tabloid rumours that the pair had a row over flower girls’ dresses, Markle said it was the Duchess of Cambridge who made her cry, not the other way round as reported in the media at the time.
“I don’t say that to be disparaging to anyone because it was a really hard week of the wedding and she was upset about something,” she said. “A few days before the wedding, she was upset about something. Yes, the issue was correct, about flower girl dresses.
“I thought in the context of everything else going on in the days leading to the wedding, it didn’t make sense to not doing what everyone else was doing, which was being supportive,” said Meghan, whose father had two heart attacks in the weeks ahead of her wedding.
“What was hard to get over was being blamed for something that not only I didn’t do, but what happened to me and the people that were a part of my wedding going to my comms team, saying, 'I know this didn’t happen',” she added. “Everyone in the institution knew it wasn’t true ...”
When asked why the Palace did not clear up rumours at the time, she told Winfrey: “I don’t know why. I can see now what layers were at play there ... They really seemed to want a narrative of a hero and a villain.”
The pair were secretly married three days before their Windsor Castle wedding
In the first few minutes of the interview, Meghan revealed that she married Prince Harry in private, three days before her Windsor Castle wedding which was watched around the world.
“You know, three days before our wedding, we got married," Markle told Winfrey. "No one knows that. But we called the archbishop, and we just said, 'Look, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us.'
"The vows that we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury," she explained, as Harry added: "Just the three of us."
Prince Charles ‘stopped taking Harry’s calls’
Prince Harry said that his father Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, had stopped taking his calls.
He denied blindsiding his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, over stepping back as a senior member of the royal family, saying he had too much respect for her.
“I had three conversations with my grandmother and two conversations with my father before he stopped taking my calls. And then he said, ‘can you put this all in writing?’”
Asked why Charles had stopped taking his calls, Harry said: “By that point I took matters into my own hands, it was like, I needed to do this for my family. This is not a surprise to anybody. It’s really sad that it’s got to this point, but I’ve got to do something for my own mental health, my wife’s and for Archie’s as well.”
Harry reveals their second child is a girl
Harry and Meghan revealed they were expecting their second child on Valentine's Day, with a sweet black and white image of the pair posed in their California garden. And, during their interview with Winfrey, they revealed they were expecting a girl.
“To have a boy then a girl — what more can you ask for?" Harry said.
They also said they will not have any more children following their baby girl's arrival. "Two is it," Harry said.
The Kites
Romain Gary
Penguin Modern Classics
Company%20profile
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Cryopreservation: A timeline
- Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
- Ovarian tissue surgically removed
- Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
- Tissue re-implanted at a time of the patient’s choosing
- Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
Company Profile
Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
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
Emirates Cricket Board Women’s T10
ECB Hawks v ECB Falcons
Monday, April 6, 7.30pm, Sharjah Cricket Stadium
The match will be broadcast live on the My Sports Eye Facebook page
Hawks
Coach: Chaitrali Kalgutkar
Squad: Chaya Mughal (captain), Archara Supriya, Chamani Senevirathne, Chathurika Anand, Geethika Jyothis, Indhuja Nandakumar, Kashish Loungani, Khushi Sharma, Khushi Tanwar, Rinitha Rajith, Siddhi Pagarani, Siya Gokhale, Subha Srinivasan, Suraksha Kotte, Theertha Satish
Falcons
Coach: Najeeb Amar
Squad: Kavisha Kumari (captain), Almaseera Jahangir, Annika Shivpuri, Archisha Mukherjee, Judit Cleetus, Ishani Senavirathne, Lavanya Keny, Mahika Gaur, Malavika Unnithan, Rishitha Rajith, Rithika Rajith, Samaira Dharnidharka, Shashini Kaluarachchi, Udeni Kuruppuarachchi, Vaishnave Mahesh
RESULTS
6pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-2 – Group 1 (PA) $55,000 (Dirt) 1,900m
Winner: Rajeh, Antonio Fresu (jockey), Musabah Al Muhairi (trainer)
6.35pm: Oud Metha Stakes – Rated Conditions (TB) $60,000 (D) 1,200m
Winner: Get Back Goldie, William Buick, Doug O’Neill
7.10pm: Jumeirah Classic – Listed (TB) $150,000 (Turf) 1,600m
Winner: Sovereign Prince, James Doyle, Charlie Appleby
7.45pm: Firebreak Stakes – Group 3 (TB) $150,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Hypothetical, Mickael Barzalona, Salem bin Ghadayer
8.20pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-2 – Group 2 (TB) $350,000 (D) 1,900m
Winner: Hot Rod Charlie, William Buick, Doug O’Neill
8.55pm: Al Bastakiya Trial – Conditions (TB) $60,000 (D) 1,900m
Winner: Withering, Adrie de Vries, Fawzi Nass
9.30pm: Balanchine – Group 2 (TB) $180,000 (T) 1,800m
Winner: Creative Flair, William Buick, Charlie Appleby
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.”
Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
WHAT IS GRAPHENE?
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were experimenting with sticky tape and graphite, the material used as lead in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But when they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
