Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, speaks to Donald Trump, US president at the time, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office in September 2020. Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, meets Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state at the time. Wam
Sheikh Abdullah and Mr Pompeo in Washington. Wam
Sheikh Abdullah visits Washington in September last year. Wam
Sheikh Abdullah, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, US President Donald Trump, centre, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sign the Abraham Accord at the White House South Lawn. MOFAIC
Sheikh Abdullah and, from left, Bahrain's Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump at the White House. MOFAIC
Sheikh Abdullah, Mr Al Zayani and Mr Netanyahu at the White House during the Abraham Accord signing ceremony. MOFAIC
Sheikh Abdullah and, from left, Mr Netanyahu, Mr Trump and Mr Al Zayani wave from the Truman Balcony at the White House. AFP
Sheikh Abdullah and, from left, Mr Al Zayani, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Trump sign the Abraham Accord. AFP
Sheikh Abdullah and, from left, Mr Al Zayani, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Trump after the signing ceremony. AFP
Sheikh Abdullah and, from left, Mr Al Zayani, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Trump after the signing ceremony. AFP
Sheikh Abdullah speaks from the Truman Balcony at the White House during the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accord. AFP
Sheikh Abdullah speaks as Mr Trump looks on before the signing of Abraham Accord on the South Lawn of the White House. AP
Sheikh Abdullah looks on from the White House as Mr Trump speaks at the Abraham Accord signing ceremony, also attended by Mr Al Zayani and Mr Netanyahu. AP
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani stand on the Blue Room Balcony during the signing ceremony. AP
Sheikh Abdullah and Mr Al Zayani shortly before participating in the signing of the Abraham Accord. AFP
Sheikh Abdullah, with Mr Netanyahu, left, and Mr Al Zayani at the signing of the Abraham Accord on the South Lawn of the White House. AFP
US President Donald Trump speaks from the Truman Balcony at the White House during the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accord. AFP
President Donald Trump walks to the Abraham Accord signing ceremony at the White House with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Bahrain's Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani. AP
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives at the White House to attend the Abraham Accord signing ceremony hosted by President Donald Trump. EPA
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, meets US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House before the signing of Abraham Accord. AFP
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, in the Oval Office. AFP
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, meets US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House. AFP
Sheikh Abdullah with Mr Trump in the Oval Office. AFP
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, with by President Donald Trump at the White House. Mustafa Alrawi / The National
The UAE delegation led by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, with US President Donald Trump at the White House. Mustafa Alrawi / The National
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, is welcomed to the White House by US President Donald Trump. EPA
Sheikh Abdullah and Mr Trump outside the White House. AFP
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed speaks to Mr Trump after arriving at the White House. Reuters
White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner walks away following a television interview on the North Lawn at the White House in Washington. Reuters
US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump welcome the arrival of Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington DC. AFP
A delegation of senior UAE officials led by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, prepares to depart for the White House to sign the Abraham Accord. MOFAIC
US President Donald Trump welcomes Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani. AFP
Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani arrives at the White House in Washington DC. AFP
US President Donald Trump welcomes Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC. AFP
Preparations at the White House for the signing of the Abraham Accord.
Preparations under way at the White House for the signing of the Abraham Accord.
Preparations under way at the White House for the signing of the Abraham Accord.
Preparation at the White House for the signing of the Abraham Accord. The National
Nobel Peace Prize winners are, in truth, a mixed bag, but it is safe to say that few come with more flint than David Trimble. A law lecturer and politician who rose within the sectarian establishment in Northern Ireland, Mr Trimble made hard-hearted calculations to grasp the promise of peace in his homeland in the 1990s.
As a laureate he has now invoked his right to make a nomination for next year's peace prize. He has put forward the names of Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is one facet of the growing engagement with the Abraham Accord, since the UAE and Bahrain's decision to normalise relations with Israel in September.
Mr Trimble privately cites how his own experience has shaped his thinking on the accord. He believes it can “break the logjam” that has accumulated from the decades-long, slow-burning collapse of the Middle East Peace Process.
Nobel laureate David Trimble has recommended Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed's name for next year's Nobel Peace Prize. EPA
This is unacceptable to Mr Trimble. As his citation for the prize stated, it is the factor of time that can weigh most heavily to prolong conflicts. “I know from my own experience how dangerous, damaging and corrosive are decades of violent ill will between two neighbours,” he said.
The Abraham Accord is the product of our time. It is doubtful it would have come so soon if it were not for the approach taken by US President Donald Trump vis-a-vis the Middle East. As one of Mr Trimble’s close associates said last week in a commentary on the Nobel prize nomination, peace does not come from virtue signalling but from hard-headed calculations around grasping practical solutions when they are available.
As the officials around US President-elect Joe Biden have repeatedly stressed, there is no opportunity to turn back the clock to four years ago and proceed as if nothing had happened. It was then that John Kerry, America's top diplomat during former president Barack Obama's second term, said that there was no road to peace that did not lie through the Middle East Peace Process. But pursuing alternatives cannot be written off as people fooling themselves. In any case, Mr Kerry has been named climate change envoy in the incoming Biden administration, leaving it to others in a new State Department team under Antony Blinken to take on the Peace Process portfolio. Think tanks in Washington and elsewhere have said there is going to be engagement with the Abraham Accord when the new administration gets its policies for the region into sync in 2021.
For a start, the opportunity for peace between the people of Abrahamic faiths is about a cold entente under treaty deals. But it also comes to the world as a broader opportunity.
Pending US Senate confirmation, Tony Blinken will head the US Department of State in the Biden administration. AP Photo
All sides agree that this is not an agreement that is defined in contradistinction with Iran. If the Abraham Accord goes on to set the political and strategic weather in the region, it should provide an incentive for Tehran
Another of Mr Trimble’s associates, the historian Lord Bew, convened a panel last week featuring the UAE, Bahraini and Israeli ambassadors to London to talk about the accord from their perspective. The audience got a first-hand briefing of all the strands of thought that the participants in the accord are bringing to the process. The idea that it would be a “warm peace” featured prominently.
Mansoor Abulhoul, the UAE ambassador to the UK, stressed that the opening for the strategic breakthrough stemmed, first of all, from the potential for annexation of the West Bank as the latest stage in the failure of existing initiatives. Furthermore, the shift in the paradigm has opened up space to work together on the pursuit of regional stability and fighting the spread of extremism and radicalisation.
At the point of impasse, it is reasonable to ask what the next 50 years will look like and how to build bridges to a future of prosperity and shared progress.
The UAE and Israel are two dynamic economies with plenty of shared interests. Co-operation in the fields of science and technology is already the focus of the joint exchanges. And it is fascinating to see this start to roll out.
In London, as the place of corporate deal origination, there is an uptick of interest on both sides to working together. The Israelis see the close ties between the UK and the Gulf countries as a key incentive of the normalisation promised under the Abraham Accord.
Mansoor Abulhoul, the UAE ambassador to the UK, has spoken about importance of the Abraham Accord.
For Bahrain, the cultural tolerance it has tried to engender with Israelis has been a process more than a decade in the making. Sheikh Fawaz bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, Bahrain's ambassador to the UK, underlined this by referencing the Peace to Prosperity Summit, which his country hosted last year and which provided the momentum for the accord.
The challenges stemming from Iran's bellicosity across the Arabian Gulf have been especially acute. But all sides agree that this is not an agreement that is defined in contradistinction with Iran. Indeed, in the fullest sense, if the Abraham Accord goes on to set the political and strategic weather in the region, it should provide an incentive for Tehran. The regime there could engage with regional change by seeing this as a platform for resolving differences.
Normalisation is, first and foremost, about the countries themselves – and it revolves around narratives of peace and prosperity. Dialogue and dynamism are the keys for it to succeed.
Damien McElroy is the London bureau chief of The National
Online: The match will be broadcast live on Dubai Exiles’ Facebook page
UAE squad: Lucas Waddington (Dubai Exiles), Gio Fourie (Exiles), Craig Nutt (Abu Dhabi Harlequins), Phil Brady (Harlequins), Daniel Perry (Dubai Hurricanes), EsekaiaDranibota (Harlequins), Matt Mills (Exiles), JaenBotes (Exiles), KristianStinson (Exiles), Murray Reason (Abu Dhabi Saracens), Dave Knight (Hurricanes), Ross Samson (Jebel Ali Dragons), DuRandt Gerber (Exiles), Saki Naisau (Dragons), Andrew Powell (Hurricanes), EmosiVacanau (Harlequins), NikoVolavola (Dragons), Matt Richards (Dragons), Luke Stevenson (Harlequins), Josh Ives (Dubai Sports City Eagles), Sean Stevens (Saracens), ThinusSteyn (Exiles)
Ten10 Cricket League
Venue and schedule Sharjah Cricket Stadium, December 14 to 17
Teams
Maratha Arabians Leading player: Virender Sehwag; Top picks: Mohammed Amir, Imad Wasim; UAE players: Shaiman Anwar, Zahoor Khan
Bengal Lions Leading player: Sarfraz Ahmed; Top picks: Sunil Narine, Mustafizur Rahman; UAE players: Mohammed Naveed, Rameez Shahzad
Kerala Kings Leading player: Eoin Morgan; Top picks: Kieron Pollard, Sohail Tanvir; UAE players: Rohan Mustafa, Imran Haider
Pakhtoons Leading player: Shahid Afridi; Top picks: Fakhar Zaman, Tamim Iqbal; UAE players: Amjad Javed, Saqlain Haider
Punjabi Legends Leading player: Shoaib Malik; Top picks: Hasan Ali, Chris Jordan; UAE players: Ghulam Shabber, Shareef Asadullah
Team Sri Lanka Cricket Will be made up of Colombo players who won island’s domestic limited-overs competition
How to apply for a drone permit
Individuals must register on UAE Drone app or website using their UAE Pass
Add all their personal details, including name, nationality, passport number, Emiratis ID, email and phone number
Upload the training certificate from a centre accredited by the GCAA
Submit their request
What are the regulations?
Fly it within visual line of sight
Never over populated areas
Ensure maximum flying height of 400 feet (122 metres) above ground level is not crossed
Users must avoid flying over restricted areas listed on the UAE Drone app
Only fly the drone during the day, and never at night
The new speaker of Iraq’s parliament Mohammed Al Halbousi is the youngest person ever to serve in the role.
The 37-year-old was born in Al Garmah in Anbar and studied civil engineering in Baghdad before going into business. His development company Al Hadeed undertook reconstruction contracts rebuilding parts of Fallujah’s infrastructure.
He entered parliament in 2014 and served as a member of the human rights and finance committees until 2017. In August last year he was appointed governor of Anbar, a role in which he has struggled to secure funding to provide services in the war-damaged province and to secure the withdrawal of Shia militias. He relinquished the post when he was sworn in as a member of parliament on September 3.
He is a member of the Al Hal Sunni-based political party and the Sunni-led Coalition of Iraqi Forces, which is Iraq’s largest Sunni alliance with 37 seats from the May 12 election.
He maintains good relations with former Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s State of Law Coaliton, Hadi Al Amiri’s Badr Organisation and Iranian officials.
