This year’s Global Education and Skills Forum delivered an array of inspiring world leaders, sports champions and celebrities.
Among those attending the two-day event at the Atlantis on the Palm, Dubai, on Saturday and Sunday were stars from film, television, literature, social media and politics.
British impersonator and comedian Rory Bremner hosted the event in a TV-style chat show format, and it was a chance for those from the world of entertainment to show their more serious side.
They included rising stars like Taron Egerton, known from the comedy action film series Kingsman. Egerton, 28, plays an action hero in the style of James Bond, but revealed he had been bullied at school in the UK.
“It was awful,” he said. I was really terrified. I didn’t want to go to school.”
He was helped, the young actor said, by a teacher who was “like a superhero.”
Egerton spoke on an informal panel discussion, sharing a platform with fellow British actor Nicholas Hoult, who shot to fame at the age of 11 in the Hugh Grant comedy About a Boy.
Since then he has stared in Mad Max: Fury Road and as Beast in the X-Men franchise. Recalling his childhood break into showbusiness, Hoult, now 28, said he split his life "into two different worlds".
“I imagined it as my alter ego and my real life. So school was the real world and then I'd go off and be like a superhero or something, and shoot a movie and then I would go back to school.
“It was weird because you would have a very adult side of life where you would turn up to work... and then you would go back to school and run around the playground.”
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Actors at the Dubai summit also revealed how they dealt with issues created by social media, not just for themselves but for their children.
Gina Torres, one of the stars of the American TV legal drama Suits - whose cast included royal bride-to-be Meghan Markle - revealed that she did not use it at all.
“I made a choice not to participate in any social media what so ever,“ she said. “We are in such an age of celebrity and people are so hungry for more information, and the more they get the more they want.
“When I was becoming an actor it was essential that we maintained a kind of mystique about ourselves so when you saw us on stage or on screen inhabiting a character you didn’t have the baggage of who we were.
“That sounds to have gone by the wayside. I am protecting my character and protecting myself, my world my family,” she added.
Sarah Rafferty, another star from the series, said she worried about the effects of social media and technology on her two young daughters.
“They are growing up behind-screen”, Rafferty said.
“I guess my biggest concern with social media and having girls is the effects that it has on their self-esteem and the different type of problems that come with it.
"I am concerned about the connectivity of that generation, of building empathy, of the bullying, anonymous, that can occur."
Four-time and reigning Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton also recalled his school days, revealing that he missed to much time beginning his racing career that he was always in trouble.
“I was always behind at school and trying to catch up,” he said, adding that the school was “not very supportive. I was in detention constantly.”
His parents hired a tutor to give him extra lessons “which I hated” Hamilton said, although adding that he appreciated it now, and the efforts of his favourite teacher, a woman he named as Miss McEwan.
He also spoke of his concerns about the pressures of racing on young drivers, many of who drop out of school to compete.
“Ninety five per cent of them don’t make it,” he said. “And then they have no qualifications and no opportunities afterwards.”
It was one of his goals, Hamilton said, to help prevent this in the future for other young aspiring drivers.
Among the other famous names attending the Global Education and Skills Forum were Oscar-winning actor and social activist Charlize Theron;Olympic long-distance champion Sir Mo Farah; Priyanka Chopra, a former Miss World and a star of Bollywood and Hollywood; and the Merrell twins, whose YouTube channel has four million followers and who have just completed their first feature for Netflix.
From the world of politics, speakers included United States vice president and environmental campaigner Al Gore; former British prime minister and Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair; and Julia Gillard, the former prime minister of Australia.
A new relationship with the old country
Treaty of Friendship between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates
The United kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates; Considering that the United Arab Emirates has assumed full responsibility as a sovereign and independent State; Determined that the long-standing and traditional relations of close friendship and cooperation between their peoples shall continue; Desiring to give expression to this intention in the form of a Treaty Friendship; Have agreed as follows:
ARTICLE 1 The relations between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates shall be governed by a spirit of close friendship. In recognition of this, the Contracting Parties, conscious of their common interest in the peace and stability of the region, shall: (a) consult together on matters of mutual concern in time of need; (b) settle all their disputes by peaceful means in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.
ARTICLE 2 The Contracting Parties shall encourage education, scientific and cultural cooperation between the two States in accordance with arrangements to be agreed. Such arrangements shall cover among other things: (a) the promotion of mutual understanding of their respective cultures, civilisations and languages, the promotion of contacts among professional bodies, universities and cultural institutions; (c) the encouragement of technical, scientific and cultural exchanges.
ARTICLE 3 The Contracting Parties shall maintain the close relationship already existing between them in the field of trade and commerce. Representatives of the Contracting Parties shall meet from time to time to consider means by which such relations can be further developed and strengthened, including the possibility of concluding treaties or agreements on matters of mutual concern.
ARTICLE 4 This Treaty shall enter into force on today’s date and shall remain in force for a period of ten years. Unless twelve months before the expiry of the said period of ten years either Contracting Party shall have given notice to the other of its intention to terminate the Treaty, this Treaty shall remain in force thereafter until the expiry of twelve months from the date on which notice of such intention is given.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned have signed this Treaty.
DONE in duplicate at Dubai the second day of December 1971AD, corresponding to the fifteenth day of Shawwal 1391H, in the English and Arabic languages, both texts being equally authoritative.
Signed
Geoffrey Arthur Sheikh Zayed
UPI facts
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
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CHELSEA'S NEXT FIVE GAMES
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MATCH INFO
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Aston Villa 3 (Grealish 4', Hourihane 15', Mings 48')
Man of the match: Jack Grealish (Aston Villa)
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
