SHARJAH // Emiratis have welcomed plans to dedicate a public square in Sharjah City to the heroes who have sacrificed their lives in service of their homeland.
On Monday, Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, the Ruler of Sharjah, ordered that a square be dedicated in honour of the servicemen in response to a proposal made by Abu Dhabi Media employees Monzer Al Mazki and Mohammed Al Bayati via the Hotline programme, which was broadcast on Sharjah Radio and Television.
Mr Al Mazki and Mr Al Bayati proposed the building of a monument to honour the servicemen who have died since the country was founded on December 2, 1971, reported Al Ittihad, the Arabic-language sister paper of The National.
While exact details of the square are yet to be announced by the Sharjah Government, citizens living in the emirate said it would act as a record of Emirati bravery.
“It will be a symbol of the sacrifice that our brave soldiers did in the line of duty,” said Ali Al Hamadi, a 27-year-old government employee, adding it would show how the Emirati people have contributed to not only helping their own country but also their Arab brothers.
Dedicating a square would help to keep the memory of the heroes alive and would be popular with people as a place to show their children how Emiratis had laid down their lives for the UAE and to protect brotherly nations, said Amna Al Sewidi, a mother of three.
“Emiratis would take their children and grandchildren to learn of the bravery of Emirati soldiers,” she said.
Saaed Al Naqbi said he was thrilled at the idea of a square as a place to honour the country’s heroes.
“It’s for us, and for residents and tourists, to know that this country offered its own sons to help our Arab brothers,” said the 34-year-old.
“This would not be just for the martyrs but for their families as well, so that they know that this country would never forget what their sons have done for this country,” he added.
Seven Emiratis have lost their lives in the Saudi-led Operation Restoring Hope aimed at driving out Houthi rebels from Yemen and restoring to power the internationally recognised government of president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi.
In June, non-commissioned officer Hazim Obaid Al Ali, 40, died in Saudi Arabia during training exercises for the conflict. In July non-commissioned officer Saif Youssef Ahmed Al Falasi, 35, a father of five from Dubai, and Lt Abdul Aziz Sarhan Saleh Al Kaabi, from Al Ain, were killed on duty in Yemen.
This month, Juma Al Hammadi, Khalid Al Shehhi, and Fahim Al Habsi, all first corporals, were killed in Yemen and Cpl Abdul Rahman Al Baloushi was killed after the car he was travelling in overturned in Saudi Arabia.
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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.
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
