Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan is
the President of the UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi. He succeeded to the position of Emir
of Abu Dhabi on the moment of his father's death, after a royal family meeting, thereby
becoming the President of the UAE the next day, 3 November 2004, taking rule over from
his father Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Although Crown Prince, he had effectively been acting
president earlier since the late 1990s as his father was in ill health, being in his
80's. Khalifa is also chairman of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority . The Al Nahayan family
is believed to have a fortune of $150 billion collectively as a family. He was a personal
friend of former Turkmen President, Saparmurat Niyazov, in which they helped build an orphanage
center just outside Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan.
Biography 1966–1971
The eldest son of Sheikh Zayed, Khalifa was appointed as Ruler's Representative in the
Eastern Region of Abu Dhabi (the mayor) and as Head of the Courts Department in Al Ain
in 1966, as his father Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan became the new ruler of Abu Dhabi.
Zayed was the Ruler's Representative in the Eastern Region. A few months later the position
was handed to Tahnoun bin Mohammed Al Nahyan. On 1 February 1969, Sheikh Khalifa was nominated
as the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and on the next day he was appointed as the Head of the
Abu Dhabi Department of Defense, in which post he oversaw the building up of the Abu
Dhabi Defense Force, ADDF, which later became the nucleus of the UAE Armed Forces.
Sheikh Khalifa has two sons, Mohammad Al Nahyan and Sultan Al Nahyan, and is related to Issa
bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who took part in the torture of an American business man and other
unnamed individuals. When the torture video came to light, Sheikh Issa's lawyers argued
that he was set up. Although there is a family connection between the two sheikhs and the
events took place under Sheikh Khalifa's rule, there is nothing to suggest that Sheikh Khalifa
was involved in the incidents. Independence in 1971
Following the establishment of the UAE in 1971, Sheikh Khalifa became the Prime Minister
of Abu Dhabi (and head of Abu Dhabi Cabinet, under his father), Minister of Defense of
Abu Dhabi and Minister of Finance of Abu Dhabi. Following the reconstruction of the Cabinet
of the United Arab Emirates including the abolishing of Abu Dhabi Cabinet and setting
up of Executive Council of Abu Dhabi, he became the 2nd Deputy Prime Minister of the United
Arab Emirates on 23 December 1973 and Chairman of Executive Council of Abu Dhabi on 20 January
1974, under his father. In May 1976, he became deputy commander of
the UAE armed forces, under the President. He also heads the Supreme Petroleum Council
in the late 1980s (until today), which enjoys wide powers in energy matters. He was the
chairman of the Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency, ERWDA.
Presidency (2004–) He succeeded to both posts on 3 November 2004,
replacing his father Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who had died the day before. He had effectively
been acting president earlier, since his father was ill during the period prior to his passing.
On 1 December 2005, the President announced that half of the members of the Federal National
Council, the closest body the country has to a parliament, will be indirectly elected.
However, half of the council's members will still need to be appointed by the leaders
of the emirates. The 40-member FNC serves in an advisory capacity. The elections were
set to take place in December 2006. On 4 January 2010, the world's tallest man-made
structure, originally known as Burj Dubai, was renamed to Burj Khalifa, in honor of the
Sheikh. Sheikh Khalifa is known for his interest in
sports traditional to UAE, chiefly horse and camel racing. He is generally regarded as
a pro-Western modernizer. Early in his term, in April 2005, he authorized a 100% salary
increase for employees of the state. In 2010, Khalifa was described in a recent
WikiLeaks cable signed by the U.S. ambassador as a "distant and uncharismatic personage."
In 2011, he sent in the UAE's Air Force and Navy to support the anti-Gaddafi forces against
Muammar Gaddafi alongside NATO, Qatar, Sweden and Jordan.
Seychelles Seychellois government records show that since
1995 Sheikh Khalifa has spent $2 million buying up more than 66 acres of land on the Seychelles'
main island of Mahé, where his palace is being built. Since 1995 the Seychelles' government
has received large aid packages from the UAE; the UAE has pledged more than $130 million
in social service and military aid, including patrol boats for the Seychelles' antipiracy
efforts. In 2008, the UAE came to the indebted Seychelles government's aid, with a $30 million
injection. Khalifa paid $500,000 for the 29.8-acre site
of his palace in 2005, according to the sales document. A Seychelles planning authority
initially rejected the palace's building plans, a decision overturned by President James Michel's
cabinet. A month after the start of construction of the palace, the national utility company
warned that the site's plans posed threats to the water supply. Joel Morgan, the Seychelles'
minister of environment, said the government did not tender the land because it wanted
it to go to Khalifa. Morgan said "the letter of the law" might not have been followed in
the land sale. On 13 February 2010, the sewage system set
up by Ascon, the company building the palace, for construction workers building the palace,
overflowed, sending rivers of waste through the region, home to more than 8000 residents.
Local government agencies and officials from Khalifa's office responded quickly to the
problem, sending in technical experts and engineers. Government officials concluded
that Ascon ignored health and building codes for their workers, and fined the company $81,000.
Ascon blamed the incident on "unpredicted weather conditions".
Khalifa's presidential office offered to pay $15 million to replace the water-piping system
for the mountainside. Government officials and residents say Ascon has offered to pay
roughly $8,000 to each of the 360 households that the government says have been affected
by the pollution. Philanthropy
Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, was planned to support construction of the Johns Hopkins
Hospital's new cardiovascular and critical care tower (also to be named after Sheikh
Zayed). Additionally, some funds would be directed to cardiovascular as well as AIDS
research. He also founded the Khalifa Award for Education
and finances a major housing programme in Sheikh Khalifa City (Gaza Strip). A building
in the theology department at the University of Wales is named after him, due to his being
a benefactor. MD Anderson Cancer Center announced on 19 January 2011 that they received $150
Million from the Abu Dhabi Charity. The Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Charity Foundation has
pledged $150 million to the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center to establish
a cancer treatment clinic, the Emirates News Agency reports.
The largest grant in the center's history will support construction of a state-of-the-art
facility to house the Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Specialty Institute for Cancer Diagnosis
and the Ahmed bin Zayed Al Nahyan Pancreatic Cancer Center. The grant also will fund a
number of annual fellowships and will be used to endow an oncology chair named after Sheikh
Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, a cancer research chair named after Sheikh Khalifa University,
and a scientific and medical research chair named after Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Speaking at a signing ceremony, M. D. Anderson Center president John Mendelsohn said that
the funding will be channeled into research programs dedicated to discovering new and
more effective ways of diagnosing and treating cancer.
On 12 January 2011, the UAE Pakistan Assistance Program was launched in order to help and
provide assistance to Pakistan and mitigate the impact of floods by redeveloping infrastructure,
according to the directives of Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the President of the United
Arab Emirates. The UAE PAP has worked along a comprehensive redevelopment plan that takes
into account the harsh geography and the rough weather conditions of the region while focusing
on four main areas of social redevelopment: health, education, water and infrastructure.
The Program has taken some vital steps to ease the pain and suffering that the people
of Swat have become accustomed to as it provided for the construction and rehabilitation of
two bridges, 52 schools and 7 hospitals, as well as the implementation of 64 water supply
schemes.Uae Pakistan Assistance Program