Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan is the President of the United Arab Emirates
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 Early life
Khalifa was born to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan and Sheikha Hassa in Abu Dhabi,
on January 1948. He is the eldest son of Sheikh Zayed and is a graduate of the Sandhurst military
academy. 1966–1971
Khalifa was appointed as Ruler's Representative in the Eastern Region of Abu Dhabi 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 after 1971.
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, 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, which enjoys wide powers
in energy matters. He was the chairman of the Environmental Research and Wildlife Development
Agency, ERWDA. Presidency
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. On 24 January 2014 Sheikh Khalifa suffered
a stroke and was reported to have undergone an operation and be in a stable condition,
subsequent reports on his health on social media were dismissed as rumours.
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. 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. 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
See also
List of current heads of state and government List of rulers of separate Emirates of the
United Arab Emirates List of the richest royals
Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan
Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan References
External links Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Biography of U.A.E.
President