US President Joe Biden on Monday recognized the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a major defense partner of the US after talks with its president on topics that included the war in Gaza and growing Middle East instability.
The US designation — India is the only other nation to have been designated as such — allows for close military cooperation through joint training, exercises and other collaborative efforts.
Biden and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan called for “urgent, unhindered” humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, and shared their commitment to a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in a statement after their meeting.
Photo: EPA-EFE
At the start of the meeting, Biden said he had been briefed on the latest developments between Israel and Lebanon, where Lebanese officials said Israeli airstrikes had killed at least 492 people on Monday.
“My team is in constant contact with their counterparts, and we’re working to de-escalate in a way that allows people to return to their home safely,” Biden said.
Their joint statement touched on the Gulf state’s involvement in the Sudan conflict, with both stressing that there was no military solution to the war, which has triggered the world’s largest displacement crisis.
They also underscored plans to deepen cooperation on space exploration, clean energy and artificial intelligence, where the UAE has launched ambitious plans drawing interest from US geopolitical rival China.
US Vice President Kamala Harris met separately with the UAE president, but the talks were closed to the media.
“The vice president raised her deep concerns about the conflict in Sudan,” the White House said. “She expressed alarm at the millions of individuals who have been displaced by the war and the atrocities committed by the belligerents against the civilian population.”
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
RSS