Bahrain’s long-serving PM Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, 84, passes away

News Network
November 11, 2020

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Manama, Nov 11: Bahrain’s long-serving Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa has died, the state media reported. He was 84.

“The Royal Court mourns His Royal Highness … who passed away this morning at Mayo Clinic Hospital in the United States of America,” the Bahrain News Agency said on Wednesday, without elaborating.

The Gulf state’s King Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa announced official mourning for a week during which flags will be flown at half-mast, the agency said.

The burial ceremony will take place upon the repatriation of his body and the funeral will be limited to a specific number of relatives, it said.

Sheikh Khalifa was one of the world’s longest-serving prime ministers who led his island nation’s government for decades and survived the 2011 Arab Spring protests that demanded his removal over corruption allegations.

His stern response to the pro-democracy protests and criticism of similar unrest across the Arab world underlined what for many was the defining characteristic of his career, namely a stalwart defence of dynastic rule. The Al Khalifa family has ruled Bahrain since 1783.

In August, Sheikh Khalifa left the kingdom for what official media called at the time “a private visit abroad”. Earlier this year, he spent time in Germany for unspecified medical treatment, returning to Bahrain in March.

Bahrain, a staunch ally of neighbouring Saudi Arabia and the United States, is also the home base of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

Controversial figure

Sheikh Khalifa’s power and wealth could be seen everywhere in Bahrain. His official portrait hung for decades on walls alongside the country’s ruler.

He had his own private island where he met foreign dignitaries, complete with a marina and a park that had peacocks and gazelle roam its grounds.

“Khalifa bin Salman represented the old guard in more ways than just age and seniority,” said Kristin Smith Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute.

“He represented an old social understanding rooted in royal privilege and expressed through personal patronage.”

The son of Bahrain’s former ruler, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, who ruled from 1942 to 1961, Sheikh Khalifa learned governance at his father’s side as the island remained a British protectorate.

His brother, Sheikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, took power in 1961 and served as monarch when Bahrain gained its independence from Britain in 1971. Under an informal arrangement, Sheikh Isa handled the island’s diplomacy and ceremonial duties while Sheikh Khalifa ran the government and economy.

The years that followed saw Bahrain develop rapidly as it sought to move beyond its dependence on dwindling oil reserves. Manama at that time served as what Dubai in the United Arab Emirates ultimately became, a regional financial, service and tourism hub.

The opening of the King Fahd Causeway in 1986 gave the island nation its first land link with its rich and powerful neighbour, Saudi Arabia, and offered an escape for Westerners in the kingdom who wanted to enjoy Bahrain’s alcohol-soaked nightclubs and beaches.

But Sheikh Khalifa increasingly saw his name entangled in corruption allegations, such as a major foreign corruption practices case against aluminium producer Alcoa over using a London-based middleman to facilitate bribes for Bahraini officials. Alcoa agreed to pay $384m in fines to the US government to settle the case in 2014.

The US embassy in Manama similarly had its own suspicions about Sheikh Khalifa, writing in cables that the prince had “off-the-books access to income from the state-owned enterprises” such as the Bahrain Petroleum Co and Aluminium Bahrain, the country’s aluminium producer.

“I believe that Shaikh Khalifa is not wholly a negative influence,” wrote former US Ambassador Ronald E Neumann in 2004 in a cable released by WikiLeaks. “While certainly corrupt, he has built much of modern Bahrain.”

Those corruption allegations fuelled discontent, particularly among Bahrain’s Shia majority. In February 2011, protesters inspired by the Arab Spring demonstrations across the Middle East filled the streets and occupied the capital Manama’s Pearl Roundabout to demand political reforms and a greater say in the country’s future.

While some called for a constitutional monarchy, many others pressed for the removal of the long-ruling prime minister and other members of the Sunni royal family altogether, including King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

At one point during the height of the unrest in March 2011, thousands of protesters besieged the prime minister’s office while officials met inside, demanding Sheikh Khalifa step down.

Protesters also took to waving one Bahraini dinar notes over allegations the prime minister bought the land on which Bahrain’s Financial Harbour development sits for just a single dinar.

Bahraini officials soon crushed the protests with the backing of troops from neighbouring Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Low-level unrest continued in the years that followed, with Shia protesters frequently clashing with riot police.

In recent years, Sheikh Khalifa’s influence waned as he faced unexplained health problems.

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Nasir ahmmed
 - 
Thursday, 26 Nov 2020

Please sir i need green signal because i need go back abudhabi please sir

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News Network
November 11,2024

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The Manipur Kuki MLAs have released a statement calling out Solicitor General Tushar Mehta's 'lies' in the Supreme Court. In a joint statement, the MLAs, including those from the Bharatiya Janata Party, said they had not had any meeting with the Chief Minister since May 3, 2023, nor did they intend to meet him in the future as “he was the mastermind behind the violence”.

As per the MLAs, the SG lied about state CM N Biren Singh speaking to Kuki MLAs to control the situation there, in order to halt a Supreme Court probe into the leaked tapes which allege that Singh has been complicit in the violence that broke out between Kukis and Meitis there.

"We...clarify that we have never had any meeting with Chief Minister, Shri N. Biren Singh since May 3, 2023, nor have any intention to meet him in future as he is the mastermind behind the violence and ethnic cleansing of our people from the Imphal valley, which is continuing till today, the latest being the brutal killing and burning of Mrs Zosangkim Hmar on November 7, 2024," the letter read, while condemning the recent 'barbaric' killing of the woman there, and noting the SG's assertion is 'tantamount' to misleading the top court.

“We, the undersigned ten MLAs, have come to know that during the Supreme Court hearing held on November 8, 2024, the Solicitor General of India submitted that ‘CM is meeting all Kuki MLAs and trying to bring the situation down to get peace’. In this connection, we hereby categorically state that this submission is a blatant lie and tantamount to misleading the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India,” the statement said.

The Supreme Court, while hearing a petition by a Kuki organisation, asked that it submit audio tapes to substantiate its claim that the Chief Minister was instrumental in inciting and organising violence in the northeastern State.

Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta orally informed the court that the Chief Minister was meeting all the Kuki-Zo MLAs and that peace in the State had come at a huge cost.

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News Network
November 7,2024

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The Israeli regime has killed at least 40 people during new airstrikes against eastern Lebanese areas, besides targeting the country’s capital Beirut with fresh acts of aggression.

Lebanon’s health ministry announced the fatalities on Wednesday, saying 53 other people had also been wounded during the aerial attacks that targeted the country’s Bekaa Valley, including the city of Baalbek.

In early Thursday, the regime was also reported to have attacked Beirut’s southern suburbs, including a site adjacent to Rafiq Hariri International Airport.

The attacks came after the regime issued short-notice evacuation orders apparently directed at the residents of the areas, claiming that the areas contained facilities belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.

Tel Aviv has been using similar claims on countless occasions since last October, when it markedly intensified its deadly acts of aggression against Lebanon, in order to try to justify the escalation. Hezbollah has, however, invariably refuted the claims.

Also on Wednesday, the United Nations warned in its most recent flash report on the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli atrocities targeting Lebanon that the aggression had “reached a critical point.”

The attacks have claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people, which was “58 percent more than the 1,900 fatalities” that were caused by the regime’s 2006 war against Lebanon, the report said.

“Additionally, an estimated 1.3 million people have been displaced, both within Lebanon and into neighboring countries, 33 percent more than the number of people displaced in 2006,” it added.

Women comprised the majority of those who had been rendered homeless within Lebanon as a result of the Israeli attacks, the report noted.

It also regretted that the Israeli attacks had featured 78 assaults on healthcare facilities across the country that had claimed the lives of 130 health workers and injured 111 others.

In response to the aggression, Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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News Network
November 10,2024

Bengaluru: The Karnataka government has warned that disciplinary action will be taken against those officials who change the land mutation records and serve eviction notices to farmers under the Waqf Act.

In a letter, the Revenue Department Principal Secretary Rajender Kumar Kataria reminded all regional commissioners and deputy commissioners in the districts that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah recently had a meeting following complaints about certain land properties being made in favour of the Karnataka Board of Waqfs.

In the meeting it was decided that all the directions issued previously by any government office or authority to change the mutation records has been withdrawn, the letter said.

It added that all the notices served in the past have also been withdrawn and no action should be taken against the farmers who are cultivating on the said land.

On the directions of the chief minister, the previous letters and the latest reminders served on November 7 to the farmers and land owners have been withdraw, the letter said.

"The officials who served reminder-2 despite the chief minister's direction will face appropriate disciplinary action," Kataria said in his letter.

He said he has been instructed to strictly implement the chief minister's direction.

The fresh direction was issued in poll-bound Karnataka, where bypolls to three crucial assembly segments are due on November 13.

Some farmers in Honwad village in Vijayapura in north Karnataka had alleged last month that they were served eviction notices as the Waqf Board claimed rights over it.

Subsequently, complaints started in pouring in from some other parts of the state.

BJP leader Tejasvi Surya on October 25 alleged that Karnataka Waqf Minister B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan directed the deputy commissioners and revenue officials to register lands in favour of the Waqf Board within 15 days, which resulted in confusion.

On Surya's request, the Chairman of the Joint Committee of Parliament on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, Jagdambika Pal visited Karnataka on November 7 and met farmers in Hubballi, Vijayapura and Belagavi districts who had alleged that their lands were marked as Waqf properties.

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