LOS ANGELES: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said Thursday he was the target of “extortion and blackmail” by the publisher of the National Enquirer, which he said threatened to publish revealing personal photos of him unless he stopped investigating how the tabloid obtained his private exchanges with his mistress.
Bezos, who is also owner of The Washington Post, detailed his interactions with American Media Inc., or AMI, in an extraordinary blog post Thursday on Medium.com. The billionaire did not say the tabloid was seeking money — instead, he said, the Enquirer wanted him to make a public statement that the tabloid’s coverage was not politically motivated.
Bezos’ accusations add another twist to a high-profile clash between the world’s richest man and the leader of America’s best-known tabloid, a strong backer of President Donald Trump. Bezos’ investigators have suggested the Enquirer’s coverage of his affair — which included the release of risque texts — was driven by dirty politics.
“Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption,” Bezos wrote of AMI, in explaining his decision to go public. “I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out.”
A spokesman and an attorney for AMI did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
But the company has admitted in the past that it engaged in what’s known as “catch-and-kill” practices to help Trump become president. Trump has been highly critical of Bezos and the Post’s coverage of the White House.
The Bezos affair became public when the Enquirer published a Jan. 9 story about his relationship with Lauren Sanchez, a former TV anchor who is also married. Bezos then hired a team of private investigators to find out how the tabloid got the texts and photos the two exchanged.
Several days ago, someone at AMI told Bezos’ team that the company’s CEO David Pecker was “apoplectic” about the investigation, Bezos said. AMI later approached Bezos’ representatives with an offer.
“They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didn’t stop our investigation,” Bezos wrote.
Bezos wrote that this week, the tabloid’s editor, Dylan Howard, emailed an attorney for Bezos’ longtime security consultant to describe photos the Enquirer “obtained during our newsgathering.” The photos include a “below the belt selfie” of Bezos, photos of him in tight boxer-briefs and wearing only a towel, and several revealing photos of Sanchez, according to the emails Bezos released.
According to the emails, an attorney for AMI offered a formal deal Wednesday: The tabloid wouldn’t post the photos if Bezos and his investigators would release a public statement “affirming that they have no knowledge or basis” to suggest the Enquirer’s coverage was “politically motivated or influenced by political forces.”
Bezos said he decided to publish the emails sent to his team “rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail,” despite the “personal cost and embarrassment they threaten.”
It does not appear that AMI demanded any money from Bezos — only that he call off his investigation and issue a statement saying the coverage wasn’t political.
In its Jan. 9 story, the Enquirer said reporters followed Bezos and Sanchez “across five states and 40,000 miles” and “tailed them in private jets, swanky limos, helicopter rides, romantic hikes, five-star hotel hideaways, intimate dinner dates and ‘quality time’ in hidden love nests.”
It reported that Bezos sent “sleazy text messages and gushing love notes” to Sanchez, months before Bezos announced he was splitting up with his wife, MacKenzie. The story carries the bylines of Howard and two reporters.
But Bezos was suspicious about how the tabloid could have possibly gotten access to his private exchanges.
Bezos usually stays out of the public eye, frequently delegating announcements and public Amazon business updates to his executives. He doesn’t even speak on the company’s quarterly financial earnings call with analysts.
His personal investigators, led by his longtime security consultant, Gavin de Becker, concluded that Bezos’ phone wasn’t hacked. Instead, they’ve been focusing on Sanchez’s brother, according to a person familiar with the matter.
De Becker and his team suspect Michael Sanchez, a talent manager who touts his support of Trump and is an acquaintance of Trump allies Roger Stone and Carter Page, may have provided the information to the Enquirer, the person said. The person wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Sanchez, who is also his sister’s manager, has declined to speak with The Associated Press on the record and did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday. In a tweet, he said de Becker “spreads fake, unhinged conservative conspiracy theories” and ”‘dog whistle’ smears.”
AMI’s relationship with Trump has gotten the company into hot water in the past. It admitted to “catch-and-kill” practices as part of a deal with federal prosecutors, who agreed to not pursue charges against the company.
AMI acknowledged secretly assisting Trump’s campaign by paying $150,000 to a Playboy model for the rights to her story about an alleged affair with the then-candidate. The company then intentionally suppressed the story until after the 2016 election.
In September, the Justice Department agreed to a non-prosecution agreement with AMI, which requires the company and some top executives, including Pecker and Howard, to cooperate with authorities.
De Becker is now trying to find a way that federal prosecutors in Manhattan — where the non-prosecution agreement was signed — could investigate the text message scandal, the person familiar with the matter said, though it wasn’t immediately clear what, if any, crime the prosecutors would be asked to look into.
It is a federal crime to threaten to injure someone’s reputation in exchange for money or a “thing of value,” though federal courts haven’t made it directly clear whether a public statement, like the one demanded by AMI, could be considered something of value.
Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the allegations potentially put prosecutors in an awkward position because of the deal they had already cut with AMI.
“It shows how complicated and dangerous it is to make an agreement with National Enquirer,” Levenson said. “They may have to cooperate, but they’re continuing in their ongoing battle with Bezos and others.”
But Levenson said it was too difficult to tell if the case amounted to blackmail or extortion without additional context and some prosecutors may be reluctant to charge someone for threatening another with embarrassing material.
WASHINGTON: The U.S. State Department has said that the choice of Vietnam as the venue for a second U.S.-North Korea summit shows the possibility of moving beyond conflict, according to a report on Reuters.
The summit is going to be held later this month on Feb. 27-28. State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said that U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun was in Pyongyang to prepare the summit and seeking progress on commitments made at the first meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June.
He also stated that the U.S.-Vietnamese history “reflects the possibility for peace and prosperity.” He, however, did not divulge details on Biegun’s talks in Pyongyang and declined to say how long he would stay there, according to the report.
Trump had on Tuesday announced the plan for his second meeting Kim in his annual State of the Union address, it said. (Agencies)
LONDON: Prime Minister Theresa May will call on the European Union on Thursday to work with her to change a divorce deal and help her win the support of a divided parliament to smooth Britain’s departure from the bloc.
Before arriving in Brussels for talks with EU leaders, May acknowledged that her task – to force change to a deal agreed almost three months ago – would not be easy, and a government source said a breakthrough on Thursday was not expected.
If she cannot, Britain, and May, face an uncertain future, opening the door to several scenarios – leaving without a deal which some businesses say might cripple the economy, another referendum, an early election or never leaving the EU at all.
But she will tell European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk and the European parliament’s Antonio Tajani she wants to work “urgently” with them to secure changes that she argues can win over not only her fractious Conservative Party but lawmakers across parliament.
Just weeks after parliament resoundingly rejected her Brexit deal, May needs to persuade a reluctant EU to change the Withdrawal Agreement to help her get lawmakers’ approval before Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29.
If she cannot, Britain, and May, face an uncertain future, opening the door to several scenarios – leaving without a deal which some businesses say might cripple the economy, another referendum, an early election or never leaving the EU at all.
Acknowledging that the agreement “was the product of much hard work and was negotiated in good faith”, May will tell the leaders that parliament had sent “an unequivocal message that change is required”, according to her office.
“The government now wants urgently to work with the EU to secure such changes … We must show determination and do what it takes to now get the deal over the line.”
The main stumbling block to winning approval is the so-called Northern Irish backstop, an insurance policy that there will be no return of the checks at the border with EU member Ireland that in the past were a focus for sectarian violence.
Some lawmakers want her to remove the provision entirely, while others say they will accept legally-binding assurances that it would not lead to Britain being trapped in the EU’s sphere indefinitely or a way for London to end it unilaterally.
But the EU, and particularly Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, say they will not re-open the agreement, underlining that the political instability in Britain only further proved the need for the backstop. (Reuters)
RICHMOND: The political crisis in Virginia spun out of control Wednesday when the state’s attorney general confessed to putting on blackface in the 1980s and a woman went public with detailed allegations of sexual assault against the lieutenant governor.
With Gov. Ralph Northam’s career already hanging by a thread over a racist photo in his 1984 medical school yearbook, the day’s developments threatened to take down all three of Virginia’s top elected officials, all of them Democrats.
The twin blows began with Attorney General Mark Herring issuing a statement acknowledging he wore brown makeup and a wig in 1980 to look like a rapper during a party when he was a 19-year-old student at the University of Virginia.
Herring — who had previously called on Northam to resign and was planning to run for governor himself in 2021 — apologized for his “callous” behavior and said that the days ahead “will make it clear whether I can or should continue to serve.”
The 57-year-old Herring came clean after rumors about the existence of a blackface photo of him began circulating at the Capitol, though he made no mention of a picture Wednesday.
Then, within hours, Vanessa Tyson, the California woman whose sexual assault allegations against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax surfaced earlier this week, put out a detailed statement saying Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex on him in a hotel room in 2004 during the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
The Associated Press typically does not identify those who say they were sexually assaulted, but Tyson issued the statement in her name.
Tyson, a 42-year-old political scientist who is on a fellowship at Stanford University and specializes in the political discourse of sexual assault, said, “I have no political motive. I am a proud Democrat.”
“Mr. Fairfax has tried to brand me as a liar to a national audience, in service to his political ambitions, and has threatened litigation,” she said. “Given his false assertions, I’m compelled to make clear what happened.”
Fairfax — who is in line to become governor if Northam resigns — has repeatedly denied her allegations, saying that the encounter was consensual and that he is the victim of a strategically timed political smear.
“At no time did she express to me any discomfort or concern about our interactions, neither during that encounter, nor during the months following it, when she stayed in touch with me, nor the past 15 years,” he said in a statement.
Tyson said she suffered “deep humiliation and shame” and stayed quiet about the allegations as she pursued her career, but by late 2017, as the #MeToo movement took shape and after she saw an article about Fairfax’s campaign, she took her story to The Washington Post, which decided months later not to publish a story.
The National Organization for Women immediately called on Fairfax to resign, saying, “Her story is horrifying, compelling and clear as day — and we believe her.”
The string of scandals that began when the yearbook picture came to light last Friday could have a domino effect on Virginia state government: If Northam and Fairfax fall, Herring would be next in line to become governor. After Herring comes House Speaker Kirk Cox, a conservative Republican.
At the Capitol, lawmakers were dumbstruck over the day’s fast-breaking developments, with Democratic Sen. Barbara Favola saying, “I have to take a breath and think about this. This is moving way too quickly.” GOP House Majority Leader Todd Gilbert said it would be “reckless” to comment. “There’s just too much flying around,” he said.
The chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, Del. Lamont Bagby, said, “We’ve got a lot to digest.”
Cox issued a statement late Wednesday calling the allegations against Fairfax “extremely serious” and said they need a “full airing of facts.” Cox also urged Herring to “adhere to the standard he has set for others,” a nod to Herring’s previous call that Northam resign.
Democrats have expressed fear that the uproar over the governor could jeopardize their chances of taking control of the GOP-dominated Virginia legislature this year. The party made big gains in 2017, in part because of a backlash against President Donald Trump, and has moved to within striking distance of a majority in both houses.
At the same time, the Democrats nationally have taken a hard line against misconduct in their ranks because women and minorities are a vital part of their base and they want to be able to criticize Trump’s behavior without looking hypocritical.
Northam has come under pressure from nearly the entire Democratic establishment to resign after the discovery of a photo on his profile page in the Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook of someone in blackface standing next to a person in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe.
The governor initially admitted he was in the photo without saying which costume he was wearing, then denied it a day later. But he acknowledged he once used shoe polish to blacken his face and look like Michael Jackson at a dance contest in Texas in 1984, when he was in the Army.
Herring came down hard on Northam when the yearbook photo surfaced, condemning it as “indefensible,” and “profoundly offensive.” He said it was no longer possible for Northam to lead the state.
On Wednesday, though, Herring confessed that he and two friends dressed up to look like rappers, admitting: “It sounds ridiculous even now writing it.”
“That conduct clearly shows that, as a young man, I had a callous and inexcusable lack of awareness and insensitivity to the pain my behavior could inflict on others,” he said. But he added: “This conduct is in no way reflective of the man I have become in the nearly 40 years since.”
Democratic Sen. Louise Lucas said several people were crying, including men, as Herring apologized to black lawmakers Wednesday morning before issuing his public statement.
“He said he was very sorry,” Lucas said.
Lucas said the black lawmakers told Herring they needed to discuss their next steps among themselves.
Herring, who was elected to his second four-year term in 2017, made a name for himself nationally by playing a central role in bringing gay marriage to Virginia.
When he first took office, he announced he would no longer defend the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
A federal judge overturned the ban, citing Herring’s opposition, and Virginia began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2014, nearly a full year before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide.
(Associated Press)
A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.
457: A Thracian officer by the name of Leo is proclaimed as emperor of the East by the army general,
Aspar, on the death of the Emperor Marcian.
1668: The Netherlands, England and Sweden conclude an alliance directed against Louis XIV of France.
1783: The Siege of Gibraltar, which was pursued by the Spanish and the French since July 24, 1779, is
finally lifted.
1818: The first successful U.S. educational magazine, Academician, begins publication in New York City.
1882: American pugilist John L. Sullivan becomes the last of the bare-knuckle world heavyweight
champions with his defeat of Paddy Ryan in Mississippi City.
1913: The Turks lose 5,000 men in a battle with the Bulgarian army in Gallipoli.
1915: Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg moves on the Russians at Masurian Lakes.
1917: The British steamer California is sunk off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat.
1926: Negro History Week, originated by Carter G. Woodson, is observed for the first time.
1928: The United States signs an arbitration treaty with France.
1931: Amelia Earhart weds George Putnam in Connecticut.
1944: The Germans launch a second attack against the Allied beachhead at Anzio, Italy. They hope to
push the Allies back into the sea.
1950: The United States recognizes Vietnam under the leadership of Emperor Bao Dai, not Ho Chi Minh
who is recognized by the Soviets.
1963: The Mona Lisa is put on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
1964: The British band The Beatles are greeted by 25,000 fans upon their arrival in the United States at
JFK Airport.
1965: U.S. jets hit Dong Hoi guerrilla base in reprisal for the Viet Cong raids.
1968: The North Vietnamese use 11 Soviet-built light tanks to overrun the U.S. Special Forces camp at
Lang Vei at the end of an 18-hour long siege.
1978: Ethiopia mounts a counterattack against Somalia.
1983: Iran opens an invasion in the southeast of Iraq.
Born on February 7
1477: Sir Thomas More, English statesman and writer; famous for Utopia. Later executed for refusing to
accept Henry VIII as the head of the church.
1804: John Deere, farm equipment manufacturer
1812: Charles Dickens, prolific English novelist; his stories reflected life in Victorian England. Some of his
more famous works include Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities.
1837: Sir James Murray, Scottish lexicographer and editor.
1867: Laura Ingalls Wilder, author; her works were the basis for television’s Little House on the Prairie.
1885: Sinclair Lewis, novelist of satire and realism. (Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry).
1905: Ulf Svante von Euler, Swedish physiologist.
UTTAR PRADESH: As night fell on the bucolic northern Indian hamlet of Mahaban, Gopi Chand Yadav gathered blankets and a flashlight to spend the night sitting on a wooden platform in his field. His task: to use bamboo sticks to ward off stray cattle from intruding and eating a maturing mustard crop.
Like Yadav, many thousands of farmers stay awake to guard their farms over a cold winter or face losing their crops to the cattle – a double whammy for growers already reeling from a plunge in Indian crop prices.
Protecting cows – considered sacred to Hindus – was one of the measures meant to shore up support in the heavily populated, Hindi-speaking belt across northern India that has been a heartland of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP). Instead, it is creating a backlash, even among Hindu farmers.
While stray cows ambling around towns and villages have always been a feature of life in rural India, farmers say their number has increased sharply in recent years to the extent that they have become a menace, and blame the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.
Protecting cows – considered sacred to Hindus – was one of the measures meant to shore up support in the heavily populated, Hindi-speaking belt across northern India that has been a heartland of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP). Instead, it is creating a backlash, even among Hindu farmers.
“We already had enough problems and now the government has created one more,” said octogenarian farmer Baburao Saini from Kakripur village, about 85 kilometers (50 miles) from New Delhi. “For the first time, we’ve been forced to stay in the fields to protect our crops.”
More than 50 farmers Reuters spoke to in Mahaban and nine other villages in Uttar Pradesh state said they would think twice before voting for Modi’s BJP in the next general election, due by May. The cattle issue and low farm prices are major reasons behind their disillusionment with a party that most say they voted for in the last election in 2014.
Modi swept Uttar Pradesh at that poll, winning 73 of 80 seats in India’s most populous state, with rural voters swayed by a promise of higher crop prices, and as Hindu farmers supported the BJP amid tensions with the minority Muslim community. (Reuters)
A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.
1626 Huguenot rebels and the French sign the Peace of La Rochelle.
1778 France recognizes the United States and signs a treaty of aid in Paris.
1788 Massachusetts becomes the sixth state to ratify the Constitution.
1862 Forces under the command of Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and Flag Officer Andrew Hull
Foote capture Fort Henry, Tennessee, in the Battle of Fort Henry, giving the Union its first victory
of the Civil War.
1891 The Dalton Gang commits its first crime, a train robbery in Alila, CA.
1899 The Spanish-American War ends.
1900 President McKinley appoints W.H. Taft as a commissioner to report on the Philippines.
1904 Japan’s foreign minister severs all ties with Russia, citing delaying tactics in negotiations over
Manchuria.
1916 Germany admits full liability for the Lusitania incident and recognizes the right of the United State
to claim indemnity.
1922 The Washington Disarmament Conference comes to an end with the ratification of the final treaty
forbidding fortification of the Aleutian Islands for 14 years.
1926 Mussolini warns Germany to stop agitation in Tyrol.
1929 Germany accepts the Kellogg-Briand pact.
1933 Adolf Hitler‘s Third Reich begins press censorship.
1936 Adolf Hitler opens the Fourth Winter Olympics.
1941 The RAF clears the way as British take Benghazi, trapping thousands of Italians.
1944 Kwajalein Island in the Central Pacific falls to U.S. Army troops.
1945 MacArthur reports the fall of Manila, and the liberation of 5,000 prisoners.
1952 Elizabeth becomes Queen of England after her father, King George VI, dies.
1963 The United States reports that all Soviet offensive arms are out of Cuba.
1964 Cuba blocks the water supply to the Guantanamo Naval Base in retaliation for the seizure by the
United States of four Cuban fishing boats.
1964 Paris and London agree to build a rail tunnel under the English Channel.
1965 Seven U.S. GIs are killed in a Viet Cong raid on a base in Pleiku.
1968 Charles de Gaulle opens the 19th Winter Olympics in France.
1975 President Gerald Ford asks Congress for $497 million for aid to Cambodia.
1977 Queen Elizabeth marks her Silver Jubilee.
1982 Civil rights workers begin a march from Carrolton to Montgomery, Alabama.
Born on February 6
1756 Aaron Burr, 3rd U.S. Vice President.
1895 George Herman “Babe” Ruth, baseball player with the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees and
the Boston Braves. He was the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season.
1911 Ronald Reagan, film actor and 40th U.S. President (1981-1989).
1913 Mary Douglas Leakey, archaeologist and paleoanthropologist.
1932 Francois Truffaut, French film director (The 400 Blows, Shoot the Piano Player).
1933 Walter E. Fauntroy, politician and civil rights leader.
1940 Tom Brokaw, NBC News anchorman.
1945 Bob Marley, reggae musician.
Source: HistoryNet
TOKYO: There is still time to find a solution to the impasse on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Japan on Tuesday.
British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal was rejected by parliament last month and she is trying to persuade the EU to accept changes to the agreement before the March 29 deadline for departure.
“From a political point of view, there is still time,” Merkel told an economic conference in Tokyo.
“That should be used, used by all sides. But for this it would be very important to know what exactly the British side envisages in terms of its relationship with the EU,” she said.
Acknowledging that the tight timeframe was difficult for businesses desperate for certainty given “just-in-time” production systems, Merkel said the “special” problem was the Irish border and the backstop agreement.
“It should be humanly possible to find a solution to such a precise problem. But this depends … on the kind of trade deal that we forge with each other,” she said. (Reuters)
UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON: North Korea is working to ensure its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities cannot be destroyed by military strikes, U.N. monitors said ahead of a meeting between U.S. and North Korean officials to prepare a second denuclearization summit.
The U.S. special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, will meet his North Korean counterpart on Wednesday in Pyongyang to prepare for a summit later this month between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the U.S. State Department said on Monday. Biegun has said he hoped the meeting with new North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol would map out “a set of concrete deliverables” for the summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un.
South Korean officials said they and the United States could be looking at a compromise that could expedite North Korea’s denuclearization – the dismantling of the North’s main Yongbyon nuclear complex, which could be reciprocated by U.S. measures including formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War and setting up a liaison office.
Biegun, who held talks with South Korean officials in Seoul on Sunday and Monday, said he would be aiming for “a roadmap of negotiations and declarations going forward, and a shared understanding of the desired outcomes of our joint efforts”.
South Korean officials said they and the United States could be looking at a compromise that could expedite North Korea’s denuclearization – the dismantling of the North’s main Yongbyon nuclear complex, which could be reciprocated by U.S. measures including formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War and setting up a liaison office.
But U.N. sanctions monitors said in a confidential report, submitted to a 15-member U.N. Security Council sanctions committee and seen by Reuters on Monday, that they had “found evidence of a consistent trend on the part of the DPRK to disperse its assembly, storage and testing locations”, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The North Korean mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report, which was submitted to Security Council members on Friday.
The first summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un last June in Singapore yielded a vague commitment by Kim to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, where U.S. troops have been stationed since the 1950-53 Korean War.
The Vietnamese resort town of Danang is seen as the most likely location for the next summit.
Trump last Thursday hailed “tremendous progress” in his dealings with North Korea, but the view in the United States is that it has yet to take concrete steps to give up its nuclear weapons program. (Reuters)
ABU DHABI: Pope Francis on Sunday became the first pontiff to set foot on the Arabian Peninsula, just hours after issuing his strongest condemnation yet of the war in Yemen, where his host the United Arab Emirates has a leading military role.
Shortly before departing for Abu Dhabi, Pope Francis said he was following the humanitarian crisis in Yemen with great concern, using his regular Sunday address in Vatican City to urge all sides to implement a fragile peace deal and help deliver aid to millions of hungry people.
“The cry of these children and their parents rises up to God,” he told tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square.
The UAE welcomed the Pope’s message on Yemen and believes the peace deal he referred to was a historic breakthrough, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash wrote on Twitter.
“Let us pray strongly because they are children who are hungry, who are thirsty, they don’t have medicine and they are in danger of death,” he said before boarding his flight.
The UAE welcomed the Pope’s message on Yemen and believes the peace deal he referred to was a historic breakthrough, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash wrote on Twitter.
“Let us assure its implementation and make 2019 the year of peace in Yemen,” he said after the pope landed in Abu Dhabi.
Yemen’s warring parties agreed a ceasefire in December at the first major peace talks of the nearly four-year-old war, which pits Arab states backing an exiled president against the Iran-aligned Houthi movement that controls the capital.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, and the United Nations says millions are on the verge of starvation. Their survival depends on the truce preventing aid from being cut off by all-out fighting for the country’s main port.
Francis was greeted by Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who escorted him to meet Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar mosque and university, one of the main seats of learning of Sunni Islam. The pontiff embraced him.
Both men will hold meetings with Pope Francis on Monday. (Reuters)