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US says Lloyd Austin urged ‘immediate ceasefire’ in first talks with Russia’s defense minister since Ukraine war began.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has urged “an immediate ceasefire” in Ukraine, the Department of Defense said, as the Pentagon chief held the first talks with his Russian counterpart since the war began.

Austin confirmed the call in a tweet Friday, saying he spoke to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu for the first time since February 18.

“I urged an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and I emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication,” Austin’s tweet said.

The call came as Russian forces continue their offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, which has prompted US President Joe Biden’s administration to pledge billions of dollars in military and humanitarian assistance to Kyiv.

Austin has tried multiple times to talk with Shoigu since Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor began on February 24, but officials said the Russian side had appeared uninterested.

A US official, speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity, said Friday’s call between the two leaders lasted about an hour but did not solve any specific issues or lead to direct changes in what the Russians are doing in Ukraine.

The official described the tone of the call as “professional”.

The Russian defense ministry said the call happened “at the initiative of the American side”, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.

“Topical issues of international security were discussed, including the situation in Ukraine,” TASS said, quoting the ministry.

Russia has repeatedly warned and its European allies against providing Kyiv with heavy artillery and other weapons that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for to stave off the Russian offensive in the country’s east.

Zelenskyy told Al Jazeera in an interview last month that if Russia succeeds in capturing the eastern region, it may make another attempt to capture the capital, Kyiv.

This week, Avril Haines, the US director of national intelligence, also said the Russian military’s shift to the Donbas region is only temporary.

“We assess President [Vladimir] Putin is preparing for a prolonged conflict in Ukraine during which he still intends to achieve goals beyond the Donbas,” Haines told US lawmakers on Tuesday.

“We assess that Putin’s strategic goals have probably not changed, suggesting he regards the decision in late March to refocus Russian forces on the Donbas is only a temporary shift to regain the initiative after the Russian military’s failure to capture Kyiv.”

Meanwhile, on Thursday, Zelenskyy said he was ready to hold face-to-face talks with Putin to end the conflict, which the United Nations says has now forced more than six million refugees to flee Ukraine.

“I am ready to talk to Putin, but only to him. Without any of his intermediaries. And in the framework of dialogue, not ultimatums,” the Ukrainian president said in an interview with Italian broadcaster Rai 1.

He said, however, that the chance such discussions could be held was “complicated”.

“It is because every day small towns are being de-occupied, and we see the traces of harassment, torture, executions left by the Russian military. That is why the possibility of talks gets complicated,” Zelenskyy said.

North Korea has recorded its first COVID-19 deaths after the hermit nation reported an “explosive” outbreak that possibly infected over 350,000 people.

Around 18,000 people in the East Asian country experienced new “fever cases” on Thursday alone. One of the six people who have died as of Friday was reportedly infected with the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron.

“A fever whose cause couldn’t be identified explosively spread nationwide since late April,” Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) stated. “As of now up to 187,800 people are being isolated.”

The North Korean news outlet also said that over 350,000 people have shown symptoms, and around 162,200 have been treated so far.

The country has called the outbreak in Pyongyang a “major national emergency” but has yet to confirm the exact number of confirmed positive cases. News of its first-ever COVID-19 death was confirmed after the government imposed “maximum emergency measures,” including a nationwide lockdown, to contain the outbreak in the capital.

“It is the most important challenge and supreme task facing our party to reverse the immediate public health crisis situation at an early date,” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said after visiting North Korea’s emergency epidemic prevention headquarters to learn about the situation on Friday.

Some experts stated that a significant outbreak could quickly overwhelm North Korea’s poorly equipped health facilities. They also pointed out that only a few of the country’s 25.8 million citizens have been vaccinated.

“Most North Koreans are chronically illnourished and unvaccinated, there are barely any medicines left in the country, and the health infrastructure is incapable to deal with this pandemic,” Lina Yoon, a senior Korea researcher at Human Rights Watch, said.

“The international community should offer medicine for COVID-19-related symptoms, COVID-19 anti-viral medicines, and provide vaccines and all necessary infrastructure for vaccine preservation, including fridges, generators and gasoline,” she added.

Following the news, nations such as South Korea have shared their plans to offer assistance To help North Korea battle its first outbreak since the pandemic began in 2020. On Thursday, White House press Secretary Jen Psaki said the United States is currently not planning to send COVID-19 vaccines to North Korea.

The hermit nation has reportedly refused several vaccine offers from China, Russia and the World Health Organization’s Covax initiative in the past since this would necessitate outside monitoring.

The country’s openly public acknowledgment of the outbreak might mean that the “public health situation [in North Korea] must be serious,” Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, told the Associated Press.

“This does not mean North Korea is suddenly going to be open to humanitarian assistance and take a more conciliatory line toward Washington and Seoul,” he added.

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May 13 (Reuters) – The US State Department said on Friday it appreciated the European Union’s efforts to revive talks on restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear deal but said there was no agreement yet and no certainty that one might be reached.

“At this point a deal remains far from certain. Iran needs to decide whether it insists on extraneous conditions and whether it wants to conclude a deal quickly, which we would serve all side’s believe interests. We and our partners are ready, and have been for some time. It’s now up to Iran,” said a US State Department spokesperson on condition of anonymity. (Reporting By Arshad Mohammed in Saint Paul, Minn.; Editing by Chris Reese)

Attackers hit a military bus with an anti-tank missile in the west of Aleppo province, state news agency SANA reported.

A rocket attack on a military bus has killed 10 soldiers and wounded nine more in northwest Syria, the country’s state news agency SANA reported.

The death toll is the heaviest reported in pro-government ranks from a rebel attack since a truce agreement brokered by Russia and Turkey in March 2020. The truce has largely held despite sporadic attacks by both sides, including continued Russian air raids.

The bus was attacked in the west of Aleppo province on Friday morning, the SANA news agency said.

Attackers hit the bus with an anti-tank missile, the agency reported.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which was near the frontier with rebel-held territory close to the Turkish border.

Syrian rebel group Ahrar al-Sham posted a video on its Telegram channel on Friday showing a missile hitting a bus, with a caption declaring that the footage showed the moment a military bus belonging to pro-Assad militias was destroyed west of Aleppo. The content of the video could not be independently verified.

The head of Lebanon’s heavily armed Shia movement Hezbollah, which has intervened in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad, offered his support for the dead in a televised address later on Friday.

A pro-Damascus military source told Reuters that those killed on the bus were pro-government Shia fighters from the towns of Nubl and Zahraa.

The Assad government has relied on local paramilitary forces and allied fighters from countries including Lebanon and Iraq to take back swaths of territory in the country’s 11-year war.

Northwestern Syria is the last major stronghold of those fighting against the Assad government and its allies.

Before Russia intervened in the Syrian conflict, the Assad regime controlled barely a fifth of the national territory. With Russian and Iranian support, Damascus has clawed back much of the ground lost in the early stages of the conflict. Moscow carried out its air force to Syria in 2015 in support of Assad and regularly engages in bombing raids.

The last pocket of armed opposition to the regime includes large swathes of Syria’s Idlib province and parts of the neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.

Turkish forces, which are back in the rebel-held area where the main front lines in the, which spiralled out of several protests against Assad regime in 2011, have been largely frozen for years.

A Kenyan nurse who campaigns against early marriage and female genital mutilation says she is “speechless” after winning a prize of $250,000 (£205,000).

Anna Qabale Duba’s colleagues say she always goes the extra mile for others in her pastoralist community in the northern county of Marsabit, and runs a school in her village.

“This award will help me to expand my school all over Kenya,” she told BBC Newsday.

In the morning the classrooms of Torbi Pioneer Academy host lessons for children, before their parents come in for literacy classes in the afternoons – and sometimes both age groups get the same homework.

Ms Qabale says she was the only university-educated girl from Torbi village, and the only girl educated past primary school level in her family of 19 children.

The 31-year-old now holds a Masters in Epidemiology and has set up a foundation aimed at empowering young girls and mothers.

“I am so passionate about education. After tasting the fruits of education, I decided to go back home to empower the rest,” she told the BBC.

Through her Qabale Duba Foundation, the school she has built in her village also teaches parents about key sexual and reproductive health issues.

Working as a nurse at Marsabit County Referral Hospital, she strives to end harmful cultural practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM) and early marriage, and it is for her work in these areas that Dubai-based Aster DM healthcare says she beat more than 24,000 nominees to their Global Nursing Award.

“It’s not easy to talk about these things publicly. Being a woman – and we come from our patriarchal families – it’s not easy to talk about them, but I am really trying my level best,” Ms Qabale told the BBC.

“I am using education as an excuse for my advocacy work to campaign against these devices.”

‘I escaped forced marriage aged 14’

Her personal experiences have shaped her convictions.

“I underwent female genital mutilation at the age of 12 and I narrowly escaped early forced marriage at the of 14,” she said.

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Even though FGM is illegal in Kenya, around 91% of girls and young women are subjected to it in the country’s regions, according to the Kenyan Anti-FGM board.

Parents and guardians often take their daughters across the border into neighboring countries to escape Kenya’s stringent laws.

Colleagues say Ms Qabale’s drive has seen women and girls become more aware of their healthcare rights.

“She knows all too well the challenges that young girls face,” Hassan Halakhe, director of preventive promotion health services at Marsabit County Referral Hospital, told the BBC.

“Many of them now do not miss out on classes as they are given sanitary towels to use when they are on their menses. They are also taught how to make reusable pads.”

Thursday’s ceremony in Dubai was Ms Qabale’s second high-profile gong, having won the Global Citizens’ People’s Choice Award in New York in 2019.

Kenya’s Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe praised Ms Qabale’s “hard work and her fearless spirit”, while Marsabit County Referral Hospital Director Liban Wako says “this award means so much to young girls in Marsabit – that they too can achieve their dreams.”

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Israeli police have stormed the grounds of a Jerusalem hospital to forcibly prevent a funeral march for Shireen Abu Akleh, the Al Jazeera journalist who was by Israeli forces while covering an Israeli army raid in Jenin on Wednesday.

TV images on Friday showed Abu Akleh’s coffin falling to the ground as police grabbed Palestinian flags from the crowd close to the operation outside St Louis French Hospital in nearly occupied East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

Reporting from the scene, Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan said the Israeli forces targeted mourners because they did not want them to walk with Abu Akleh’s coffin.

Police hit mourners holding the coffin with batons, almost causing it to drop, before eventually allowing it to be moved in a hearse. At least four people were arrested.

TURKANA, Kenya (AP) — A top United Nations humanitarian official has raised concern about people going hungry in a remote part of northern Kenya, joining calls for the international community to commit more resources to address the wider region’s drought crisis.

Martin Griffiths, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said he saw families in Kenya’s Turkana region that have nothing left after their animals starved to death. Turkana is an epicenter of the drought affecting parts of the East African country.

“The world’s attention is elsewhere, and we know that,” Griffiths said during a visit to the region Thursday. “And the world’s misery has not left Turkana, and the world’s rains have not come to Turkana, and we’ve seen four successive failures of the rains.”

Griffiths and other humanitarian representatives visited a pastoralist community in Turkana’s Lomuputh area as part of efforts to draw attention to the humanitarian challenge stemming from the drought.

“Lomoputh deserves our attention,” Griffiths said, noting that children scavenging for fruit to eat need help “to have the slightest possibility to survive to the next day.”

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta declared the drought conditions a national disaster in September 2021.

Some residents of Lomoputh spoke to The Associated Press of their desperate need for food aid.

“I have not received any help, and this child has not eaten anything since yesterday,” Jecinta Maluk, a mother of five children, said.

The extreme drought in Kenya, where 3.5 million people are affected by severe food insecurity and acute malnutrition, has excacerated the factors causing people to go hungry.

The UN warned earlier this year that an estimated 13 million people are facing severe hunger in the wider Horn of Africa region as a result of persistent drought conditions. Malnutrition rates are high in the region, and drought conditions are affecting pastoral and farming communities.

Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya face the driest conditions recorded since 1981, the UN World Food Program reported in February.

Somalia is seen as particularly vulnerable. About 250,000 people there died from hunger in 2011, when the UN declared a famine in some parts of the country. Half of them were children.

This week saw the most serious unrest in Sri Lanka since the aftermath of the Easter Bombing in 2019. A month-long protest in Colombo, calling on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign, was attacked by pro-government mobs.

Protesters retaliated swiftly, chasing down those who took part in the attacks, with videos and photos of stripped and beaten Rajapaksa supporters circulating on social media. Eight people died in the ensuing violence across the Sinhala-majority south of the island, with more than 100 properties torched, mostly those linked to the president’s party.

The president’s brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, resigned in the aftermath, fleeing to a navy camp, a notorious torture site, in the Tamil-majority northeast.

He has now been replaced by another old face – the United National Party’s (UNP) Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has occupied the premiership on no fewer than five previous occasions but has never seen out a full term. Wickremesinghe himself has been accused of turning a blind eye into corruption and scuttling opportunities for addressing the decades-old ethnic conflict during his prior stints.

The Rajapaksas’s stunning fall from grace was precipitated by an economic crisis, caused by decades of fiscal mismanagement and exacerbated by their populist policies.

Not even two years ago, Sri Lanka’s most prominent family swept parliamentary elections in a landslide victory, winning a two-thirds majority. The Rajapaksas ruled the roost. President Gotabaya, who also won with a significant majority in 2019, strengthened his powers and consolidated the family’s position in state structures and the economy of the country, amid celebrations by the Sinhala population. His brother, and the former president, Mahinda won the premiership, and several other members of the family took control of key ministries. The UNP was reduced to one seat. The Rajapaksa victory was almost absolute, with the vast majority of the Sinhala vote going to their party, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, which ran on a populist and racist platform, promising prosperity, splendour and the preservation of Sinhala-Buddhist supremacy on the island .

After their election victories in 2019 and 2020, the Rajapaksas wasted no time in strengthening their grip on the state and imposing measures that disadvantaged Tamils ​​and Muslims. From increasing militarization of Tamil areas, harassment of Tamil and NGOs, to issues such as the forcible cremation of Muslim COVID victims, the Rajapaksa government seemed to be intent on showing non-Sinhala communities that they were second-class citizens.

The protests in the Sinhala-majority South, however, did not erupt because of the longstanding human rights concerns and accountability demands, but the economic hardships that the government’s economic policies brought upon them.

The Rajapaksas promised “vistas of splendour” and instead brought poverty and destitution. This resulted in an unexpected backlash against the government. The continuing protection and promotion of the Sinhala-Buddhist hegemony that has underpinned Sri Lanka’s economic policies since independence, means that successive governments have made fiscal policy decisions that are motivated by the desire to maintain the Sinhala-Buddhist ethnocracy, rather than what is in the best interest of the country’s economy and prosperity of all its citizens.

After the assault on the protesters and the ensuing backlash, the state tactics that are tried and tested among the Tamil population in the northeast, including emergency regulations granting the military and police extraordinary powers. Military vehicles can be seen patrolling Colombo, amid empty streets due to an on-and-off island-wide curfew, with soldiers at checkpoints stopping vehicles.

Tensions remain, with the military and police warning they will shoot violent protesters on sight. Criticism of the government’s response came swiftly – the US State Department expresses concern about the deployment of the military and condemned the violence against protesters.

Amnesty International demanded the immediate rescinding of emergency regulations. Protesters dug in, defying the curfew and rebuilding the encampments that were destroyed by the pro-government goons. Sinhala society and opposition parties condemned the government’s actions and reaffirmed their civil solidarity with the protesters.

The Rajapaksas managed to push even those on the fence to the side of the protesters. They hold the unique record of being the most universally despised government in Sri Lanka’s history: despised by Tamils ​​because of the genocidal attacks during the war and continuing restrictions; despised by Muslims for enacting discriminatory policies and engineering ethnic riots against them; and now, despised by the Sinhalese for bringing economic disaster upon them.

The appointment of Wickremesinghe as prime minister is widely seen as a move to allow President Gotabaya to continue in his position in the hope that the protests will eventually break up. But this is unlikely to appease the global, who are standing firm on for the president’s resignation demand.

For Tamils, Wickremesinghe is a familiar foe, and indeed the main Tamil nationalist parties have slammed his return. The former current prime minister has rejected accountability for war crimes and even claimed that he “saved Mahinda Rajapaksa from the electric chair” and protected state officials from being dragged in front of the International Criminal Court.

He supports the foremost place that Buddhism occupies in the Sri Lankan constitution and is on the record rejecting federalism as a solution to the ethnic conflict – all key grievances of the Tamil people. When it comes to addressing the root causes of the ethnic conflict and the ongoing demands of Tamils ​​for a political settlement, Wickremesinghe and the Rajapaksas are not that different.

The limited inclusion of Tamil political rights, demilitarisation of the Tamil-majority northeast and accountability for war crimes in the protest demands has played a part in the relative lukewarm participation of Tamils.

As the population in the south of the country sees a new face of the Sri Lankan state, many Tamils ​​are somewhat bemused by the Sinhalese community’s shock that the all-Sinhala military is pointing its guns at its own. Tamil member of Parliament Gajen Ponambalam, in a prescient speech in Sri Lanka’s state in 2020, predicted that the would turn on the Sinhala population, too. However, the state’s use of force against these largely Sinhala protesters is restrained compared to what Tamils ​​have faced in the northeast. The military is ubiquitous in the northeast, enmeshed in the day-to-day life of the Tamil people. The troops, more than 300,000 of them, are spread across seven regional commands, of which five have bases in the Tamil-majority northeast – less than a third of the island. Loathed by Tamils ​​due to decades of violence met out against them, the military has become a permanent and sinister presence in the northeast since the end of the war.

On May 18, Tamils ​​will observe Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day. Traditionally this day is marked with gatherings across the northeast. Last year, ten Tamils ​​were arrested under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act for holding remembrance events, with many more reporting intimidation and harassment by security forces. A memorial to the Tamils ​​who had died was destroyed. This year, police are already exploiting the emergency regulations passed to respond to the anti-Gota protests, to intimidate Tamils ​​in Mullaithivu, which has not seen any unrest related to the anti-Gota protests. The police Tamil threaten civilians saying they have orders to shoot those gathered illegally. As preparations for commemorations of the Tamil war dead are underway across the northeast, stakes are high and it will be an early test of Wickremesinghe’s premiership.

The reaction to the anti-Gota protests on May 18, usually marked by “victory” celebrations in the Sinhala south, will also be a crucial indicator of how receptive the protesters are to the concerns raised by Tamils, particularly if as expected the military continues to harass and intimidate those commemorating the day. With an old prime minister occupying the post for the sixth time, what was obvious to Tamils ​​should be obvious to the rest of the population – without a fundamental restructuring of the state that addresses the root causes of the ethnic conflict, and justice and accountability for The mass atrocities that occurred during the war, Sri Lanka is doomed to repeat its past, stability and prosperity for all its citizens will remain elusive.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

The British government on Friday sanctioned Alina Kabaeva, the Olympic champion gymnast who is allegedly Vladimir Putin’s longtime lover and mother of some of his children, in a move expected to rile the Russian president as his war in Ukraine nears its 80th day.

“Today’s sanctions will hit this cabal who owe Putin their wealth and power, and in turn support Putin and his war machine,” the British government said in a release.

Countries around the world have been working to cut off Putin and his inner circle of oligarchs and cronies since his February invasion of Ukraine as a way to crank up the pressure on Moscow and cut key allies off from the world financial system. But the pressure is growing to expand that list to include his family members and closest allies to make the sanctions sting.

The British targeting sanctions Kabaeva also target her grandmother, Anna Zatseplina, as well as Putin’s ex-wife, Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, and several other associates and family members.

The European Union, too, has proposed sanctioning Kabaeva, one European sanctions authority told The Daily Beast, but the potential sanctions have been held up due to Hungary’s objects over banning oil from Russia. Bloomberg News first reported the rumored sanctions.

Kabaeva, who took gold in rhythmic gymnastics at the 2004 Olympic Games, has since retired and began working in politics as a pro-Kremlin lawmaker in Russia. She has since founded a charitable foundation and has worked as the head of the Russian National Media Group, which oversees pro-government media, cashing in with a salary hovering near $12 million as of 2018, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Her leadership in the media group, and its role in pushing Russian propaganda and thereby undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity in the war, is part of why she is up for sanctions, Bloomberg News reported.

The Kremlin has denied the romantic links between Putin and Kabaeva.

Meet Putin’s Olympic Torch-Lighting Paramour

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“His family members form a core contingent of his inner circle—receiving positions of power due to their affiliation to the regime,” the British government said Friday.

The Biden administration has been considering sanctioning Kabaeva, but she was spared in recent days, in part because White House officials feared that sanctioning her would be viewed as such a low and personal blow that Putin might escalate the war in Ukraine in response, as the Journal reported.

The White House has indicated that more sanctions are yet to come.

“No one is safe from our sanctions,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, when asked about Kabaeva, said last week. “There’s more we will likely do.”

The tightening grip on the Kremlin inner circle comes as Putin weighs escalating the war in Ukraine beyond just the eastern regions of the country, in a return to his old goals of the conflict, intelligence officials in the Biden administration warned lawmakers this week.

But his private life may still prove a more volatile influence on the war. Putin has long been touchy about his private life, seeking to keep it guarded from public view. It’s been rumored Kabaeva gave birth to at least one of his children in a hospital in Switzerland in 2015, and that she is the mother of several of his other children as well.

Putin has previously commented on his rigid focus on shielding his private life from public view. “I have a private life in which I do not permit interference. It must be respected,” Putin said following reports he was romantically involved with Kabaeva.

When the Moskovsky Korrespondent reported that Putin’s former marriage had ended in divorce, and he was engaged to be married to Kabaeva at St. Petersburg’s Konstatinovsky Palace, the publication quickly shut down, citing mysterious financial issues.

“Of course, society has the right to know about the lives of public figures, but even in this case there are certain limits,” Putin said at the time, according to a report from RFERL.

But Kabaeva, who is rumored to have taken up residence in a chalet in Switzerland while Putin wages war, according to Page Six reporting, is getting a flurry of negative attention for benefitting from her ties with the Kremlin. A petition that’s gained more than 70,000 signatures has been circulating, calling for her expulsion from Switzerland.

“Despite the current war, Switzerland continues to host an accomplice of Putin’s regime,” the petition reads.

The Wall Street Journal has also reported Kabaeva was spotted in Switzerland.

It is unclear at this time if Kabaeva is indeed in Switzerland, though. She was spotted last month at a gymnastics event in Moscow, according to photos that Ekaterina Sirotina, the head coach of Russia’s junior national rhythmic gymnastics team, posted on Instagram.

And regardless of the extent of her rumored romantic relationship, Kabaeva has been enriched by her work for the regime and has appeared to be pushing pro-Kremlin and pro-war propaganda herself.

Just last month, she stood in front of posters showing the “Z” logo, symbolic of support for the Russian war in Ukraine, to deliver remarks at the gymnastics event.

“Every family has a war-related story, and we must pass these stories to next generations,” Kabaeva said. “We will only win from this.”

Putin may not have a neutral party in the Swiss to shield his alleged mistress, despite the country’s tendency to declare neutrality, though. Switzerland has jumped on board with other European and Western nations to sanction Russians and implement punitive measures. And even though Jacques Pitteloud, the Swiss ambassador to the US, has said his nation will maintain a legal definition of neutrality, the Swiss have sanctioned hundreds of Russians since the war began, including two of Putin’s daughters, so it seems that loved ones are not off the table.

The Swiss embassy in the US did not immediately return a request for comment.

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BREAKINGBREAKING,

United Arab Emirates president dies at the age of 73, Emirati state news agency WAM reports.

United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has died, Emirati state news agency WAM reported on Friday. He was 73.

“The Ministry of Presidential Affairs announced that there will be 40 days of official mourning with flags at half mast and three days closure of ministries and official entities at the federal and local levels and the private sector,” the agency wrote on Twitter.

Sheikh Khalifa, who was battling illness for several years, had long ceased involvement in day-to-day affairs, with his brother, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, seen as the de-factor ruler.

There was no immediate announcement about the successor.

Born in 1948, Sheikh Khalifa was chosen in 2004 to succeed his long-serving father Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan who ascended the throne in 1971.

More to follow.