Martti Ahtisaari, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008, has died aged 86. Reuters
Martti Ahtisaari, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008, has died aged 86. Reuters
Martti Ahtisaari, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008, has died aged 86. Reuters
Martti Ahtisaari, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008, has died aged 86. Reuters

Finnish Nobel Peace laureate and former president Martti Ahtisaari dies aged 86


Nicky Harley
  • English
  • Arabic

Nobel Peace laureate Martti Ahtisaari, who helped broker peace in conflict zones across the world, has died aged 86.

Mr Ahtisaari, who served as Finland's 10th president between 1994 and 2000 and steered the nation to European Union membership, died on Monday.

He was celebrated around the world for brokering peace in conflict zones in Kosovo, Indonesia and Northern Ireland and refused to accept that war was inevitable.

"Peace is a question of will. All conflicts can be settled and there are no excuses for allowing them to become eternal," Mr Ahtisaari said when accepting the Nobel award in 2008.

His notable efforts to resolve conflicts included helping Namibia win independence from South Africa in 1990, aiding the resolution of a dispute in Indonesia’s Aceh province in 2005 and negotiating peace in Kosovo in 1999 and 2007.

“He was a peacemaker whose career contained an extraordinary number of internationally significant achievements,” Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said.

“He believed in humankind, civilisation and goodness, and he lived a great, significant life.

“He was president in times of change, who piloted Finland into a global EU era.”

Having studied education at university, Mr Ahtisaari began his career as a primary schoolteacher in Finland and Pakistan, before joining the Finnish Foreign Ministry.

He rose through the ranks to become ambassador to several African nations, including Tanzania and Zambia.

Former Finnish President and Nobel Peace laureate Martti Ahtisaari. AFP
Former Finnish President and Nobel Peace laureate Martti Ahtisaari. AFP

He spent most of his diplomatic career abroad, holding numerous positions at the UN from 1978.

He was born in Viipuri, which was then part of Finland but is now the Russian city of Vyborg.

His father, Oiva, was a military technician and his mother, Tyyne, a housewife. The family was forced to flee when war broke out in 1939. The experience made him an “eternally displaced person”, Mr Ahtisaari said in an interview in 2008.

As a mediator, he was unrelenting, persistent and knew how to defuse pressure through negotiation.

After his term as Finland’s president was ending, he founded the Crisis Management Initiative, a non-profit peace-brokering organisation that works to prevent and resolve violent conflicts through informal dialogue and mediation.

On Monday, the group, which later became CMI – Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation, said it was “deeply saddened by the loss of its founder and (former) chair of the board.”

He also served on the boards of UPM-Kymmene Oyj, a Finnish forestry company, and Elcoteq SE, a former contract manufacturer of consumer electronics.

In 2021, Mr Ahtisaari withdrew from public life due to advanced Alzheimer’s. He is survived by his wife, Eeva, and their son, Marko.

Stage 3 results

1 Adam Yates (GBR) Mitchelton-Scott 4:42:33

2 Tadej Pocagar (SLO) UAE Team Emirates 0:01:03

3 Alexey Lutsenko (KAZ) Astana 0:01:30

4 David Gaudu (FRA) Groupama-FDJ

5 Rafal Majka (POL) Bora-Hansgrohe         

6 Diego Ulissi (ITA) UAE Team Emirates  0:01:56

General Classification after Stage 3:

1 Adam Yates (GBR) Mitchelton-Scott 12:30:02

2 Tadej Pocagar (SLO) UAE Team Emirates 0:01:07

3  Alexey Lutsenko (KAZ) Astana 0:01:35

4 David Gaudu (FRA) Groupama-FDJ 0:01:40

5  Rafal Majka (POL) Bora-Hansgrohe

6 Wilco Kelderman (NED) Team Sunweb)  0:02:06

German plea
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the German parliament that. Russia had erected a new wall across Europe. 

"It's not a Berlin Wall -- it is a Wall in central Europe between freedom and bondage and this Wall is growing bigger with every bomb" dropped on Ukraine, Zelenskyy told MPs.

Mr Zelenskyy was applauded by MPs in the Bundestag as he addressed Chancellor Olaf Scholz directly.

"Dear Mr Scholz, tear down this Wall," he said, evoking US President Ronald Reagan's 1987 appeal to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.

ENGLAND%20SQUAD
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Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
FINAL LEADERBOARD

1. Jordan Spieth (USA) 65 69 65 69 - 12-under-par
2. Matt Kuchar (USA) 65 71 66 69 - 9-under
3. Li Haotong (CHN) 69 73 69 63 - 6-under
T4. Rory McIlroy (NIR) 71 68 69 67 - 5-under
T4. Rafael Cabrera-Bello (ESP) 67 73 67 68 - 5-under
T6. Marc Leishman (AUS) 69 76 66 65 - 4-under
T6. Matthew Southgate (ENG) 72 72 67 65 - 4-under
T6. Brooks Koepka (USA) 65 72 68 71 - 4-under
T6. Branden Grace (RSA) 70 74 62 70 - 4-under
T6. Alexander Noren (SWE)  68 72 69 67 - 4-under

What is graphene?

Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.

It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.

Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.

By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.

At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.

It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.

But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.

In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties. 

 

General%20Classification
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Fixtures (all times UAE)

Saturday
Brescia v Atalanta (6pm)
Genoa v Torino (9pm)
Fiorentina v Lecce (11.45pm)

Sunday
Juventus v Sassuolo (3.30pm)
Inter Milan v SPAL (6pm)
Lazio v Udinese (6pm)
Parma v AC Milan (6pm)
Napoli v Bologna (9pm)
Verona v AS Roma (11.45pm)

Monday
Cagliari v Sampdoria (11.45pm)

SPECS

Nissan 370z Nismo

Engine: 3.7-litre V6

Transmission: seven-speed automatic

Power: 363hp

Torque: 560Nm

Price: Dh184,500

While you're here
UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
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Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
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TEST SQUADS

Bangladesh: Mushfiqur Rahim (captain), Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Liton Das, Shakib Al Hasan, Mominul Haque, Nasir Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Mehedi Hasan, Shafiul Islam, Taijul Islam, Mustafizur Rahman and Taskin Ahmed.

Australia: Steve Smith (captain), David Warner, Ashton Agar, Hilton Cartwright, Pat Cummins, Peter Handscomb, Matthew Wade, Josh Hazlewood, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Matt Renshaw, Mitchell Swepson and Jackson Bird.

COMPANY%20PROFILE
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F1 The Movie

Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Rating: 4/5

Updated: October 16, 2023, 9:28 AM`