The UK's former prime minister Tony Blair urged Kuwait to buy the latest British artillery as compensation for the support the Middle Eastern nation received during the Gulf War, previously classified records suggest.
He repeatedly lobbied Crown Prince Sheikh Sa’ad between 1998 and 1999, even calling in on him during a brief stopover on a flight home from South Africa to press the point.
Internal briefing notes from the time show the UK government believed it was “due the award of a significant defence equipment contract in recognition of its defence of Kuwait” after the invasion by Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein in 1990.
Minutes of the hastily arranged Kuwait bilateral talks, in January 1999, reveal Mr Blair heeded Foreign Office officials’ request to talk up the AS90 howitzer, amid concerns that the arms contract would go to the US and its M109.
A restricted memo from Downing Street private secretary Philip Barton to his Foreign Office colleague Tim Barrow covering the meeting between the prime minister and the Crown Prince, said: “The Prime Minister raised the AS90. It was an effective weapon, although he knew the US had offered the M109.
“He hoped very much that all the support we had given Kuwait would be remembered.
“The Crown Prince said that the price of the AS90 was very high. The Prime Minister pointed out that it would do the job properly.
“The Defence Minister said that they would take the state of relations with the UK into account.”
Internal briefing notes the day before the visit, contained in files now released by the National Archives in Kew, show Mr Blair was told the government was “frankly disappointed” to have “won so little Kuwaiti defence business since end of Gulf War”, saying it had been a “loyal friend to Kuwait over many years”.
Mr Barton reported that Kuwait “would keep [the UK] in mind” before making a decision.
It was the latest in several attempts to woo Kuwait, which included a grovelling letter from Mr Blair to the Crown Prince three months earlier, in which he described the AS90 as “the best 155mm gun in the world today”, stating its specification superiority to the US equivalent.
“This order from Kuwait is very important to the UK and to our industry at a difficult time. We will await your decision eagerly," Mr Blair wrote.
The efforts did not immediately reap rewards, however, as Kuwait announced its intention to buy US artillery two months after Mr Blair’s visit.
The government papers, released on Tuesday, reveal that plans to tackle immigration were partly thwarted by a UN protocol that meant the UK was fundamentally deemed an “attractive destination” for asylum seekers.
The classified Cabinet papers also show that Mr Blair feared his government would face a backlash over its failure to remove extremists from the UK in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The Little Things
Directed by: John Lee Hancock
Starring: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto
Four stars
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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.
FIGHT CARD
Sara El Bakkali v Anisha Kadka (Lightweight, female)
Mohammed Adil Al Debi v Moaz Abdelgawad (Bantamweight)
Amir Boureslan v Mahmoud Zanouny (Welterweight)
Abrorbek Madaminbekov v Mohammed Al Katheeri (Featherweight)
Ibrahem Bilal v Emad Arafa (Super featherweight)
Ahmed Abdolaziz v Imad Essassi (Middleweight)
Milena Martinou v Ilham Bourakkadi (Bantamweight, female)
Noureddine El Agouti v Mohamed Mardi (Welterweight)
Nabil Ouach v Ymad Atrous (Middleweight)
Nouredin Samir v Zainalabid Dadachev (Lightweight)
Marlon Ribeiro v Mehdi Oubahammou (Welterweight)
Brad Stanton v Mohamed El Boukhari (Super welterweight
'Dark Waters'
Directed by: Todd Haynes
Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, William Jackson Harper
Rating: ****
How to help
Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
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2.0
Director: S Shankar
Producer: Lyca Productions; presented by Dharma Films
Cast: Rajnikanth, Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson, Sudhanshu Pandey
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
AndhaDhun
Director: Sriram Raghavan
Producer: Matchbox Pictures, Viacom18
Cast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Tabu, Radhika Apte, Anil Dhawan
Rating: 3.5/5
Scores
Scotland 54-17 Fiji
England 15-16 New Zealand
The biog
Age: 32
Qualifications: Diploma in engineering from TSI Technical Institute, bachelor’s degree in accounting from Dubai’s Al Ghurair University, master’s degree in human resources from Abu Dhabi University, currently third years PHD in strategy of human resources.
Favourite mountain range: The Himalayas
Favourite experience: Two months trekking in Alaska
SHAITTAN
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Five ways to get fit like Craig David (we tried for seven but ran out of time)
Start the week as you mean to go on. So get your training on strong on a Monday.
Train hard, but don’t take it all so seriously that it gets to the point where you’re not having fun and enjoying your friends and your family and going out for nice meals and doing that stuff.
Think about what you’re training or eating a certain way for — don’t, for example, get a six-pack to impress somebody else or lose weight to conform to society’s norms. It’s all nonsense.
Get your priorities right.
And last but not least, you should always, always chill on Sundays.
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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'The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey'
Rating: 3/5
Directors: Ramin Bahrani, Debbie Allen, Hanelle Culpepper, Guillermo Navarro
Writers: Walter Mosley
Stars: Samuel L Jackson, Dominique Fishback, Walton Goggins
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
From exhibitions to the battlefield
In 2016, the Shaded Dome was awarded with the 'De Vernufteling' people's choice award, an annual prize by the Dutch Association of Consulting Engineers and the Royal Netherlands Society of Engineers for the most innovative project by a Dutch engineering firm.
It was assigned by the Dutch Ministry of Defence to modify the Shaded Dome to make it suitable for ballistic protection. Royal HaskoningDHV, one of the companies which designed the dome, is an independent international engineering and project management consultancy, leading the way in sustainable development and innovation.
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