title: Leonard Cohen

text: On February 19, 2009, Cohen played his first American concert in 15 years at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. The show, showcased as the special performance for fans, Leonard Cohen Forum members and press, was the only show in the whole three-year tour that was broadcast on the radio (NPR) and available as a free podcast.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: The North American Tour of 2009 opened on April 1, and included the performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Friday, April 17, 2009, in front of one of the largest outdoor theatre crowds in the history of the festival. His performance of "Hallelujah" was widely regarded as one of the highlights of the festival, thus repeating the major success of the 2008 Glastonbury appearance.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: In July 2009, Cohen started his marathon European tour, his third in two years. The itinerary mostly included sport arenas and open air Summer festivals in Germany, UK, France, Spain, Ireland (the show at O2 in Dublin won him the second Meteor Music Award in a row), but also performances in Serbia in the Belgrade Arena, in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey, and again in Romania.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: On September 18, 2009, on the stage at a concert in Valencia, Spain, Cohen suddenly fainted halfway through performing his song "Bird on the Wire", the fourth in the two-act set list; Cohen was brought down backstage by his band members and then admitted to local hospital, while the concert was suspended. It was reported that Cohen had stomach problems, and possibly food poisoning. Three days later, on September 21, his 75th birthday, he performed in Barcelona. The show, last in Europe in 2009 and rumoured to be the last European concert ever, attracted many international fans, who lighted the green candles honouring Cohen's birthday, leading Cohen to give a special speech of thanks for the fans and the Leonard Cohen Forum.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: The last concert of this leg was held in Tel Aviv, Israel, on September 24 at Ramat Gan Stadium. The event was surrounded by public discussion due to a cultural boycott of Israel proposed by a number of musicians. Nevertheless, tickets for the Tel Aviv concert, Cohen's first performance in Israel since 1980, sold out in less than 24 hours. It was announced that the proceeds from the sale of the 47,000 tickets would go into a charitable fund in partnership with Amnesty International and would be used by Israeli and Palestinian peace groups.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: The sixth leg of the 2008–2009 world tour went again to the US, with 15 shows. The 2009 world tour earned a reported $9.5 million, putting Cohen at number 39 on "Billboard" magazine's list of the year's top musical "money makers".


title: Leonard Cohen

text: On September 14, 2010, Sony Music released a live CD/DVD album, "Songs from the Road", showcasing Cohen's 2008 and 2009 live performances. The previous year, Cohen's performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Music Festival was released as a CD/DVD combo.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Officially billed as the "World Tour 2010", the tour started on July 25, 2010, in Arena Zagreb, Croatia, and continued with stops in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia, and Ireland, where on July 31, 2010, Cohen performed at Lissadell House in County Sligo. It was Cohen's eighth Irish concert in just two years after a hiatus of more than 20 years. On August 12, Cohen played the 200th show of the tour in Scandinavium, Gothenburg, Sweden. The third leg of the 2010 tour started on October 28 in New Zealand and continued in Australia.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: In 2011, Cohen's poetical output was represented in Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, in a selection "Poems and Songs" edited by Robert Faggen. The collection included a selection from all Cohen's books, based on his 1993 books of selected works, "Stranger Music", and as well from "Book of Longing", with addition of six new song lyrics. Nevertheless, three of those songs, "A Street", recited in 2006, "Feels So Good", performed live in 2009 and 2010, and "Born in Chains", performed live in 2010, were not released on Cohen's 2012 album "Old Ideas", with him being unhappy with the versions of the songs in the last moment; the song "Lullaby", as presented in the book and performed live in 2009, was completely re-recorded for the album, presenting new lyrics on the same melody.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: A biography, "I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen", written by Sylvie Simmons, was published in October 2012. The book is the second major biography of Cohen (Ira Nadel's 1997 biography "Various Positions" was the first).


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Leonard Cohen's 12th studio album, "Old Ideas", was released worldwide on January 31, 2012, and it soon became the highest-charting album of his entire career, reaching No. 1 positions in Canada, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Croatia, New Zealand, and top ten positions in United States, Australia, France, Portugal, UK, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Germany, and Switzerland, competing for number one position with Lana Del Rey's debut album "Born to Die", released the same day.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: The lyrics for the song "Going Home" were published as a poem in "The New Yorker" magazine in January 2012, prior to the record's release. The entire album was streamed online by NPR on January 22 and on January 23 by "The Guardian".


title: Leonard Cohen

text: The album received uniformly positive reviews from "Rolling Stone", the "Chicago Tribune", and "The Guardian". At a record release party for the album in January 2012, Cohen spoke with "The New York Times" reporter Jon Pareles who states that "mortality was very much on his mind and in his songs [on this album]." Pareles goes to characterize the album as "an autumnal album, musing on memories and final reckonings, but it also has a gleam in its eye. It grapples once again with topics Mr. Cohen has pondered throughout his career: love, desire, faith, betrayal, redemption. Some of the diction is biblical; some is drily sardonic."


title: Leonard Cohen

text: On August 12, 2012, Cohen embarked on a new European tour in support of "Old Ideas", adding a violinist to his 2008–2010 tour band, now nicknamed Unified Heart Touring Band, and following the same three-hour set list structure as in 2008–2012 tour, with the addition of a number of songs from "Old Ideas". The European leg ended on October 7, 2012, after concerts in Belgium, Ireland (Royal Hospital), France (Olympia in Paris), England (Wembley Arena in London), Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy (Arena in Verona), Croatia (Arena in Pula), Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Romania and Turkey.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: The second leg of the Old Ideas World Tour took place in the US and Canada in November and December, with 56 shows altogether on both legs.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen returned to North America in the spring of 2013 with concerts in the United States and Canada. A summer tour of Europe happened shortly afterwards.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen then toured Australia and New Zealand in November and December 2013. His final concert was performed at the Vector Arena in Auckland.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen released his 13th album, "Popular Problems", on September 24, 2014. The album includes "A Street", which he had previously recited in 2006, during promotion of his book of poetry Book of Longing, and later printed twice, as "A Street" in the March 2, 2009, issue of "The New Yorker" magazine, and appeared as "Party's Over" in Everyman's Library edition of "Poems and Songs" in 2011.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen's 14th and final album, "You Want It Darker", was released on October 21, 2016. Cohen's son Adam Cohen has a production credit on the album. On February 23, 2017, Cohen's son and his final album collaborator Sammy Slabbinck released a special, posthumous tribute video set to the album track "Traveling Light", featuring never before seen archival footage of Cohen from his career. The title track was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance in January 2018.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Before his death, Cohen had begun working on a new album with his son Adam, a musician and singer-songwriter. The album, titled "Thanks for the Dance", was released on November 22, 2019. One posthumous track, "Necropsy of Love", appeared on the 2018 compilation album "The Al Purdy Songbook" and another track named "The Goal" was also published on September 20, 2019, on Leonard Cohen's official YouTube channel.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Writing for AllMusic, critic Bruce Eder assessed Cohen's overall career in popular music by asserting that "[he is] one of the most fascinating and enigmatic ... singer-songwriters of the late '60s ... Second only to Bob Dylan (and perhaps Paul Simon), he commands the attention of critics and younger musicians more firmly than any other musical figure from the 1960s who continued to work in the 21st century." The Academy of American Poets commented more broadly, stating that "Cohen's successful blending of poetry, fiction, and music is made most clear in "Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs", published in 1993 ... while it may seem to some that Leonard Cohen departed from the literary in pursuit of the musical, his fans continue to embrace him as a Renaissance man who straddles the elusive artistic borderlines." Bob Dylan was an admirer, describing Cohen as the 'number one' songwriter of their time (Dylan described himself as 'number zero'). "When people talk about Leonard, they fail to mention his melodies, which to me, along with his lyrics, are his greatest genius. ... Even the counterpoint lines--they give a celestial character & melodic lift to his songs. ... no one else comes close to this in modern music. ... I like all of Leonard's songs, early or late. ... they make you think & feel. I like some of his later songs even better than his early ones. Yet there's a simplicity to his early ones that I like, too. ... He's very much a descendant of Irving Berlin. ... Both of them just hear melodies that most of us can only strive for. ... Both Leonard & Berlin are incredibly crafty. Leonard particularly uses chord progressions that are classical in shape. He is a much more savvy musician than you'd think."


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Themes of political and social justice also recur in Cohen's work, especially in later albums. In "Democracy", he both acknowledges political problems and celebrates the hopes of reformers: "from the wars against disorder/ from the sirens night and day/ from the fires of the homeless/ from the ashes of the gay/ Democracy is coming to the USA." He made the observation in "Tower of Song" that "the rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor/ And there's a mighty judgment coming." In the title track of "The Future" he recasts this prophecy on a pacifist note: "I've seen the nations rise and fall/ ... / But love's the only engine of survival." In that same song he comments on current topics (abortion, anal sex and the use of drugs): "Give me crack and anal sex. Take the only tree that's left and stuff it up the hole in your culture", "Destroy another fetus now, we don't like children anyhow". In "Anthem", he promises that "the killers in high places [who] say their prayers out loud/ [are] gonna hear from me."


title: Leonard Cohen

text: War is an enduring theme of Cohen's work that—in his earlier songs and early life—he approached ambivalently. Challenged in 1974 over his serious demeanor in concerts and the military salutes he ended them with, Cohen remarked, "I sing serious songs, and I'm serious onstage because I couldn't do it any other way ... I don't consider myself a civilian. I consider myself a soldier, and that's the way soldiers salute."


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Deeply moved by encounters with Israeli and Arab soldiers, he left the country to write "Lover Lover Lover". This song has been interpreted as a personal renunciation of armed conflict, and ends with the hope his song will serve a listener as "a shield against the enemy". He would later remark, Lover, Lover, Lover' was born over there; the whole world has its eyes riveted on this tragic and complex conflict. Then again, I am faithful to certain ideas, inevitably. I hope that those of which I am in favour will gain." Asked which side he supported in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Cohen responded, "I don't want to speak of wars or sides ... Personal process is one thing, it's blood, it's the identification one feels with their roots and their origins. The militarism I practice as a person and a writer is another thing. ... I don't wish to speak about war."


title: Leonard Cohen

text: In 1991, playwright Bryden MacDonald launched "Sincerely, A Friend", a musical revue based on Cohen's music.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen is mentioned in the Nirvana song "Pennyroyal Tea" from the band's 1993 release, "In Utero". Kurt Cobain wrote, "Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld/So I can sigh eternally." Cohen, after Cobain's suicide, was quoted as saying "I'm sorry I couldn't have spoken to the young man. I see a lot of people at the Zen Centre, who have gone through drugs and found a way out that is not just Sunday school. There are always alternatives, and I might have been able to lay something on him." He is also mentioned in the lyrics of songs by Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, Mercury Rev and Marillion.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen was one of the inspirations for Matt Bissonnette and Steven Clark's 2002 film "Looking for Leonard". Centred on a group of small-time criminals in Montreal, one of the film's characters idolizes Cohen as a symbol of her dreams for a better life, obsessively rereading his writings and rewatching "Ladies and Gentlemen". Bissonnette followed up in 2020 with "Death of a Ladies' Man", a film that uses seven Cohen songs in its soundtrack to illuminate key themes in the film's screenplay.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: The Leonard Cohen song "So Long, Marianne" is the title of the season 4, episode 9 episode of "This is Us". The song is played and its meaning is discussed as an important plot point of the episode.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: In April 2022, author and journalist Matti Friedman published ""Who By Fire: War, Atonement, and the Resurrection of Leonard Cohen"" the story of Leonard Cohen's 1973 tour to the front lines of the Yom Kippur War.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Susan Cain, author of "" (2022), said that humorous references to Cohen as the "Poet Laureate of Pessimism" miss the point that Cohen's life suggests that "the quest to transform pain into beauty is one of the great catalysts of artistic expression". Cain dedicated the book "In memory of Leonard Cohen", quoting lyrics from Cohen's song "Anthem" (1992): "There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."


title: Leonard Cohen

text: "New York Times" critic A. O. Scott wrote that "Cohen wasn't one to offer comfort. His gift as a songwriter and performer was rather to provide commentary and companionship amid the gloom, offering a wry, openhearted perspective on the puzzles of the human condition". Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, creators of the 2022 documentary film "", acknowledged that Cohen was initially perceived as a "monster of gloom"; but Goldfine described Cohen as "one of the funniest guys ever" with "a very droll, dry wit", and Geller remarking, "Almost everything (Cohen) said came out with a twinkle in his eye". Long before his death, Cohen said "I feel I have a huge posthumous career in front of me".


title: Leonard Cohen

text: In September 1960, Cohen bought a house on the Greek island of Hydra with $1,500 that he had inherited from his grandmother. Cohen lived there with Marianne Ihlen, with whom he was in a relationship for most of the 1960s. The song "So Long, Marianne" was written to and about her. In 2016, Ihlen died of leukemia three months and nine days before Cohen. His farewell letter to her was read at her funeral, often misquoted by the media and others as "... our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine." This widely circulated version is based on an inaccurate verbal recollection by Ihlen's friend. The letter (actually an email), obtained through the Leonard Cohen estate, reads:


title: Leonard Cohen

text: In the spring of 1968, Cohen had a brief relationship with musician Janis Joplin while staying at the Chelsea Hotel, and the song of the same name references this relationship.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: In the 1970s, Cohen was in a relationship with artist Suzanne Elrod. She took the cover photograph for "Live Songs" and is pictured on the cover of the "Death of a Ladies' Man". She also inspired the "Dark Lady" of Cohen's book "Death of a Lady's Man" (1978), but is not the subject of one of his best-known songs, "Suzanne", which refers to Suzanne Verdal, the former wife of a friend, the Québécois sculptor Armand Vaillancourt. Cohen and Elrod separated in 1979; he later stated that "cowardice" and "fear" prevented him from marrying her. Their relationship produced two children: a son, Adam (b. 1972), and a daughter, Lorca (b. 1974), named after poet Federico García Lorca. Adam is a singer–songwriter and the lead singer of pop-rock band Low Millions, while Lorca is a photographer. She shot the music video for Cohen's song "Because Of" (2004), and worked as a photographer and videographer for his 2008–10 world tour. Cohen had three grandchildren: grandson Cassius through his son Adam, and granddaughter Viva (whose father is musician Rufus Wainwright) and grandson Lyon through Lorca.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen was in a relationship with French photographer Dominique Issermann in the 1980s. They worked together on several occasions: she shot his first two music videos for the songs "Dance Me to the End of Love" and "First We Take Manhattan" and her photographs were used for the covers of his 1993 book "Stranger Music" and his album "More Best of Leonard Cohen" and for the inside booklet of "I'm Your Man" (1988), which he also dedicated to her. In 2010, she was also the official photographer of his world tour.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: In the 1990s, Cohen was romantically linked to actress Rebecca De Mornay. De Mornay co-produced Cohen's 1992 album "The Future", which is also dedicated to her with an inscription that quotes Rebecca's coming to the well from the Book of Genesis chapter 24 and giving drink to Eliezer's camels, after he prayed for guidance; Eliezer ("God is my help" in Hebrew) is part of Cohen's Hebrew name (Eliezer ben Nisan ha'Cohen), and Cohen sometimes referred to himself as "Eliezer Cohen" or even "Jikan Eliezer".


title: Leonard Cohen

text: According to Suzanne Vega, interviewed by The New Yorker, his relationship with women was one of seduction, accompanied by a "secret handshake".


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen was described as a Sabbath-observant Jew in an article in "The New York Times": "Mr. Cohen keeps the Sabbath even while on tour and performed for Israeli troops during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. So how does he square that faith with his continued practice of Zen? 'Allen Ginsberg asked me the same question many years ago,' he said. 'Well, for one thing, in the tradition of Zen that I've practiced, there is no prayerful worship and there is no affirmation of a deity. So theologically there is no challenge to any Jewish belief.'"


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen had a brief phase around 1970 of being interested in a variety of world views, which he later described as "from the Communist party to the Republican Party" and "from Scientology to delusions of me as the High Priest rebuilding the Temple".


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen was involved with Buddhism beginning in the 1970s and was ordained a Rinzai Buddhist monk in 1996; he continued to consider himself Jewish: "I'm not looking for a new religion. I'm quite happy with the old one, with Judaism." Beginning in the late 1970s, Cohen was associated with Buddhist monk and rōshi (venerable teacher) Kyozan Joshu Sasaki, regularly visiting him at Mount Baldy Zen Center and serving him as personal assistant during Cohen's period of reclusion at Mount Baldy monastery in the 1990s. Sasaki appears as a regular motif or addressee in Cohen's poetry, especially in his "Book of Longing", and took part in a 1997 documentary about Cohen's monastery years, "Leonard Cohen: Spring 1996". Cohen's 2001 album "Ten New Songs" is dedicated to Joshu Sasaki.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Leonard also showed an interest in the teachings of Ramesh Balsekar, who taught from the tradition of Advaita Vedanta.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: In a 1993 interview titled "I am the little Jew who wrote the Bible", he said: "At our best, we inhabit a biblical landscape, and this is where we should situate ourselves without apology. [...] That biblical landscape is our urgent invitation ... Otherwise, it's really not worth saving or manifesting or redeeming or anything, unless we really take up that invitation to walk into that biblical landscape."


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen showed an interest in Jesus as a universal figure, saying, "I'm very fond of Jesus Christ. He may be the most beautiful guy who walked the face of this earth. Any guy who says 'Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the meek' has got to be a figure of unparalleled generosity and insight and madness ... A man who declared himself to stand among the thieves, the prostitutes and the homeless. His position cannot be comprehended. It is an inhuman generosity. A generosity that would overthrow the world if it was embraced because nothing would weather that compassion. I'm not trying to alter the Jewish view of Jesus Christ. But to me, in spite of what I know about the history of legal Christianity, the figure of the man has touched me."


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Speaking about his religion in a 2007 interview for BBC Radio 4's "Front Row" (partially re-broadcast on November 11, 2016), Cohen said: "My friend Brian Johnson said of me that I'd never met a religion I didn't like. That's why I've tried to correct that impression [that I was looking for another religion besides Judaism] because I very much feel part of that tradition and I practice that and my children practice it, so that was never in question. The investigations that I've done into other spiritual systems have certainly illuminated and enriched my understanding of my own tradition."


title: Leonard Cohen

text: At his concert in Ramat Gan on September 24, 2009, Cohen spoke Jewish prayers and blessings to the audience in Hebrew. He opened the show with the first sentence of Ma Tovu. At the middle, he used Baruch Hashem, and he ended the concert reciting the blessing of Birkat Kohanim.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen died on November 7, 2016, at the age of 82 at his home in Los Angeles; leukemia was a contributing cause. According to his manager, Cohen's death was the result of a fall at his home that evening, and he subsequently died in his sleep. His death was announced on November 10, the same day as his funeral, which was held in Montreal.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: As was his wish, Cohen was laid to rest with a Jewish rite, in a simple pine casket, in a family plot in the Congregation Shaar Hashomayim cemetery on Mount Royal.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Tributes were paid by numerous stars and political figures. Citizens and officials in Montreal considered honouring him by naming a street and other locations, including a library, after him.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: The city of Montreal held a tribute concert to Cohen in December 2016, titled "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot" after a prose poem in his novel "Beautiful Losers". It featured a number of musical performances and readings of Cohen's poetry.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: A memorial also took place in Los Angeles. Cohen was survived by his two children and three grandchildren.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: After Cohen's death, two tribute murals were created in the city the following summer. Artist Kevin Ledo painted a nine-story portrait of him near Cohen's home on Montreal's Plateau Mont-Royal, and a 20-story fedora-clad likeness on Crescent Street, commissioned by the city of Montreal and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts with Montreal artist Gene Pendon and L.A. artist El Mac, has dominated the city's downtown.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: On November 6, 2017, the eve of the first anniversary of Cohen's death, the Cohen family organized a memorial concert titled "Tower of Song" at the Bell Centre in Montreal. Fans and artists from all over the globe came together for an evening of spoken word and song that included performances by k.d. lang, Elvis Costello, Feist, Adam Cohen, Patrick Watson, Sting, Damien Rice, Courtney Love, The Lumineers, Lana Del Rey and more. The star-studded tribute also included Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, who appeared on stage to speak about their personal connection with Cohen's music.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: An interactive exhibit dedicated to the life and career of Leonard Cohen opened on November 9, 2017, at Montreal's contemporary art museum (MAC) titled "Leonard Cohen: Une Brèche en Toute Chose / A Crack in Everything" and ran until April 9, 2018. The exhibit had been in the works for several years prior to Cohen's death, as part of the official program of Montreal's 375th anniversary celebrations and broke the museum's attendance record in its five-month run. The exhibit embarked on an international tour, opening in New York City at the Jewish Museum in April 2019. A bronze statue of Cohen was unveiled in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, on August 31, 2019.


title: Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen is commemorated in the name of two species, both described in 2021: "Loxosceles coheni", a species of recluse spiders from Iran described by arachnologists Alireza Zamani, Omid Mirshamsi and Yuri M. Marusik, and "Cervellaea coheni", a species of weevils from South Africa described by entomologists Massimo Meregalli and Roman Borovec.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao Sr. (; born December17, 1978) is a Filipino politician and former professional boxer. Nicknamed "PacMan", he is regarded as one of the greatest professional boxers of all time. He previously served as a Senator of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao is the only eight-division world champion in the history of boxing and has won twelve major world titles. He was the first boxer to win the lineal championship in five different weight classes, the first boxer to win major world titles in four of the eight "glamour divisions" (flyweight, featherweight, lightweight, and welterweight), and is the only boxer to hold world championships across four decades (1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s). In July 2019, Pacquiao became the oldest welterweight world champion in history at the age of 40, and the first boxer in history to become a recognized four-time welterweight champion after defeating Keith Thurman to win the WBA (Super) welterweight title. As of 2015, Pacquiao's fights had generated $1.2 billion in revenue from his 25 pay-per-view bouts. According to "Forbes", he was the second highest paid athlete in the world in 2015.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao entered politics in 2010 when he was elected as the representative of Sarangani. He held this post for six years until he was elected and assumed office as a senator in 2016. He became the president of his party PDP–Laban in 2020 (which is disputed since 2021). On September 19, 2021, Pacquiao officially declared his candidacy for President of the Philippines in the 2022 Philippine presidential election, he ended up losing to Bongbong Marcos.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Outside of boxing and politics, Pacquiao was the head coach and a player for the Philippine Basketball Association team Kia/Mahindra for three seasons from 2014 to 2017, before founding the semi-professional Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League. He has also starred in films and has presented television shows. In music, he has released multiple PARI-certified platinum albums and songs; his cover of "Sometimes When We Touch" peaked at 19 in the United States on "Billboard"'s Adult Contemporary chart after a performance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". He is also an Evangelical Christian preacher, philanthropist, and entrepreneur.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao was born in Kibawe, Bukidnon and raised in General Santos, Philippines. He is the son of Rosalio Pacquiao and actress Dionisia Dapidran. His parents separated when he was in sixth grade, after his father had an affair. He is the fourth of six siblings, one of whom, Alberto "Bobby" Pacquiao, is also a politician and former professional boxer.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: At the age of 14, Pacquiao moved to Manila and lived on the streets, worked as a construction worker and had to pick between eating or sending money to his mother. Pacquiao completed his elementary education at Saavedra Saway Elementary School in General Santos City, but dropped out of high school due to extreme and abject poverty.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In February 2007, Pacquiao took and passed a high school equivalency exam, and was awarded with a high school diploma by the Department of Education.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Manny Pacquiao has an amateur record of 60–4 and a record of 62–8–2 as a professional, with 39 wins by knockout. Boxing historian Bert Sugar ranked Pacquiao as the greatest southpaw fighter of all time. In 2020, Pacquiao topped the Ranker's list of best boxers of the 21st century.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao made history by being the first boxer ever to win world titles in eight weight divisions, having won twelve major world titles, as well as being the first boxer to win the lineal championship in five different weight classes. Pacquiao is also the first boxer in history to win major world titles in four of the original eight weight classes of boxing, also known as the "glamour divisions" (flyweight, featherweight, lightweight and welterweight), and the first boxer ever to become a four-decade world champion, winning world championships across four decades (1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s).


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao was long rated as the best active boxer in the world, pound for pound, by most sporting news and boxing websites, including ESPN, "Sports Illustrated", "Sporting Life", Yahoo! Sports, About.com, BoxRec and "The Ring", beginning from his climb to lightweight until his losses in 2012. He is also the longest reigning top-ten active boxer on "The Ring"'s pound for pound list from 2003-2016.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao has generated approximately 20.4 million in pay-per-view (PPV) buys and $1.3 billion in revenue from 26 PPV-bouts. Per Forbes, he was the world's second highest paid athlete in 2015.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao signed with Bob Arum's Top Rank from 2015 to 2017 and Al Haymon's Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) promotion on 2018 alongside Paradigm Sports on 2020.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao was introduced to boxing at the age of 12 by his maternal uncle Sardo Mejia. According to his autobiography, Pacquiao said watching Mike Tyson's defeat of James "Buster" Douglas in 1990 with his Uncle Sardo as an experience that, "changed my life forever." Mejia began training his nephew in a makeshift home gym. After 6 months of training, Pacquiao began boxing in a park in General Santos eventually traveling to other cities to fight higher-ranked opponents. By age 15, he was considered the best junior boxer in the southern Philippines and he moved to Manila. In January 1995, at the age of 16, he made his professional boxing debut as a junior flyweight.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao stated of his early years, ""Many of you know me as a legendary boxer, and I'm proud of that. However, that journey was not always easy. When I was younger, I became a fighter because I had to survive. I had nothing. I had no one to depend on except myself. I realized that boxing was something I was good at, and I trained hard so that I could keep myself and my family alive"."


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: On December 4, 1998, at the age of 19, he won his first major title, the World Boxing Council (WBC) flyweight title.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Over the course of his decorated career, Pacquiao has defeated 22 world champions: Chatchai Sasakul, Lehlohonolo Ledwaba, Jorge Eliécer Julio, Marco Antonio Barrera (twice), Érik Morales (twice), Óscar Larios, Jorge Solís, Juan Manuel Márquez (twice), David Díaz, Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito, Shane Mosley, Brandon Ríos, Timothy Bradley (twice), Chris Algieri, Jessie Vargas, Lucas Matthysse, Adrien Broner and Keith Thurman.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao also participated in an exhibition match against former world champion Jesus Salud in August 2002 which he won.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao was named "Fighter of the Decade" for the 2000s by the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA), World Boxing Council (WBC), and World Boxing Organization (WBO). In 2006, 2008, and 2009, he was awarded "Ring" magazine, "ESPN" and BWAA's Fighter of the Year, and in 2009 and 2011 he won the Best Fighter ESPY Award. BoxRec ranks him as the greatest Asian fighter of all time. In 2016, Pacquiao ranked No. 2 on ESPN's list of top pound for pound boxers of the past 25 years and he ranks No.5 in BoxRec's ranking of the greatest pound for pound boxers of all time.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Manny Pacquiao is a holder of six Guinness Book World Records. He has the most consecutive boxing world title fight victories at different weights at 15, between 2005 and 2011; he is named the oldest welterweight boxing world champion when he claimed the WBA Welterweight title aged 40 years 215 days on July 20, 2019; he has the most boxing world titles won in different weight divisions with eight, when he defeated Antonio Margarito (USA) to win the WBC Super Welterweight title on November 13, 2010. He has also held sanctioned belts in the WBC Flyweight, Super Featherweight and Lightweight divisions, plus The Ring Featherweight, IBF Super Bantamweight, IBO and The Ring Light Welterweight and WBO Welterweight. He recorded the highest selling pay-per-view boxing match in a Welterweight title fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, on May 2, 2015, and the highest revenue earned from ticket sales for a boxing match from ticket sales title fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, on May 2, 2015.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao became the first Filipino Olympic non-participant to be Team Philippines' flag-bearer during the August 8 opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics at the Beijing National Stadium. Swimmer Miguel Molina, 2005 Southeast Asian Games' Best Male Athlete, yielded the honor to Pacquiao, upon the request of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to the national sports officials on the Philippines at the 2008 Summer Olympics. He had the opportunity to compete in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil, when professional boxers under the age of 40 were allowed to compete in the games for the first time. However Pacquiao, decided not to compete.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: "Forbes" listed Pacquiao as the world's equal sixth highest paid athlete, with a total of $40 million or ₱2 billion pesos from the second half of 2008 to the first half of 2009. Tied with him on the sixth spot was NBA player LeBron James and golfer Phil Mickelson. Pacquiao was again included in "Forbes"' list of highest paid athletes from the second half of 2009 to the first half of 2010; he was ranked eighth with an income of $42 million. Pacquiao also won the 2009 ESPY Awards for the Best Fighter category, beating fellow boxer Shane Mosley and Brazilian mixed martial arts fighters Lyoto Machida and Anderson Silva. ESPN Magazine reported that Pacquiao was one of the two top earning athletes for 2010, alongside American Major League Baseball player Alex Rodriguez. According to the magazine's annual salary report of athletes, Pacquiao earned $32 million (approximately PhP 1.38 billion) for his two 2010 boxing matches against Clottey and Margarito.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: On April 17, 2014, Pacquiao, a passionate basketball fan, announced his intention to join the Philippine Basketball Association as the playing coach of Kia Motors Basketball team, an incoming expansion team for the PBA's 2014–15 season. As the team's head coach, he asked other teams to not draft him before Kia, and picked himself 11th overall in the first round of the 2014 PBA draft, being the oldest rookie to be ever drafted in the league's history. Pacquiao played basketball as part of his training before his matches and prior to his PBA stint, Pacquiao was named an honorary member of the Boston Celtics and established friendships with Steph Curry and basketball Hall of Famers Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen. NBA player Karl-Anthony Towns cites Pacquiao as a "legend" & visited him along with Klay Thompson at training.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: On September 4, 2014, Pacquiao trained with the Golden State Warriors at their training facility in preparation for his PBA stint. On February 18, 2015, Pacquiao played briefly and scored one point when the Sorento pulled an 95–84 upset against Purefoods that tapped former NBA player Daniel Orton as their import for the conference, when asked about playing against him he said that Pacquiao as a basketball player was a "mockery of the game and a joke". Orton was fined by PBA commissioner Chito Salud and was replaced after a few days.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: On October 25, 2015, Pacquiao made his first field goal in the PBA in a 108–94 loss against the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters. On August 21, 2016, Pacquiao scored a career-high four points in a 97–88 victory against the Blackwater Elite, also sinking the first three-point field goal in his career. He appeared rarely in the succeeding seasons as he was focused on other commitments.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In 2017, Pacquiao founded the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League, a prominent semi-professional league in the Philippines. In 2018, although being rumored to transfer to Blackwater, Pacquiao officially announced his retirement from the league after playing just ten games in three seasons and scoring less than fifteen career points. He played one game for the Senate Defenders in a televised-amateur league and scored 12 points on that same year. In 2019, he announced that he is "planning to own an NBA team" after boxing retirement.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: On February 12, 2007, Pacquiao announced his campaign for a seat in the Philippine House of Representatives to represent the 1st District of South Cotabato province running as a candidate of the Liberal Party faction under Manila mayor Lito Atienza. Pacquiao, said he was persuaded to run by the local officials of General Santos, hoping he would act as a bridge between their interests and the national government. Ultimately Pacquiao was forced to run under the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (KAMPI), a pro-Arroyo political party by the courts. Pacquiao was defeated in the election by incumbent Rep. Darlene Antonino-Custodio of the Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC), who said, "More than anything, I think, people weren't prepared to lose him as their boxing icon."


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In preparation for his political career in the Filipino House of Representatives, Pacquiao enrolled in the Certificate Course in Development, Legislation, and Governance at the Development Academy of the Philippines – Graduate School of Public and Development Management (DAP-GSPDM).


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: On November 21, 2009, Pacquiao announced that he would run again for a congressional seat, but this time in Sarangani province, the hometown of his wife Jinkee. In May 2010, Pacquiao was elected to the House of Representatives in the 15th Congress of the Philippines, representing the province of Sarangani. He scored a landslide victory over the wealthy and politically well-entrenched Chiongbian clan that had been in power in the province for more than thirty years. Pacquiao got 120,052 votes while his opponent for the seat, Roy Chiongbian, got 60,899 votes.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In 2010, Pacquiao made a speech on human trafficking that earned praise. However, he also received criticism for coming out as uninformed during a discussion of the contentious reproductive health bill that same year.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In 2013, he was re-elected to the 16th Congress of the Philippines. He ran unopposed. Additionally, his wife, Jinkee, was also elected as vice-governor of Sarangani, while his younger brother, Rogelio lost his bid as congressman.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Because of other commitments, Pacquiao only attended one Congress session on the congress' final leg and was criticized for being the top absentee among lawmakers. Pacquiao filed a total of less than 20 bills in six years, with zero of them passing beyond committee.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: On October 5, 2015, Pacquiao formally declared that he was running for senator under the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) party of vice-president Jejomar Binay. On May 19, 2016, Pacquiao was formally elected as a senator by the Commission on Elections. Pacquiao garnered over 16 million votes, landing at 7th place.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao earlier aligned himself with the Duterte government. He facilitated on September 18, 2016, the ouster of Leila de Lima (a Duterte critic) from the chairmanship of the Senate Justice committee and criticized de Lima's presentation three days later of an alleged member of the Davao Death Squad.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In another Senate hearing, Pacquiao defended then-Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte from allegations of having a part, along with the vice mayor's alleged drinking buddy Charlie Tan and Kenneth Dong, in a 2017 seized ₱6.4-billion shipment of illegal drugs from Xiamen, China into the Philippines.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: As of 2018, Pacquiao has filed a total of 31 Senate bills during the 17th Congress. And in a bill filed alongside Senator Bato dela Rosa and Bong Go, he backed the return of capital punishment.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In June 2019, the Philippine Senate released a data showing Pacquiao as having the worst attendance record among all senators in the 17th Congress, reflecting a struggle Pacquiao had since he was a congressman. Despite the poor attendance, he still managed to enact four laws from the bills he filed.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Pacquiao worked with Alibaba Group co-founder Jack Ma to help bring to the Philippines 50,000 COVID-19 test kits through their respective charity foundations.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In December 2020, Pacquiao became acting party president of PDP-Laban, the ruling political party, when Koko Pimentel resigned. However, the position will eventually become disputed between Pacquiao and Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi. Alfonso Cusi's faction through a vote decided that Pacquiao is no longer party president of PDP-Laban on July 17. Melvin Matibag, the deputy secretary-general of PDP-Laban, defended the vote, saying it was organized because the term limits of the party's officials had already expired. Pacquiao is still regarded by his faction as party president.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In May 2021, Senator Pacquiao filed a bill proposing to create the Philippine Boxing and Combat Sports Commission. The move, however, was lambasted by Senator Pia Cayetano who criticized the timing of the proposal in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Pacquiao earlier already tried filing the bill during the 17th Congress when Pacquiao and Senator Franklin Drilon made headlines after Pacquiao called out the latter and senior legislator to use his "common sense" during an interpellation about the topic while Pacquiao was apparently being coached by his advisers after struggling to answer Drilon.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In May 2022, Pacquiao called for the "speedy release" of fellow Senator Leila De Lima, who was detained for five years now, after witnesses against De Lima retracted their testimony. Pacquiao had earlier been vocal about De Lima's supposed links to a purported drug lord, Kerwin Espinosa, an allegation that led to De Lima's arrest and detention.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: As early as June 2020, Pacquiao's former promoter Bob Arum declared that the senator expressed that he will run in 2022 in a conversation with him uttering "Bob, I’m gonna run in 2022 and, when I win, I want you there at my inauguration.'” Speculations quickly spread around a possible Pacquiao run for president, backed by his own expression of interest in a presidential bid.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In June 2021, he expressed belief that Duterte's response towards China's claims in the South China Sea was lacking. Duterte rebuked Pacquiao for the statement, saying the latter lacked knowledge in foreign policy. The President also responded to a claim attributed to Pacquiao that the Duterte administration is more corrupt than those by his predecessors; Duterte challenged Pacquiao to name certain individuals or agencies, otherwise he will launch a negative campaign against the senator in the 2022 elections.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: A month after being asked about the possibility of him running in the postgame interview after losing his final boxing match against Yordenis Ugas, Pacquiao officially announced his presidential bid on September 19, 2021, during the National Assembly of the PDP-Laban, organized by his faction. On October 1, he formally registered his candidacy under the Cebu-based party PROMDI. This was in accordance with the "MP3 Alliance" established by PDP Laban under Pacquiao's faction with PROMDI, and the People's Champ Movement. Cusi in response to Pacquiao's filing of candidacy under PROMDI decided that he is no longer a member of PDP-Laban.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: His platforms include solving corruption and a promise of nationwide housing projects for the poor. Since the campaign period started on February, he had struggled in the presidential surveys with low ratings ranking fourth to fifth among the candidates, dropping to as low as 1.8 percent on the March 2022 poll by Publicus Asia and 8 percent on Pulse Asia with his disapproval rating going up.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In March 2022, amid recent news about frontrunner Bongbong Marcos unsettled tax dues amounting to 200 billion pesos, Pacquiao openly challenged Marcos to a one-on-one debate and made remarks against critics saying "he's not intelligent enough to be president" saying that "the most dumb in this country are those who are going to vote for a plunderer". Pacquiao only placed third in the election and later conceded to Marcos, who won by a landslide.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: With growing fame, Pacquiao became a celebrity and was obligated to start his acting and hosting career with guest appearances on ABS-CBN shows. He signed a contract as an actor & host with ABS-CBN short-after.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In December 2005, Pacquiao took his first lead role in Violett Films' "Lisensyadong Kamao" (Licensed Fist). The film is titled so because (according to director Tony Bernal), being a boxer, Pacquiao is licensed to use his hands.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In 2008, Pacquiao starred with Ara Mina and Valerie Concepcion in "Anak ng Kumander" (Child of a Commander). The movie was not a commercial success and was panned by critics.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao starred in the superhero/comedy film entitled "Wapakman", which was released on December 25, 2009, as an entry to the 2009 Metro Manila Film Festival. Like his previous films, "Wapakman" was not commercially successful.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Upon the expiration of his contract with ABS-CBN, Pacquiao signed with GMA Network as an actor and host in September 2007. On December 17, 2007, he taped his first episode of the networks infotainment show "Pinoy Records". His other projects with the network included "Totoy Bato" and the sitcom "Show Me Da Manny", where he appeared as Marian Rivera's onscreen loveteam, and in which his mother, Dionisia, also appeared. He also hosted his own game show Manny Many Prizes where he gave out prizes to his audience.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In 2020, he was cast to portray General Miguel Malvar in the upcoming biopic film "" about the Philippine hero, which gained mixed reactions from the Malvar family. Gabriel, grandson of General Malvar's youngest child Pablo, worries that Pacquiao's fame might overshadow his movie character. While Villegas, son of Malvar's daughter Isabel, supports the casting.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao recorded songs to use as entrance music for his fights and released them on two albums that were certified platinum locally in the Philippines. Most of the Tagalog songs of Pacquiao were composed by Lito Camo who wrote Pacquiao's biggest hit and primarily known song "Para Sayo ang Laban Na 'To".


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: On November 3, 2009, Pacquiao covered "Sometimes When We Touch", originally by Dan Hill, on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", marking his first singing performance on American TV. He went back to the late-night talk show on March 3, 2010, to cover another song, "Nothing's Gonna Change My Love for You". He would later record Dan Hill's hit in April 2011 as a single which reached number 19 on the "Billboard" Adult Contemporary chart. It made Pacquiao one of the few Southeast Asians to enter a US "Billboard" chart. He also appeared with Will Ferrell and sang a version of John Lennon's "Imagine" for his third guesting on the show. His appearances on the show led to Canadian rapper Drake impersonating him and making fun of his singing by creating a parody. Pacquiao responded by posting another video of himself singing. In 2015, he released an extended play that featured his own recorded entrance song for his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and shortly announced his retirement from music, being quoted saying "I love music, but music is not for me".


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: A film based on Pacquiao's life, "", was released on June 21, 2006, featuring Filipino actor Jericho Rosales as Manny Pacquiao and was directed by Joel Lamangan. The film flopped at the box office, grossing a total of only P4,812,191 (approximately US$99,322), as confirmed by Lamangan.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Another film, based on Pacquiao's early life in boxing, "Kid Kulafu", was released on April 15, 2015, featuring young actor Robert Villar as Emmanuel "Manny" Pacquiao. The film dramatizes the life of the Filipino boxing superstar during his childhood.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: A documentary entitled "Manny", which featured Pacquiao's early life as well as his boxing and political career, was released with Liam Neeson as the narrator.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao has featured in the "Fight Night" boxing video game franchise as a playable character. The playable character Paquito, in the mobile game, "" was also inspired from Pacquiao. A skin was also made available for Paquito which changes the character's appearance to that of the real life boxer. Filipino game developer Ranida Games announced in 2021 that a mobile game revolving around Pacquiao's boxing career "Fighting Pride: The Manny Pacquiao Saga" is in the works.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao was one of "Time's" 100 most influential people for the year 2009, for his exploits in boxing and his influence among the Filipino people. Pacquiao was also included by "Forbes" in its annual Celebrity 100 list for the year 2009, joining Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie and fellow athletes Woods and Bryant.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao has also appeared on the cover of "Time" magazine Asia for their November 16, 2009 issue. According to their five-page feature story, "(Pacquiao is) a fighter with enough charisma, intelligence and backstory to help rescue a sport lost in the labyrinth of pay-per-view. Global brands like Nike want him in their ads." They also added, "Pacquiao has a myth of origin equal to that of any Greek or Roman hero. He leaves the Philippines to make it even bigger, conquering the world again and again to bring back riches to his family and friends." Pacquiao became the eighth Filipino to grace the cover of the prestigious magazine, after former Philippine presidents Manuel L. Quezon, Ramon Magsaysay, Ferdinand Marcos, Corazon Aquino, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III and Filipino actress and environmentalist Chin Chin Gutierrez. Pacquiao was also featured on the cover of Reader's Digest Asia, where a seven-page story was written about the Filipino boxing superstar. The issue came out in November 2008, before Pacquiao's fight against De La Hoya.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao is also mentioned in some hip hop tracks including Kool A.D.'s song entitled "Manny Pacquiao" on his mixtape, "51". A few notable ones are Pitbull's "Get It Started", A$AP Rocky's "Phoenix", Bad Meets Evil and Bruno Mars' "Lighters", Eminem and Skylar Grey's "Asshole", Future's "Never Gon' Lose", Migos' "Chinatown", Nicki Minaj and Ciara's "I'm Legit" and Rick Ross's "High Definition", Jelo Acosta's "Just Like Manny P," and Yung Gravy's "Betty" to name a few.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: A video clip of Pacquiao greeting his followers for New Year's Eve was used as a meme in the Internet.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: On November 26, 2013, a few days after Pacquiao's victory over Brandon Ríos, the Philippine Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) issued a freeze order on all of Pacquiao's Philippine bank accounts due to his alleged failure to pay ₱2.2 billion in taxes for earnings he made in his fights in the United States from 2008 to 2009. A day after the bank account freeze, the BIR also issued an order to freeze all of Pacquiao's Philippine properties, whereupon Pacquiao presented documents to the press showing the income tax for non-resident alien payment by his promoter to the BIR's US counterpart, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as well as a letter from Bob Arum. In April 2017, Pacquiao, now a senator, approached Philippine authorities in an attempt to settle the case. The BIR had maintained that taxes were due even if all taxes had been paid to the IRS in the first place.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In February 2016, Pacquiao, in a video statement posted by TV5, made a comment on the issue of same-sex marriage. Pacquiao, in vernacular, described people in same-sex marriages as behaving worse than animals because, he said, animals generally do not have same-sex mating. LGBT celebrities criticized the statements of the senatorial candidate. Pacquiao later apologized and stated that while, as a Christian, he is still against same-sex marriage, which he said is against Biblical teachings, he did not condemn gay people themselves. Nike ended their longtime partnership with Pacquiao, stating his comments against gay people were abhorrent. The Grove at Farmers Market in Los Angeles also banned Pacquiao from the shopping mall.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao married Jinkee Jamora on May 10, 1999. Together, they have five children, Emmanuel Jr. (Jimuel), Michael Stephen, Mary Divine Grace (Princess) who is a popular YouTube vlogger with millions of subscribers and started the Pacquiao family's network of YouTube content, Queen Elizabeth (Queenie) and Israel. His first son, Jimuel, also rose to celebrity fame as an amateur boxer, model & actor, while his second son, Michael, is a rapper, who has amassed tens of millions of streams with his songs. His daughter, Queenie, was born in the United States. He resides in his hometown of General Santos, South Cotabato, Philippines. As the congressman representing the lone district of Sarangani from 2010 to 2016, he officially resided in Kiamba, Sarangani, the hometown of his wife. Upon his election to the Senate of the Philippines, he returned his official residence to General Santos, as Senators are elected on a nationwide basis, rather than by district.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao has a YouTube channel with 830,000 subscribers as of August 2022. The Pacquiao family constantly posts content about their activities together in their own separate YouTube channels. His daughter, Mary and his wife Jinkee both have one million subscribers and his sons Jimuel and Michael each have fewer than 600,000.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: On June 25, 2010, Pacquiao completed a 10-day crash course on Development Legislation and Governance at the Graduate School of Public and Development Management of the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP).


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao was officially enrolled for two semesters at Notre Dame of Dadiangas University (NDDU) in the Academic Year 2007-2008 under the bachelor's degree of business administration major in marketing management program, however, Pacquiao was not able to finish the program and NDDU did not grant him a college degree.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: From June 8 to 17, 2016, Pacquiao underwent another 9-day Executive Coaching Program crash course conducted by the Development Academy of the Philippines, the Ateneo School of Government, the Asian Institute of Management, and the Philippine Public Safety College after he won a senate seat in 2016.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: On December 11, 2019, Pacquiao controversially graduated from the University of Makati with a bachelor's degree in political science; majoring in local government administration through the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program (ETEEAP) of the Philippine Councilors League-Legislative Academy (PCCLA) which allows qualified Filipinos to complete a collegiate-level education via informal education system. Pacquiao reportedly completed the degree in one year, contrary to earlier reports of three months.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Raised Catholic, Pacquiao is currently practicing and preaching Evangelical Protestantism. Pacquiao said he once had a dream where he saw a pair of angels and heard the voice of Godthis dream convinced him to become a devout believer.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: Pacquiao enlisted as a military reservist and was promoted with the rank of colonel in the Reserve Force of the Philippine Army. Prior to being promoted to full colonel after finishing his General Staff Course (GSC) schooling, he held the rank of lieutenant colonel for being a member of the Philippine Congress as per the AFP's regulations for reservist officers. He first entered the army's reserve force on April 27, 2006, as a sergeant. Later, he rose to Technical Sergeant on December 1 of the same year. On October 7, 2007, he became a Master Sergeant, the highest rank for enlisted personnel. On May 4, 2009, he was given the special rank of Senior Master Sergeant and was also designated as the Command Sergeant Major of the 15th Ready Reserve Division.


title: Manny Pacquiao

text: In 2022, Pacquiao graduated from Philippine Christian University, with a master's degree in management, majoring in public administration.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi (, ; "" ) is the capital and second-most populous city (after Dubai) of the United Arab Emirates. It is also the capital of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the centre of the Abu Dhabi Metropolitan Area.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The city of Abu Dhabi is located on an island in the Persian Gulf, off the Central West Coast. Most of the city and the Emirate reside on the mainland connected to the rest of the country. , Abu Dhabi's urban area had an estimated population of 1.5 million, out of 2.9 million in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, as of 2016. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is headquartered in the city, and was the world's 5th largest sovereign wealth fund in 2021. Abu Dhabi itself has over a trillion US dollars worth of assets under management in a combination of various sovereign wealth funds headquartered there.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi houses local and federal government offices and is the home of the United Arab Emirates Government and the Supreme Petroleum Council. The city is home to the President of the UAE, who is a member of the Al Nahyan family. Abu Dhabi's rapid development and urbanization, coupled with the massive oil and gas reserves and production and relatively high average income, have transformed it into a large, developed metropolis. It is the country's center of politics and industry, and a major culture and commerce center. Abu Dhabi accounts for about two-thirds of the roughly $400 billion UAE economy.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The area surrounding Abu Dhabi is full of archaeological evidence from historical civilizations, such as the Umm an-Nar Culture, which dates back from the third millennium BC. Other settlements were also found farther outside the modern city of Abu Dhabi, including the eastern and western regions of the Emirate.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: "Abu" is Arabic for father, and "Dhabi" is the Arabic word for gazelle. "Abu Dhabi" means "Father of Gazelle." It is thought that this name came about because of the abundance of gazelles in the area and a folk tale involving Shakhbut bin Dhiyab al Nahyan.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The Bani Yas was originally centered on the Liwa Oasis in the western region of the Emirate. This tribe was the most significant in the area, having over 20 subsections. In 1793, the ruling "Al Bu Falah" subsection migrated to the island of Abu Dhabi on the coast of the Persian Gulf due to the discovery of fresh water there. The genealogically senior family within this section was the Nahyan family, which is now the ruling family of Abu Dhabi.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The pearl diving business was a key industry prior to the discovery of oil reserves. According to a source about pearling, the Persian Gulf was the best location for pearls. Pearl divers dive for one to three minutes and would have dove up to thirty times per day. There were no air tanks and any other sort of mechanical device was forbidden. The divers had a leather nose clip and leather coverings on their fingers and big toes to protect them while they searched for oysters. The divers were not paid for a day's work but received a portion of the season's earnings.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In the 19th century, as a result of treaties (known as "truces" which gave the coast its name) entered into between Great Britain and the sheikhs of the Arab States of the Persian Gulf, Britain became the predominant influence in the area. The main purpose of British interest was to protect the trade route to India from pirates, hence, the earlier name for the area, the "Pirate Coast". After piracy was suppressed, other considerations came into play, such as a strategic need of the British to exclude other powers from the region. Following their withdrawal from India in 1947, the British maintained their influence in Abu Dhabi as interest in the oil potential of the Persian Gulf grew.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In the mid to late 1930s, as the pearl trade declined, interest grew in the oil possibilities of the region. On 5 January 1936, Petroleum Development Trucial Coast Ltd (PDTC), an associate company of the Iraq Petroleum Company, entered into a concession agreement with the ruler, Sheikh Shakhbut bin Sultan Al Nahyan, to explore for oil. This was followed by a seventy-five-year concession signed in January 1939. However, owing to the desert terrain, inland exploration was fraught with difficulties. In 1953, D'Arcy Exploration Company, the exploration arm of BP, obtained an offshore concession which was then transferred to a company created to operate the concession: Abu Dhabi Marine Areas (ADMA) was a joint venture between BP and Compagnie Française des Pétroles (later Total). In 1958, using a marine drilling platform, the ADMA Enterprise, oil was struck in the Umm Shaif field at a depth of about . This was followed in 1959 by PDTC's onshore discovery well at Murban No.3.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In 1962, the company discovered the Bu Hasa field and ADMA followed in 1965 with the discovery of the Zakum offshore field. Today, in addition to the oil fields mentioned, the main producing fields onshore are Asab, Sahil and Shah, and offshore are al-Bunduq, and Abu al-Bukhoosh.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The city of Abu Dhabi is on the southeastern side of the Arabian Peninsula, adjoining the Persian Gulf. It is on an island less than from the mainland and is joined to the mainland by the Maqta and Mussafah Bridges. A third, Sheikh Zayed Bridge, designed by Zaha Hadid, opened in late 2010. Abu Dhabi Island is also connected to Saadiyat Island by a five-lane motorway bridge. Al-Mafraq bridge connects the city to Reem Island and was completed in early 2011. This is a multi-layer interchange bridge and it has 27 lanes which allow roughly 25,000 automobiles to move per hour. There are three major bridges in the project, the largest has eight lanes, four leaving Abu Dhabi city and four coming in.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Most of Abu Dhabi city is located on the island itself, but it has many suburban districts on the mainland, for example, Khalifa City A, B, and C; Khalifa City Al Raha Beach; Al Bahia City A, B, and C; Al Shahama; Al Rahba; Between Two Bridges; Baniyas; Shamkha; Al Wathba and Mussafah Residential.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Gulf waters of Abu Dhabi holds the world's largest population of Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphins. To the east of the island is the Mangrove National Park, located on Al Qurm Corniche. "Al-Qurm" () is Arabic for "The Mangrove".


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification "BWh"). Sunny blue skies can be expected throughout the year. The months of June through September are generally extremely hot and humid with maximum temperatures averaging above , mainly occurring during the peak summer months of July and August. During this time, sandstorms occur intermittently, in some cases reducing visibility to a few meters.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The cooler season is from November to March, which ranges between moderately hot to mild. This period also sees dense fog on some days and a few days of rain. On average, January is the coolest month of the year, while August is the hottest. Since the Tropic of Cancer passes through the emirate, the southern part falls within the Tropics. However, despite the coolest month having an average, its climate is far too dry to be classed as tropical.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Under the rule of the Department of Municipal Affairs, the city is part of the Central Capital District, which is separate from the eastern and western municipal regions of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The main settlement of the eastern region, officially "Al Ain Region" since a decree by Sheikh Khalifa in March 2017, is Al Ain City, and that of the western region, officially "Al Dhafra Region" as per the same decree, is Madinat Zayed.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Councils such as the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council and the Regulation and Supervision Bureau are responsible for infrastructure projects in the city. Finances are mainly through the state government. Because Abu Dhabi is the capital of the UAE, the president's office is located here.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The Abu Dhabi Government Media Office (ADGMO) was formed in 2019 and is responsible for representing the government in the media, organizing press conferences for the emirate and monitoring local and international media. It is a state-sponsored organization that communicates the latest developments in the capital, and the emirate's vision, values and traditions.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The city was planned under the guidance of Sheikh Zayed by Japanese architect Katsuhiko Takahashi in 1967 initially for a population of 40,000. The density of Abu Dhabi varies, with high employment density in the central area, high residential densities in central downtown and lower densities in the suburban districts. In the dense areas, most of the concentration is achieved with medium- and high-rise buildings. Abu Dhabi's skyscrapers such as the notable Burj Mohammed bin Rashid (World Trade Center Abu Dhabi), Etihad Towers, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority Tower, the National Bank of Abu Dhabi headquarters, the Baynunah (Hilton Hotel) Tower. and the Etisalat headquarters are usually found in the financial districts of Abu Dhabi. Other notable modern buildings include the Aldar Headquarters, the first circular skyscraper in the middle east and the Emirates Palace with its design inspired by Arab heritage.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The development of tall buildings has been encouraged in the Abu Dhabi Plan 2030, which will lead to the construction of many new skyscrapers over the next decade, particularly in the expansion of Abu Dhabi's central business district such as the new developments on Al Maryah Island and Al Reem Island. Abu Dhabi already has a number of supertall skyscrapers under construction throughout the city. Some of the tallest buildings on the skyline include the Central Market Residential Tower, the The Landmark and the 74-story, Sky Tower, all of them completed. Also, many other skyscrapers over (500 ft) are either proposed or approved and could transform the city's skyline. , there were 62 high-rise buildings under construction, approved for construction, or proposed for construction.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The Sheikh Zayed Mosque represents a key fixture of the city's architectural patrimony. Its construction was initiated under the administration of the late President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, a key figure in the foundation of the modern UAE.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The mosque was constructed with materials from countries around the world, including Italy, Germany, Morocco, Pakistan, India, Turkey, Iran, China, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Greece, and the United Arab Emirates. More than 3,000 workers and 38 contracting companies took part in the construction of the mosque. Consideration of durability motivated the choice of many materials specified in the design of the structure. These materials include marble, stone, gold, semi-precious stones, crystals, and ceramics. Construction began on 5 November 1996. The building is large enough to safely contain a maximum of approximately 41,000 people. The overall structure is . The internal prayer halls were initially opened in December 2007.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: As one of the most visited buildings in the UAE, the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Center was established to manage the day-to-day operations, as a place of worship and Friday gathering and as a center of learning and discovery through its education and visitor programs.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In July 2019, the Grand Mosque was listed among the top global attractions by TripAdvisor. As a part of its Travelers Choice Awards, the travel website placed the architectural masterpiece on number three out of the 750 landmarks considered from 68 countries.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In May 2021, the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Center attended the Arabian Travel Market 2021 exhibition. This was part of the center's core strategy to be active in the religious and cultural aspects of society.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The Founder's Memorial, a monument and visitor center in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a memorial to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the first President of the United Arab Emirates, who died in 2004. The memorial consists of an open Heritage Garden and Sanctuary Garden at the center of which is a cubic pavilion housing The Constellation, an artwork dedicated to Zayed's memory.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The UAE Presidential Palace, "Qaṣr Al-Waṭan" ("Palace of the Nation"), opened to the public in March 2019. It was built on the grounds of Ladies beach and construction was finished in 2018.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In September 2019, the construction of UAE's first official synagogue was announced to begin in 2020, as a part of the multi-faith "Abrahamic Family House" complex in Abu Dhabi. It will also give space to a mosque and a church, the full construction of which was announced to be completed by 2022.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: On 22 September 2019, the Department of Community Development (DCD) in Abu Dhabi held a ceremony to grant licenses to 17 churches and the first-ever traditional Hindu temple. The listed churches were Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches, including St Joseph's Cathedral. The initiative was taken under the slogan "A Call for Harmony", to allow people from all religions and cultures to practice their faith in the country.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Qasr Al Hosn is the oldest building in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, built by the Bani Yas tribe in 1761. It was once the seat of the government and the palace of the ruling Al Nahyan family. Today, it is a museum open to all visitors portraying the history of Abu Dhabi and early lifestyles.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The UAE's large hydrocarbon wealth gives it one of the highest GDP per capita in the world and Abu Dhabi owns the majority of these resources—95% of the oil and 92% of gas. Abu Dhabi thus holds 9% of the world's proven oil reserves (98.2bn barrels) and almost 5% of the world's natural gas (). As of April 2022 oil production in the UAE was about 3.0 million barrels per day (BPD). The UAE is looking to expand its maximum production capacity from approximately 4 million BPD to 5 million BPD by 2030. In recent years, the focus has turned to gas as increasing domestic consumption for power, desalination and reinjection of gas into oil fields increases demand. Gas extraction is not without its difficulties, however, as demonstrated by the sour gas project at Shah where the gas is rich in hydrogen sulfide content and expensive to develop and process.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In 2009, the government diversified its economic plans. Served by high oil prices, the country's non-oil and gas GDP outstripped that attributable to the energy sector. Non-oil and gas GDP now constitutes 64% of the UAE's total GDP. This trend is reflected in Abu Dhabi with substantial new investment in industry, real estate, tourism and retail. As Abu Dhabi is the largest oil producer of the UAE, it has reaped the most benefits from this trend. It has taken on an active diversification and liberalization program to reduce the UAE's reliance on the hydrocarbon sector. This is evident in the emphasis on industrial diversification with the completion of free zones, Industrial City of Abu Dhabi, twofour54 Abu Dhabi media free zone and the construction of another, ICAD II, in the pipeline. There has also been a drive to promote tourism and real estate with the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority and the Tourism and Development Investment Company undertaking several large-scale development projects. These will be served by improved transport infrastructure, with a new port, an expanded airport and a proposed rail link between Abu Dhabi and Dubai all in the development stages.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi's Emirate is the wealthiest of the UAE in terms of Gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita income. More than $1 trillion is invested worldwide in the city. In 2010, the GDP per capita reached $49,600, which ranks ninth in the world. Taxation in Abu Dhabi, as in the rest of the UAE, is nil for a resident or a non-bank, non-oil company. Abu Dhabi is also planning many future projects sharing with the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) and taking 29% of all the GCC future plannings. The UAE has a fast-growing economy: in 2006 the per capita income grew by 9%, providing a GDP per capita of $49,700 and ranking third in the world at purchasing power parity. Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), currently estimated at $875 billion, is the world's wealthiest sovereign fund in terms of total asset value. Etihad Airways maintains its headquarters in Abu Dhabi.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi's government is looking to expand revenue from oil and gas production to tourism and other things that would attract different types of people. This goal is seen in the amount of attention Abu Dhabi is giving its International Airport. The airport experienced a 30%+ growth in passenger usage in 2009. This idea of diversifying the economy is also seen in the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030 planned by the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council. In this plan, Abu Dhabi's economy will be sustainable and not dependent on any single source of revenue. More specifically the non-oil portion of income is planned to be increased from about 40% to about 70%. As of July 2019, Abu Dhabi allocated $163 million to finance global entertainment partners as part of its plan to diversify the economy and wean it off oil.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Many Hollywood and other national film production teams have used parts of the UAE as filming locations. Neighboring Dubai gets a lot of attention, but in recent years Abu Dhabi has become a popular destination. The Etihad Towers and Emirates Palace Hotel were some of the city's landmarks used as filming locations for the movie "Furious 7", in which cars rush through the building and smashed through the windows of the towers.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In 2018, Abu Dhabi launched Ghadan 21, a string of initiatives to diversify the economy. The total injection is AED 50 billion.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: There are four main areas these initiatives must fall under business and investment, society, knowledge and innovation and lifestyle. The first phase includes over 50 initiatives that reflect the priorities of citizens, residents and investors.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In 2020, low oil prices and the COVID-19 pandemic pressed the regional banks of Abu Dhabi to cut off their employees. In July, UAE's third-largest lender, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) laid off 400 employees, breaking its commitment to not cut staff due to the crisis.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The desalinated water supply and power production are managed by the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority (ADWEA). , it supplied 560.2 MiGD (million imperial gallons per day) of water, while the water demand for 2005–06 was estimated to be 511 MiGD. The Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi (EAD) states that groundwater is the most significant source of water, as well as desalinated potable water, and treated sewage effluent. At 40.6 MiGD, the Umm Al Nar storage is the largest water source for Abu Dhabi, followed by the rivers Shuweihat and Taweelah. With falling groundwater level and rising population density, Abu Dhabi faces a severely acute water shortage.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi daily produces 1,532 tonnes of solid wastes which are dumped at three landfill sites by the Abu Dhabi Municipality. The daily domestic wastewater production is 330 MiGD and industrial waste water is 40 MiGD. A large portion of the sewerage flows as waste into streams, and separation plants.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The city's per capita electricity consumption is about 41,000 kWh and the total supplied is 8,367 MW . The distribution of electricity is carried out by companies run by SCIPCO Power and APC Energy. As part of UAE's Energy Strategy 2050 to reduce the carbon emission of power generation by 70%, Noor Abu Dhabi solar park project which is the largest solar project in the world was completed on 2 July 2019.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The Abu Dhabi Fire Service runs 13 fire stations that attend about 2,000 fire and rescue calls per year.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: State-owned Etisalat and private du communication companies provide telephone and cell phone service to the city. Cellular coverage is extensive, and both GSM and CDMA (from Etisalat and Du) services are available. Etisalat, the government-owned telecommunications provider, held a virtual monopoly over telecommunication services in Abu Dhabi prior to the establishment of other, smaller telecommunications companies such as Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC – better known as Du) in 2006. The Internet was introduced into Abu Dhabi in 1995. The current network is supported by a bandwidth of 6 GB, with 50,000 dialup and 150,000 broadband ports.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Etisalat announced implementing a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network in Abu Dhabi during the third quarter of 2009 to make the emirate the world's first city to have such a network.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi in the 1970s was planned for a predicted topmost population of 600,000. Following the urban planning ideals of the time period, the city has high-density tower blocks and wide grid-pattern roads.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The population density is at its apex on the most northerly part of the island. At this point, the main streets have a large amount of 20- to 30-story towers. These towers are in a rectangular pattern, and inside is an ordinary grid pattern of roads with low rise buildings such as 2-story villas or 6-story low-rise buildings.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Due to this planning, a modern city with tall offices, apartment buildings, broad boulevards, and busy shops is present. Principal thoroughfares are the Corniche, Airport Road, Sheikh Zayed Street, Hamdan Street, and Khalifa Street. Abu Dhabi is known in the region for its greenery; the former desert strip today includes numerous parks and gardens. The design of the inner city roads and main roads are quite organized. Starting from the Corniche, all horizontal streets are oddly numbered, while all vertical streets are evenly numbered. Thus, the Corniche is Street No. 1, Khalifa Street is Street No. 3, Hamdan Street is Street No. 5, Electra Street is Street No. 7 and so on. Conversely, Salam Street is St No. 8.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Mail is generally delivered to post-office boxes only; however, there is door-to-door delivery for commercial organizations. There are many parks throughout the city. Entrance is usually free for children, however, there is often an entrance fee for adults. The Corniche, the city's seaside promenade, is about in length, with gardens, playgrounds, and a BMX/skateboard ring.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In 2007 the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC) was established, which is the agency responsible for the future of Abu Dhabi's urban environments and the expert authority behind the visionary Plan Abu Dhabi 2030 Urban Structure Framework Plan that was published in September 2007. The UPC is also working on similar plans for the regions of Al-Ain and Al-Gharbia.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Because of the rapid development of Abu Dhabi, a number of challenges to the city's urban organization have developed, among them:


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In 2018, Abu Dhabi was ranked the safest city in the world for the second year running by the statistical analysis website Numbeo.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Human rights organisations have heavily criticized violations of human rights in Abu Dhabi. As with other parts of the UAE, foreign workers are not given proper treatment and many companies (both government and private) have yet to improve working conditions.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: As the emirate covers , nearly 87% of the UAE, the population density is , making it the largest emirate in the UAE.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi also ranks as the 67th most expensive city in the world and the second-most in the region behind Dubai.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: , 477,000 of 2,650,000 people living in the emirate were UAE nationals. Approximately 80% of the population were expatriates. The median age in the emirate was about 30.1 years. The crude birth rate, , was 13.6%, while the crude death rate was about 2%.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Article 7 of the UAE's Provisional Constitution declares Islam the official state religion of the UAE.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The majority of the inhabitants of Abu Dhabi are migrant workers from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Philippines, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Serbia and various countries from across the Arab world. Some of these expatriates have been in the country for decades with only a few of them awarded citizenship. Consequently, English, Hindi-Urdu (Hindustani), Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi, Tulu, Somali, Tigrinya, Amharic and Bengali are widely spoken.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The native-born population are Arabic-speaking Arabs who are part of a clan-based society. The Al Nahyan family, part of the al-Falah branch of the Bani Yas clan, rules the emirate and has a central place in society. There are also Arabs who are from other parts of the Arab World.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: One of the busiest streets in Abu Dhabi is the Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Street, also known as Salam Street, which goes near Al Qurm Corniche. Corniche is also the other main street in Abu Dhabi, it overlooks the Persian Gulf.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH) is the city's main aviation hub and the second busiest airport in the UAE. Passenger numbers at Abu Dhabi International Airport rose by 17.2 percent in 2015, with more than 23 million travelers passing through its terminals during that year. A 2nd runway and new terminal was also built recently.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Al Bateen Executive Airport was the old international airport in Abu Dhabi until the one above opened in 1982. Now it is used by the small military commercial planes.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: On 30 June 2019, the Department of Community Development (DCD) in Abu Dhabi officially inaugurated a multi-faith prayer room at Abu Dhabi International Airport. Located away from the main airport, the prayer room aims at enhancing the country's "position as an international hub for tolerance".


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Public transport systems in Abu Dhabi include the Abu Dhabi public buses, taxis, ferries, and hydroplanes.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Street taxis are easily recognized. They are either silver with a yellow roof sign (newer taxis) or white and gold with a green roof sign (older taxis). All the old taxis have been phased out. There are no old taxis available for transportation anymore.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The first town bus entered service in about 1969 but this was all part of a very informal service. There are other inter-city buses departing the Abu Dhabi central bus station; these inter-city buses are not only intra-emirate buses, but also inter-emirate services. On 30 June 2008, the Department of Transport began public bus service in Abu Dhabi with four routes. There are also public buses serving the airport. In an attempt to entice people to use the bus system, all routes were zero-fare until the end of 2008. The four routes, which operate between 6 am and midnight every day, run at a frequency of 10 to 20 minutes.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Within the first week of service, the bus network had seen high usage. Some of the buses, which have a maximum capacity of 45 passengers, only had room for standing left. Some bus drivers reported as many as 100 passengers on a bus at one time. Due to the new, zero-fare bus service success, many taxi drivers were losing business. Taxi drivers have seen a considerable decrease in the demand for taxis while lines were forming for the buses.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The service steadily expanded and by the end of 2008, 230 buses were in service. In 2009, the Department of Transport plans to have 21 bus routes in the city, operated by 820 buses. A total of 1,360 buses are expected to be in operation by 2010.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: A massive expansion of public transport is anticipated within the framework of the government's Surface Transport Master Plan 2030. The expansion is expected to see of metro and of tramways and/or bus rapid transit (BRT) routes.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The Emirate has many ports. One is Port Zayed. The others are Musaffah Port and Khalifa Port, which opened in 2012.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi has a diverse and multicultural society. The city's cultural imprint as a small, ethnically homogeneous pearling community was changed with the arrival of other ethnic groups and nationals—first by the Iranians in the early 1900s, and later by various Asian and European ethnicities in the 1950s and 1960s. Abu Dhabi has been criticised for perpetuating a class-based society, where migrant workers are in the lower classes, and suffer abuse which "is endemic to the system". Major holidays in Abu Dhabi include "Eid al Fitr", which marks the end of "Ramadan", Eid ul-Adha which marks the end of Hajj, and National Day (2 December), which marks the formation of the United Arab Emirates.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: This unique socioeconomic development in the Persian Gulf has meant that Abu Dhabi is generally more tolerant than its neighbors, including Saudi Arabia. Emiratis have been known for their tolerance; Christian churches, Hindu temples, and Sikh gurdwaras (with the first synagogue commencing construction in 2020) can be found alongside mosques. The cosmopolitan atmosphere is gradually growing and as a result, there are a variety of Asian and Western schools, cultural centers and themed restaurants.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi is home to a number of cultural institutions including the Cultural Foundation and the National Theater. The Cultural Foundation, while closed for reconstruction as of spring 2011, is home to the UAE Public Library and Cultural Center. Various cultural societies such as the Abu Dhabi Classical Music Society have a strong and visible following in the city. The recently launched Emirates Foundation offers grants in support of the arts, as well as to advance science and technology, education, environmental protection, and social development. The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) will be based in Abu Dhabi. The city also stages hundreds of conferences and exhibitions each year in its state-of-the-art venues, including the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC) which is the Persian Gulf's largest exhibition center and welcomes around 1.8 million visitors every year.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The Red Bull Air Race World Series has been a spectacular sporting staple for the city for many years, bringing tens of thousands to the waterfront. Another major event is the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (ADIPEC).


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The diversity of cuisine in Abu Dhabi is a reflection of the cosmopolitan nature of society. Arab food is very popular and is available everywhere in the city, from the small shawarma to the upscale restaurants in the city's many hotels. Fast food and South Asian cuisine are also very popular and are widely available. The sale and consumption of pork, though not illegal, is regulated and it is sold only to non-Muslims in designated areas. Similarly, the sale of alcoholic beverages is regulated. A liquor permit is required to purchase alcohol; however, alcohol, although available in bars and restaurants within four or five star hotels. "Shisha" and "qahwa" boutiques are also popular in Abu Dhabi.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Poetry in Abu Dhabi and the UAE is highly regarded and often is centric around the themes of satire, religion, family, chivalry, and love. According to an article from an Abu Dhabi tourism page, sheikhs, teachers, sailors and princes make a large bulk of the poets within the UAE. A unique form of poetry to the UAE was formed in the 8th century by Al Khalil bin Ahmed and it was written in . Another Emirati poet, Ibn Daher is from the 17th century. Daher is important because he used Nabati poetry (AKA Bedouin poetry), poetry written in the vernacular instead of classical/religious Arabic. Other important poets from the UAE are Mubarak Al Oqaili (1880–1954), Salem bin Ali al Owais (1887–1959) and Abdulla bin Sulayem (1905–1976). These poets made headway in the field of Classical Arabic poetry as opposed to the Nabati poetry of the 17th century.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Today in Abu Dhabi there is a group called the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation that works to preserve the art and culture of the city. According to an article from the English Pen Atlas Al Jawaher wal la'li was the first manuscript to come out of the UAE. According to another article this book was written in the 1990s and was banned in the city for some time for making accusations about the ruling family.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: On September 21, 2020, Abu Dhabi removed the requirement for an alcohol license for drinkers in the emirate. The historic modification was implemented due to the economic challenges that occurred amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: For cultural influences, Abu Dhabi, since 2010, has become one of the major shooting spots for many films companies, including Hollywood. Some of the most famous films featuring Abu Dhabi are; "The Kingdom" (2007), "Sex and the City 2" (2010), "Arrambam" (2013), "Baby" (2015), "Furious 7" (2015), "" (2015), "Dishoom" (2016), "War Machine" (2017), "Tiger Zinda Hai" (2017), "Race 3" (2018), "Saaho" (2019), "Six Underground" (2019), "The Misfits" (2021), "Dune" (2021).


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi is home to international and local private schools and universities, including government-sponsored INSEAD, New York University, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, New York Institute of Technology, Higher Colleges of Technology, New York Film Academy, Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi University. These boast several languages that make up the population of the city. For example, the international business school established a campus in February 2010, offering an Executive MBA and executive education courses. New York University opened a government-sponsored satellite campus in Abu Dhabi in September 2010.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: All schools in the emirate are under the authority of the Abu Dhabi Education Council. This organization oversees and administers public schools and licenses and inspects private schools. From 2009, the council has brought over thousands of licensed teachers from native English speaking countries to support their New School Model Program in government schools.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) maintains a comprehensive after-school program for interested and talented jiujitsu students. The Abu Dhabi Jiujitsu Schools Program began in 2008 under the patronage of crown prince (now President) Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a keen Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitor. The program launched in 14 schools for pupils in grades 6 and 7 and has since expanded to 42 government schools, with 81 Brazilian coaches brought in as instructors.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: 9 to 13-year-old students are taught Brazilian jiu-jitsu as part of the curriculum. The plan is for up to 500 schools to be participating in the school-Jitsu program by 2015. The project was set up by special request of Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan to the head coach of the Emirates jiu-jitsu team, Carlos "Carlão" Santos, now also the managing director of the School-Jitsu Project.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Every year in the season of admissions an exhibition is launched in Abu Dhabi Exhibition Center under government supervision. Universities from every corner of the world exhibit their career programs and scholarship programs. Heriot-Watt University, University of Bolton, Cambridge University, Oxford University, the Petroleum Institute, Khalifa University, and Abu Dhabi University attend.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In October 2019 Abu Dhabi announced the world's first graduate-level AI research institution, Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI). It enables graduation for students, businesses and governments to advance artificial intelligence. The university began accepting applications for masters and PhD programmes a year before the classes, which are scheduled to begin in September 2020.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In Abu Dhabi, cricket and football are popular. The city has multiple international cricket tournaments. The city has four football stadiums, namely Al Jazeera Stadium, Al Wahda Stadium and Sheikh Zayed Football Stadium (Zayed Sports City) and Hazza Stadium. ZSC also contains a tennis court, an ice rink, and a bowling alley.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix of Formula One has been held at the Yas Marina Circuit since 2009. The race takes place late in the Formula One season in November or December, and it is usually the last race of the season. The Yas Marina Circuit has also hosted other events such as the V8 Supercars series of Dubai.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi regularly hosts the International Judo Federation Abu Dhabi grand slam. Engendering some criticism, the International Judo Federation refused to allow the Israeli flag and the Israeli national anthem at the international games in 2017. Some referred to this action as anti-Semitic. The ban on Israeli symbols was lifted in 2018 and Israeli flag and the national anthem was allowed to be displayed. Israeli minister of sports Miri Regev was also allowed to attend the event.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: In March 2019, Abu Dhabi hosted the first Special Olympics World Games in the Middle East. The event took place from 14 to 21 March 2019 and featured more than 7,500 athletes participating in 24 sporting disciplines. The official World Games Flame of Hope was lit in Athens and flown to Abu Dhabi, where it then embarked on the torch run, visiting all seven emirates of the UAE.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: Abu Dhabi has many sites and attractions that include the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, Mariam Umm Eisa Mosque, Emirates Palace, Yas Marina Circuit, The Corniche, Hayyatii Towers, Etihad Towers, Yas Marina, Yas Waterworld Abu Dhabi, Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, Yas Island, Saadiyat Island, Jubail Mangrove Park.


title: Abu Dhabi

text: On 29 April 2022, Abu Dhabi announced a 100% capacity for commercial activities, tourist attractions and events in the emirate.