The Al Habtoor Group Chairman held talks with Lord Ahmed of Rotherham at the Al Habtoor Group head office in Dubai on Wednesday December 30, 2015. Lord Ahmed, a member of the British House of Lords, was accompanied by Qamar Uz Zaman. Also present was Sultan Al Habtoor, President, Al Habtoor Motors; Abdul Salam Marzooqi, General Manager, Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor Foundation, and Ziad Ida, Director of Community Relations and Safety, Al Habtoor Group.
They discussed philanthropic initiatives including Chairman Al Habtoor’s proposal to host a Poverty Alleviation Roundtable with like-minded philanthropists around the world to combat global poverty.
Al Habtoor said, “This is one of the biggest threats to the world. Poverty should not be a problem in the 21st century. Governments have ignored the issue for far too long, so it is left to philanthropists like me to deal with. We are not going to turn a blind eye. Poverty breeds crime, and terrorists are recruiting poor people into their organisations. If we don’t address the issue soon, it will become a much bigger problem.”
Al Habtoor and Lord Ahmed also discussed the rise in anti-Islamic sentiment follow the increased terror threats faced by the world, and in the wake of Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comments calling for a ban on Muslims from entering the US. Lord Ahmed, a prominent Muslim in the UK who became the country’s first Muslim peer, is involved in many political activities that relate to the Muslim community in the UK and abroad.