First Lady Jill Biden in Abu Dhabi to promote global fight against cancer

America’s first lady Jill Biden will visit key landmarks in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, as she uses her final solo foreign tour to promote women’s health and the global fight against cancer.
Ms Biden was due to land in the capital late on Wednesday night on the second stop of a six-day, four-country tour, having earlier visited her father’s ancestral home in Italy.
She is due to visit Qasr Al Hosn, the cultural landmark and the oldest stone building in a city of now more than two million. Ms Biden will also visit Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, one of the Middle East’s leading hospitals, and participate in a conversation about the White House’s Biden Cancer Moonshot programme.
The campaign aims to galvanise all of society to stop and diagnose cancer earlier, improve outcomes and treatment significantly and tackle the root causes such as toxic environments and pollution. Later, she will speak at the Milken Institute’s annual Middle East and Africa Summit about the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research.
On Friday, Ms Biden will travel to Doha to highlight the work of the US and Qatar in education and health, with visits to the Qatar Foundation and Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar. She will later speak at the Doha Forum on Saturday and attend a dinner to celebrate the family wedding of Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani and Sheikha Fatima bin Nasser Al Thani.
Ms Biden and president-elect Donald Trump will attend the reopening of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on Sunday, five years on from the fire that devastated the global landmark, before returning to Washington for the final weeks of her husband’s presidency.
Ms Biden’s visit comes after President Sheikh Mohamed visited Washington in September to strengthen UAE and US ties, cement a long-standing defence partnership and push for greater co-operation on advanced technology and business investments.