Concerns over health of Qatari emir fuel rumours he may abdicate

Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani’s late April meeting with US President Barack Obama may have gone well politically, but some observers were surprised by how thin and tired the 61-year-old ruler looked as he sat beside Obama. The emir has long been known to be a leader of big appetites; for many years, the moniker “fat Hamad” was used affectionately by Doha’s expatriate community to distinguish him from his similarly named – and slimmer – cousin, premier and foreign minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jaber Al-Thani (HBJ).