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CAIRO: The World Bank Group’s board of executive directors on Wednesday approved a new Country Partnership Framework for Egypt, which lays out a strategy in the country for 2023–2027, Emirates News Agency reported.
The new CPF is in line with Egypt’s Sustainable Development Strategy, Vision 2030, and National Climate Change Strategy 2050. It aims to achieve three high-level outcomes.
First, the framework aims to boost private-sector jobs by fostering an enabling environment for private sector-led investments and job opportunities, as well as by establishing a level playing field for the private sector.
Second, the CPF seeks to improve human capital outcomes by promoting inclusive, equitable, and improved health and education services, as well as effective social protection programs.
Third, it seeks to improve shock resilience through improved macroeconomic management and climate change adaptation and mitigation measures.
“The Country Partnership Framework 2023 -2027 between Egypt and the World Bank Group establishes a new phase of development cooperation and joint action to support efforts in achieving inclusive and sustainable growth. This is anchored in national objectives, the country’s 2030 vision and presidential initiatives,” Dr. Rania Al-Mashat, Egypt’s minister of international cooperation, said.
“Through our extended partnership with the World Bank Group, more work will be done over the next five years to stimulate private sector engagement in development projects, increase job opportunities, enhance investment in human capital and promote climate action,” Al-Mashat added.
Marina Wes, the World Bank’s country director for Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti, said: “This CPF supports Egypt’s efforts to build back better by creating conditions for green, resilient, and inclusive development. It puts the Egyptian people at the center of its strategy, with a heavy focus on job creation by improving the business environment and leveling the playing field.”
The CPF also aims to strengthen Egypt’s role in regional integration by improving regional trade and increasing connectivity in infrastructure, transportation, energy, and labor.
Furthermore, the CPF seeks to integrate governance and citizen engagement as well as women’s empowerment across its programs.
London: The FSO Safer supertanker — moored off the Yemeni coast and containing over a million barrels of oil — will “sink or explode at any moment,” wreaking devastation, the UN has warned.
“We don’t want the Red Sea to become the Black Sea. That’s what’s going to happen. It’s an ancient vessel from 1976 that’s unmaintained and likely to sink or explode at any moment,” David Gressly, UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, told Sky News.
“Those who know the vessel, including the captain who used to command the vessel, tell me that it’s a certainty. It’s not a question of ‘if,’ it’s only a question of ‘when’.”
Given the million-plus barrels of oil on the Safer, Gressly said it is vital that action is taken quickly, with scientific modeling suggesting that an oil spill would hit Yemen’s Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Salif “within days,” abruptly ending food aid relied on by 6 million people.
Furthermore, it would lead to a cessation of “most” fuel imports essential for the functioning of pumps and trucks supplying fresh water to some 8 million people.
While the catastrophe can be impeded at a cost of $130 million — a figure dwarfed by the potential $20 billion clean-up cost — the UN finds itself some $34 million short, and has even resorted to using crowdfunding to purchase a rescue tanker for the hoped-for salvage operation.
“There are complexities, but for most member states the difficulty — and it’s ironic — is there’s plenty of money available in state budgets for a response to an emergency, but nobody seems to have budget lines for avoiding a catastrophe,” said Gressly.
Nor is Yemen the only country at risk, with the modeling suggesting that the oil spill would hit the coasts of Saudi Arabia, Eritrea and Djibouti within two to three weeks, leading to profound environmental impacts for coral reefs and protected coastal mangrove forests.
With the entirety of Yemen’s Red Sea fishing stock facing extinction, the concern is the upending impact on the millions of people reliant on the ocean for their food and livelihoods.
Hisham Nagi, professor of environmental science at Yemen’s Sana’a University, told Sky News: “The oil tanker is unfortunately located near a very, very healthy coral reef and clean habitat, and it has a lot of species of marine organisms.
“Biodiversity is high in that area, so if the oil spill finds its way to the water column, so many marine sensitive habitats are going to be damaged severely because of that.”
Beirut: The death toll in US air strikes on pro-Iran installations in eastern Syria has risen to 19 fighters, a Syrian war monitor said on Saturday, in one of the deadliest exchanges between the US and Iran-aligned forces in years.
The US carried out strikes in eastern Syria in response to a drone attack on Thursday that left one American contractor dead, and another one wounded along with five US troops. Washington said the attack was of Iranian origin.
The retaliatory strikes by the US on what it said were facilities in Syria used by groups affiliated to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps left a total of 19 dead, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The war monitor said air raids killed three Syrian troops, 11 Syrian fighters in pro-government militias and five non-Syrian fighters who were aligned with the government.
The monitor’s head Rami Abdel Rahman could not specify the nationalities of the foreigners. Reuters was unable to independently confirm the toll.
The initial exchange prompted a string of tit-for-tat strikes. Another US service member was wounded, according to officials, and local sources said suspected US rocket fire hit more locations in eastern Syria.
President Joe Biden on Friday warned Iran that the United States would “act forcefully” to protect Americans.
Iran has been a major backer of President Bashar Assad during Syria’s 12-year conflict.
Iran’s proxy militias, including Lebanese group Hezbollah and pro-Tehran Iraqi groups, hold sway in swathes of eastern, southern and northern Syria and in suburbs around the capital.
Tehran’s growing entrenchment in Syria has drawn regular Israeli air strikes but American aerial raids are more rare. The US has been raising the alarm about Iran’s drone program.
TUNIS: At least 34 African migrants were missing on Friday after their boat sank off Tunisia, the fifth shipwreck in two days, raising the total number of missing to 67 amid a sharp increase in boats heading toward Italy, Tunisian officials said.
The Italian coast guard said on Thursday it had rescued about 750 migrants in two separate operations off the southern Italian coastline, hours after at least five people died and 33 were missing in an attempted sea crossing from Tunisia.
Tunisian Judge Faouzi Masmoudi said that seven people had died in the boat capsizes off the coast of the city of Sfax, including babies and children.
Houssem Jebabli, an official at the National Guard, said the Coast Guard had stopped 56 boats heading for Italy in two days and detained more than 3,000 migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan African countries.
According to UN data, at least 12,000 migrants who have reached Italy this year set sail from Tunisia, compared with 1,300 in the same period of 2022. Previously, Libya was the main launch pad for migrants from the region.
The coastline of Sfax has become a major departure point for people fleeing poverty and conflict in Africa and the Middle East for a shot at a better life in Europe.
Tunisia is struggling with its worst financial crisis due to stalled negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a loan amid fears of a default in debt repayment, raising concerns in Europe, especially in neighboring Italy.
Tunisia has been gripped by political upheavals since July 2021, when President Kais Saied seized most powers, shutting down parliament and moving to rule by decree.
Europe risks seeing a huge wave of migrants arriving on its shores from North Africa if financial stability in Tunisia is not safeguarded, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Friday. Meloni called on the IMF and some countries to help Tunisia quickly to avoid its collapse. “If we do not adequately address those problems we risk unleashing an unprecedented wave of migration,” he said.
LATAKIA, Syria: Latakia’s governor has lauded the UAE’s efforts to rescue those affected by the earthquake that hit several cities in Syria last month, the Emirates News Agency reported on Friday.
“The UAE has supported the Syrian people since the quake first struck the country,” Amer Ismail Hilal was quoted as saying. He added that the support included search and rescue teams, as well as humanitarian aid.
Hilal highlighted the deep-rooted relations between the two countries, underscored by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s visit to the UAE last Sunday.
On behalf of Latakia governorate, Hilal thanked the UAE’s government and people for the continuous efforts of the Emirates Red Crescent field teams.
BEIRUT: Weeks after a violent crackdown on migrants in Tunisia that triggered a perilous rush to leave by smuggler boats for Italy, many African nationals are still homeless and jobless and some say they still face racist attacks.
Outside the UN refugee agency in Tunis, dozens of African migrants stood protesting this week by the temporary camp where they have lived, including with children, since authorities urged landlords to force them from their homes.
“We need evacuation. Tunisia is not safe. No one has a future here when you have this color. It is a crime to have this color,” said Josephus Thomas, pointing to the skin on his forearm.
In announcing the crackdown on Feb. 21, President Kais Saied said illegal immigration was a criminal conspiracy to change Tunisia’s demography, language the African Union described as “racialized hate speech.”
US Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf said Saied’s comments had unleashed “attacks and a tidal wave of racist rhetoric,” with rights groups saying hundreds of migrants reported being attacked or insulted.
Saied and Tunisia’s foreign minister have rejected accusations that he or the government are racist and they announced steps to ease visa regulations for Africans and reminded police of anti-racism laws.
While the official crackdown appeared to end weeks ago, migrants say they still face abuse.
“People told me ‘since you are in our country after the president’s speech, don’t you have any dignity?’ I kept silent and they told me I am dirt,” said Awadhya Hasan Amine, a Sudanese refugee outside the UNHCR headquarters in Tunis.
Amine has lived in Tunis for five years after fleeing Sudan and then Libya with her husband. Now 30, she has been living on the street outside the UNHCR headquarters since local people pelted her house in the capital’s Rouad district with rocks.
“We want to live in a place of safety, stability and peace. We don’t want problems in Tunisia,” she said.
Although some West African countries evacuated hundreds of their citizens earlier this month, many remain stuck in Tunisia, unable to support themselves let alone afford passage home or pay smugglers hundreds of dollars to ferry them to Europe.
“Tunisia is an African country. Why do they do racist things to us?” said Moumin Sou, from Mali, who was sacked from his job working behind a bar after the president’s speech and was beaten up the next day by a man in the street who stole his money.
Sou wants to return home, he said, but many others are determined to travel on to Europe.
In the wake of the crackdown, in which police detained hundreds of undocumented migrants and authorities urged employers to lay them off and landlords to evict them, smuggler crossings to Italy have surged.
Tunisian National Guard official Houssem Jbeli said on Wednesday alone the coast guard had stopped 30 boats carrying more than 2,000 people. On the same day and the following day four boats sank, with five people drowned, authorities said.