CAIRO: Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit received Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, in Cairo.
The meeting focused on the problems facing the agency and the financial difficulties hampering its work, with a funding gap of about $100 million.
Aboul Gheit stressed the importance of the agency’s work, and they discussed ways to bridge the funding gap and ensure that the services it provides to Palestinian refugees in the areas of health, education and employment are not affected.
Lazzarini also met with Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry. They exchanged views and proposals on ways to enhance international support for UNRWA.
Shoukry affirmed Egypt’s continued support for the agency, and the basic and necessary services it provides to Palestinian refugees.
Lazzarini stressed his keenness to coordinate with Egypt regarding the agency’s activities and ways to enhance international support so that it can perform the tasks entrusted to it.
UNRWA holds talks with Arab League, Egypt
https://arab.news/rtf4u
UNRWA holds talks with Arab League, Egypt
- Agency for Palestinian refugees faces funding gap of $100m
- Lazzarini also met with Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry
Two Tunisia columnists handed over three years in prison
- Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies have already been in detention for almost two years
- They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering
TUNIS: Two prominent Tunisian columnists were sentenced on Thursday to three and a half years in prison each for money laundering and tax evasion, according to a relative and local media.
The two men, Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies, have already been in detention for almost two years for statements considered critical of President Kais Saied’s government, made on radio, television programs and social media.
They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.
“Three and a half years for Mourad and Borhen,” Zeghidi’s sister, Meriem Zeghidi Adda, wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
Since Saied’s power grab, which granted him sweeping powers on July 25, 2021, local and international NGOs have denounced a regression of rights and freedoms in Tunisia.
Dozens of opposition figures and civil society activists are being prosecuted under a presidential decree officially aimed at combatting “fake news” but subject to a very broad interpretation denounced by human rights defenders.
Others, including opposition leaders, have been sentenced to heavy prison terms in a mega-trial of “conspiracy against state security.”
In 2025, Tunisia fell 11 places in media watchdog Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, dropping from 118th to 129th out of 180 countries.
