Nearly 65% of adults in the Arab region remain excluded from formal financial systems, according to a new report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). The Annual SDG Review 2025 paints a sobering picture of persistent financial exclusion that is undermining the region’s ability …
In 2008, the Sudanese and Egyptian governments decided to resume work on the Jonglei Canal project, which had been abandoned for 24 years. This project in southern Sudan plans to by-pass, and thus drain, part of the wetlands of the Bahr al-Jabal and Bahr az-Zaraf rivers into the White Nile. …
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2007/2008 Published by: United Nations Development Programme Pages: 384; Price: Rs595 Twenty years ago, Chico Mendes, the noted Brazilian environmentalist, sacrificed his life defending the destruction of Amazon rainforest by private plunders and companies. Just before he died, Chico spoke of the links between his struggle at …
This article presents data illustrating the networked structure of the water sector in two Nile Basin states, Egypt and Ethiopia. Social network analysis is applied to quantify network characteristics. Implications for water policy design and implementation processes are discussed. Governmental agencies occupy the most central network positions in both countries. …
This survey shows, that conventionally grown strawberries still contain a higher level of pesticide residues compared to other fruits. In total, 85 % of the analyzed samples contained multiple residues. However, especially Spanish strawberries showed an improvement in the average number of detected pesticides as well as in the average …
West Asian, North African Countries Turning To Expensive Schemes For Maintaining Food Supply Andrew Martin Cairo: Global food shortages have placed the Middle East and North Africa in a quandary, as they are forced to choose between growing more crops to feed an expanding population or preserving their already scant …
THE current global energy-food crisis is, understandably, a pocket-book issue in America. But when you come to Egypt, you see how, in a society where so many more people live close to the edge, food and fuel prices could become enormously destabilising. If these prices keep soaring, food and fuel …
The world will face high food prices "in the years to come", the UN food summit said yesterday, but failed to agree how the crisis could be eased. The summit, hosted by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, was called to tackle food price rises that have triggered riots in …
Rich countries came under attack yesterday at the United Nations food summit for their biofuel subsidies and production targets, declining spending on development aid for agriculture and large subsidies to European and US farmers. Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, told heads of state and governments gathered …
Abu Dhabi is preparing to launch a large-scale agricultural project in Sudan to develop more than 70,000 acres of land as part of the oil-rich Gulf emirate's efforts to secure food supplies. The project comes amid growing interest from Middle Eastern states to use land overseas to ensure food security. …
The current food crisis has been largely policy-driven, which is probably good news because it means that policies can also reverse the process. THIS is not a sudden and unexpected crisis: the signs have been around for some time now. Even though international bureaucrats have been referring to the current …
India and Egypt are on course to rebuild their ties by adding solid economic content to their relationship. The visiting Minister of state for commerce and power Jairam Ramesh held talks with Prime Minister of Egypt Ahmed Mahmoud Mohamed Nazif. He also met the Ministers of investment, communications and information …
Fiona Marshal and her international team of archaeologists were not really expecting to find donkeys while excavating a royal burial site in Egypt. For good reason. No animal has ever been found at an Egyptian burial site. But the funerary complex, overlooking the ancient town of Abydos on the Nile …
For years, food policy in the Middle East and North Africa was very simple: hydrocarbon exports paid for carbohydrate imports. Rising agricultural commodities prices and a large population increase mean that the traditional policy is now untenable even if crude oil trades at about $120 a barrel, forcing countries in …
When Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, was asked to ponder the future of the world before an audience of powerful businessmen and politicians, at a meeting in Switzerland earlier this year, he could have chosen any topic he liked. What he focused on was both a hoary old favourite, and …
Egypt is to review its food subsidy system as it seeks ways to tackle rising inflation, which reached 14.2 per cent in March. Youssef Boutros-Ghali, finance minister, told the Financial Times that the government would look to raise additional revenues through new taxes or increasing existing taxes. However, he said …
DENILIQUIN, Australia: Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. "It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety," he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, "and now it has stopped." The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill …
Woman's Death Lifts Egypt Bird Flu Toll To 22 EGYPT: April 14, 2008 CAIRO - An Egyptian woman died of bird flu on Friday, the 22nd fatality and the 49th case of the disease among humans in Egypt, the state news agency MENA said. Wala Ahmed Abdel Galil, 30, from …
