Egypt's Sisi to Launch 4th Edition of World Youth Forum

Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi during the 2018 World Youth Forum. (World Youth Forum)
Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi during the 2018 World Youth Forum. (World Youth Forum)
TT

Egypt's Sisi to Launch 4th Edition of World Youth Forum

Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi during the 2018 World Youth Forum. (World Youth Forum)
Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi during the 2018 World Youth Forum. (World Youth Forum)

Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi will launch on Monday the fourth edition of the World Youth Forum (WYF), which was suspended over the past two years due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Forum will be held between January 10 and 13 in the Red Sea tourist resort of Sharm El Sheikh and will be attended by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan's Crown Prince Al-Hussein bin Abdullah II, a large number of politicians, diplomats, media professionals, and Arab and foreign youths.

The Forum held preparatory workshops over the past two days to discuss water scarcity as an urgent and multi-dimensional issue.

The sessions included presentations and proposals to overcome these global challenges.

Environmental Engineering Consultant and Vice-Chairman of the Board of the German International Cooperation (GIZ), Irene Eastmalik, reviewed several water problems worldwide, including the Aral Sea crisis.

During the workshop, Eastmalik praised Egypt in handling its water problems, including establishing canals, modern irrigation, and tertiary treatment at the Bahr al-Baqar water station and the Asfar Mountain station.

The Forum will focus on the coronavirus and the post-pandemic world and will review the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030.

The main themes of the WYF are post-COVID impacts, climate change, social security, human rights, entrepreneurship, technology, 5G networks, digital transformation, distance learning, the environment, and the future of energy.

More than 500,000 young men and women from 196 countries have registered on the Forum's official website.

The Forum organizers announced that new methods preventive measures against Covid-19 would be adopted at the event. The unprecedented technologies include robots that sterilize the halls, measuring the participants' temperatures, and distribution of sterilization tools to the attendees.

A robot will distribute food and drinks to the attendees. Also, the organizers installed self-sterilization gates at the entrance to prevent any possible transmission of infection.

All precautionary and preventive measures are taken in cooperation with state agencies and specialized private sector companies to ensure the safety of all participants.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian President arrived in Sharm El Sheikh on Sunday to meet with his Egyptian counterpart for talks on the latest developments in the Palestinian arena and efforts to advance the peace process.

Abbas is accompanied by the head of the General Authority for Civil Affairs and Farah member, Minister Hussein al-Sheikh, Intelligence Chief, Major General Majed Faraj, and the Palestinian ambassador to Egypt Diab al-Louh.



IOM: Over 55,000 Displaced Sudanese Return to Southeastern State

File photo of Sudanese refugees (AFP)
File photo of Sudanese refugees (AFP)
TT

IOM: Over 55,000 Displaced Sudanese Return to Southeastern State

File photo of Sudanese refugees (AFP)
File photo of Sudanese refugees (AFP)

Over 55,000 internally displaced Sudanese have returned to areas across the southeastern state of Sennar, more than a month after the army recaptured the state capital, the UN migration agency said Saturday.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said its field teams "monitored the return of an estimated 55,466 displaced persons to locations across Sennar state" between December 18 and January 10.

Across the entire country, however, the United Nations says 21 months of war have created the world's worst internal displacement crisis, uprooting more than 12 million people, AFP reported.

Famine has been declared in parts of the country, but the risk is spreading for millions more people, including to areas north of Sennar, a UN-backed assessment said last month.

In November, the Sudanese army, battling the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023, said it had regained control of Sinja, the Sennar state capital and a key link between army-controlled areas of central and eastern Sudan.

The RSF had controlled Sinja since late June when its attack on Sennar state forced nearly 726,000 people -- many displaced from other states -- to flee, according to the United Nations.

The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands.

On Thursday, the United States Treasury Department sanctioned army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals, as well as using food deprivation as a weapon of war.

The move came just over a week after Washington also sanctioned RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, accusing his group of committing genocide.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Daglo had been designated for "gross violations of human rights" in Sudan's western Darfur region, "namely the mass rape of civilians by RSF soldiers under his control."