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Arab Labor Conference Kicks off in Cairo, Focuses on Integration

Officials at the opening session of the 49th session of the Arab Labor Conference (ALC). (Egyptian government)
Officials at the opening session of the 49th session of the Arab Labor Conference (ALC). (Egyptian government)
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Arab Labor Conference Kicks off in Cairo, Focuses on Integration

Officials at the opening session of the 49th session of the Arab Labor Conference (ALC). (Egyptian government)
Officials at the opening session of the 49th session of the Arab Labor Conference (ALC). (Egyptian government)

The 49th session of the Arab Labor Conference (ALC) kicked off in Egypt with the participation of state representatives, organizations, and trade unions from 21 Arab countries.

The Arab League’s Arab Labor Organization (ALO) is organizing the conference, which is chaired by Mauritania and will run through May 29. It is addressing "New Patterns of Work" and "Vocational Guidance and Training."

Minister of Manpower Hassan Shehata delivered a speech on behalf of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, stressing that the successive challenges and changes require Arab countries to prioritize joint Arab action.

He noted that the Arab nation should remain an honorable model for a distinguished civilization capable of building the future and preserving its rich heritage.

ALO Director General Fayez al-Mutairi said the conference is being held when most of the world's economies, including the developed ones, are suffering from inflation and supply chain disruptions due to successive international crises.

Mutairi noted that societal dialogue is a condition for achieving comprehensive development and social cohesion, as it secures the principles of good governance, develops competitive capabilities, and ensures sustainability.

Furthermore, societal dialogue helps facilitate smooth political transitions and anticipate changes, he added.

The conference is addressing address a four-item report by the Director-General, entitled "Social Dialogue between Current Challenges and Future Prospects."

The report discusses means of beefing up societal dialogue at the national and regional levels, viewing it as the best strategy for reinforcing the economic potential of Arab states in facing current challenges and containing their repercussions.

It will also address adapting transformations in achieving sustainable development goals and invest in creating pathways and understandings that respond to the needs of governments, workers, employers, and society through a comprehensive social contract.

The conference sessions will witness the formation of constitutional and statutory bodies elected by the state members: the Board of Directors, the Financial and Administrative Oversight Authority, the Committee on Trade Union Freedoms, and the Arab Women's Labor Affairs Committee.

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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.