LONDON: Thousands of women in Arab and Muslim countries will risk dying during childbirth and from preventable conditions due to recent UK aid cuts, NGO officials have told Arab News.
A similar verdict was issued as part of an internal review into cuts to the UK’s Overseas Development Assistance budget for 2023-2024, warning ministers of the consequences of budget slashing.

AL-MUKALLA: The Yemeni riyal rose against the dollar on Wednesday for the first time in months, less than a day after Saudi Arabia announced $1.2 billion in aid to save Yemen’s economy. 

The beleaguered currency jumped from 1,420 against the dollar on Tuesday morning to 1,392 on Wednesday, according to money traders in government-controlled areas.

Yemen’s riyal has been in free-fall for months, amid reports of stalled peace efforts and a halt to crude exports, the country’s primary revenue source.

WAD MADANI, Sudan: Desperate to check on her elderly mother amid the chaos of Sudan’s war, Amal Hassan left her family home in the capital Khartoum on May 30.
She has yet to return.
Her husband and three children in Omdurman — part of greater Khartoum — are among the hundreds of Sudanese families desperate for news of loved ones who have disappeared.
At least 3,900 people have been killed since war broke out in mid-April between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

CAIRO: Development projects launched by Egypt in South Sudan are a “model for cooperation,” Hani Sewilam, Egypt’s minister of water resources and irrigation, said on Wednesday.

Sewilam met Moatez Mostafa Abdelkader, Egypt’s ambassador to South Sudan, with the pair reviewing joint water projects between the two countries.

The depth of Egyptian-South Sudanese relations “pushes us to further work on strengthening the bonds of cooperation, integration and investment in various fields,” Sewilam said.

CAIRO: Authorities in Egypt have set a budget of about 3 billion Egyptian pounds ($97 million) for the maintenance and restoration of antiquities during the financial year 2023-2024, according to Ahmed Issa, the country’s minister of tourism.
Most of this cost will be self-financing, he added, funded by income generated from entry fees for the attractions.