Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi made a strong appeal for a joint strategy against terrorism as he opened a landmark Arab-European summit on Sunday.
Mr El Sisi also called for a framework allowing “organised and safe” migration to Europe, for the benefit of both regions.
“We need a joint vision to deal with the dangers since it is clear that it’s difficult to do so unilaterally,” he told the leaders of Arab League and EU states gathered at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh for the two-day meeting.
Mr El Sisi, who has invested significant time and effort since taking office in 2014 to cultivate close economic and security ties with Europe, said the summit was proof that what brings the two regions together outweighs what separates them.
The unprecedented, 50-nation meeting is the fruition of more than a decade of talks between representatives of the Cairo-based League and the EU, with the first round taking place in 2008.
The Saudi delegation is led by King Salman, while the UAE's representatives are led by Sheikh Hamad bin Mohammed Al Sharqi, Ruler of Fujairah.
Representatives from the EU side include European Council President Donald Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and heads of government from Germany, Britain and Italy, among others.
Mr El Sisi said the two regions must agree on a joint strategy to counter terrorism, warning that anything short of that was destined to fail.
“Regrettably, terrorism has become a tool used by some nations to create chaos in their neighbours to gain a stature that comes at their expense,” he said, in a thinly veiled reference to Qatar and Turkey, which have long been accused of supporting extremists.
Mr El Sisi said failure to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict would also have bad ramifications for both regions.
He said settling that conflict would deny the “forces of extremism and terrorism” the chance to recruit youths raised amid strife and violence.
And leaving the conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya without a settlement "constitutes a failure that future generations will hold us accountable for”, he said.
Mr El Sisi's international standing has steadily grown in the nearly five years since he was first elected.
This month, the former military leader assumed the rotating, one-year presidency of the African Union.
Mr El Sisi said that since 2016, Egypt had prevented illegal migrants from leaving its shores to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
But he also proposed that illegal migration, a pressing domestic problem for most of the EU’s member nations, must be dealt with “not as a challenge but as a chance for co-operation”.
The surplus of labour in the Arab world could be a perfect fit for the needs of industrialised Europe, Mr El Sisi said.
“Organised and safe migration to Europe could achieve mutual interests when done side by side with combating human trafficking,” he said.
The Arab League-EU summit comes at a time when both regions are plagued by internal differences over a range of major issues.
Its agenda covers a wide range of topics and stresses the significance of the gathering as a mostly symbolic, but important event that could be a prelude to deeper co-operation between the regions.
Egypt has for years been fighting an insurgency by militants in the Sinai Peninsula while struggling to revive its economy.
The civil wars in Yemen and Syria have raged for years, while Libya has become a haven for militants in a country ruled by rival administrations backed by armed militias.
Across the Mediterranean, Europe is sharply divided by the issue of illegal migration, Britain’s messy departure from the EU and a public dispute between France and Italy over a range of issues, including Libya.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Wonka
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Profile
Company: Justmop.com
Date started: December 2015
Founders: Kerem Kuyucu and Cagatay Ozcan
Sector: Technology and home services
Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai
Size: 55 employees and 100,000 cleaning requests a month
Funding: The company’s investors include Collective Spark, Faith Capital Holding, Oak Capital, VentureFriends, and 500 Startups.
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Three-day coronation
Royal purification
The entire coronation ceremony extends over three days from May 4-6, but Saturday is the one to watch. At the time of 10:09am the royal purification ceremony begins. Wearing a white robe, the king will enter a pavilion at the Grand Palace, where he will be doused in sacred water from five rivers and four ponds in Thailand. In the distant past water was collected from specific rivers in India, reflecting the influential blend of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology on the coronation. Hindu Brahmins and the country's most senior Buddhist monks will be present. Coronation practices can be traced back thousands of years to ancient India.
The crown
Not long after royal purification rites, the king proceeds to the Baisal Daksin Throne Hall where he receives sacred water from eight directions. Symbolically that means he has received legitimacy from all directions of the kingdom. He ascends the Bhadrapitha Throne, where in regal robes he sits under a Nine-Tiered Umbrella of State. Brahmins will hand the monarch the royal regalia, including a wooden sceptre inlaid with gold, a precious stone-encrusted sword believed to have been found in a lake in northern Cambodia, slippers, and a whisk made from yak's hair.
The Great Crown of Victory is the centrepiece. Tiered, gold and weighing 7.3 kilograms, it has a diamond from India at the top. Vajiralongkorn will personally place the crown on his own head and then issues his first royal command.
The audience
On Saturday afternoon, the newly-crowned king is set to grant a "grand audience" to members of the royal family, the privy council, the cabinet and senior officials. Two hours later the king will visit the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the most sacred space in Thailand, which on normal days is thronged with tourists. He then symbolically moves into the Royal Residence.
The procession
The main element of Sunday's ceremonies, streets across Bangkok's historic heart have been blocked off in preparation for this moment. The king will sit on a royal palanquin carried by soldiers dressed in colourful traditional garb. A 21-gun salute will start the procession. Some 200,000 people are expected to line the seven-kilometre route around the city.
Meet the people
On the last day of the ceremony Rama X will appear on the balcony of Suddhaisavarya Prasad Hall in the Grand Palace at 4:30pm "to receive the good wishes of the people". An hour later, diplomats will be given an audience at the Grand Palace. This is the only time during the ceremony that representatives of foreign governments will greet the king.
The biog
Fatima Al Darmaki is an Emirati widow with three children
She has received 46 certificates of appreciation and excellence throughout her career
She won the 'ideal mother' category at the Minister of Interior Awards for Excellence
Her favourite food is Harees, a slow-cooked porridge-like dish made from boiled wheat berries mixed with chicken
Mica
Director: Ismael Ferroukhi
Stars: Zakaria Inan, Sabrina Ouazani
3 stars
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Barcelona 3
Messi (27’, 32’, 87’)
Leganes 1
El Zhar (68’)
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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AT4 Ultimate, as tested
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In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5