Senior Arab officials mull environmental challenges in Cairo meeting

The Executive Office of the Arab Environment Ministers Council held Wednesday its 50th session at the headquarters of the Arab League to discuss the environmental challenges facing the Arab region and means to address them. "The meeting tackled a wide array of key issues relative to the environmental and developmental challenges," Head of the Environment and Sustainable Development Department at the Arab League Jamal Jaballah said at the inaugural speech of the meeting. He stressed that the conferees have thoroughly discussed a number of solutions to these challenges. They also called for speeding up the efforts to tackle environmental problems due to their negative impacts on the development in Arab countries. Meanwhile, Assistant Arab League Secretary General for Economic Affairs Mohammad Al-Tuwaijri said the conferees reviewed a report on the negative effects of radiation on the environment and people's health in the Arab countries. They also mulled a study on the risks of the radiation of Iran's nuclear reactor. The meeting also evaluated the Arab countries' achievement with regard to the implementation of the outcomes of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20 Conference) as well as the outcome of the Arab Development, Economic and Social summit. Executive Office of the Arab Environment Ministers Council is headed by Saudi Arabia and includes Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Somalia as members. The Kuwaiti delegation to the meeting was headed by Director General of the Environment Public Authority Salah Al-Mudhi