TUNIS: Tunisian street vendors often complain of official harassment, but one sandwich maker-turned-social-media-star hopes his struggles against bureaucracy will motivate young entrepreneurs.
Habib Hlila, 27, first set up a food van in the working-class Bab El Khadra district of Tunis in early April, selling sandwiches at the end of each day’s fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

CAIRO: Tamer Mostafa, head of the Commercial Office in London and minister plenipotentiary of trade at the Egyptian Embassy in London, said that the volume of trade exchange between Egypt and the UK increased during the first quarter of 2022 by about 46 percent to reach £756 million pounds ($906 million), compared to £518 million during the same quarter last year.

BEIRUT: Lebanon has decided to formally negotiate refugee repatriation with Syria, a minister in the caretaker government said on Thursday.

The Minister of Displaced Affairs Issam Sharaf El-Din said he would visit Damascus after the Eid Al-Adha holiday, making him the first Lebanese minister to visit the Syrian capital in an official capacity since 2011.

Sharaf El-Din will discuss the plan to repatriate Syrian refugees in stages and “secure the executive mechanisms” for their return.

AL-MUKALLA: Yemeni government troops on Thursday opened three main roads in the provinces of Dhale and Taiz as a goodwill gesture on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha and implementing a UN-brokered truce.

The Joint Forces, an umbrella term for three major military units on the country’s western coast, announced unilaterally opening the main road linking Mocha with the city of Taiz through the Al-Bareh area from one side.

They urged the Iran-backed Houthis to open the road that goes through areas under their control in Al-Bareh.

TEHRAN/LONDON: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards arrested several foreign diplomats including a Briton, accusing them of “spying,” the Fars news agency and state television said Wednesday.
“The Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence service identified and arrested diplomats from foreign embassies who were spying in Iran,” Fars said, adding that a British diplomat was subsequently expelled from the country.
State television however reported that the Briton was expelled from “the area” where the diplomats had been arrested in central Iran.