‘No dumping ground’: Tunisia activist wins award over waste scandal

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Updated 02 May 2025
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‘No dumping ground’: Tunisia activist wins award over waste scandal

‘No dumping ground’: Tunisia activist wins award over waste scandal
  • The 57-year-old was among seven environmentalists from different countries handed this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize
  • Gharbi “helped spearhead a campaign that challenged a corrupt waste trafficking scheme between Italy and Tunisia,” the Goldman committee said

TUNIS: Tunisian environmentalist Semia Labidi Gharbi, awarded a global prize for her role exposing a major waste scandal, has a message for wealthy nations: developing countries are “no dumping ground.”

Gharbi was among the first to speak out when Italy shipped more than 280 containers of waste to the North African country in 2020.

The cargo was initially labelled as recyclable plastic scrap, but customs officials found hazardous household waste — banned under Tunisian law.

“It’s true, we are developing countries,” Gharbi said in an interview with AFP. “But we are not a dumping ground.”

The 57-year-old was among seven environmentalists from different countries handed this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize — commonly known as the “Green Nobel” — in California last week.

 



The Goldman committee said her grassroots activism helped force Italy to take the waste back in February 2022.

Gharbi “helped spearhead a campaign that challenged a corrupt waste trafficking scheme between Italy and Tunisia,” the Goldman committee said.

And her endeavours ultimately led to the return of 6,000 tons of “illegally exported household waste back to Italy,” the US-based organization added.

The scandal took on national proportions in Tunisia and saw the sacking of then environment minister Mustapha Aroui, who was sentenced to three years in prison.

A total of 26 people, including customs officials, were prosecuted.

Yet the waste remained at the port of Sousse for more than two years, with Tunisian rights groups criticizing the authorities’ inaction as Italy failed to meet deadlines to take it back.

Global waste trade often sees industrialized nations offload rubbish in poorer countries with limited means to handle it.

“What is toxic for developed countries is toxic for us too,” said Gharbi. “We also have the right to live in a healthy environment.”

She added that while richer countries can manage their own waste, developing ones like Tunisia have “limited capacity.”

The Goldman committee said Gharbi’s campaigning helped drive reforms in the European Union.

“Her efforts spurred policy shifts within the EU, which has now tightened its procedures and regulations for waste shipments abroad,” it said.

Gharbi, who has spent 25 years campaigning on environmental threats to health, said she never set out to turn the scandal into a symbol.

“But now that it has become one, so much the better,” she said with a smile.

She hopes the award will raise the profile of Tunisian civil society, and said groups she works with across Africa see the recognition as their own.

“The prize is theirs too,” she said, adding it would help amplify advocacy and “convey messages.”

 


UN: 613 killings recorded at Gaza aid distribution sites, near humanitarian convoys

UN: 613 killings recorded at Gaza aid distribution sites, near humanitarian convoys
Updated 7 sec ago
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UN: 613 killings recorded at Gaza aid distribution sites, near humanitarian convoys

UN: 613 killings recorded at Gaza aid distribution sites, near humanitarian convoys
  • Deaths near aid points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near humanitarian convoys
GENEVA: The United Nations human rights office said on Friday that it had recorded at least 613 killings both at aid points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near humanitarian convoys.
“We have recorded 613 killings, both at GHF points and near humanitarian convoys – this is a figure as of June 27. Since then ... there have been further incidents,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva.

Israeli military prepares plan to ensure Iran cannot threaten country, defense minister says

Israeli military prepares plan to ensure Iran cannot threaten country, defense minister says
Updated 04 July 2025
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Israeli military prepares plan to ensure Iran cannot threaten country, defense minister says

Israeli military prepares plan to ensure Iran cannot threaten country, defense minister says
  • Longtime enemies engaged in 12-day air war in June
  • Israel and Iran agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire on June 24

DUBAI: The Israeli military is preparing an enforcement plan to “ensure that Iran cannot return to threaten Israel,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told senior military officials.

He said the military must be prepared, both in intelligence and operations, to ensure Israel has air superiority and to prevent Tehran from reestablishing its previous capabilities.

He made his remarks following a 12-day air war between the longtime enemies in June, during which Israel struck Iranian nuclear facilities, saying the aim was to prevent Tehran developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran denies seeking nuclear arms and that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.

Israel and Iran agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire that ended hostilities on June 24.


Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal

Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal
Updated 04 July 2025
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Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal

Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal
  • Israel has earlier agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday it would probably be known in 24 hours whether the Palestinian militant group Hamas has agreed to accept what he has called a “final proposal” for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza.

The president also said he had spoken to Saudi Arabia about expanding the Abraham Accords, the deal on normalization of ties that his administration negotiated between Israel and some Gulf countries during his first term.

Trump said on Tuesday Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalize a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties will work to end the war.

He was asked on Friday if Hamas had agreed to the latest ceasefire deal framework, and said: “We’ll see what happens, we are going to know over the next 24 hours.”

A source close to Hamas said on Thursday the Islamist group sought guarantees that the new US-backed ceasefire proposal would lead to the end of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Two Israeli officials said those details were still being worked out. Dozens of Palestinians were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza authorities.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show.

Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed over 56,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced Gaza’s entire population and prompted accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the accusations.

A previous two month ceasefire ended when Israeli strikes killed more than 400 Palestinians on March 18. Trump earlier this year proposed a US takeover of Gaza, which was condemned globally by rights experts, the UN and Palestinians as a proposal of “ethnic cleansing.”

Abraham Accords

Trump made the comments on the Abraham Accords when asked about US media reporting late on Thursday that he had met Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman at the White House.

“It’s one of the things we talked about,” Trump said. “I think a lot of people are going to be joining the Abraham accords,” he added, citing the predicted expansion to the damage faced by Iran from recent US and Israeli strikes.

Axios reported that after the meeting with Trump, the Saudi official spoke on the phone with Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of Iran’s General Staff of the Armed Forces.

Trump’s meeting with the Saudi official came ahead of a visit to Washington next week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.


Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’

Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’
Updated 04 July 2025
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Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’

Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’
  • Medical charity warns of new threat from escalation in fighting in Sudan civil war

KHARTOUM: Civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan face mass atrocities and ethnic violence in the civil war between the regular army and its paramilitary rivals, the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned on Thursday.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have sought to consolidate their power in Darfur since losing control of the capital Khartoum in March. Their predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago.

The paramilitaries have intensified attacks on El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state which they have besieged since May 2024 in an effort to push the army out of its final stronghold in the region.

“People are not only caught in indiscriminate heavy fighting ... but also actively targeted by the Rapid Support Forces and their allies, notably on the basis of their ethnicity,” said Michel-Olivier Lacharite, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ head of emergencies. There were “threats of a full-blown assault,” on El-Fasher, which is home to hundreds of thousands of people largely cut off from food and water supplies and deprived of access to medical care, he said.


Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed

Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed
Updated 04 July 2025
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Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed

Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed

ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia moved on Thursday to reassure Egypt about its water supply after completing work on a controversial giant $4 billion dam on the Blue Nile.

“To our neighbors downstream, our message is clear: the dam is not a threat, but a shared opportunity,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said.

“The energy and development it will generate stand to uplift not just Ethiopia. We believe in shared progress, shared energy, and shared water. Prosperity for one should mean prosperity for all.”

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is 1.8 km wide and 145 meters high, and is Africa's largest hydroelectric project. It can hold 74 billion cubic meters of water and generate more than 5,000 megawatts of power — more than double Ethiopia’s current output. It will begin full operations in September.

Egypt already suffers from severe water scarcity and sees the dam as an existential threat because the country relies on the Nile for 97 percent of its water. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Sudan’s leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan met last week and “stressed their rejection of any unilateral measures in the Blue Nile basin.” They were committed to safeguarding water security in the region, Sisi’s spokesman said.