Arab meeting on environment winds up

The executive board of the council of Arab environment ministers wound up its 26th meeting that discussed several environment issues.

The meeting, held May 22-24, decided to organize training sessions to consolidate the capacity of Arab negotiators in forums discussing international accords, members of the board announced at a news conference in Rabat Thursday.

The first such training session will be devoted to climatic changes, they said.

Morocco will host October 26-November 6, 2001, in Marrakesh the 7th conference of countries that signed the accord on climatic changes.

The board also discussed preparations for the world summit on sustained development Rio 10, stressing the need to ensure success to the Arab participation in the summit and to mobilize the necessary funds to enable Arab experts participate in all preparatory meetings to the summit.

The Arab regional meeting on environment to be held in Beirut next July was also brought up. The Beirut meeting will discuss Arab legal texts related to environment.

The board adopted the poster of the 2001 Arab environment day to be celebrated under the topic "Let's work together to protect the environment." The Arab environment day is marked on October 14.

The executive board, whose members are elected for a two-year term, is made up by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania, which chaired the board 26th session.