The UN’s refugee chief used a visit to Cairo to beat the drum for the rest of this year’s budget, noting that some 70,000 registered African migrants in Egypt waiting for refugee status determination pose a risk: “Resources to support them here are scarce and some of them have started to try to cross the Mediterranean to go to Europe,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a statement released on Thursday. The statement says there are 190,000 officially registered refugees in Egypt, most of them Syrian, but that “the numbers arriving from African countries have spiked to almost 12,500 in the first nine months of 2016.” UNHCR needs funding: “Of the USD 20 mn budget needed in 2016 to help these people in need, UNHCR has so far only received a quarter.”
Foreign minister Sameh Shoukry denied a rift with Riyadh, Al Masry Al Youm reported, saying the “special relationship” remains unchanged. His statements come as Egypt, New Zealand and Spain are reportedly preparing a draft UN resolution on Syria to be presented to the Security Council. President Abdelfattah El Sisi met yesterday with Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo, according to a statement from Ittihadiya.

House speaker Ali Abdel Al is heading a delegation of MPs to attend the 135th Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly in Geneva running today through Thursday, Al Mal reported.