Sarah Khalifa, 39, charged with forming organised criminal gang to manufacture and traffic drugs
An Egyptian court sentenced a well-known television presenter and 11 others to death for manufacturing and trafficking narcotics in a sprawling drug case, official media reported on Saturday.
The presenter, Sarah Khalifa, 39, is best known for her programme Mission Impossible, which dealt with issues concerning security and crime.
Continue reading...Police hunt two suspects after historic 200-carat piece is snatched from Austrian museum during opening hours
Austrian police are hunting two men alleged to have stolen a 200-carat platinum necklace encrusted with 673 diamonds that was on loan to a museum in Vienna and once belonged to Egyptian royalty.
Authorities in the capital released pictures of the suspects captured by security cameras during the heist at the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), amid a rash of spectacular smash-and-grab thefts from European cultural institutions.
Continue reading...Lawyers claim Eman el-Shazly, from Birmingham, was detained in effort to silence her sister, a critic of Sisi regime
The UK Foreign Office has been asked to intervene to secure the release of a British-Egyptian woman who it is claimed has been arrested in Cairo because of her sister’s political activism.
Eman el-Shazly, a 45-year-old based in Birmingham, was arrested on 16 August while visiting Egypt. Her lawyers say she has been detained in an attempt to silence her sister Mona, a relentless and harsh critic of the Egyptian government on her UK-based YouTube channel.
Continue reading...Trump’s son-in-law and envoy held rare meeting with Hamas chief in Egypt in push for progress on ceasefire
Donald Trump’s son-in-law and envoy, Jared Kushner, held a rare meeting with Hamas’s political chief on Sunday in Egypt, in a new diplomatic effort to make progress in the stalled Gaza ceasefire. Kushner will meet on Monday with Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under pressure after rejecting the new 15-point, US-backed road map.
The talks aim to salvage the plan for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territory shattered by war.
Continue reading...Scarlet Lady’s 2,000 passengers told of change as one of those onboard says they will ‘sparkle and spend elsewhere’
An LGBTQ+ cruise ship blocked from Turkish waters this week has been refused entry into Egypt.
The Scarlet Lady’s 2,000 passengers, including the Broadway performer Patti LuPone, woke on Thursday morning to find a note placed under their cabin doors informing them that the ship was urgently looking for alternative ports.
Continue reading...Well-preserved fourth-century quarters reveal details of daily life, urban development and economic activities
Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered a well-preserved Byzantine-era city in the western desert.
The fourth-century quarters had residential and religious structures, including a basilica-style church in the Dakhla oasis. Archaeologists also found coins, pottery fragments and tools.
Continue reading...Man, 57, was watching snake-charming show when reptile crawled into his trousers, say German police
A German tourist has died after a snake crawled into his trousers and bit him as he watched a show in Egypt on a family holiday, police in Germany have said.
The 57-year-old man was watching the snake-charming show at a hotel in Hurghada, a popular beach holiday destination on the Red Sea, in early April.
Continue reading...Unlikely grouping of Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey steps up efforts to broker ceasefire and curb dominance of Iran and Israel
The meeting on Sunday of the foreign ministers of Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in Islamabad not only represented the best hope for a ceasefire in Iran but was also the embryo for a new order designed to curb Israeli and Iranian dominance after the war.
Although the four nations have met as a quartet before, the one-day meeting of foreign ministers in Islamabad on Sunday was, in a way, the official opening ceremony of an initiative that is intriguing diplomats.
Continue reading...President signed executive order for Rubio and Bessent to submit report on chapters in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan
Donald Trump on Monday began the process of designating certain Muslim Brotherhood chapters as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists, a move would bring sanctions against one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements.
Trump signed an executive order directing secretary of state Marco Rubio and treasury secretary Scott Bessent to submit a report on whether to designate any Muslim Brotherhood chapters, such as those in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, according to a White House fact sheet. It orders the secretaries to move forward with any designations within 45 days of the report.
Continue reading...Egyptian authorities prevented Alaa Abd el-Fattah from attending human rights awards in London
Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian writer and human rights campaigner who was freed from jail in September, was stopped from flying to the UK by Egyptian passport control, his family has said.
Abd el-Fattah was pardoned after more than 10 years in jail but his status, including his right to travel back and forth between Britain and Egypt, was left unclear and subject to discussion between the family and authorities.
Continue reading...Nasser Abu Srour says prisons became like ‘another front’ in Gaza conflict and tells of struggle to adjust to life outside
A celebrated Palestinian author who was freed last month after more than 32 years in Israeli prisons has said the use of torture increased dramatically during his last two years of captivity as Israel came to treat its jails as another front in the Gaza war.
Nasser Abu Srour, whose prison memoir has been translated into seven languages and is tipped to win a major international literary prize this month, was among more than 150 Palestinians serving life sentences who were freed as part of the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire and then immediately exiled to Egypt, where most remain in limbo.
Continue reading...Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi has been imprisoned in the UAE for almost a year for criticising Emirati, Egyptian and Saudi governments
The UN special rapporteur on torture is being urged to investigate Lebanon’s role in the treatment of the Egyptian-Turkish poet and activist Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi, a dissident who has been imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates for more than 10 months over a post he made on social media.
Legal counsel representing Qaradawi filed a complaint to the UN rapporteur on Thursday, asking it to examine the situation.
Continue reading...Grand Egyptian Museum next to pyramids of Giza billed as world’s largest archaeological facility for single civilisation
A vast $1bn museum billed as the world’s largest archaeological facility dedicated to a single civilisation will open outside Cairo on Saturday, after countless delays over the course of its two-decade construction.
The Grand Egyptian Museum, located a mile away from the pyramids of Giza, covers an area of 470,000 sq metres. The complex was announced in 1992 but it was not until 2005 that construction began. Some areas of the museum opened in a soft launch in 2024.
Continue reading...Doubts over whether Ankara will be part of 5,000-strong force to be deployed to prevent postwar power vacuum
Turkey will probably be excluded from the 5,000-strong stabilisation force that is to be set up inside Gaza after Israel made clear it did not want Turkish troops taking part.
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said it was a requirement that Israel is comfortable with the nationality of the multinational force, set up to prevent a security vacuum when the massive task of reconstruction in Gaza starts. Turkey has said it is willing to offer troops, but Israel has let it be known that it disapproves of Turkish troops taking part in the force.
Continue reading...Trump’s 20-point plan is forcing regional rivals to set aside differences and collaborate after years of competition
If the war in Gaza had dramatic consequences across the Middle East, overturning long-held assumptions, resetting the geopolitical map and provoking massive shifts in public opinion, any durable peace is likely to have equally momentous effects.
Some counsel caution.
Continue reading...Decommissioning Hamas weapons seen as major stumbling block, with British diplomats advising on process
A European and US-backed UN security council motion to give a planned international stabilisation force robust powers to control security inside Gaza is being prepared, with the strong expectation that Egypt will lead it, diplomats have said.
The US is pressing for the force to have a UN mandate without being a fully fledged UN peacekeeping force and will operate with the kind of powers given to international troops operating in Haiti to combat armed gangs.
Continue reading...White House says it is important ‘that we get this done quickly’ as indirect talks restart in Sharm el-Sheikh
A US delegation led by envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to join talks in Egypt on Wednesday to reinforce President Donald Trump’s involvement in the newly restarted negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at ending the war in Gaza.
The indirect talks at Sharm el-Sheikh, the Egyptian resort city on the Red Sea, entered their second day on the second anniversary of the Hamas surprise attack into Israel that triggered the bloody conflict.
Continue reading...Writer, who has served six years for sharing a Facebook post, was given a presidential pardon
The British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been released from jail after serving six years for sharing a Facebook post.
Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, granted him his freedom after intensive lobbying by the UK government and pressure from Egypt’s national human rights council.
Continue reading...Human rights group says hundreds of skeletons found exposed or buried just below ground during research into killings of civilians
Hundreds of bodies could have been buried at a mass grave discovered in Egypt’s Sinai province by human rights campaigners.
Bodies lying on the surface and others buried barely 30cm below were found at a burial site near a military outpost by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights.
Continue reading...Decision expected soon after reports in Cairo about status of imprisoned dual-national human rights activist
Keir Starmer has spoken to Abdel Fatah al-Sisi amid reports the Egyptian president has directed his officials to study an internal request to grant a pardon to release the British-Egyptian human rights activist and writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah.
Abd el-Fattah’s British-based family are not commenting on developments save to say they are praying for his release.
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