Egyptian president calls for unified colour scheme for buildings

Decree states Cairo structures require ‘dusty colours’ while blue is to be used on the coast

Egyptian authorities are reaching for their paint brushes following a decree by the president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, demanding buildings across the country adhere to a unified colour scheme of “dusty” shades in Cairo and blue on the coast.

Egypt’s prime minister, Mostafa Madbouly, told a cabinet meeting: “The plan is to have unified colours for the buildings instead of this uncivilised scene.” He said a presidential decree targeting unpainted red-brick buildings demands local authorities paint them soon, or face punishment.

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Egyptian universities reinstate students expelled for hugging

Mansoura and Al-Azhar universities backtrack after video of celebratory embrace goes viral

Two students expelled from university in Egypt for the “immoral act” of hugging in celebration of their engagement have been reinstated after a viral video of their embrace drew widespread public sympathy.

The universities of Al-Azhar and Mansoura initially told both students they would be thrown out after footage emerged showing the male student kneeling and proposing to the teenage woman before presenting her with a bouquet of flowers. The video, shot on the campus of Mansoura University, then showed the pair embracing, a moment greeted by cheers from their friends.

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UN refugee chief: I would risk death to escape a squalid migrant camp

Filippo Grandi calls on rich countries to give proper funding for developing nations that host people fleeing conflict

The head of the UN refugee agency has said he too would do “anything” to escape if he was stuck in a squalid refugee camp, as he called on the world’s wealthy nations to properly fund services in developing countries.

Speaking to reporters after meeting the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, Filippo Grandi, the high commissioner for refugees, said countries are not getting enough recognition for hosting refugees, and that he would campaign for Cairo to receive more bilateral development aid to support its efforts.

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Refugees at high risk of kidnapping in Horn of Africa, research reveals

More than one in 10 people travelling through the region are taken, as smugglers boost dwindling returns by preying on people for ransom, survey finds

More than 15% of refugees travelling north through the Horn of Africa were kidnapped during their journey last year, according to what is believed to be one of the most comprehensive surveys of migration journeys.

Researchers from the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC), who conducted 11,150 interviews across 20 countries and seven migration routes, warned that kidnappings may be increasing and identified people travelling through the Horn of Africa to north Africa and Europe as the most vulnerable.

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Is the tide at last on the turn for the world’s ‘strongman’ leaders?

The fall of the Saudi crown prince after the Khashoggi affair is a cautionary tale for all authoritarian rulers

The trial of 11 people charged with the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi opened and was quickly adjourned in Riyadh last week. It may be that the outcome is fixed in advance. Yet that the hearing took place at all could be seen as progress of a kind. It suggests even a state as autocratic, inward-looking and undemocratic as Saudi Arabia is not immune to international opinion and can be forced, in extremis, to respect the human right to justice.

The Khashoggi affair has provided a chastening lesson for Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, who is widely believed to have ordered the journalist’s slaying in Istanbul in October. Until then, Salman was riding high, courted by Donald Trump, lauded at home for modest social reform and feared, if not respected, across the Arab Middle East for his war of attrition in Yemen and determination to face down Iran.

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Experts urge Egypt to rethink two-child population strategy

Medics say limiting families s not the answer for a country where a baby is born every 15 seconds

In the cramped office of New Cairo hospital’s family planning clinic, Safah Hosny sets a box overflowing with contraceptives next to the visitors’ ledger on a small desk.

There are eight condoms for one Egyptian pound, about 4p, or ampoules of injectable birth control, for just under 9p. A contraceptive implant lasting three years costs 22p, while copper IEDs – the most popular form of birth control on offer according to Dr Hosny – cost 17p.

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Beyond Syria: the Arab Spring’s aftermath

The outlook is bleak for key countries including Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya

Just over eight years ago, Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in a bitter one-man protest outside a government office against the government. Within hours, demonstrators took to the streets of his small town, Sidi Bouzid. By the time he died in hospital just overtwo weeks later, protests had spread across the country, would soon topple the president and spill beyond Tunisia, in a regional convulsion dubbed the Arab Spring.

Related: Syria: Assad has decisively won his brutal battle

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International stars revive Egyptian tourism

For almost six years, we had missed that enthusiasm and excitement of hosting our favorite celebrities and seeing their photos around the pyramids, between monumental temple pillars in Luxor, or even lounging at our beautiful, sunny beaches. Egypt's iconic monuments and paramount history have placed it on the top of most - if not all - international figures' bucket lists, from the year one; Agatha Christie , Patricia NIXON and U.S. President Richard Nixon , Louis Armstrong , Muhammed Ali , Amitabh Bachchan , Princess Diana , Shakira , Barack Obama , Salma Hayek , Paris Hilton , Van Diesel , and many more.

Pope and I in Cairo

In Cairo, Pope Francis, once again, did what he usually does best: he snapped at the state of immorality and selfishness, which is governing the world, particularly in the West. The message to Egypt's priests could actually be directed at the population of the European and North American cities: The first temptation is to letting ourselves to be led, rather than to lead The second temptation is complaining constantly The third temptation is gossip and envy The fourth temptation is comparing us with those better off The fifth temptation is individualism, 'me, and after me the flood' the final temptation is 'keep walking without direction or destination' Pope Francis gave speeches, and met the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah El Sisi.

Sicko terrorist Lynne Stewart: Still hating cops

Freed from prison two years ago on "compassionate release" after being diagnosed with advanced breast cancer, the flaming 76-year-old radical still is championing left-wing massacres against the police. Translation: Sicko Grandma Stewart - as unrepentant and unapologetic as the rest of her rotten hippie pals in the bloodthirsty Weather Underground, Black Liberation Army and Black Panther movement - continues to endorse murdering her ideological enemies in the name of peace and social justice.

Debris of the balloon is seen in a field near Lockhart, Texas. Photo: Xinhua

'It went up like a big fireball': witness heard popping sounds before hot air balloon crashed near power lines in Texas killing 16 The accident on a rural field in central Texas occurred about three years after 19 people, including nine Hongkongers, were killed in a hot-air balloon crash in Luxor, Egypt A hot air balloon burst into flames over central Texas after apparently striking power lines and plunged into a field, killing all 16 people aboard in one of the deadliest such accidents on record, police and eyewitnesses said. The Federal Aviation Administration said the fiery crash occurred at about 7:40 a.m. Saturday near Lockhart, a town about 50km south of Austin, the Texas capital.

AP Analysis: Mideast showed Hillary Clinton US power’s limit

In this Wednesday, January 12, 2011 file photo, Then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, center, talks to Gulf Cooperation Council Foreign Ministers during a meeting in Doha, Qatar. Stepping up to a microphone on the campaign trail this week, presumptive U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was unsparing when she talked about America's allies in the Persian Gulf.

Investigators: Smoke detected on Egypt jet just before crash

A massive space shuttle external propellant tank is squeezing through the streets of Los Angeles to join a display of the retired orbiter Endeavour at the California Science Center. A massive space shuttle external propellant tank is squeezing through the streets of Los Angeles to join a display of the retired orbiter Endeavour at the California Science Center.

EgyptAir crash debris recovered

An engineer stands in front of a C-130 HAUP of the Hellenic Air Force, which took part and is on stand by, in the searching operation of the missing Egypt plane, at the military air base of Kastelli on the southern Greek island of Crete on Friday. CAIRO -- Search crews found human remains, luggage and seats from the crashed EgyptAir jetliner Friday but face a potentially more complex task in locating bigger pieces of wreckage and the black boxes vital to determining why the plane plunged into the Mediterranean.

Egyptian Airliner With 66 On Board Crashes In Mediterranean Sea

An EgyptAir passenger jet that took off from Paris with 66 people on board suddenly disappeared over the Aegean Sea on Thursday morning, shortly before it was due to land in Cairo. As Egyptian and Greek authorities mounted a search-and-rescue operation focused around the island of Karpathos, President Francois Hollande of France confirmed that the plane had crashed and acknowledged that "the terrorist hypothesis" was one of several that investigators were looking into.