Category Archives: Egypt

Egypt and Turkey’s nascent alliance tested by new crisis in Libya

Posted on by

Fallout from Libyan central bank governor’s dismissal presents immediate challenge for Sisi and Erdoğan

A new alliance between Egypt and Turkey designed to end a long-running dispute over events in the Middle East faces it first major test in the shape of a worsening political crisis in Libya linked to control of its oil wealth.

Egypt and Turkey fell out in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab spring, primarily because of the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s coup against his Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi, an ally of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Continue reading...

Hamas sends delegation to Cairo peace talks but rules out direct participation

Posted on by

Negotiations stall over Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand for an Israeli presence on Egypt-Gaza border

Hamas has sent a delegation to Cairo to be briefed on progress in peace talks, but an official from the group said it would not participate directly in the negotiations it had been boycotting for the past 10 days.

Hamas representatives were expected on Saturday in the Egyptian capital, where negotiators from Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar have been holding talks on a elusive deal that would involve the release of Israeli hostages, the freeing of Palestinian detainees and a ceasefire.

Continue reading...

Rapidly urbanising Africa to have six cities with populations above 10m by 2035

Posted on by

Youthful, growing cities expected to create wealth and opportunities but stretch public and utility services

Six African cities will have more than 10 million people by 2035, with the continent’s booming young population making it the world’s fastest urbanising region, according to a report.

Angola’s capital, Luanda, and Tanzania’s commercial hub, Dar es Salaam, will join the metropolises of Cairo, Kinshasa, Lagos and Greater Johannesburg with populations of more than 10 million, the Economist Intelligence Unit said in a report on African cities.

Continue reading...

Will the latest talks between Hamas and Israel lead to a ceasefire in Gaza?

Posted on by

Negotiators are hopeful but the US believes it may be the last opportunity to secure release of hostages

Mediators said they were hopeful about brokering a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war after two days of talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, last week, announcing that a “bridging proposal” had been agreed.

However, previous optimism that a deal was close at hand proved to be misplaced. Joe Biden said in February that he believed a ceasefire agreement was “imminent”, while the beginning of Ramadan in March, and intense diplomatic efforts before Israel’s invasion of Rafah in May, were also touted as “last chances”.

Continue reading...

US, Qatar and Egypt call on Israel and Hamas to resume urgent ceasefire talks

Posted on by

Joint statement says framework agreement is ‘on the table’ and there are no excuses ‘from any party for further delay’

The leaders of the US, Egypt and Qatar have called on Israel and Hamas to resume urgent negotiations to finalise a ceasefire and hostage release deal, saying there were no excuses “from any party for further delay”.

The three countries, which have been trying to mediate a deal, said in a joint statement the talks could take place in either Doha or Cairo on 15 August, adding that it was “time to bring immediate relief both to the longsuffering people of Gaza as well as the longsuffering hostages and their families”.

Continue reading...

Report reveals secret US inquiry into alleged 2016 Egyptian $10m gift to Trump

Posted on by

A Washington Post report details that an Egypt-linked group withdrew funds days before Trump’s inauguration

A spokesperson for Donald Trump blamed “Deep State Trump-haters and bad faith actors” for a bombshell report on Friday about a secret criminal investigation into whether Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the authoritarian ruler of Egypt, sought to give the former president $10m during his victorious 2016 White House run.

“The investigation referenced found no wrongdoing and was closed,” Steven Cheung told the Washington Post, which published the report on Friday.

Continue reading...

Egyptian mummy with screaming expression ‘may have died in agony’, say researchers

Posted on by

Archaeologists say wide open mouth of woman who died about 3,500 years ago may be caused by rare, immediate form of rigor mortis

She looks uncannily like The Scream painting by Edvard Munch, but just why an ancient Egyptian mummy has such a startling expression has long puzzled researchers. Now they say they may have the answer – suggesting the woman died crying out in agony.

The woman is thought to have been buried about 3,500 years ago and was discovered in 1935 in a wooden coffin beneath the tomb of Senmut – an important architect during the reign of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut.

Continue reading...

Greek poet who inspired Forster, Hockney and Jackie Onassis emerges from the shadows

Posted on by

The writer Constantine Cavafy was largely unpublished in his lifetime, but was revered by artists. His archive and Alexandrian home are now on show for the first time

It was the backdrop to a literary world of the lost Levant. Away from the sea, on a narrow street in the old Greek quarter of Alexandria, 10 Rue Lepsius was the home and creative sanctuary of Constantine Cavafy.

For 26 years, it was here that the poet, a bureaucrat in British-run colonial Egypt, held court, treating writers such as EM Forster to long candle-lit nights of talk over liquors and what the English novelist later recalled as “small bits of bread and cheese”.

Continue reading...

Egyptian scribes suffered work-related injuries, study says

Posted on by

Higher incidence of damage to hips, jaws and thumbs reveals their writing efforts may have taken a toll

From bad backs to eye strain, office work can take its toll on the body.

But it seems such perils are nothing new: researchers have found Egyptian scribes experienced damage to their hips, jaws and thumbs as a result of their efforts.

Continue reading...

Egypt to prosecute travel agents for ‘fraudulent’ hajj trips

Posted on by

PM orders 16 companies to be stripped of licences amid hundreds of deaths, many attributed to extreme heat

The Egyptian prime minister, Mostafa Madbouly, has ordered 16 tourism companies to be stripped of their licences and referred their managers to the public prosecutor’s office for illegally facilitating pilgrims’ travel to Mecca, the cabinet has said.

The order came after various countries reported more than 1,100 deaths, many attributed to high heat, during this year’s hajj.

Continue reading...

EU-funded Egyptian forces ‘rounding up and deporting Sudanese refugees’

Posted on by

Egypt forcibly returned 800 Sudanese detainees in first three months of this year, Amnesty International reports

The Egyptian authorities have used EU-funded security forces in a campaign of mass arrests and forcible deportations against refugees from the Sudan war, according to a human rights group report.

Amnesty International found Egypt “forcibly returned an estimated 800 Sudanese detainees between January and March 2024, who were all denied the possibility to claim asylum”.

Continue reading...

More than 550 hajj pilgrims die in Mecca as temperatures exceed 50C

Posted on by

At least 320 of the dead are from Egypt and Saudi officials report treating more than 2,000 people for heat stress

At least 550 pilgrims have died during the hajj, underscoring the gruelling nature of the pilgrimage which again unfolded in scorching temperatures this year.

At least 323 of those who died were Egyptians, most of them succumbing to heat-related illnesses, the two Arab diplomats coordinating their countries’ responses told AFP.

Continue reading...

Egypt tight-lipped over Israeli takeover of Gaza buffer zone

Posted on by

Cairo seeks to keep lid on public anger and avoid escalation as IDF moves into Philadelphi corridor in breach of 1979 peace accord

Egypt has reacted with a wall of silence to the Israeli takeover of a buffer zone in southern Gaza, in apparent defiance of a decades-old peace agreement, as Cairo sought to keep a lid on simmering public anger while also avoiding an escalation in tensions with Israel.

Israel said on Wednesday that its forces had gained “operational” control over the Philadelphi corridor – the Israeli military’s code name for the 9-mile-long (14km) strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border. Under the terms of the 1979 peace accord between Egypt and Israel, each side is allowed to deploy only a small number of troops or border guards in a demilitarised zone that stretches along the entire Israel-Egypt border and encompasses the corridor.

Continue reading...

Israel in effective control of entire Gaza land border after taking Philadelphi Corridor in south

Posted on by

The IDF says that it is in ‘operational’ control of the buffer zone on Egypt’s border, a move which risks complicating relations with Cairo, amid Rafah offensive

Israel is in effective control of Gaza’s entire land border after taking control of a buffer zone along the border with Egypt, Israel’s military has said, a move that risks complicating its relationship with Egypt.

In a televised briefing on Wednesday, chief military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Israeli forces had gained “operational” control over the Philadelphi Corridor, using the Israeli military’s code name for the 14km-long corridor along the Gaza Strip’s only border with Egypt.

Continue reading...

Greek police detain nine Egyptians despite dismissal of shipwreck charges

Posted on by

Lawyer criticises ‘inhumane’ treatment of men who were accused over deadly sinking of vessel crossing from Libya

Greek police have been accused of the “inhumane” treatment of nine Egyptian men after placing them in detention despite a court throwing out charges against them over a deadly shipwreck.

Police said on Thursday they were placing the men in custody as it was thought they could flee the country, two days after a tribunal in the southern city of Kalamata dismissed charges against them due to a lack of jurisdiction.

Continue reading...

Israel-Gaza war: All EU donors have now resumed support for Unrwa, says foreign affairs chief – as it happened

Posted on by

Josep Borrell describes the aid agency as ‘an indispensable lifeline in Gaza and the region’. This live blog is closed

A two-day Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin killed at least 12 Palestinians, health authorities and an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent said on Thursday.

Israeli troops withdrew from the city early Thursday, the AFP correspondent said, after carrying out raids in the city’s refugee camp and exchanging fire with masked gunmen in a nearby neighbourhood in the city centre.

Continue reading...

Charges dropped against nine Egyptians over 2023 migrant shipwreck off Greece

Posted on by

Greek court says it has no jurisdiction to hear case as disaster happened in international waters

A Greek court has thrown out charges against nine Egyptian men accused of causing one of the Mediterranean’s deadliest shipwrecks, ruling it has no jurisdiction over the case because the disaster was in international waters.

The three-member tribunal, sitting in the southern city of Kalamata, announced the decision as migrant solidarity supporters rallied outside in support of the defendants. Inside the courtroom there was applause and whoops of delight.

Continue reading...

Mediterranean migrant boat disaster: men on trial are ‘scapegoats’, say lawyers

Posted on by

Survivors of shipwreck that killed 600 people not ‘real smugglers’, say defenders, with inquiry into coastguard’s role also incomplete

Nine men accused of causing one of the deadliest shipwrecks to have taken place in the Mediterranean are “scapegoats” who should never have been prosecuted, defence lawyers have said, as their long-awaited trial opens in Greece.

The Egyptian suspects, who have been held in pre-trial detention since the 14 June disaster last year, are appearing in court in the southern city of Kalamata on Tuesday.

Continue reading...

Scientists find buried branch of the Nile that may have carried pyramids’ stones

Posted on by

Discovery of the branch, which ran alongside 31 pyramids, could solve mystery of blocks’ transportation

Scientists have discovered a long-buried branch of the Nile River that once flowed alongside more than 30 pyramids in Egypt, potentially solving the mystery of how ancient Egyptians transported the massive stone blocks to build the monuments.

The 40-mile-long (64km) river branch, which ran by the Giza pyramid complex among other wonders, was hidden under desert and farmland for millennia, according to a study revealing the find on Thursday.

Continue reading...