Egypt

25 Nov 2019; MEMO: Egyptian security forces raided the office of independent news website Mada Masr on Sunday and briefly detained three of its staff including its top editor, a day after another journalist was detained, the outlet said, Reuters reports.

CAIRO, Nov 22 (NNN-XINHUA) — Egypt welcomed the appointment of Egyptian Social Solidarity Minister Ghada Waly as the new executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Xinhua news agency reported, quoting the Egyptian foreign ministry in a statement on Thursday.

The Egyptian statement highlighted Waly’s expertise and efficiency “that qualify her to assume such an important post,” expressing high appreciation of the UN role in maintaining world peace and security.

15 Nov 2019; MEMO: Egypt’s unemployment rate rose to 7.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2019, compared to 7.5 per cent in the previous quarter, state-run Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) announced yesterday.

Unemployment in Egypt amounted to 10 per cent of the total labour force in the third quarter of 2018.

14 Nov 2019; MEMO: Detained Egyptian activist Israa Abdelfattah is about to begin a thirst strike to force the prosecutor to open an investigation into complaints that she has been tortured in custody.

Israa was kidnapped by security forces from a street in Cairo on 12 October and taken away in a van to an undisclosed place of detention where she was banned from contacting lawyers or family members.

13 Nov 2019; MEMO: The family of Mahmoud Hussein, the imprisoned Al Jazeera journalist, are calling on Egyptian authorities to give him permission to attend his father’s funeral after he passed away yesterday.

In September Hussein requested permission to visit his father Hussein Jumaa but the request was denied. Jumaa had five strokes in the period of time Hussein has been in prison.

CAIRO, November 13. /TASS/: The radical Palestinian group Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine has declared the death of another commander during Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, TV channel Al Mayadeen reports.

Commander of the Al-Quds Brigades armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 38-year-old Khaled Faraj, was killed in an airstrike near a farm.

CAIRO, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Tuesday met with the United Nations envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame to discuss ways to resolve the crisis in Libya.

During the meeting, Shoukry reaffirmed Egypt's call for reaching a comprehensive political settlement in Libya in a way that preserves the unity and integrity of the North African country, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

CAIRO, November 12. /TASS/: Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu arrived to the Egyptian capital Cairo, where he is scheduled to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Tuesday.

During the visit, Shoigu is also expected to head the Russian delegation to the sixth session of the Russian-Egyptian commission on defense cooperation, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Rossiyana Markovskaya told reporters.

CAIRO, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi met on Thursday with visiting Bahrain King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in the Egyptian capital Cairo, where they vowed to continue boosting ties of cooptation between the two countries, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement.

Sisi hailed the Egyptian-Bahraini relations as "a model of strategic cooperation between fellow Arabs," Egyptian precedential spokesman Bassam Rady said in the statement.

CAIRO, November 7. /TASS/: Air defense troops from Russia and Egypt live-fired surface-to-to air missile systems during their Arrow of Friendship-2019 joint drills near Cairo, the press office of Russia’s Southern Military District reported on Thursday.

The Russian-Egyptian Arrow of Friendship air defense drills are running on October 26 - November 7. More than 100 personnel of the Southern Military District are representing Russia in the joint maneuvers.