Egypt

27 May 2023; MEMO: Reporters Without Borders has called on the Egyptian authorities to release Tawfik Ghanem, the former bureau chief of the Anadolu Agency office in Cairo, noting that he had begun his third year in detention without being brought to trial.

CAIRO (AP) — Saudi Arabia and the U.S. said Friday the warring sides in Sudan’s conflict are adhering better to a week-long ceasefire following days of sporadic fighting.

The truce, brokered by Riyadh and Washington, went into effect Monday, but fighting continued in Khartoum and the western Darfur region. Particularly intense clashes flared up on Wednesday, the two countries said in a joint statement.

25 May 2023; MEMO: Egypt has deferred payments for its large wheat purchases, in some cases by months, according to a government official and traders, as the country grapples with a shortage of hard currency, Reuters reports.

Egypt is one of the world's biggest wheat importers and uses the purchases to make heavily subsidised bread, a politically sensitive benefit available to tens of millions of people.

CAIRO, May 25 (Xinhua) -- The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) in Egypt on Thursday refloated a ship grounded in the world's busiest artificial waterway, according to an SCA statement.

"Three tugboats refloated a large ship that had been stranded in the Suez Canal," the SCA said.

The SCA rescue team managed to deal with an emergency breakdown in a XIN HAI TONG 23, a 190-meter bulk carrier near the southern end of the canal from Saudi Arabia.

CAIRO, May 20 (Xinhua) -- Four people were killed and 11 others wounded on Saturday when a three-storey residential building collapsed in the southern Egyptian province of Qena, local authorities told Xinhua.

Three adults and an infant died in the building in the al-Taramasa village, said Ihab Taha, Qena's security director.

Firefighters and ambulances rushed to the collapsed building to evacuate the injured, said the official, noting the prosecution ordered an immediate investigation into the incident.

CAIRO (AP) — In a symbolic gesture, Sudan’s top army general on Friday fired the paramilitary leader — his former ally turned rival — as the deputy of the country’s governing body, state media reported.

The dismissal by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan of Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the Rapid Support Forces, from the Sovereignty Council comes as the two fueding generals continue to battle for control over this troubled African country.

The monthlong conflict has killed at least 705 people, the World Health organization said Friday.

19 May 2023; MEMO: Multiple commercial sectors in Egypt yesterday launched a campaign to boycott the purchase of the US dollar from the black market after the exchange rate recently exceeded 41 Egyptian pounds as opposed to the official price of 30.90 Egyptian pounds in the Central Bank of Egypt to the, the news website Arabi21 reported.

15 May 2023; MEMO: A coalition of workers affiliated with 11 Egyptian opposition parties have demanded the Israeli embassy in Cairo be shut and the occupation state's ambassador be expelled as well as the cancellation of trade deals with Israel.

14 May 2023; MEMO: Egypt's government sold a 9.5% stake in state-controlled Telecom Egypt ETEL.CA for 3.75 billion Egyptian pounds ($121.6 million), the finance ministry said in a statement on Sunday, breathing life into a privatisation programme that had seemingly stalled, Reuters reports.

Telecom Egypt's is the second sale of state assets since Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly promised on April 29 to press ahead with the sales programme and sell assets worth $2 billion by the end of June.

ASWAN, Egypt (AP) — The café outside Aswan station was full of Sudanese families, surrounded by luggage and waiting for the train to Cairo, the next leg in their arduous journey escaping violence that has torn apart their country and overturned their lives.