Egypt

CAIRO (AP) — Around midnight in mid-November, Libyan militiamen in two Toyota pickup trucks arrived at a residential building in a neighborhood of the capital of Tripoli. They stormed the house, bringing out a blindfolded man in his 70s.

Their target was former Libyan intelligence agent Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, wanted by the United States for allegedly making the bomb that brought down New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, just days before Christmas in 1988. The attack killed 259 people in the air and 11 on the ground.

18 Dec 2022; MEMO: The foreign ministers of Russia and Egypt discussed bilateral ties and international issues in a phone call on Saturday, reports Anadolu Agency.

Sergey Lavrov and Sameh Shoukry exchanged views on the situation in the Middle East and North Africa, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

They affirmed mutual interest in strengthening cooperation on topical international and regional issues, including in the UN, it added.

CAIRO (AP) — The International Monetary Fund has approved a deal that will provide a $3 billion support package to cash-strapped Egypt over a period of almost four years, with the agreement expected to draw in an additional $14 billion in financing for the Middle East country.

CAIRO (AP) — One of Libya’s rival prime ministers called Tuesday for the release of the former Libyan intelligence officer accused of making the bomb that downed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing all onboard, after he surfaced in U.S. custody earlier this week.

American authorities said Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimihad been arrested and would face trial in the United States. On Monday, he appeared in a Washington, D.C., federal court, where he was charged with an act of international terrorism.

12 Dec 2022; MEMO: BP has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Egyptian government with the aim of establishing a large-scale renewable hydrogen production facility in the North African country, it said in a statement 8 December, Bloomberg reports.

"Egypt has world-class renewable energy resources, and we look forward to working with the government to explore how we can support its ambitious low-carbon strategy," BP Executive Vice President of Gas and Low Carbon Energy, Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath said in the statement.

CAIRO (AP) — Iran’s currency fell to a record low against the dollar on Sunday, with nationwide anti-government protests now in their third month. A breakdown in negotiations to restore Tehran’s nuclear deal has also hurt the value of the rial.

Traders in Tehran were exchanging the rial at around 370,000 to the dollar on Sunday, up from 368,000 on Thursday. Iran’s currency was trading at 32,000 rials to the dollar at the time of the 2015 nuclear accord that dropped international sanctions in exchange for tight controls on Iran’s nuclear program.

10 Dec 2022; MEMO: A document has revealed that late Colonel Binyamin Gibli, head of Israeli Military Intelligence between June 1950 and March 1955, was directly ordered by then-Defence Minister Pinhas Lavon to bomb US and UK targets in Egypt in 1954, Arab48.com reported on Friday.

Known as Operation Susannah, Gibli ordered nine Egyptian-Jewish undercover agents, members of Unit 131, to bomb UK and US targets.

09 Dec 2022; MEMO: The overall annual inflation rate in Egypt jumped to 19.2 per cent last month, its highest level since November 2017, according to data from the state-run Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).

Data released by CAPMAS on Thursday shows that the country's monthly inflation rate was 2.5 per cent in November.

CAIRO (AP) — Iranian authorities executed four people Sunday accused of working for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, the state-run IRNA news agency said. Three others received lengthy prison sentences.

IRNA said the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guard announced the arrests of a network of people linked to the Israeli agency. It said the members had previous criminal records and tried to disrupt the country’s security.

03 Dec 2022; MEMO: The number of deaths among political prisoners inside the Badr Prison Complex in Cairo has risen to four, just a few months after opening the huge complex. This follows the death of detainee Hassan Diab Hassan inside his cell in Badr 3 Prison due to medical negligence.