Kristalina Georgieva, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Managing Director, hailed Egypt’s efforts to reform its economy during a recent meeting with Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly. Georgieva, who replaced Christine Lagarde as the new IMF Managing Director on 1 October, met with an Egyptian delegation led by the Egyptian Prime Minister in Washington on Tuesday. During the meeting, Georgieva and the Egyptian delegation, which also consisted of Egyptian Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Sahar Nasr, discussed the next steps for the IMF’s cooperation with Egypt. According to a statement released by the Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation, Georgieva and the delegation discussed new forms of cooperation and initiatives that will help Egypt continue its path of economic reform. This includes boosting the private sector’s participation in the development, infrastructure and production sectors. Following the meeting, Georgieva tweeted that there’s opportunity to further advance reforms. “I had a constructive meeting with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly. #Egypt’s reform program has made significant strides towards economic stability. This is a moment of opportunity to further advance reforms to achieve more inclusive private-sector led growth and job creation,” tweeted Georgieva. Egypt has…
Uncontrollable Wild Fires in Lebanon Force Residents to Leave their Homes
Uncontrollable wildfires spread from the south of Beirut up to pine forests in the north have swept across Lebanon since Monday, burning swathes of the country’s forest and killing at least one person, Reuters reports. Lebanon asked for international help after it struggled to control the forest fires, which raised concerns about the state’s capabilities and lack of preparedness despite the fires being a regular occurrence at this time of year. https://twitter.com/romyjournalist/status/1183995249351446528 The cause of the flames remains unknown, though officials have blamed the recent autumn heat wave. Lebanon’s Red Cross said that 18 people have so far been hospitalized and 88 have received emergency medical care. Four houses were burnt to the ground in the Meshref area, which led residents fled the surrounding houses, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported. A reporter from a Lebanese television network cried during a live overnight broadcast, “I really can’t help myself. People are screaming in their houses. People are stuck,” she said. Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said an investigation would be opened and if that they have been started intentionally, then the perpetrators would “pay a price.” Though he added that the fires…
Sisi Blames Renaissance Dam Crisis on January 25th Uprising: Egypt Bared Its Back and Shoulder in 2011
President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi blamed the Renaissance Dam crisis with Ethiopia on the 2011 uprising, which unseated Hosni Mubarak after 30 years of autocratic rule. Sisi’s comments came in a cultural seminar for the army last Sunday, during which the president stated that Egypt has “revealed its back and bared its shoulder in 2011,” CNN Arabic reports. Commenting on failed negotiations with Ethiopia regarding the dam’s potentially disastrous impact on water availability in Egypt, Sisi said that if it wasn’t for what happened in 2011, both parties would have been able to reach a satisfactory agreement. Sisi went on to warn against repeating those events, urging Egyptians to be careful and not “devour” the country. Sisi’s speech during the seminar (video: Sada El Balad) The Egyptian president also cited his March 2015 negotiations with Sudanese and Ethiopian leaders in Khartoum, which saw the parties reach a 10-point framework agreement to secure the country’s share of Nile water. However, the parties failed to reach technical solutions, regarding the filling of the dam’s reservoir or the duration and amount of water it would require. Sisi also called on the parties to…
Mohamed Ramadan Flies a Civilian Plane to Saudi Arabia
Sources in the Ministry of Civil Aviation in Egypt confirmed on Monday the legitimacy of the video circulating social media showing the Egyptian artist Mohamed Ramadan flying a civilian passenger plane to Saudi Arabia, according to Youm 7 newspaper. After reviewing the video, sources at the ministry pointed out that the plane was actually owned by one of the Egyptian private airlines, and it is not the national airline of EgyptAir. On Sunday, EgyptAir denied its involvement with the video that shows Ramadan inside the flight deck beside the pilot during a flight. Sources familiar with the EgyptAir emphasized that this is would never happen in any of its international and domestic flights as is contrary to the safety procedures, something the national airline is keen on in all its flights. EgyptAir confirmed that no one, aside from the cabin crew, is allowed to enter the flight deck during flights nor are they allowed to speak to the pilot and his assistant during the flight in accordance with the aviation laws. Ramadan documented his experience on his social media accounts. ☝🏽🇪🇬✈️🇸🇦 #موسم_الرياض 👌😉 pic.twitter.com/tFjbSa7eQ6 — Mohamed Ramadan (@Mohamed_Ramadan) October 13,…
Political Elite Outsider Kais Saied Elected As Tunisia’s President
Political outsider and conservative law professor, Kais Saied, was elected on Sunday in Tunisia’s presidential runoff, beating his rival Nabil Karoui, as reported by local media. Exit polls showed Kais Saied winning with 77% of the vote compared with 23% for media magnate Nabil Karoui. Around 90% of 18- to 25-year-olds voted for Saied, according to estimates by the Sigma polling institute, compared with 49.2% of voters over 60. Saied thanked the country’s young people “for turning a new page” and promised to try to build “a new Tunisia”. A huge number of people took to the streets of the capital, Tunis, to celebrate Saied’s victory, chanting.“Kais Saied, voice of the people.” Analysts have called Saied’s victory as a sign Tunisia’s rejection of the status quo, which was seen by the low performance of most political parties who have led the country since 2014, with the exception of pro-Islamic Ennahda. In a rare television debate on Friday evening, Saied addressed the audience in classical Arabic while his rival spoke in the local dialect, and shunned mass rallies during his campaign. In addition, has no political party and wants to introduce…
Al Samaha: The Upper Egyptian Village Where No Man is Allowed
“Pardon the men cannot live here .. The village is for divorced and widowed women only,” is an unwritten condition to live in the Upper Egyptian village ‘Al Samaha’, located in Edfu, which is 120 km away from Aswan. Here, in Upper Egypt, a number of women are partaking in a new experience, where they step away from society in isolation to avoid the social stigma and cultural perception that comes with being divorced and widowed. The women wake up early in the morning with their axes on their shoulders irrigating the land, raising cattle, harvesting crops and carrying their arms in the evening to protect their children. This project was launched by the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture in 1998 for single mothers widowed or divorced, said Hamdi El Kashef, the village’s general superintendent, in an interview with Al Arabiya, adding that only 303 women and their children, not men, live in the village. If any son gets married, he is taken out of the village. Nabil Rashid, technical director of the World Food Project, and the first to oversee the village, told Sputnik that the idea belonged to the…
Egypt Sees a 21% Increase in Schengen Visa Applications in 5 Years
Despite the notorious reputation of Schengen visas being difficult to obtain for Egyptians, Schengen embassies located in Egypt have witnessed an increase in Schengen Visa applications in the last years. Statistics show that within five years, the number of applications went from 156,995 in 2014 to 190,140 in 2018. According to Schengen Visa Info Statistics, the Schengen embassies and consulates located in Egypt, received 886,378 visa applications in total in the last five years, and granted 733,744 or 82.8 percent of the applicants with a visa. Moreover, the number of multiple-entry visas granted to nationals of Egypt, which permit the travelers to enter the Schengen territory more than once with the same visa, increased from 31.8 percent in 2014, to 33.7 percent in 2015, 47.4 percent in 2016, and reached the highest number of 50.8 percent in 2017. It dropped a little again in 2018 to 49.6 percent. The rate of visa denials, which is quite low compared to other countries, in particular neighboring ones, increased from 11.7 percent in 2014 to 19.9 percent in 2018. France and Germany Remain Favorite for Egyptian Travelers For many years in a row,…
The Story of the 18-Year Old Boy Stabbed For Defending A Girl From Harassment
Over the last few days, the story of 18-year old Mahmoud Al Banna blew up on Egypt’s social media sites as a result of his actions that saw him defending a girl from assault and harassment in the city of Tala in Mounefia. According to security sources, Mahmoud Al-Banna was stabbed to death during an altercation with some of his colleagues in the city of Tala. The stabber was revealed to be 19-year-old Mohammed Rajeh. Investigations by the Public Prosecution revealed the fact that the incident began when the victim was distressed by the actions of the accused towards a female colleague, who was assaulted and harassed by Rajeh in public, and expressed his frustrations with Rajeh’s behavior on his personal account on the social networking site ‘Instagram’. Al Banna’s social media posts triggered and angered Rajeh, who reportedly sent him threatening him messages before agreeing with a group of his friends to kill him, and set the date on 9 October. According to investigations, the defendants were monitoring the victim in the streets, and as soon as the victim moved away from a gathering of his friends, the attackers…
Fabrica’s ‘Mercury Rising: A Queen Tribute’ Music Video Wins at MoziMotion Film Festival in the Netherlands
Egypt’s very own musical theater company Fabrica won an award at the ninth annual MoziMotion Film Festival in the Netherlands for their ‘Mercury Rising: A Queen Tribute’ music video. Released soon after ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ hit the screens earlier this year, the music video was directed by Mohamed Koushi, while the art direction and choreography was by Omar Warda. “What captured everybody’s attention was – and it shows that they’re theatre actors – the first, I would say, 90% of the first, it’s a continuous camera roll, it’s a one take. You go all the way to the end and if you mess up, you’ve got to start all over again.” said MoziMotion co-founder Ruben Kazantsev. According to Kazantsev’s post on his Facebook page back in July, the ninth edition of the competition saw 4,000 film entries from over 100 countries, setting a new record in the event’s history. The ninth edition of the festival saw the participation of 4,000 films from more than 100 countries from across the world, hitting a new record. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was one of the most anticipated films of 2019. In February, Rami Malek’s role as…