Year: 2014

USAID expands energy efficiency programme in Egypt

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched the expansion of an energy efficiency programme aiming to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) reduce their energy costs.

Trade and Investment Team Leader with USAID in Egypt Jacinto Fabiosa said: “USAID is committed to working with the Egyptian people to increase energy efficiency in Egypt.”

“If firms can improve their energy efficiency, they can save on energy costs – and become more competitive, grow their business, and create more jobs,” he added.

USAID’s programme has helped business save between7% to 28% of their energy consumption.

“The programme expansion will improve environmentally sustainable production in the textile industry and increase competitiveness in international markets,” the USAID official statement added.

Budget allocations to subsidise electricity for FY 2014/2015 have been reduced to EGP 27bn, and the government hopes to raise electricity prices within five years. The government plans to increase usage of new and renewable energy to 20% Egypt’s total energy mix by 2020.

November 3, 2014
Sabry Helmy Nakhnoukh’s appeal rejected

Sabry Helmy Nakhnoukh’s appeal rejected
(AFP FILE PHOTO / Stringer)

The Court of Cassation upheld a 28 year prison sentence for Sabry Helmy Nakhnoukh on Monday, reported state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram.

Nakhnouk, dubbed the “Prince of Thugs” by the media, was sentenced by the Alexandria Criminal Court in May 2013 to three years for possession of drugs with the intention of drug use and a further 25 years for possession of unlicensed weapons, forgery, and breeding wild animals.

Upon his arrest police discovered five lions in metal cages, six dogs, four horses, and an ostrich in his villa outside of Alexandria, as well as weapons, hashish, and cash (EGP 56,995, $3,060, and LBP 4,000).

Nakhnoukh suggested at the time of his arrest in August 2012 that he was targeted for political reasons, as he claimed he had documents that would damage the reputation of Muslim Brotherhood politician Mohamed Al-Beltagy and other senior figures. Nakhnoukh and Beltagy engaged in a war of words and exchanged accusations at the time.

The Brotherhood and its political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, have since been dissolved by the Egyptian authorities.

November 4, 2014
5,000 farming families face eviction in Alexandria

Approximately 5,000 farming families are at risk of having their homes demolished and converted into real estate investment projects by the Egyptian Endowments Authority.

The evictions are “tantamount to an illegal eviction order that will leave the legal occupants of the land homeless and deny them their livelihood”, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), said in a statement Sunday.

The roots of the dispute lie in the bureaucracy of the transition period between presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar El-Sadat. The former allocated land distribution to the General Authority for Agricultural Reform, whilst the latter transferred responsibility to the Egyptian Endowments Authority and its cooperatives.

The EIPR said documents submitted by the farmers proved that farmers had legal possession of the land, “and neither the Endowment Authority nor the governorate has any legal claim to it”.

The group said Law 3/1986 confirmed the land was in the possession of the Agricultural Reform Authority, which granted ownership of the land to the farmers.

The Agricultural Reform Authority conducted an investigation and found small farmers were given title to the land. The Endowment Authority disregarded the investigation’s findings as well as other legal judgments ruling against demolition orders, according to the rights group.

“The Endowment Authority has continued to transfer ownership of the disputed land to various cooperative housing associations, in violation of the law, which has subjected local residents to numerous abuses,” said the EIPR, who also mentioned the use of violence on residents and farmers in the area.

The farmers, living in Montaza on the outskirts of Alexandria, have also asked the government to provide basic utilities and social services. They say the authorities have failed to connect irrigation networks and that sewage has seemed into their water resources, the EIPR says.

Residents appealed the decisions by the Endowment Authority’s to seize their land.

Several judicial rulings have found that the Endowment Authority has no legal claim over the land, said Mahmoud Hamdi Al-Kabir, the attorney for the local residents.

November 3, 2014
Suez lawyers strike over police assault claim

Lawyers have launched a strike on Sunday in a Suez courthouse in response to an alleged police assault on a lawyer.

“It all began when a lawyer was allegedly assaulted Saturday afternoon by a police officer, who refused to grant him access to the court while he accompanying one of his clients,” said Ahmed El-Kelany, a lawyer based in Suez. It is unclear why the police officer did not want the lawyer to enter the courthouse.

After the assault took place, a group of lawyers gathered to protest the incident. Afterwards, El-Kelany added, a police general ordered the Central Security Forces to disperse the protesting lawyers.

Following the incident, the syndicate’s general assembly held an emergency session Sunday, demanding police personnel leave the court and that army units take their place to secure the vicinity.

The syndicate released a statement saying: “Police personnel are considered adversaries of lawyers and we demand that they abandon the perimeter of the court”.

A meeting took place between a delegation from the syndicate and security officials, which ended in the assaulted lawyers refusing to compromise and threatening to escalate, El-Kelany said.

As of Sunday, the armed forces have taken over responsibility for securing the court.

Sameh Ashour, head of the Lawyer’s Syndicate, said Monday that lawyers will continue striking until all their demands are met.

Although one police officer was suspended from his duties, and another two were transferred, Ashour said the lawyers will continue the strike until the prosecution issues a ruling on the matter.

El-Kelany expressed deep concern over the challenges Egyptian lawyers continue to face. “Citizens hire lawyers to guarantee them a fair trial. It is alarming when lawyers are themselves assaulted and banned from accessing the courts,” he said.

The South Cairo Lawyers’ Syndicate condemned the attacks on Sunday, describing them as the strategy of a “police state, where the rights of lawyers are violated”.

A similar incident took place in November last year, when lawyers in Damietta went on strike to protest the assault on a female colleague.

In July 2012, lawyers staged a sit-in outside the Nasr City police station, which resulted in clashes between policemen and lawyers that left 16 people injured on both sides.

November 3, 2014
5 agreements signed between Egypt and Ethiopia

5 agreements signed between Egypt and Ethiopia.
(Photo
Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade Handout)

Five agreements and memorandum of understandings (MoU) were signed between Egypt and Ethiopia on Monday, encouraging diplomatic, trade and health cooperation.

A trade agreement was signed between the Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour and his Ethiopian counterpart. One of the signed MoUs outlines diplomatic cooperation between the two countries.

The remaining MoUs were signed between the Egyptian and Ethiopian ministers of health and ministers of education. The two countries have also agreed to cooperate on women affairs.

On Sunday, Abdel Nour said that a potential Egyptian-Ethiopian industrial zone is being studied.

The minister pointed out that the targeted trade volume between both countries is over $5bn, a relatively low figure considering the capabilities of both countries. Between 2004 and 2013, the volume of trade increased by 21%, edging up from $41m to $165m. He added that Egypt’s share of the trade is around 77.5%.

November 3, 2014
Prosecution orders 35 detained on terror charges

Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat ordered the detention of 35 individuals for 15 days pending investigation into terrorism accusations, reported state media.

The 35 men were arrested in different parts of the country, in the governorates of Damietta, Ismailia, Sohag, Beheira, and Sharqeya, reported the Ministry of Interior on Saturday. The ‘terrorist cell’ arrested in Damietta contained individuals who had travelled to Syria to “engage in the ranks of terrorist groups”. They have since returned to Egypt “pending the issuance of mandates for them to carry out hostile operations in Egypt”, said the ministry.

The Ministry of Interior and state media reported the men confessed to travelling to Turkey to enter Syria on falsified documents.

November 3, 2014
Rafah ‘elders and leaders’ to meet presidential council

The meeting comes in the wake of the government’s decision to enforce a ‘secure zone’ along Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip.
(AFP File Photo)

The Sinai Development Council (SDC) is set to meet with elders and leaders from the border town of Rafah on Monday at the order of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.

The meeting comes in the wake of the government’s decision to enforce a ‘secure zone’ along Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip. The zone involved the evacuation of hundreds of people living within 500 metres of the border, with their homes set to be destroyed.

The SDC has been instructed by Al-Sisi to discuss the Rafah elders and leaders’ “vision of the mechanisms required for the advancement of the status of the Sinai community”. It will also meet to hear the current problems facing communities in the volatile peninsula, according to a Monday statement from the State Information Service (SIS).

The meeting comes following Al-Sisi’s assurance that residents evacuated from their homes would be fully compensated and receive “national recognition of their role in this defining period”, read the statement.

Two attacks in North Sinai on 24 October resulted in the killing of at least 30 members of the armed forces, the deadliest attack in years. Following the incidents, Al-Sisi met with the National Defence Council, from which the order for the armed forces to create a ‘secure zone’ along the Sinai-Gaza border came. A state of emergency and a three-month curfew were also imposed in areas of North Sinai.

Al-Sisi said the day after the attacks that there had been foreign involvement, although he did not elaborate any further.

The armed forces said the ‘secure zone’ was to eradicate the use of smuggling tunnels that cross the Egypt-Gaza border, adding they present one of the biggest threats to Egypt’s national security.

The tunnels have been used in the past to bypass the air, land, and sea blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip since 2007. While providing Palestinians living in Gaza with vital access to goods normally restricted, the tunnels are illegal and have also been previously used to smuggle drugs, people, and weapons across the border.

Hamas, the ruling power in the Palestinian territory, said the ‘secure zone’ supports the Israeli blockade and harms Palestinians.

November 3, 2014
Trade deficit drops by 22.5% year on year in July: CAPMAS

Imports and exports decrease by 18.8% and 12.7%, respectively
(AFP File Photo)

Egypt’s trade balance deficit registered EGP 19.46bn in July 2014, decreasing by 22.5% compared to the EGP 25.11bn recorded during the same month last year, according to a report of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).

The report attributed the deficit’s decline to the 18.8% drop in imports and the 12.7% decrease in exports.

In July, Egyptian exports totaled EGP 13.05bn, compared to EGP 14.94bn during the same month last year. The plummet in exports was due to the decrease in the values of some commodities such as petroleum products, crude oil, ready-made clothes and fertilisers.

The value of Egyptian imports reached EGP 32.51bn, compared to EGP 40.05bn during the same month the previous year.

CAPMAS said that this was “due to the decrease the value of some commodities such as petroleum products, primary forms of iron or steel, corn, primary forms plastics”.

November 3, 2014
Egyptian actress Mariam Fakhr Eddine dies age 81

Egyptian actress Mariam Fakhr Eddine.
(Photo Public Domain)

Egyptian actress Mariam Fakhr Eddine died Monday at the age of 81, reported state-run newspaper Al-Ahram.

Fakhr Eddine underwent surgery at Maadi Military Hospital to remove a blood clot on her brain. The actress, who was admitted to the hospital’s intensive care unit, died due to complications in surgery. A date for the funeral has not been set yet, according to Al-Ahram.

Fakhr Eddine starred in over 200 films including “Al-Aidi Al-Nae’ma” (Soft Hands), which was produce in 1963, and “Al-Azraa Wal Shaar Al-Abyad” (The Virgin and The Grey Hair), produced in 1983. She also starred in several TV series such as “Al-Ae’la” (The Family) in 1994, and “Wa Lam Tansa Annaha Imra’aa” (And She Didn’t Forget that She is A Woman) in 2006.

November 3, 2014
56 judges suspended over ‘Brotherhood support’

A disciplinary committee has suspended 56 judges for signing a statement supporting the Muslim Brotherhood as a political faction
(AFP FILE PHOTO/MAHMOUD KHALED)

A disciplinary committee has suspended 56 judges for signing a statement supporting the Muslim Brotherhood as a political faction, reported state-run Al-Ahram. The judges are awaiting a final decision by the committee on whether they will be dismissed from their positions due to the signed statement.

The law stipulates that any judge who is referred to a disciplinary committee is to stand trial, with the possibility of suspension from judicial duties.

The judges are charged with signing a statement of support for former president Mohamed Morsi and the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, in protest at the military takeover on 3 July 2013.

Among the suspended judges are former Minister of Justice Ahmed Mekki and his brother, former vice-president Mahmoud Mekki.

Investigations revealed that after the judges signed the statement, it was read to the demonstrators during the pro-Morsi sit-in in Rabaa Al-Adaweya.

The sit-in lasted for 47 days, before it was violently dispersed by police and army forces on 14 August 2013.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report describing the dispersal as a “crime against humanity” and stated that it was “planned at the highest levels of Egyptian government”. Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) condemned the HRW report, calling it misleading and biased.

November 3, 2014