Tag Archives: Egypt

The Washington Post reports: Five days before Donald Trump became president in January 2017, a manager at a bank branch in Cairo received an unusual letter from an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service. It asked the bank to “kindly withdraw” nearly $10 million from the organization’s account — all in cash. Inside the state-run National Bank of Egypt, …

CNN reports: Federal prosecutors have announced additional charges against New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, alleging they conspired to have a public official act as a foreign agent. A superseding indictment was filed Thursday. Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, were indicted last month on corruption-related offenses, and are accused of accepting “hundreds of thousands of …

The Washington Post reports: In the latest complication to the ill-fated voyage, Egypt has seized the Ever Given over its owners’ “failure to pay an amount of $900 million,” the state-run news outlet Ahram Gate reported. That amount represents the total compensation that Egypt says it is owed for the six-day blockage of the Suez Canal, including lost revenue from …

Reuters reports: With the 400-metre-long (430-yard) Ever Given dislodged, 113 ships were expected to transit the canal in both directions by early Tuesday morning, Suez Canal Authority (SCA) chairman Osama Rabie told reporters. He said a backlog of 422 ships could be cleared in 3 -1/2 days. The Ever Given had become jammed diagonally across a southern section of the …

The Wall Street Journal reports: The vast container ship that has been blocking the Suez Canal for six days has now been freed and is moving north to an anchor point, paving the way to open the critical waterway and end days of global supply delays. Engineers raced throughout Monday to finish the job of freeing the Ever Given after …

The New York Times reports: The mammoth cargo ship blocking one of the world’s most vital maritime arteries was wrenched from the shoreline and set partially afloat again early Monday, raising hopes that traffic could soon resume in the Suez Canal and limit the economic fallout of the disruption. Salvage teams, working on both land and water for five days …

CNN reports: The US Navy in the Middle East plans to send an assessment team of dredging experts to the Suez Canal as soon as Saturday to advise local authorities attempting to free the gigantic container ship which has been stuck there since Tuesday, according to two defense officials. The Ever Given, a container ship almost as long as the …

The Week reports: A massive container ship is still stuck in the Suez Canal — and the situation could possibly take “weeks” to resolve. On Tuesday morning, the Ever Given, a cargo ship that’s about a quarter mile long, became stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal, blocking shipping traffic. By Friday, it had yet to be successfully moved, and according to …

Reuters reports: A container ship blocking the Suez Canal like a “beached whale” sent new shockwaves through global trade on Thursday as officials stopped all ships entering the channel and the salvage company said it may take weeks to free. The 400 m (430 yard) Ever Given, almost as long as the Empire State Building is high, is blocking transit …

CNN reports: For more than three years, federal prosecutors investigated whether money flowing through an Egyptian state-owned bank could have backed millions of dollars Donald Trump donated to his own campaign days before he won the 2016 election, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CNN. The investigation, which both predated and outlasted special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, examined whether …

USA Today reports: Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian leader who for nearly 30 years was the resolute face of stability in the Mideast before being forced by the military to resign after 18-day nationwide protests that were part of the Arab world’s 2011 pro-democracy upheaval, died on Tuesday. He was 91. Throughout his rule, he was a stalwart U.S. ally, a …

The New York Times reports: Egyptian security forces arrested a senior editor of the country’s last significant independent news outlet on Saturday, in a new peak to a six-year-old crackdown on press freedom under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The editor in chief of the outlet, the online publication Mada Masr, said Saturday that a few weeks ago, the authorities had …

Axios reports: Searching a room for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at last month’s G7 summit in France, President Trump called out: “Where’s my favorite dictator?” Why it matters: Sisi really is a dictator, and he really is closely allied with the Trump administration. Trump is untroubled by the idea of partnering with authoritarians, but his remark was “met by …

The New York Times reports: Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, died in an Egyptian courtroom on Monday, Egyptian state television reported. Mr. Morsi, 67, won Egypt’s first free presidential election in 2012. The military dissolved Parliament later that year and ousted Mr. Morsi in 2013. He was on trial on espionage charges when he fainted and died, Egyptian …

Agence France-Presse reports: An Egyptian court on Sunday sentenced a television host to one year in prison for interviewing a gay man last year, a judicial source said. Mohamed al-Gheiti, who has expressed his stance against homosexuality on several occasions, was accused of promoting homosexuality and contempt of religion. The misdemeanors court in Giza also fined him 3,000 Egyptian pounds …

Trump logic: President Trump on Friday revived his calls for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and a travel ban targeting certain countries after an attack on a mosque in Egypt left at least 235 people dead. In a tweet announcing an upcoming phone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Trump lamented the terrorist attack on the al-Rawdah mosque …

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports: Tony Perkins, president of the anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council (FRC), joined a group of evangelical leaders from the United States to meet with Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has been criticized as a dictator responsible for Egypt’s harshest political repression in the country’s history. The el-Sisi government is also responsible for …

Pink Sixty reports: MP Ryad Abdel Sattar [photo] on Wednesday introduced to the parliament’s speaker Ali Abdel Aal a draft law entailing five main articles of the criminalisation of homosexuality. The draft law would pave the way for strict punitive measures against the LGBT community in Egypt, in addition to restricting the presence of LGBT People inside Egyptian society, Abdel …

The Washington Post reports: This week, a government journal in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan announced that the country’s interior ministry had compiled a registry of “proven” gays and lesbians. The list named 319 men and 48 women, whom Tajik federal prosecutors identified in operations they called “Morality” and “Purge.” A purge — likely in the form of mass …

The Associated Press reports: Egyptian authorities arrested seven people Monday who they accused of being gay and promoting homosexuality for allegedly raising the rainbow flag of the LGBT movement at a concert, filing charges even though there is no law officially banning the practice. The flag was a rare sign of support for highly marginalized homosexuals in this conservative country …