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Sudan maintains balancing act with Saudi, Iran

KHARTOUM, April 30, 2015 (Reuters) - The war in Yemen has given Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a skilled political operator who has ruled Sudan for a quarter-century, an opportunity to show wealthy Sunni powers that he can be an asset against Iranian influence -- if the price is right.

Bashir has maintained power amid region wide unrest in part by navigating a shifting patchwork of alliances that has seen Khartoum at different times draw close to Osama bin Laden, the United States, and Iran.

Now it appears that Bashir and many of his countrymen hope that supporting a month-old Saudi-led bombing campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen will encourage Gulf powers to pour aid and investment into Sudan's struggling economy.

The Saudi ambassador to Sudan hosts local media and officials on the second day of polling to praise Sudan's involvement in the Yemen campaign and insist that Saudi aid is not contingent on Khartoum's decision to support the war.

If Bashir, who this week won another five-year term, pulls off yet another juggling act by winning Arab cash without completely alienating Iran, it will strengthen his argument at home and abroad that only he can steer his fractious country through an increasingly complicated region.

Since the military operation in Yemen began, Saudi Arabia has pledged fresh investments in Sudan's key agricultural sector, and bankers say there is more willingness for Gulf banks to do business with their Sudanese counterparts.

But if Sudan is to see major economic support from Saudi Arabia and its allies, Bashir will have to overcome a deep distrust of his government, which analysts and diplomats say has a checkered history of switching partners at its convenience. Read more

#WhereIsTheBomb warns Egyptians of violence-related traffic

CAIRO, Feb. 12, 201 - Egypt's long-suffering drivers, worn down by decades of jams and crashes, are turning to social media to stave off a new, even more pressing threat -- the traffic chaos caused by roadside bombs.

The makers of mobile travel app "Bey2ollak" have started sending their users and online followers warnings on bomb scares and resulting hold-ups in Cairo and Alexandria using the hashtag #WhereIsTheBomb.

The label has become so popular that it "trended" as one of the most used phrases by Egyptian Twitter users this week.

"We really wish we didn't need to incorporate such a feature," the app's co-creator Gamal ElDin Sadek told Reuters. Read more

Sudan's youth activists battle restraints and apathy

KHARTOUM, April 19, 2015 (Reuters) - When the Arab Spring uprisings burst out four years ago, Bedreldin Mohamed believed that, finally, many of his Sudanese countrymen would join him in calling for an alternative to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, now in his 25th year in power.

But this week, with national elections looking likely to re-elect Bashir after security forces cracked down on protest movements, opposition parties and the media, the 25-year-old activist's optimism has faded.

"After the peace with the south in 2005, and throughout the Arab Spring, we could make speeches outdoors and meet on campus," he said. "Now we're meeting in the dark or at home. Things have changed." Read more

Egypt's cotton U-turn highlights wider policymaking problems

SHUBRA KHEIT, Egypt, Aug 11, 2015 (Reuters) - Standing waist deep in a cotton field, Egyptian farmer Mohamed Khalil cannot mask his anger; after the agriculture ministry banned cotton imports to help local producers, the cabinet abruptly vetoed the idea - the latest in a series of economic policy U-turns and delays under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

"I can't believe this. Just weeks ago they said we wouldn't have to worry about imported cotton," said the white-turbaned farmer, who rents a plot from the state to grow high-quality cotton at the Nile Delta village of Shubra Kheit.

Such schizophrenic decision-making is also a symptom of wider policy problems affecting Egypt, which is struggling to re-energize its economy and attract foreign investment after years of turmoil since 2011.

Sisi has imposed some tough reforms such as reducing fuel subsidies which swallowed up huge parts of the state budget, winning praise from the IMF. But he has focused much of his economic policy on mega-projects like extending the Suez Canal and a planned new capital city.

Meanwhile, other state initiatives have run into trouble. Read more

Dollar shortage squeezes importers

CAIRO, March 12, 2015 (Reuters) - Egypt's currency market reforms are inflicting a heavy toll on many private sector wheat traders struggling to secure shipments for the world's largest wheat importer.

Last month, the central bank devalued the Egyptian pound and capped dollar deposits in banks to $50,000 a month in order to undermine the black market.

But restrictions on unofficial dollar flows were not matched by significant increases in dollars available through official channels, leading to a country-wide hard currency shortage that has hit importers particularly hard. Read more

Egypt's power choices appease public, squeeze industry

CAIRO, Aug. 27, 2015 (Reuters) - Far fewer Egyptians are complaining about the kind of power cuts that fueled unrest in the past but government energy policies apparently focused on appeasing the public are dealing a blow to industries vital for economic growth.

Companies say production will continue suffering unless the government starts diverting some of the gas supplied to electricity plants powering homes to factories. Read more

Egypt confounds wheat thieves with hi-tech U.S. storage

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, July 8, 2015 (Reuters) - A move to store Egypt's wheat in state-of-the-art warehouses monitored by a control center in Cairo could end losses from theft and waste, cutting its $3 billion bread subsidy bill, an executive at the U.S. firm designing the project said.

By automating and centralizing monitoring and access the new system is designed to save Egypt, the world's top wheat importer, $200 million annually. Theft is rampant at open-air sites, contributing to post-harvest losses estimated at 40 percent.

"Just bringing the wheat indoors and putting a roof over it drastically reduces how much wheat is spoiled," said Peter Blumberg, vice-president at Blumberg Grain. Read more

What can $300 billion buy in Egypt? A new capital or a pipedream

CAIRO, April 19, 2015 (Reuters) - It is a project as ambitious as Egypt's ancient pyramids.

Built from scratch to escape Cairo's choking pollution, a planned new capital will feature an airport larger than London's Heathrow, a building taller than Paris's Eiffel Tower and more than 10,000 km (6,200 miles) of boulevards, avenues and streets.

The city, meant to be built within just seven years, was unveiled last week at the Sharm El-Sheikh economic summit, where President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi urged foreign investors to help Egypt recover from the turmoil triggered by the 2011 uprising.

But the plan was not universally welcomed, with residents of Cairo questioning the need to replace their 1,000-year-old capital with a shiny new city that, if it ever rises from the nearby desert, will rely heavily on Gulf Arab financing.

"If we need to move some buildings and some government employees, that's fine. But buildings don't make a capital, history does," said Amr Karim, a doorman at one of Cairo's art deco buildings in the Agouza district. Read more

Egypt's energy reforms spark rush of oil and gas deals

MILAN/CAIRO, Feb. 6, 2015 (Reuters) - Energy-hungry Egypt's willingness to push fuel market reforms and stick to debt repayment plans has led to an unexpected resurgence in oil and gas exploration and supply deals previously delayed by political upheaval.

The country has emerged as a major new oil and gas market as the government looks to ease the worst energy crunch in decades.

In January alone Egypt clinched 15 new exploration deals, amended two more, and closed major tenders to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Algeria to Russia, opening up to global energy pricing norms as the government seeks to scrap crippling subsidies by 2019. Read more

Anger, calls for calm in Middle East over new Charlie cartoons

CAIRO/ISTANBUL, Jan. 14, 2015 (Reuters) - Muslim clerics in the Middle East who have denounced last week's attack on Charlie Hebdo criticized the French satirical weekly on Wednesday for publishing new cartoons depicting Islam's Prophet Mohammad in its first issue after the killings.

On the front of its "survivor's edition", which swiftly sold out its multi-million copy print run in France, the newspaper printed a cartoon of a tearful Mohammad carrying a sign reading "I am Charlie", under the headline "All is forgiven".

While mainstream Muslim leaders around the world have strongly condemned the attack on the newspaper, many said its decision to print more cartoons of Mohammad was an unnecessary provocation and sign of disrespect that would create a new backlash. Read more

Lower oil price 'double-edged sword' for energy-hungry Egypt

CAIRO, Dec. 23, 2014 (Reuters) - The fall in global oil prices will cut Egypt's fuel subsidy bill but could hit the finances of oil-exporting Gulf allies who have showered it with billions of dollars in aid.

Oil has dropped dramatically over the past six months, with Brent crude trading at $60.87 a barrel on Tuesday, down 47 percent from this year's peak just over $115 in June.

If it stays at that level, the government expects to save 30 billion Egyptian pounds($4.2 billion) on fuel subsidies for its 86 million people in the 2014-15 fiscal year. But that is less than half the total Gulf aid it received in the last fiscal year alone. Read more

breaking news

Car bomb kills Egypt's chief prosecutor

CAIRO, June 30 (Reuters) - Egypt's top public prosecutor was killed by a car bomb attack on his convoy on Monday, the most senior state official to die at the hands of militants since the toppling of an Islamist president two years ago.

There was no confirmed claim of responsibility. Security sources said a bomb in a parked car was remotely detonated as Hisham Barakat's motorcade left his home, after saying earlier a car bomber had rammed into the convoy.

Judges and other senior officials have increasingly been targeted by radical Islamists opposed to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and angered by hefty prison sentences imposed on members of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

Last month, the Islamic State militant group's Egyptian affiliate urged followers to attack judges, opening a new front in an Islamist insurgency in Egypt. Read more

Egypt's top businessman Sawiris testifies at Al Jazeera retrial

CAIRO, April 22 (Reuters) - One of Egypt's wealthiest businessmen, Naguib Sawiris, testified for the defense on Wednesday at the retrial of two Al-Jazeera television journalists, possibly boosting their standing in a case criticized from abroad.

Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were sentenced last year to between 7 and 10 years in prison for aiding a "terrorist organization", a reference to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood which was ousted from power by the army in mid-2013.

French far-right leader says Egypt visit failed to change immigration view

CAIRO May 31 (Reuters) - The leader of France's far right National Front party said on Sunday that a visit to Egypt to meet with the country's religious and political leaders had no effect on her views on Arab and Muslim immigration to France.

Since taking over from her father and becoming head of the National Front, Marine Le Pen has sought to rid the party of its anti-Semitic image and position it as an anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic force offering protectionist policies to shelter France from globalization.

Le Pen arrived in Egypt last week for a meeting with the grand imam of Al Azhar, Sunni Islam's highest authority, the pope of the Egyptian Coptic Church, and Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb.

Libyan tribes meet in Cairo as Egypt seeks allies against militants

CAIRO, May 25 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Libyan tribal leaders met in Cairo on Monday with Egyptian authorities hoping to enlist their help in preventing Islamist violence from spilling over their shared border.

Islamist militants have thrived in the chaos of Libya a North African oil producer that now has two competing governments backed by armed factions that four years earlier joined in an uprising that toppled autocrat Muammar Gaddafi.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi sees ascendant Islamists in Libya as a major security threat and is trying to secure the cooperation of tribal leaders to tackle it.

Analysts say that Sisi would like Arab states to carry out a Yemen-type intervention in Libya to combat Islamic State jihadis and other radical factions that have taken advantage of the lawlessness to recruit and train in the vast desert country. Read more

Sudan votes in elections boycotted by opposition groups

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir after voting in presidential and parliamentary polls, in Khartoum. He extended his quarter-century of rule with 94 percent of the vote, authorities said.

Abdelaziz al-Hassan, who says he will vote to extend the 25-year rule of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and his ruling National Congress Party in national elections. "I always stand with the strong. The rest of them you haven't even seen their fac

A woman walks into a school to vote during Sudan's elections, which saw low turnout amid an opposition boycott and widespread political apathy, driven by a sense among voters that the outcome was a foregone conclusion. President Omar Hassan al-Bashi

Farouk Abu Issa, one of two prominent Sudanese opposition leaders freed without explanation days before national elections, at his home with family and supporters in Khartoum, Sudan

Police and elections officials at a school being used as a polling station in Khartoum, Sudan, April 13, 2015.

Voters look for their voting information at a polling station in Khartoum, as two officials with the opposition Democratic Unionist Party, one of a handful of opposition parties taking place in the largely boycotted elections, walk in to monitor the

A tent, provided by the ruling National Congress Party, where voters could eat, drink and rest, outside of a polling station in Khartoum

An Umma Party member breaks down as he recalls a conversation with activist Sandra Farouk Kadouda on April 12, the night she disappeared in what family and friends say was an abduction by state security services. The government denied any role in he

The Saudi ambassador speaks to Sudanese journalists at the Saudi embassy in Khartoum, April, 14, 2015, during national elections where regional politics played a disproportionate role. The popularity of President Omar al-Bashir and his ruling Nation

A woman casts her ballot while an elections worker helps an old man vote, at a school being used as a polling station in Khartoum, hours before the close of national polls, which authorities extended by a day after low turnout on the initial three d

Elections workers move boxes full of cast ballots after the close of national polls

Elections workers seal and mark the boxes of ballots after the close of polling in Sudan's presidential and parliamentary elections

KHARTOUM, April 13 (Reuters) - Sudanese voters trickled in to polling stations on Monday at the start of a three-day election boycotted by the main opposition parties, with President Omar Hassan al-Bashir set to extend his quarter-century in power.

The presidential and parliamentary polls are the first since Sudan saw its south secede in 2011, losing a third of its land and nearly all of its oil production.

Bashir has campaigned on improving the economy, in which inflation and unemployment remain high. He has also promised to maintain stability, warning against a change in government while the region is embroiled in violence from Libya to Yemen.

In Sudan, security forces are tackling insurgencies in the western territory of Darfur and along the border with South Sudan.

"The elections are good and clean and there's nothing more I would ask of them," said Nadia Ahmed Abdelrahman, a 55-year-old local government official voting in the capital.

"The elections are better than what is happening elsewhere in the region. Look at the death and killing. Thank God we have avoided that," she said.

(Shadi Bushra/Reuters)

CAIRO, April 19 (Reuters) - The trial of two Al Jazeera television journalists was adjourned until March 25 on Thursday after the court ordered the creation of a new technical committee to review their work.

The decision came after expert witnesses, who had previously said the Al Jazeera reporting had harmed national security, admitted they had not seen all the video collected as evidence. Read more

Egyptian court jails leading activist for five years

CAIRO, Feb 23 (Reuters) - An Egyptian court sentenced a prominent activist to five years in jail on Monday for violating limits on demonstrations, amid one of the toughest crackdowns on dissent in Egypt's history.

After the verdict was read, chants of "Down, down with military rule!" rang out in the crowded courtroom from supporters of Alaa Abdel Fattah, a leading secular figure in the 2011 revolt that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Read more

Two Russians kidnapped in Darfur

CAIRO/MOSCOW, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Gunmen in Sudan's Darfur region have kidnapped two Russians working for UTair, an airline contracted by the international peacekeeping mission there, officials said on Tuesday.

The Sudanese government dismissed the possibility of a ransom payment for their freedom. Read more

Egypt frees Al Jazeera journalist Greste, 2 others still held

CAIRO, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste was released from a Cairo jail on Sunday and left Egypt after 400 days in prison on charges that included aiding a terrorist group, security officials said. Read more

Shadi Bushra |