By Yasmine Saleh / 24 Oct 2013

After months of turmoil in Egypt, military officers are pushing popular army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to run for president, after the 2011 uprising had inspired hopes for democratic change in a country long dominated by generals.

Sisi ousted Egypt’s first freely-elected president, Mohamed Mursi, the man who appointed him, in July after mass protests against the Islamist leader’s rule.

Source : Reuters / 29 Aug 2013

Egypt’s interim cabinet will approve a plan on Wednesday to stimulate the economy over the next nine months, al-Ahram newspaper quoted Planning Minister Ashraf al-Arabi as saying.

The government has said it plans to avoid raising taxes or cutting spending to reduce the country’s mushrooming budget deficit, and instead will use aid pledged by Gulf Arab states to spur growth.

Source : AFP / 5 Aug 2013

Egyptian authorities on Sunday banned Yemeni rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman from entering the country for “security reasons,” airport officials said.

Karman was held at Cairo airport on arrival and ordered to return on the flight back to Yemen, the officials said without providing further details. The first Arab woman to win the Nobel peace prize has voiced support for loyalists of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and described his ouster by the military in July as undemocratic.

Source : Reuters / 23 Jul 2013

The biggest mistake deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi made was stopping wheat imports, Egypt’s new minister of supplies said, pledging to ensure that supplies of a strategic good like wheat do not reach the critically low levels they did during Mursi’s year in office.

Mohamed Abu Shadi, a 62-year-old former police general with a doctorate in economics, said Mursi’s government made “incorrect calculations” regarding Egypt’s wheat stocks.

Source : Reuters / 6 May 2013

Egypt hopes to lower its budget deficit to 5.5 percent in the 2016-1017 fiscal year from 10.7 percent in 2012/13, the finance minister told Egypt's Al-Ahram daily newspaper on Saturday.

Egypt's budget deficit will reach 197.5 billion Egyptian pounds ($28.7 billion) or 9.5 percent of gross domestic product in the fiscal year starting July 1 after a revised 184.9 billion pounds or 10.7 percent in 2012/13, according to a draft budget previously seen by Reuters.

Source : Al Arabiya / 26 Apr 2013

A turtle considered to be the second oldest animal in the world died this week in Egypt’s Giza Zoo at the age of 280, a local newspaper reported Thursday.

King Farouk, who became the ruler of Egypt in 1936, dedicated the ancient turtle to the zoo, reported the privately owned daily Youm 7.

Source : Al Arabiya with Agencies / 21 Mar 2013

Egypt ministers on Tuesday announced controversial plans to introduce a smart-card system that limits the amout of subsidized bread citizens can buy.

The government would start rationing “after two months,” Supply Minister Bassem Ouda told Reuters earlier this week.

By Reuters / 14 Feb 2013

Fathy Ali is beyond anger as he queues for hours in a line of 64 trucks and buses to fill his tank with scarce subsidized diesel fuel, known in Egypt as “Solar.”

“This has become part of my life. I come and wait for hours or days, depending on my luck,” the chain-smoking bus driver said at a besieged gas station on Cairo’s Suez High Road, wrapped in a scarf and thick coat for the long ordeal. “At the start it used to upset me a lot but now I’ve kind of given up.”

By Carina Kamel / 10 Jan 2013

Egypt will sign a long-awaited financing deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) before upcoming parliamentary elections, the planning minister has told Al Arabiya, hinting that elements of the government’s economic program such as a controversial sales tax rise could be subject to change in a revised agreement.

Minister Ashraf El Araby also dismissed reports that newly announced aid from Qatar could delay the IMF loan.

By Reuters / 7 Jan 2013

Egypt's president added fellow Islamists to a reshuffled government on Sunday and the new finance minister pledged to finish talks on an IMF loan to stave off a currency crisis that risks provoking more popular unrest.

A senior IMF official is due in Cairo on Monday to meet Egyptian leaders over the $4.8 billion loan deal, which was postponed last month to give Egypt more time to tackle political tensions before introducing unpopular austerity measures.