CAIRO: Ramadan is a time for daytime fasting and lavish evening feasts, but Egyptians are scaling back preparations for the holy month this year after austerity measures fueled decades-high inflation.
At a Cairo supermarket, Rana, a web designer and mother of two, said she was buying less food in the runup to the start of Ramadan this weekend, depending on the sighting of the crescent moon, a period that usually sees a surge in demand.
Other shoppers who gathered around fruit and vegetable stalls shared her dismay. In April, core inflation neared 33 percent, and rose over 44 percent percent for foodstuffs.
“We cut down a lot on what we buy because the prices are too high,” said Rana as she sifted through a pile of tomatoes.
The record price increases followed the government’s decision to float the pound in November — seen as a precondition for a $12 billion IMF loan — that sent the currency plummeting.
With the pound trading at around 18 to the dollar, from 8.9 before November, the price of imports and local goods that use imported components has skyrocketed.
The government also adopted a Value Added Tax and slashed fuel subsidies.
Those are measures that previous Egyptian governments would not have dared to undertake for fear of sparking unrest.
But President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, a former army chief who ousted his predecessor Mohammed Mursi in 2013, has said he had no choice.
The measures were necessary to get the IMF financing, which provided Egypt a lifeline as foreign reserves dwindled and investors and tourists stayed out of the country that has been rocked by years of unrest.
For now, Egyptians appear to be absorbing the shock, while investors are applauding the reforms.
Protesting can lead to jail by the heavy-handed government, and many blame the demonstrations that ousted strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011 for years of chaos.
“What is coming will not be easy, but at least the shock has been absorbed. Reactions from foreign investors have been positive,” said Ramy Orabi, an economist with Pharos Holding for Financial Investments.
The International Monetary Fund, which views the reforms so far as successful, said this month it would release the second tranche of the loan in a “vote of confidence.”
Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s said it anticipated “ongoing fiscal consolidation in Egypt over 2017-2020, supported by the three-year IMF program,” affirming Egypt’s B-/B foreign and local currency sovereign credit rating.
But the IMF has also signaled concern over inflation, with one official suggesting an interest rate hike to tamp down inflation.
Monthly inflation fell from 4.3 percent in January to 1.8 percent in April.
“The monthly inflation increase is falling, and the floated currency and rising fuel prices reached a climax and should now return to a normal rhythm,” Orabi said.
The Monetary Policy Committee raised on Sunday the benchmark overnight deposit rate to 16.75 percent, and the overnight lending rate to 17.75 percent, each by 2 percentage points.
Floating the pound reduced the trade deficit, with importers of essential goods given priority access to dollars, in a country that buys even its wheat from abroad.
In February, the deficit fell by 56 percent compared with the same month last year.
The government has also sought to encourage direct foreign investment with a new law and tax exemptions, with results expected by the end of 2017.
Investments had already begun to edge back toward the pre-2011 level of $13.2 billion.
Between July and December 2016, direct foreign investment reached $7,4 billion, according to the central bank, compared to $6.9 billion the previous fiscal year.
Standard and Poor’s is forecasting a growth rate of 4 percent over the next three years, spurred by investment and exports.
Egyptians brace for austere Ramadan after reforms
Egyptians brace for austere Ramadan after reforms
Syria militants, allies shell Aleppo in shock offensive
- The violence has killed 242 people, according to a Syrian war monitor
- Militants cut highway linking Aleppo to capital Damascus on Thursday
BEIRUT: Militants and their Turkish-backed allies shelled Syria’s second city Aleppo on Friday, in a major offensive against government troops that has sparked some of the deadliest fighting the country has seen in years.
The violence has killed 242 people, according to a Syrian war monitor, most of them combatants on both sides but also including civilians, including 24 dead, most of them in Russian air strikes.
The offensive began at a sensitive time for Syria and the region, with a fragile ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel taking effect earlier this week in neighboring Lebanon.
Syria’s civil war began when President Bashar Assad’s forces cracked down in 2011 on pro-democracy protests.
Since then, it has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.
Over the years, the conflict has morphed into a complex war drawing in militants and foreign powers, including Assad allies Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.
While the army regained control over most of the territory that it lost earlier in the war, the area where the militants and their allies are based has been subject to a truce since 2020.
This week, militants and factions backed by Turkiye, which neighbors Syria and supported the anti-Assad rebellion, launched a major surprise offensive against government forces.
On Friday, they shelled a university student residence in government-held Aleppo, northern Syria’s main city, according to state media, which reported four civilian deaths in the latest attack.
By Friday, they had wrested more than 50 towns and villages in northern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the biggest advances that anti-government factions had made in years.
The fighters had on Thursday cut the highway linking Aleppo to Syria’s capital Damascus, according to the Britain-based Observatory.
“The highway has now been put out of service, after it was reopened by regime forces years ago,” said the monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said “more than 14,000 people — nearly half are children — have been displaced” by the violence.
At a press conference earlier this week, Mohamed Bashir of the militant Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) said: “This operation aims to repel the sources of fire of the criminal enemy from the frontlines.”
HTS, led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch, controls swathes of the northwest Idlib region as well as small parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.
The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire, repeatedly violated but which had largely been holding, brokered by Turkiye and Russia after a Syrian government offensive in March 2020.
An AFP correspondent based in rebel-held areas said there were intense exchanges of fire in an area just seven kilometers (four miles) from the city of Aleppo.
HTS has close ties with Turkish-backed factions, and analyst Nick Heras of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy said the fighters were “trying to preempt the possibility of a Syrian military campaign in the region of Aleppo.”
According to Heras, the Syrian government and its key backer Russia had been preparing for such a campaign.
Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015, turning the momentum of the conflict in favor of the president, whose forces at the time had lost control of most of country.
Turkiye, Heras said, may be “sending a message to both Damascus and Moscow to back down from their military efforts in northwest Syria.”
Other interests are also at stake.
As well as Russia, Assad has been propped up by Iran and allied militant groups, including Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah.
Anti-government forces are, according to Heras, “in a better position to take and seize villages than Russian-backed Syrian government forces, while the Iranians are focused on Lebanon.”
A general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was killed in Syria on Thursday during the fighting, an Iranian news agency reported.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the deadly offensive was “part of a plan by the diabolical regime (Israel) and the US” and called for “firm and coordinated action to prevent the spread of terrorism in the region.”
During its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel intensified its strikes on Iran-backed groups in Syria including Hezbollah.
Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Observatory, said Assad’s forces “were totally unprepared” for the attack.
“It is strange to see regime forces being dealt such big blows despite Russian air cover and early signs that HTS was going to launch this operation,” Abdel Rahman said.
“Were they depending on Hezbollah, which is now busy in Lebanon?”
Israeli tanks retreat from central Gaza camp, medics say 30 killed
- Some tanks remained active in the western area of the camp
- Freed Palestinians, detained during the war, have complained of ill-treatment and torture
CAIRO: Israeli military strikes killed at least 30 Palestinians overnight in the Gaza Strip, most of them in the Nuseirat camp at the center of the enclave, medics said on Friday after some tanks pulled back from an area they had raided.
Medics said they had recovered 19 bodies of Palestinians killed in the northern areas of Nuseirat, one of the enclave's eight long-standing refugee camps.
Some tanks remained active in the western area of the camp and the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said teams were unable to respond to distress calls from residents trapped inside their houses.
The rest were killed in the northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, medics added. There was no fresh statement by the Israeli military on Friday, but on Thursday it said its forces were continuing to "strike terror targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip".
Meanwhile, the Israeli authorities released around 30 Palestinians whom it had detained during the ongoing offensive in Gaza in the past months. The released people arrived at a hospital in southern Gaza for medical checkups, medics said.
Freed Palestinians, detained during the war, have complained of ill-treatment and torture in Israeli detention after they were released. Israel denies torture.
Months of efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold.
A ceasefire in the parallel conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, took effect before dawn on Wednesday, bringing a halt to hostilities that had escalated sharply in recent months and had overshadowed the Gaza conflict.
Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,200 people and displaced nearly all the enclave's population at least once, Gaza officials say. Vast swathes of the territory are in ruins.
The Hamas-led militants who attacked southern Israeli communities 13 months ago, triggering the war, killed some 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages, Israel has said.
France envoy urges Lebanon to pick president
- Jean-Yves Le Drian’s visit to Lebanon follows a fragile ceasefire to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah
- Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022
BEIRUT: France’s special envoy on Friday said it was urgent for Lebanon to elect a president, after a parliamentary vote to end over two years without a head of state was announced for January.
Jean-Yves Le Drian’s visit to Lebanon follows a fragile ceasefire to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
“I came to Lebanon immediately after the ceasefire announcement to signal France’s support for its full implementation and to stress the urgent need, more than ever, to elect a president and restart the institutional process,” he said on Friday.
He said he was in support of Thursday’s announcement by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of a presidential election to be held on 9 January.
Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022, with neither of the two main blocs – the Iran-backed Hezbollah and its opponents – having the majority required to elect one.
However, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said in a wartime speech that Hezbollah would “bring an effective contribution to the election of a president.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Wednesday he hoped the ceasefire agreement would mark “a new page for Lebanon,” calling for a swift presidential election.
Le Drian held talks with Lebanese officials and foreign diplomats from the United States, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt – countries working to address Lebanon’s presidential crisis.
The special envoy has visited Lebanon several times since being appointed to the position by French President Emmanuel Macron in June 2023.
Syria militants, allies shell Aleppo in shock offensive
- The violence has killed 242 people, according to a Syrian war monitor
- The fighters had on Thursday cut the highway linking Aleppo to Syria’s capital Damascus
BEIRUT: Militants and their Turkish-backed allies shelled Syria’s second city Aleppo on Friday, in a major offensive against government troops that has sparked some of the deadliest fighting the country has seen in years.
The violence has killed 242 people, according to a Syrian war monitor, most of them combatants on both sides but also including civilians, including 24 dead, most of them in Russian air strikes.
The offensive began at a sensitive time for Syria and the region, with a fragile ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel taking effect earlier this week in neighboring Lebanon.
Syria’s civil war began when President Bashar Assad’s forces cracked down in 2011 on pro-democracy protests.
Since then, it has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.
Over the years, the conflict has morphed into a complex war drawing in militants and foreign powers, including Assad allies Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.
While the army regained control over most of the territory that it lost earlier in the war, the area where the militants and their allies are based has been subject to a truce since 2020.
This week, militants and factions backed by Turkiye, which neighbors Syria and supported the anti-Assad rebellion, launched a major surprise offensive against government forces.
On Friday, they shelled a university student residence in government-held Aleppo, northern Syria’s main city, according to state media, which reported four civilian deaths in the latest attack.
By Friday, they had wrested more than 50 towns and villages in northern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the biggest advances that anti-government factions had made in years.
The fighters had on Thursday cut the highway linking Aleppo to Syria’s capital Damascus, according to the Britain-based Observatory.
“The highway has now been put out of service, after it was reopened by regime forces years ago,” said the monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said “more than 14,000 people — nearly half are children — have been displaced” by the violence.
At a press conference earlier this week, Mohamed Bashir of the militant Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) said: “This operation aims to repel the sources of fire of the criminal enemy from the frontlines.”
HTS, led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch, controls swathes of the northwest Idlib region as well as small parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.
The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire, repeatedly violated but which had largely been holding, brokered by Turkiye and Russia after a Syrian government offensive in March 2020.
An AFP correspondent based in rebel-held areas said there were intense exchanges of fire in an area just seven kilometers (four miles) from the city of Aleppo.
HTS has close ties with Turkish-backed factions, and analyst Nick Heras of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy said the fighters were “trying to preempt the possibility of a Syrian military campaign in the region of Aleppo.”
According to Heras, the Syrian government and its key backer Russia had been preparing for such a campaign.
Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015, turning the momentum of the conflict in favor of the president, whose forces at the time had lost control of most of country.
Turkiye, Heras said, may be “sending a message to both Damascus and Moscow to back down from their military efforts in northwest Syria.”
Other interests are also at stake.
As well as Russia, Assad has been propped up by Iran and allied militant groups, including Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah.
Anti-government forces are, according to Heras, “in a better position to take and seize villages than Russian-backed Syrian government forces, while the Iranians are focused on Lebanon.”
A general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was killed in Syria on Thursday during the fighting, an Iranian news agency reported.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the deadly offensive was “part of a plan by the diabolical regime (Israel) and the US” and called for “firm and coordinated action to prevent the spread of terrorism in the region.”
During its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel intensified its strikes on Iran-backed groups in Syria including Hezbollah.
Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Observatory, said Assad’s forces “were totally unprepared” for the attack.
“It is strange to see regime forces being dealt such big blows despite Russian air cover and early signs that HTS was going to launch this operation,” Abdel Rahman said.
“Were they depending on Hezbollah, which is now busy in Lebanon?”
Israeli military says Lebanese prohibited from moving south to several villages
- Israel opened fire on Thursday toward what it called ‘suspects’ with vehicles arriving at several areas in the southern zone
DUBAI: Lebanese residents are prohibited from moving south to a line of villages and their surroundings until further notice, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X on Friday.
Israel said it opened fire on Thursday toward what it called “suspects” with vehicles arriving at several areas in the southern zone, saying it was a breach of the truce with Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, which came into effect on Wednesday.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah in turn accused Israel of violating the deal.
“The Israeli enemy is attacking those returning to the border villages,” Fadlallah told reporters, adding “there are violations today by Israel, even in this form.”
The Israeli military also said on Thursday the air force struck a facility used by Hezbollah to store mid-range rockets in southern Lebanon, the first such attack since the ceasefire took effect on Wednesday morning.
In his recent post, Adraee called on Lebanese residents to not return to more than 60 southern villages, saying anyone who moves south of the specified line “puts themselves in danger.”
The Lebanese army earlier accused Israel of violating the ceasefire several times on Wednesday and Thursday.
The exchange of accusations highlighted the fragility of the ceasefire, which was brokered by the United States and France to end the conflict, fought in parallel with the Gaza war. The truce lasts for 60 days in the hope of reaching a permanent cessation of hostilities.
