EU chief in Egypt for joint investment conference

EU leaders on June 27, 2024, late evening, sealed a deal to re-appoint Ursula von der Leyen (R) for a second term in charge of the bloc’s powerful commission, diplomats said. (AFP)
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Updated 29 June 2024
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EU chief in Egypt for joint investment conference

  • The conference comes after a 7.4 billion-euro ($7.9 billion) EU funding package was signed in March to support Egypt

CAIRO: European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen was in Cairo on Saturday to kick off a two-day investment conference, where deals potentially worth over $42 billion are expected to be signed.
“At this conference, European companies are signing over 20 new deals ... which are worth over 40 billions euros,” von der Leyen said at the meeting in the Egyptian capital.
The conference comes after a 7.4 billion-euro ($7.9 billion) EU funding package was signed in March to support the indebted North African country.
The strategic partnership deal provides the financial support in exchange for boosting energy sales to Europe and stemming migration.
“Today, we sign the first one billion euros in macrofinancial assistance,” the EU chief said, referring to the initial tranche of the funding package.
Macrofinancial aid, a series of medium and long term loans, “constitutes the large majority of the 7.4 billion euros in EU financial support under the partnership,” von der Leyen said.
Another 1.8 billion euros in European investments are hoped for as part of the deal, she added.
Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation, is in dire need of financial help as it weathers a severe economic crisis marked by rapid inflation.
In his opening remarks, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said the conference aimed to “enable European companies to benefit from investment opportunities in Egypt.”
The event’s agenda would focus on “employment, economic growth, green and renewable energies,” he said.
Through March’s aid deal, Egypt is betting on its natural gas reserves to gain access to foreign currency, while the EU has sought alternatives to Russian gas since the war in Ukraine.
The EU chief said “Egypt has the ambitious goal of becoming a clean energy hub and this is in Europe’s interest too.”
Human rights groups have criticized the migration conditions of the EU-Egypt partnership, which follows several controversial deals with Libya, Tunisia and Mauritania to stem the flow of irregular migrants across the Mediterranean Sea.
US-based Human Rights Watch labelled the agreement part of “the EU’s cash-for-migration-control approach,” saying it “strengthens authoritarian rulers while betraying human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and activists whose work involves great personal risk.”
Amnesty International on Wednesday said the EU deal “must depend on human rights reforms.”
Egypt’s stability and prosperity are “essential for an entire region,” added von der Leyen, as war embroils neighboring Gaza and Sudan.


Egypt’s renewable power ambitions face grid hurdle

Updated 37 min 32 sec ago
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Egypt’s renewable power ambitions face grid hurdle

  • Officials touted Egypt’s potential in wind and solar power as well as green hydrogen at a two-day Egypt-EU investment conference

CAIRO: Egypt wants to accelerate the provision of renewable energy that could ease electricity shortages and supply green power to Europe, but faces challenges in funding updates to its grid and unlocking investments for new wind and solar plants.
Officials touted Egypt’s potential in wind and solar power as well as green hydrogen at a two-day Egypt-EU investment conference in Cairo at the weekend, hoping to secure financing and benefit from Europe’s efforts to diversify and decarbonize its energy supplies.
“I think this industry represents the future for both sides,” Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly told the conference, adding that Egypt should manufacture renewable components such as solar panels, wind turbines and electrolyzers.
Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker said Egypt was reviewing its clean energy targets and would aim for a 58 percent share of renewables in power generation by 2040.
He said that since 2014, Egypt had spent more than 116 billion Egyptian pounds ($2.42 billion at current exchange rates) on upgrading its transmission network, as it looked to expand into renewables.
“We are ready with the infrastructure,” said Shaker, adding that the government was offering several incentives to investors and could get approvals from President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to raise the maximum heights for wind turbines from the ground to the tip of their blades to 220 meters from 150 meters.
Expansion of installed renewable capacity largely plateaued after the inauguration of the major Benban solar plant in 2019, according to data from Egypt’s New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA), putting in doubt an earlier target of 42 percent of power generation through renewables by 2030.
Less than 12 percent of Egypt’s installed capacity of nearly 60GW is from renewables, the data shows.
Most power is generated by gas, and a gas shortage has contributed to daily power cuts that were extended to three hours last week, as well as causing outages at fertilizer and chemicals factories.
Egypt has signed many MoUs for renewable energy and green hydrogen development since hosting the COP 27 climate summit in 2022. It has ambitions to export electricity to regional neighbors, as well as to Europe through a subsea cable to Greece.
But analysts say Egypt needs to adapt and extend its grid to the sites of potential projects to make them viable.
“We have a shortage in fuel today which means we have the power cuts, which makes more renewables the sensible way forward ... but these need to be connected (to the grid) and this is where the challenge is,” said Hamza Assad, Southern and Eastern Mediterranean climate strategy head for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which is helping finance Egypt’s energy transition.
When those connections, or transmission lines, might be built is unclear, partly because of a cap on public investments imposed this year to contain Egypt’s heavy debt burden, people with knowledge of the sector said. An Egyptian cabinet spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Grid development would cost billions in the longer term if major scaling up and the needs of green hydrogen is included, though needs this year would be a fraction of this, said Heike Harmgart, EBRD’s managing director for the region.


Kuwait gives Yemen’s national airline three aircraft, two engines

Updated 01 July 2024
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Kuwait gives Yemen’s national airline three aircraft, two engines

  • The agreement, after a request from the chair of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, comes days after the Houthis seized four of Yemenia’s aircraft
  • Prisoner-exchange talks between government and Houthis continue; judge held by militia for 5 months says group attacked his home, terrorized his family

AL-MUKALLA: Kuwait has agreed to provide Yemenia, Yemen’s national air carrier, with three aircraft and two engines to supplement its limited fleet, days after the Houthis seized four of the airline’s planes.

Yemen’s government said authorities in Kuwait notified the Yemeni embassy in Kuwait on Sunday that they have agreed to a request from Rashad Al-Alimi, chairperson of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, to assist Yemenia.

“This generous support adds to the lengthy legacy of the State of Kuwait’s dignified positions and generous humanitarian interventions at different stages and situations alongside our Yemeni people,” Al-Alimi said in a message posted on social media platform X.

Yemenis responded on social media with praise for Kuwait and hopes that the aircraft will allow Yemenia to provide flights to new locations or step up services to existing destinations. Yemenia offers flights to Jeddah, Riyadh, Amman, Cairo and Delhi, and plans to add services to Dubai and Kuwait.

The assistance from Kuwait came less than a week after Yemenia reported that the Houthis seized four of seven aircraft at Sanaa airport, preventing them from flying pilgrims to and from Saudi Arabia. The Yemeni government said at least 1,000 pilgrims were stranded in Saudi Arabia as a result.

The Houthis refused to release the aircraft and said last week that they would take administrative control of Yemenia, seize repair facilities at Sanaa Airport, and reschedule flights from Sanaa and other airports in Yemen, including those held by the Yemeni government.

Meanwhile, prisoner-exchange discussions between the Yemeni government and the Houthis continued on Monday for a second day without any reports of progress being made toward a fresh agreement that might result in hundreds of war detainees being freed.

“The discussions are ongoing and intense,” Yahya Kazman, the head of the Yemeni government delegation involved in the talks, told Arab News.

Abdul Wahab Qatran, a prominent, outspoken judge who was released from a Houthi prison on June 12, said that members of the group had attacked his home, terrorized his family and imprisoned him for months for exposing Houthi corruption and denouncing the actions of the militia.

“What happened to me and my whole family is terrible. No judge in Yemen’s history has ever experienced this,” he said in his first public statement since his release.

In a lengthy message posted on his son’s Facebook page on Sunday night, accompanied by a photograph of himself with tape covering his mouth, Qatran said more than 40 armed Houthis and six female intelligence agents surrounded his home in Sanaa on Jan. 2 while he his family slept, before breaking down doors and entering.

The judge said he and his family were held for hours as the Houthis looted the house. They took paperwork, cell phones, laptops, a hard drive containing 17 years of family memories, and other electronic devices including those belonging to his children.

“They stole my passport, my personal and judicial cards, my lawyer’s cards, as well as all my books and notebooks, including the notebook where I wrote down the passwords to my emails, Facebook and Twitter accounts,” Qatran added.

He said the Houthis ignored his pleas for them to respect his position as a judge and the immunity that should come with it and added: “They abducted me and threw me into an armored truck, along with my two adult children. The females put my wife and children under house arrest in a room and then occupied my home for eight hours.”

The Houthis took him to a jail in Sanaa, he said, and initially held him in isolation there for 40 days. Before releasing him this month, the Houthis ordered him to make a written pledge not to “undermine security and stability” and said he should notify their intelligence and security authorities if he needed a new cellphone SIM card.

“They have not returned any of the looted items to me yet,” he said. “They still have my phones and those of my children and relatives.”


Libya fully reopens major Ras Ajdir border crossing with Tunisia

Updated 01 July 2024
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Libya fully reopens major Ras Ajdir border crossing with Tunisia

  • After calm returned to the region, the border crossing was partially reopened in mid-June

TRIPOLI: Libya’s interior minister in Tripoli said the major border crossing at Ras Ajdir with Tunisia was fully reopened on Monday three months after being shut due to armed clashes.
After calm returned to the region, the border crossing was partially reopened in mid-June though just for humanitarian and medical cases as well as special cases with permits from the Tunisian and Algerian interior ministries.
A number of ambulances from the Libyan side were seen heading into Tunisia during the reopening ceremony attended by the interior minister of Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, Emad Trabulsi, and his Tunisian counterpart Khaled Nouri.
“Two hours after this ceremony, Libyan citizens will be able to go to Tunisia,” Trabulsi told journalists at the crossing.
Nouri said the crossing had been “reopened for all activities except smuggling.”
Ras Ajdir is the main frontier crossing in Libya’s west, often used by Libyans to go to Tunisia for medical treatment and Tunisian traders moving goods in the opposite direction.
Libya has enjoyed little peace since a 2011 uprising and is split between eastern and western factions, with rival administrations governing each area. The GNU, which controls Tripoli and northwestern parts of Libya, is recognized internationally but not by the eastern-based parliament.
Trabulsi called on Libyans living near the western border to support regional security forces “in order to combat smuggling and illegal migration.”
He said Libya would open two new border crossings with Tunisia “if capabilities are provided.” Besides Ras Ajdir, the two countries have a minor crossing at Wazen-Dhehiba that has remained open.


Lebanon army receives additional $20 million from Qatar in support to troops

Lebanese Army troops take part in a military parade on the eastern outskirts of Beirut. (File/AFP)
Updated 01 July 2024
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Lebanon army receives additional $20 million from Qatar in support to troops

  • Support comes at a crucial time, with the Israeli military and Hezbollah trading fire across Lebanon’s southern border in parallel with the Gaza war

BEIRUT: The Lebanese army has received an additional $20 million from Qatar in support of Lebanese troops, Lebanon’s state agency NNA said on Monday.
The support comes at a crucial time, with the Israeli military and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah trading fire across Lebanon’s southern border in parallel with the Gaza war. The Lebanese army is not involved in the hostilities but one Lebanese soldier was killed by Israeli shelling in December.
A security source told Reuters that the new Qatari aid was a continuation of an earlier $60 million package announced in 2022 that was distributed in instalments to soldiers to support their salaries.
The source said $100 would be distributed to each soldier every month.
A five-year economic meltdown has slashed the value of the Lebanese pound against the dollar, driving down most soldiers’ wages to less than $100 per month.
The amount is barely enough to afford a basic subscription to a generator service that could offset the 22-hour cuts in the state electricity grid.
To supplement their low salaries, many troops have taken extra jobs and some have quit, raising concerns that the institution — one of few in Lebanon that can rally national pride and create unity across its fractured sectarian communities — could be fraying.


Gaza hospital chief among Palestinians freed by Israel

Updated 01 July 2024
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Gaza hospital chief among Palestinians freed by Israel

  • Al-Shifa director Mohammed Abu Salmiya was detained in November
  • Successive raids have seen the hospital reduced to rubble since Oct. 7

JERUSALEM: Israel released the head of Gaza’s biggest hospital, who had been detained for more than seven months, among dozens of Palestinian prisoners returned Monday to the besieged territory for treatment.

His release was confirmed on social media by Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and by a medical source inside the Gaza Strip.

Al-Shifa director Mohammed Abu Salmiya was detained in November.

Successive raids have seen the hospital where he worked largely reduced to rubble since Israel launched its assault on Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attacks on southern Israel.

Salmiya and the other freed detainees crossed back into Gaza from Israel just east of Khan Younis, a medical source at the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir El-Balah said.

Five detainees were admitted to Al-Aqsa hospital and the others were sent to hospitals in Khan Younis, the source added.

An AFP correspondent at Deir El-Balah saw some detainees have emotional reunions with their families.

Israel’s military said it was “checking” reports about the prisoner release.

However, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir confirmed the release when he posted on X, formerly Twitter, that Salmiya’s release “with dozens of other terrorists is security abandonment.”

Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals in the Gaza Strip as a cover for military operations and infrastructure.

The militant group, which has run the territory since 2007, denies the allegations.

In May, Palestinian rights groups said a senior Al-Shifa surgeon had died in an Israeli jail after being detained. Israel’s army said it was unaware of the death.

The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,877 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.